Hands-On Genetic Algorithms with Python. Applying genetic algorithms to solve real-world deep learning and artificial intelligence problems

Eyal Wirsansky

Genetic algorithms are a family of search, optimization, and learning algorithms inspired by the principles of natural evolution. By imitating the evolutionary process, genetic algorithms can overcome hurdles encountered in traditional search algorithms and provide high-quality solutions for a variety of problems. This book will help you get to grips with a powerful yet simple approach to applying genetic algorithms to a wide range of tasks using Python, covering the latest developments in artificial intelligence.After introducing you to genetic algorithms and their principles of operation, you'll understand how they differ from traditional algorithms and what types of problems they can solve. You'll then discover how they can be applied to search and optimization problems, such as planning, scheduling, gaming, and analytics. As you advance, you'll also learn how to use genetic algorithms to improve your machine learning and deep learning models, solve reinforcement learning tasks, and perform image reconstruction. Finally, you'll cover several related technologies that can open up new possibilities for future applications.By the end of this book, you'll have hands-on experience of applying genetic algorithms in artificial intelligence as well as in numerous other domains.

Hands-On Geospatial Analysis with R and QGIS. A beginner’s guide to manipulating, managing, and analyzing spatial data using R and QGIS 3.2.2

Shammunul Islam

Managing spatial data has always been challenging and it's getting more complex as the size of data increases. Spatial data is actually big data and you need different tools and techniques to work your way around to model and create different workflows. R and QGIS have powerful features that can make this job easier.This book is your companion for applying machine learning algorithms on GIS and remote sensing data. You’ll start by gaining an understanding of the nature of spatial data and installing R and QGIS. Then, you’ll learn how to use different R packages to import, export, and visualize data, before doing the same in QGIS. Screenshots are included to ease your understanding.Moving on, you’ll learn about different aspects of managing and analyzing spatial data, before diving into advanced topics. You’ll create powerful data visualizations using ggplot2, ggmap, raster, and other packages of R. You’ll learn how to use QGIS 3.2.2 to visualize and manage (create, edit, and format) spatial data. Different types of spatial analysis are also covered using R. Finally, you’ll work with landslide data from Bangladesh to create a landslide susceptibility map using different machine learning algorithms.By reading this book, you’ll transition from being a beginner to an intermediate user of GIS and remote sensing data in no time.

Hands-On GPU Computing with Python. Explore the capabilities of GPUs for solving high performance computational problems

Avimanyu Bandyopadhyay

GPUs are proving to be excellent general purpose-parallel computing solutions for high-performance tasks such as deep learning and scientific computing.This book will be your guide to getting started with GPU computing. It begins by introducing GPU computing and explaining the GPU architecture and programming models. You will learn, by example, how to perform GPU programming with Python, and look at using integrations such as PyCUDA, PyOpenCL, CuPy, and Numba with Anaconda for various tasks such as machine learning and data mining. In addition to this, you will get to grips with GPU workflows, management, and deployment using modern containerization solutions. Toward the end of the book, you will get familiar with the principles of distributed computing for training machine learning models and enhancing efficiency and performance.By the end of this book, you will be able to set up a GPU ecosystem for running complex applications and data models that demand great processing capabilities, and be able to efficiently manage memory to compute your application effectively and quickly.

Hands-On GPU Programming with Python and CUDA. Explore high-performance parallel computing with CUDA

Dr. Brian Tuomanen

Hands-On GPU Programming with Python and CUDA hits the ground running: you’ll start by learning how to apply Amdahl’s Law, use a code profiler to identify bottlenecks in your Python code, and set up an appropriate GPU programming environment. You’ll then see how to “query” the GPU’s features and copy arrays of data to and from the GPU’s own memory.As you make your way through the book, you’ll launch code directly onto the GPU and write full blown GPU kernels and device functions in CUDA C. You’ll get to grips with profiling GPU code effectively and fully test and debug your code using Nsight IDE. Next, you’ll explore some of the more well-known NVIDIA libraries, such as cuFFT and cuBLAS.With a solid background in place, you will now apply your new-found knowledge to develop your very own GPU-based deep neural network from scratch. You’ll then explore advanced topics, such as warp shuffling, dynamic parallelism, and PTX assembly. In the final chapter, you’ll see some topics and applications related to GPU programming that you may wish to pursue, including AI, graphics, and blockchain.By the end of this book, you will be able to apply GPU programming to problems related to data science and high-performance computing.

Hands-On GPU-Accelerated Computer Vision with OpenCV and CUDA. Effective techniques for processing complex image data in real time using GPUs

Bhaumik Vaidya

Computer vision has been revolutionizing a wide range of industries, and OpenCV is the most widely chosen tool for computer vision with its ability to work in multiple programming languages. Nowadays, in computer vision, there is a need to process large images in real time, which is difficult to handle for OpenCV on its own. This is where CUDA comes into the picture, allowing OpenCV to leverage powerful NVDIA GPUs. This book provides a detailed overview of integrating OpenCV with CUDA for practical applications. To start with, you’ll understand GPU programming with CUDA, an essential aspect for computer vision developers who have never worked with GPUs. You’ll then move on to exploring OpenCV acceleration with GPUs and CUDA by walking through some practical examples.Once you have got to grips with the core concepts, you’ll familiarize yourself with deploying OpenCV applications on NVIDIA Jetson TX1, which is popular for computer vision and deep learning applications. The last chapters of the book explain PyCUDA, a Python library that leverages the power of CUDA and GPUs for accelerations and can be used by computer vision developers who use OpenCV with Python.By the end of this book, you’ll have enhanced computer vision applications with the help of this book's hands-on approach.

Hands-On Gradient Boosting with XGBoost and scikit-learn. Perform accessible machine learning and extreme gradient boosting with Python

Corey Wade, Kevin Glynn

XGBoost is an industry-proven, open-source software library that provides a gradient boosting framework for scaling billions of data points quickly and efficiently.The book introduces machine learning and XGBoost in scikit-learn before building up to the theory behind gradient boosting. You’ll cover decision trees and analyze bagging in the machine learning context, learning hyperparameters that extend to XGBoost along the way. You’ll build gradient boosting models from scratch and extend gradient boosting to big data while recognizing speed limitations using timers. Details in XGBoost are explored with a focus on speed enhancements and deriving parameters mathematically. With the help of detailed case studies, you’ll practice building and fine-tuning XGBoost classifiers and regressors using scikit-learn and the original Python API. You'll leverage XGBoost hyperparameters to improve scores, correct missing values, scale imbalanced datasets, and fine-tune alternative base learners. Finally, you'll apply advanced XGBoost techniques like building non-correlated ensembles, stacking models, and preparing models for industry deployment using sparse matrices, customized transformers, and pipelines.By the end of the book, you’ll be able to build high-performing machine learning models using XGBoost with minimal errors and maximum speed.

Hands-On GUI Application Development in Go. Build responsive, cross-platform, graphical applications with the Go programming language

Andrew Williams

Go is often compared to C++ when it comes to low-level programming and implementations that require faster processing, such as Graphical User Interfaces (GUIs). In fact, many claim that Go is superior to C++ in terms of its concurrency and ease of use. Most graphical application toolkits, though, are still written using C or C++, and so they don't enjoy the benefits of using a modern programming language such as Go. This guide to programming GUIs with Go 1.11 explores the various toolkits available, including UI, Walk, Shiny, and Fyne. The book compares the vision behind each project to help you pick the right approach for your project. Each framework is described in detail, outlining how you can build performant applications that users will love. To aid you further in creating applications using these emerging technologies, you'll be able to easily refer to code samples and screenshots featured in the book. In addition to toolkit-specific discussions, you'll cover more complex topics, such as how to structure growing graphical applications, and how cross-platform applications can integrate with each desktop operating system to create a seamless user experience. By delving into techniques and best practices for organizing and scaling Go-based graphical applications, you'll also glimpse Go's impressive concurrency system. In the concluding chapters, you'll discover how to distribute to the main desktop marketplaces and distribution channels. By the end of this book, you'll be a confident GUI developer who can use the Go language to boost the performance of your applications.

Hands-On GUI Programming with C++ and Qt5. Build stunning cross-platform applications and widgets with the most powerful GUI framework

Lee Zhi Eng

Qt 5, the latest version of Qt, enables you to develop applications with complex user interfaces for multiple targets. It provides you with faster and smarter ways to create modern UIs and applications for multiple platforms. This book will teach you to design and build graphical user interfaces that are functional, appealing, and user-friendly.In the initial part of the book, you will learn what Qt 5 is and what you can do with it. You will explore the Qt Designer, discover the different types of widgets generally used in Qt 5, and then connect your application to the database to perform dynamic operations. Next, you will be introduced to Qt 5 chart which allows you to easily render different types of graphs and charts and incorporate List View Widgets in your application. You will also work with various Qt modules, like QtLocation, QtWebEngine, and the networking module through the course of the book. Finally, we will focus on cross-platform development with QT 5 that enables you to code once and run it everywhere, including mobile platforms. By the end of this book, you will have successfully learned about high-end GUI applications and will be capable of building many more powerful, cross-platform applications.

Hands-On High Performance Programming with Qt 5

Mark Krajewski

Achieving efficient code through performance tuning is one of the key challenges faced by many programmers. This book looks at Qt programming from a performance perspective. You'll explore the performance problems encountered when using the Qt framework and means and ways to resolve them and optimize performance.   The book highlights performance improvements and new features released in Qt 5.9, Qt 5.11, and 5.12 (LTE). You'll master general computer performance best practices and tools, which can help you identify the reasons behind low performance, and the most common performance pitfalls experienced when using the Qt framework. In the following chapters, you'll explore multithreading and asynchronous programming with C++ and Qt and learn the importance and efficient use of data structures. You'll also get the opportunity to work through techniques such as memory management and design guidelines, which are essential to improve application performance. Comprehensive sections that cover all these concepts will prepare you for gaining hands-on experience of some of Qt's most exciting application fields - the mobile and embedded development domains.   By the end of this book, you'll be ready to build Qt applications that are more efficient, concurrent, and performance-oriented in nature  

Hands-On High Performance with Spring 5. Techniques for scaling and optimizing Spring and Spring Boot applications

Chintan Mehta, Subhash Shah, Pritesh Shah, Prashant Goswami, ...

While writing an application, performance is paramount. Performance tuning for real-world applications often involves activities geared toward detecting bottlenecks. The recent release of Spring 5.0 brings major advancements in the rich API provided by the Spring framework, which means developers need to master its tools and techniques to achieve high performance applications.Hands-On High Performance with Spring 5 begins with the Spring framework's core features, exploring the integration of different Spring projects. It proceeds to evaluate various Spring specifications to identify those adversely affecting performance. You will learn about bean wiring configurations, aspect-oriented programming, database interaction, and Hibernate to focus on the metrics that help identify performance bottlenecks. You will also look at application monitoring, performance optimization, JVM internals, and garbage collection optimization. Lastly, the book will show you how to leverage the microservice architecture to build a high performance and resilient application.By the end of the book, you will have gained an insight into various techniques and solutions to build and troubleshoot high performance Spring-based applications.

Hands-On Image Generation with TensorFlow. A practical guide to generating images and videos using deep learning

Soon Yau Cheong

The emerging field of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) has made it possible to generate indistinguishable images from existing datasets. With this hands-on book, you’ll not only develop image generation skills but also gain a solid understanding of the underlying principles.Starting with an introduction to the fundamentals of image generation using TensorFlow, this book covers Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) and GANs. You’ll discover how to build models for different applications as you get to grips with performing face swaps using deepfakes, neural style transfer, image-to-image translation, turning simple images into photorealistic images, and much more. You’ll also understand how and why to construct state-of-the-art deep neural networks using advanced techniques such as spectral normalization and self-attention layer before working with advanced models for face generation and editing. You'll also be introduced to photo restoration, text-to-image synthesis, video retargeting, and neural rendering. Throughout the book, you’ll learn to implement models from scratch in TensorFlow 2.x, including PixelCNN, VAE, DCGAN, WGAN, pix2pix, CycleGAN, StyleGAN, GauGAN, and BigGAN.By the end of this book, you'll be well versed in TensorFlow and be able to implement image generative technologies confidently.

Hands-On Image Processing with Python. Expert techniques for advanced image analysis and effective interpretation of image data

Sandipan Dey

Image processing plays an important role in our daily lives with various applications such as in social media (face detection), medical imaging (X-ray, CT-scan), security (fingerprint recognition) to robotics & space. This book will touch the core of image processing, from concepts to code using Python.The book will start from the classical image processing techniques and explore the evolution of image processing algorithms up to the recent advances in image processing or computer vision with deep learning. We will learn how to use image processing libraries such as PIL, scikit-mage, and scipy ndimage in Python. This book will enable us to write code snippets in Python 3 and quickly implement complex image processing algorithms such as image enhancement, filtering, segmentation, object detection, and classification. We will be able to use machine learning models using the scikit-learn library and later explore deep CNN, such as VGG-19 with Keras, and we will also use an end-to-end deep learning model called YOLO for object detection. We will also cover a few advanced problems, such as image inpainting, gradient blending, variational denoising, seam carving, quilting, and morphing.By the end of this book, we will have learned to implement various algorithms for efficient image processing.

Hands-On Intelligent Agents with OpenAI Gym. Your guide to developing AI agents using deep reinforcement learning

Palanisamy P

Many real-world problems can be broken down into tasks that require a series of decisions to be made or actions to be taken. The ability to solve such tasks without a machine being programmed requires a machine to be artificially intelligent and capable of learning to adapt. This book is an easy-to-follow guide to implementing learning algorithms for machine software agents in order to solve discrete or continuous sequential decision making and control tasks.Hands-On Intelligent Agents with OpenAI Gym takes you through the process of building intelligent agent algorithms using deep reinforcement learning starting from the implementation of the building blocks for configuring, training, logging, visualizing, testing, and monitoring the agent. You will walk through the process of building intelligent agents from scratch to perform a variety of tasks. In the closing chapters, the book provides an overview of the latest learning environments and learning algorithms, along with pointers to more resources that will help you take your deep reinforcement learning skills to the next level.

Hands-On Java Deep Learning for Computer Vision. Implement machine learning and neural network methodologies to perform computer vision-related tasks

Klevis Ramo

Although machine learning is an exciting world to explore, you may feel confused by all of its theoretical aspects. As a Java developer, you will be used to telling the computer exactly what to do, instead of being shown how data is generated; this causes many developers to struggle to adapt to machine learning.The goal of this book is to walk you through the process of efficiently training machine learning and deep learning models for Computer Vision using the most up-to-date techniques. The book is designed to familiarize you with neural networks, enabling you to train them efficiently, customize existing state-of-the-art architectures, build real-world Java applications, and get great results in a short space of time. You will build real-world Computer Vision applications, ranging from a simple Java handwritten digit recognition model to real-time Java autonomous car driving systems and face recognition models.By the end of this book, you will have mastered the best practices and modern techniques needed to build advanced Computer Vision Java applications and achieve production-grade accuracy.

Hands-on JavaScript for Python Developers. Leverage your Python knowledge to quickly learn JavaScript and advance your web development career

Sonyl Nagale

Knowledge of Python is a great foundation for learning other languages. This book will help you advance in your software engineering career by leveraging your Python programming skills to learn JavaScript and apply its unique features not only for frontend web development but also for streamlining work on the backend.Starting with the basics of JavaScript, you’ll cover its syntax, its use in the browser, and its frameworks and libraries. From working with user interactions and ingesting data from APIs through to creating APIs with Node.js, this book will help you get up and running with JavaScript using hands-on exercises, code snippets, and detailed descriptions of JavaScript implementation and benefits. To understand the use of JavaScript in the backend, you’ll explore Node.js and discover how it communicates with databases. As you advance, you’ll get to grips with creating your own RESTful APIs and connecting the frontend and backend for holistic full-stack development knowledge.By the end of this Python JavaScript book, you’ll have the knowledge you need to write full-fledged web applications from start to finish. You’ll have also gained hands-on experience of working through several projects, which will help you advance in your career as a JavaScript developer.

Hands-On Kubernetes on Azure. Run your applications securely and at scale on the most widely adopted orchestration platform

Shivakumar Gopalakrishnan, Gunther Lenz

Microsoft is now one of the most significant contributors to Kubernetes open source projects. Kubernetes helps to create, configure, and manage a cluster of virtual machines that are preconfigured to run containerized applications.This book will be your guide to performing successful container orchestration and deployment of Kubernetes clusters on Azure. You will get started by learning how to deploy and manage highly scalable applications, along with understanding how to set up a production-ready Kubernetes cluster on Azure. As you advance, you will learn how to reduce the complexity and operational overheads of managing a Kubernetes cluster on Azure.By the end of this book, you will not only be capable of deploying and managing Kubernetes clusters on Azure with ease, but also have the knowledge of best practices for working with advanced AKS concepts for complex systems.