Hands-On Recommendation Systems with Python. Start building powerful and personalized, recommendation engines with Python

Rounak Banik

Recommendation systems are at the heart of almost every internet business today; from Facebook to Net?ix to Amazon. Providing good recommendations, whether it's friends, movies, or groceries, goes a long way in defining user experience and enticing your customers to use your platform.This book shows you how to do just that. You will learn about the different kinds of recommenders used in the industry and see how to build them from scratch using Python. No need to wade through tons of machine learning theory—you'll get started with building and learning about recommenders as quickly as possible..In this book, you will build an IMDB Top 250 clone, a content-based engine that works on movie metadata. You'll use collaborative filters to make use of customer behavior data, and a Hybrid Recommender that incorporates content based and collaborative filtering techniques With this book, all you need to get started with building recommendation systems is a familiarity with Python, and by the time you're fnished, you will have a great grasp of how recommenders work and be in a strong position to apply the techniques that you will learn to your own problem domains.

Hands-On Red Team Tactics. A practical guide to mastering Red Team operations

Himanshu Sharma, Harpreet Singh

Red Teaming is used to enhance security by performing simulated attacks on an organization in order to detect network and system vulnerabilities. Hands-On Red Team Tactics starts with an overview of pentesting and Red Teaming, before giving you an introduction to few of the latest pentesting tools. We will then move on to exploring Metasploit and getting to grips with Armitage. Once you have studied the fundamentals, you will learn how to use Cobalt Strike and how to set up its team server.The book introduces some common lesser known techniques for pivoting and how to pivot over SSH, before using Cobalt Strike to pivot. This comprehensive guide demonstrates advanced methods of post-exploitation using Cobalt Strike and introduces you to Command and Control (C2) servers and redirectors. All this will help you achieve persistence using beacons and data exfiltration, and will also give you the chance to run through the methodology to use Red Team activity tools such as Empire during a Red Team activity on Active Directory and Domain Controller.In addition to this, you will explore maintaining persistent access, staying untraceable, and getting reverse connections over different C2 covert channels.By the end of this book, you will have learned about advanced penetration testing tools, techniques to get reverse shells over encrypted channels, and processes for post-exploitation.

Hands-On Reinforcement Learning for Games. Implementing self-learning agents in games using artificial intelligence techniques

Micheal Lanham

With the increased presence of AI in the gaming industry, developers are challenged to create highly responsive and adaptive games by integrating artificial intelligence into their projects. This book is your guide to learning how various reinforcement learning techniques and algorithms play an important role in game development with Python.Starting with the basics, this book will help you build a strong foundation in reinforcement learning for game development. Each chapter will assist you in implementing different reinforcement learning techniques, such as Markov decision processes (MDPs), Q-learning, actor-critic methods, SARSA, and deterministic policy gradient algorithms, to build logical self-learning agents. Learning these techniques will enhance your game development skills and add a variety of features to improve your game agent’s productivity. As you advance, you’ll understand how deep reinforcement learning (DRL) techniques can be used to devise strategies to help agents learn from their actions and build engaging games.By the end of this book, you’ll be ready to apply reinforcement learning techniques to build a variety of projects and contribute to open source applications.

Hands-On Reinforcement Learning with Python. Master reinforcement and deep reinforcement learning using OpenAI Gym and TensorFlow

Sudharsan Ravichandiran

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is the trending and most promising branch of artificial intelligence. Hands-On Reinforcement learning with Python will help you master not only the basic reinforcement learning algorithms but also the advanced deep reinforcement learning algorithms.The book starts with an introduction to Reinforcement Learning followed by OpenAI Gym, and TensorFlow. You will then explore various RL algorithms and concepts, such as Markov Decision Process, Monte Carlo methods, and dynamic programming, including value and policy iteration. This example-rich guide will introduce you to deep reinforcement learning algorithms, such as Dueling DQN, DRQN, A3C, PPO, and TRPO. You will also learn about imagination-augmented agents, learning from human preference, DQfD, HER, and many more of the recent advancements in reinforcement learning.By the end of the book, you will have all the knowledge and experience needed to implement reinforcement learning and deep reinforcement learning in your projects, and you will be all set to enter the world of artificial intelligence.

Hands-On RESTful API Design Patterns and Best Practices. Design, develop, and deploy highly adaptable, scalable, and secure RESTful web APIs

Harihara Subramanian J, Pethuru Raj

This book deals with the Representational State Transfer (REST) paradigm, which is an architectural style that allows networked devices to communicate with each other over the internet. With the help of this book, you’ll explore the concepts of service-oriented architecture (SOA), event-driven architecture (EDA), and resource-oriented architecture (ROA). This book covers why there is an insistence for high-quality APIs toward enterprise integration.It also covers how to optimize and explore endpoints for microservices with API gateways and touches upon integrated platforms and Hubs for RESTful APIs. You’ll also understand how application delivery and deployments can be simplified and streamlined in the REST world. The book will help you dig deeper into the distinct contributions of RESTful services for IoT analytics and applications.Besides detailing the API design and development aspects, this book will assist you in designing and developing production-ready, testable, sustainable, and enterprise-grade APIs. By the end of the book, you’ll be empowered with all that you need to create highly flexible APIs for next-generation RESTful services and applications.

Hands-On RESTful Python Web Services. Develop RESTful web services or APIs with modern Python 3.7 - Second Edition

Gaston C. Hillar

Python is the language of choice for millions of developers worldwide that builds great web services in RESTful architecture. This second edition of Hands-On RESTful Python Web Services will cover the best tools you can use to build engaging web services.This book shows you how to develop RESTful APIs using the most popular Python frameworks and all the necessary stacks with Python, combined with related libraries and tools. You’ll learn to incorporate all new features of Python 3.7, Flask 1.0.2, Django 2.1, Tornado 5.1, and also a new framework, Pyramid. As you advance through the chapters, you will get to grips with each of these frameworks to build various web services, and be shown use cases and best practices covering when to use a particular framework.You’ll then successfully develop RESTful APIs with all frameworks and understand how each framework processes HTTP requests and routes URLs. You’ll also discover best practices for validation, serialization, and deserialization. In the concluding chapters, you will take advantage of specific features available in certain frameworks such as integrated ORMs, built-in authorization and authentication, and work with asynchronous code. At the end of each framework, you will write tests for RESTful APIs and improve code coverage.By the end of the book, you will have gained a deep understanding of the stacks needed to build RESTful web services.

Hands-On RESTful Web Services with ASP.NET Core 3. Design production-ready, testable, and flexible RESTful APIs for web applications and microservices

Samuele Resca

In recent times, web services have evolved to play a prominent role in web development. Applications are now designed to be compatible with any device and platform, and web services help us keep their logic and UI separate. Given its simplicity and effectiveness in creating web services, the RESTful approach has gained popularity, and this book will help you build RESTful web services using ASP.NET Core.This REST book begins by introducing you to the basics of the REST philosophy, where you'll study the different stages of designing and implementing enterprise-grade RESTful web services. You'll also gain a thorough understanding of ASP.NET Core's middleware approach and learn how to customize it. The book will later guide you through improving API resilience, securing your service, and applying different design patterns and techniques to achieve a scalable web service. In addition to this, you'll learn advanced techniques for caching, monitoring, and logging, along with implementing unit and integration testing strategies. In later chapters, you will deploy your REST web services on Azure and document APIs using Swagger and external tools such as Postman.By the end of this book, you will have learned how to design RESTful web services confidently using ASP.NET Core with a focus on code testability and maintainability.

Hands-On RESTful Web Services with Go. Develop elegant RESTful APIs with Golang for microservices and the cloud - Second Edition

Naren Yellavula

Building RESTful web services can be tough as there are countless standards and ways to develop API. In modern architectures such as microservices, RESTful APIs are common in communication, making idiomatic and scalable API development crucial. This book covers basic through to advanced API development concepts and supporting tools.You’ll start with an introduction to REST API development before moving on to building the essential blocks for working with Go. You’ll explore routers, middleware, and available open source web development solutions in Go to create robust APIs, and understand the application and database layers to build RESTful web services. You’ll learn various data formats like protocol buffers and JSON, and understand how to serve them over HTTP and gRPC. After covering advanced topics such as asynchronous API design and GraphQL for building scalable web services, you’ll discover how microservices can benefit from REST. You’ll also explore packaging artifacts in the form of containers and understand how to set up an ideal deployment ecosystem for web services. Finally, you’ll cover the provisioning of infrastructure using infrastructure as code (IaC) and secure your REST API.By the end of the book, you’ll have intermediate knowledge of web service development and be able to apply the skills you’ve learned in a practical way.

Hands-On RESTful Web Services with TypeScript 3. Design and develop scalable RESTful APIs for your applications

Biharck Muniz Araújo

In the world of web development, leveraging data is the key to developing comprehensive applications, and RESTful APIs help you to achieve this systematically. This book will guide you in designing and developing web services with the power of TypeScript 3 and Node.js. You'll design REST APIs using best practices for request handling, validation, authentication, and authorization. You'll also understand how to enhance the capabilities of your APIs with ODMs, databases, models and views, as well as asynchronous callbacks. This book will guide you in securing your environment by testing your services and initiating test automation with different testing approaches. Furthermore, you'll get to grips with developing secure, testable, and more efficient code, and be able to scale and deploy TypeScript 3 and Node.js-powered RESTful APIs on cloud platforms such as the Google Cloud Platform. Finally, the book will help you explore microservices and give you an overview of what GraphQL can allow you to do.By the end of this book, you will be able to use RESTful web services to create your APIs for mobile and web apps and other platforms.

Hands-On Robotics Programming with C++. Leverage Raspberry Pi 3 and C++ libraries to build intelligent robotics applications

Dinesh Tavasalkar

C++ is one of the most popular legacy programming languages for robotics, and a combination of C++ and robotics hardware is used in many leading industries. This book will bridge the gap between Raspberry Pi and C/C++ programming and enable you to develop applications for Raspberry Pi. You'll even be able to implement C programs in Raspberry Pi with the WiringPi library.The book will guide you through developing a fully functional car robot and writing programs to move it in different directions. You’ll then create an obstacle-avoiding robot using an ultrasonic sensor. In addition to this, you’ll find out how to control the robot wirelessly using your PC or Mac. This book will also help you work with object detection and tracking using OpenCV, and guide you through exploring face detection techniques. Finally, you will create an Android app and control the robot wirelessly with an Android smartphone.By the end of this book, you will have gained experience in developing a robot using Raspberry Pi and C/C++ programming.

Hands-On Robotics with JavaScript. Build robotic projects using Johnny-Five and control hardware with JavaScript and Raspberry Pi

Kassandra Perch

JavaScript has an effective set of frameworks and libraries that provide support for embedded device programming and the robotics ecosystem. You’ll be able to put your JavaScript knowledge to work with this practical robotics guide.The book starts by guiding you in setting up an environment to program robots with JavaScript and Rasberry Pi 3. You will build beginner-level projects, such as a line-following robot, and then upgrade your robotics skills with a series of projects that help you get to grips with the Johnny-Five library. As you progress, you’ll learn how you can improve your projects by enabling advanced hardware components and programming concepts. You’ll even build an advanced AI-enabled robot, connect its NodeBots to the internet, create a NodeBots Swarm, and explore Message Queuing Telemetry Transport (MQTT).By the end of this book, you will have enhanced your robot programming skills by building a range of simple to complex projects.

Hands-On ROS for Robotics Programming. Program highly autonomous and AI-capable mobile robots powered by ROS

Bernardo Ronquillo Japón

Connecting a physical robot to a robot simulation using the Robot Operating System (ROS) infrastructure is one of the most common challenges faced by ROS engineers. With this book, you'll learn how to simulate a robot in a virtual environment and achieve desired behavior in equivalent real-world scenarios.This book starts with an introduction to GoPiGo3 and the sensors and actuators with which it is equipped. You'll then work with GoPiGo3's digital twin by creating a 3D model from scratch and running a simulation in ROS using Gazebo. Next, the book will show you how to use GoPiGo3 to build and run an autonomous mobile robot that is aware of its surroundings. Finally, you'll find out how a robot can learn tasks that have not been programmed in the code but are acquired by observing its environment. You'll even cover topics such as deep learning and reinforcement learning.By the end of this robot programming book, you'll be well-versed with the basics of building specific-purpose applications in robotics and developing highly intelligent autonomous robots from scratch.

Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers. Building real-time embedded systems using FreeRTOS, STM32 MCUs, and SEGGER debug tools

Brian Amos

A real-time operating system (RTOS) is used to develop systems that respond to events within strict timelines. Real-time embedded systems have applications in various industries, from automotive and aerospace through to laboratory test equipment and consumer electronics. These systems provide consistent and reliable timing and are designed to run without intervention for years.This microcontrollers book starts by introducing you to the concept of RTOS and compares some other alternative methods for achieving real-time performance. Once you've understood the fundamentals, such as tasks, queues, mutexes, and semaphores, you'll learn what to look for when selecting a microcontroller and development environment. By working through examples that use an STM32F7 Nucleo board, the STM32CubeIDE, and SEGGER debug tools, including SEGGER J-Link, Ozone, and SystemView, you'll gain an understanding of preemptive scheduling policies and task communication. The book will then help you develop highly efficient low-level drivers and analyze their real-time performance and CPU utilization. Finally, you'll cover tips for troubleshooting and be able to take your new-found skills to the next level.By the end of this book, you'll have built on your embedded system skills and will be able to create real-time systems using microcontrollers and FreeRTOS.

Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers. Create high-performance, real-time embedded systems using FreeRTOS, STM32 MCUs and SEGGER debug tools - Second Edition

Brian Amos, Jim Yuill, Penn Linder

Want to stay ahead of the curve with embedded systems development? The updated edition of Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers is here and packed with cutting-edge content to up your skills. It contains everything you need to know about real-time operating systems, how they work, and why they’re essential for today’s time-critical applications; learn about FreeRTOS and its primary capabilities and APIs. You’ll find a detailed overview of system-design topics such as memory management, project-design topics (MCU, IDE, and RTOS API), and hands-on system use, as well as the system platform, dev-board with an MCU and debug-probe, and development tools (IDE, build system, source-code debugging).The new edition includes 10 real-world embedded applications showcasing the latest features of FreeRTOS, teaching you how to implement them in your own projects and exploring how to optimize your code with dynamic analysis. It also provides example programs on a GitHub repo for you to explore with detailed instructions. You’ll learn how to create and install your own FreeRTOS system on the dev-board, and set up an IDE project with debugging tools. With dozens of reference manuals listed, you’ll never be short on resources for system development.Stay ahead of the curve — get your second edition of Hands-On RTOS with Microcontrollers today!

Hands-On SAS For Data Analysis. A practical guide to performing effective queries, data visualization, and reporting techniques

Harish Gulati

SAS is one of the leading enterprise tools in the world today when it comes to data management and analysis. It enables the fast and easy processing of data and helps you gain valuable business insights for effective decision-making. This book will serve as a comprehensive guide that will prepare you for the SAS certification exam.After a quick overview of the SAS architecture and components, the book will take you through the different approaches to importing and reading data from different sources using SAS. You will then cover SAS Base and 4GL, understanding data management and analysis, along with exploring SAS functions for data manipulation and transformation. Next, you'll discover SQL procedures and get up to speed on creating and validating queries. In the concluding chapters, you'll learn all about data visualization, right from creating bar charts and sample geographic maps through to assigning patterns and formats. In addition to this, the book will focus on macro programming and its advanced aspects.By the end of this book, you will be well versed in SAS programming and have the skills you need to easily handle and manage your data-related problems in SAS.

Hands-On Security in DevOps. Ensure continuous security, deployment, and delivery with DevSecOps

Tony Hsiang-Chih Hsu

DevOps has provided speed and quality benefits with continuous development and deployment methods, but it does not guarantee the security of an entire organization. Hands-On Security in DevOps shows you how to adopt DevOps techniques to continuously improve your organization’s security at every level, rather than just focusing on protecting your infrastructure.This guide combines DevOps and security to help you to protect cloud services, and teaches you how to use techniques to integrate security directly in your product. You will learn how to implement security at every layer, such as for the web application, cloud infrastructure, communication, and the delivery pipeline layers. With the help of practical examples, you’ll explore the core security aspects, such as blocking attacks, fraud detection, cloud forensics, and incident response. In the concluding chapters, you will cover topics on extending DevOps security, such as risk assessment, threat modeling, and continuous security.By the end of this book, you will be well-versed in implementing security in all layers of your organization and be confident in monitoring and blocking attacks throughout your cloud services.