Conversational AI with Rasa. Build, test, and deploy AI-powered, enterprise-grade virtual assistants and chatbots

Xiaoquan Kong, Guan Wang, Alan Nichol

The Rasa framework enables developers to create industrial-strength chatbots using state-of-the-art natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning technologies quickly, all in open source.Conversational AI with Rasa starts by showing you how the two main components at the heart of Rasa work – Rasa NLU (natural language understanding) and Rasa Core. You'll then learn how to build, configure, train, and serve different types of chatbots from scratch by using the Rasa ecosystem. As you advance, you'll use form-based dialogue management, work with the response selector for chitchat and FAQ-like dialogs, make use of knowledge base actions to answer questions for dynamic queries, and much more. Furthermore, you'll understand how to customize the Rasa framework, use conversation-driven development patterns and tools to develop chatbots, explore what your bot can do, and easily fix any mistakes it makes by using interactive learning. Finally, you'll get to grips with deploying the Rasa system to a production environment with high performance and high scalability and cover best practices for building an efficient and robust chat system.By the end of this book, you'll be able to build and deploy your own chatbots using Rasa, addressing the common pain points encountered in the chatbot life cycle.

Python Data Science Essentials. Become an efficient data science practitioner by thoroughly understanding the key concepts of Python

Alberto Boschetti, Luca Massaron

The book starts by introducing you to setting up your essential data science toolbox. Then it will guide you across all the data munging and preprocessing phases. This will be done in a manner that explains all the core data science activities related to loading data, transforming and fixing it for analysis, as well as exploring and processing it. Finally, it will complete the overview by presenting you with the main machine learning algorithms, the graph analysis technicalities, and all the visualization instruments that can make your life easier in presenting your results.In this walkthrough, structured as a data science project, you will always be accompanied by clear code and simplified examples to help you understand the underlying mechanics and real-world datasets.

The Python Workshop. Write Python code to solve challenging real-world problems - Second Edition

Corey Wade, Mario Corchero Jiménez, Andrew Bird, Dr. Lau Cher Han, ...

Python is among the most popular programming languages in the world. It’s ideal for beginners because it’s easy to read and write, and for developers, because it’s widely available with a strong support community, extensive documentation, and phenomenal libraries – both built-in and user-contributed.This project-based course has been designed by a team of expert authors to get you up and running with Python. You’ll work though engaging projects that’ll enable you to leverage your newfound Python skills efficiently in technical jobs, personal projects, and job interviews. The book will help you gain an edge in data science, web development, and software development, preparing you to tackle real-world challenges in Python and pursue advanced topics on your own. Throughout the chapters, each component has been explicitly designed to engage and stimulate different parts of the brain so that you can retain and apply what you learn in the practical context with maximum impact.By completing the course from start to finish, you’ll walk away feeling capable of tackling any real-world Python development problem.

Swift Essentials. Discover how to build iOS and watchOS applications in Swift 2 using Xcode - Second Edition

Alex Blewitt

Swift was considered one of the biggest innovations last year, and certainly with Swift 2 announced at WWDC in 2015, this segment of the developer space will continue to be hot and dominating. This is a fast-paced guide to provide an overview of Swift programming and then walks you through in detail how to write iOS applications. Progress through chapters on custom views, networking, parsing and build a complete application as a Git repository, all by using Swift as the core language

Web Development with Julia and Genie. A hands-on guide to high-performance server-side web development with the Julia programming language

Ivo Balbaert, Adrian Salceanu, Logan Kilpatrick

Julia’s high-performance and scalability characteristics and its extensive number of packages for visualizing data make it an excellent fit for developing web apps, web services, and web dashboards. The two parts of this book provide complete coverage to build your skills in web development.First, you'll refresh your knowledge of the main concepts in Julia that will further be used in web development. Then, you’ll use Julia’s standard web packages and examine how the building blocks of the web such as TCP-IP, web sockets, HTTP protocol, and so on are implemented in Julia’s standard library. Each topic is discussed and developed into code that you can apply in new projects, from static websites to dashboards. You’ll also understand how to choose the right Julia framework for a project. The second part of the book talks about the Genie framework. You’ll learn how to build a traditional to do app following the MVC design pattern. Next, you’ll add a REST API to this project, including testing and documentation. Later, you’ll explore the various ways of deploying an app in production, including authentication functionality. Finally, you’ll work on an interactive data dashboard, making various chart types and filters.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to build interactive web solutions on a large scale with a Julia-based web framework.

IoT Edge Computing with MicroK8s. A hands-on approach to building, deploying, and distributing production-ready Kubernetes on IoT and Edge platforms

Karthikeyan Shanmugam

Are you facing challenges with developing, deploying, monitoring, clustering, storing, securing, and managing Kubernetes in production environments as you're not familiar with infrastructure technologies? MicroK8s - a zero-ops, lightweight, and CNCF-compliant Kubernetes with a small footprint is the apt solution for you.This book gets you up and running with production-grade, highly available (HA) Kubernetes clusters on MicroK8s using best practices and examples based on IoT and edge computing.Beginning with an introduction to Kubernetes, MicroK8s, and IoT and edge computing architectures, this book shows you how to install, deploy sample apps, and enable add-ons (like DNS and dashboard) on the MicroK8s platform. You’ll work with multi-node Kubernetes clusters on Raspberry Pi and networking plugins (such as Calico and Cilium) and implement service mesh, load balancing with MetalLB and Ingress, and AI/ML workloads on MicroK8s. You’ll also understand how to secure containers, monitor infrastructure and apps with Prometheus, Grafana, and the ELK stack, manage storage replication with OpenEBS, resist component failure using a HA cluster, and more, as well as take a sneak peek into future trends.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to use MicroK8 to build and implement scenarios for IoT and edge computing workloads in a production environment.

D3.js: Cutting-edge Data Visualization. Turn your raw data into real knowledge by creating and deploying complex data visualizations with D3.js

Aendrew Rininsland, Michael Heydt, Pablo NAVARRO CASTILLO

D3 has emerged as one of the leading platforms to develop beautiful, interactive visualizations over the web. We begin the course by setting up a strong foundation, then build on this foundation as we take you through the entire world of reimagining data using interactive, animated visualizations created in D3.js. In the first module, we cover the various features of D3.js to build a wide range of visualizations. We also focus on the entire process of representing data through visualizations. By the end of this module, you will be ready to use D3 to transform any data into a more engaging and sophisticated visualization.In the next module, you will learn to master the creation of graphical elements from data. Using practical examples provided, you will quickly get to grips with the features of D3.js and use this learning to create your own spectacular data visualizations with D3.js.Over the last leg of this course, you will get acquainted with how to integrate D3 with mapping libraries to provide reverse geocoding and interactive maps among many other advanced features of D3. This module culminates by showing you how to create enterprise-level dashboards to display real-time data.This Learning Path combines some of the best that Packt has to offer in one complete, curated package. It includes content from the following Packt products:? Learning D3.js Data Visualization, Second Edition by Andrew H. Rininsland? D3.js By Example by Michael Heydt? Mastering D3.js by Pablo Navarro Castillo

Windows Ransomware Detection and Protection. Securing Windows endpoints, the cloud, and infrastructure using Microsoft Intune, Sentinel, and Defender

Marius Sandbu

If you’re looking for an effective way to secure your environment against ransomware attacks, this is the book for you. From teaching you how to monitor security threats to establishing countermeasures to protect against ransomware attacks, Windows Ransomware Detection and Protection has it all covered.The book begins by helping you understand how ransomware attacks work, identifying different attack vectors, and showing you how to build a secure network foundation and Windows environment. You’ll then explore ransomware countermeasures in different segments, such as Identity and Access Management, networking, Endpoint Manager, cloud, and infrastructure, and learn how to protect against attacks. As you move forward, you’ll get to grips with the forensics involved in making important considerations when your system is attacked or compromised with ransomware, the steps you should follow, and how you can monitor the threat landscape for future threats by exploring different online data sources and building processes.By the end of this ransomware book, you’ll have learned how configuration settings and scripts can be used to protect Windows from ransomware attacks with 50 tips on security settings to secure your Windows workload.

Hands-On Financial Modeling with Excel for Microsoft 365. Build your own practical financial models for effective forecasting, valuation, trading, and growth analysis - Second Edition

Shmuel Oluwa

Financial modeling is a core skill required by anyone who wants to build a career in finance. Hands-On Financial Modeling with Excel for Microsoft 365 explores financial modeling terminologies with the help of Excel.Starting with the key concepts of Excel, such as formulas and functions, this updated second edition will help you to learn all about referencing frameworks and other advanced components for building financial models. As you proceed, you'll explore the advantages of Power Query, learn how to prepare a 3-statement model, inspect your financial projects, build assumptions, and analyze historical data to develop data-driven models and functional growth drivers. Next, you'll learn how to deal with iterations and provide graphical representations of ratios, before covering best practices for effective model testing. Later, you'll discover how to build a model to extract a statement of comprehensive income and financial position, and understand capital budgeting with the help of end-to-end case studies.By the end of this financial modeling Excel book, you'll have examined data from various use cases and have developed the skills you need to build financial models to extract the information required to make informed business decisions.

DIY Microcontroller Projects for Hobbyists. The ultimate project-based guide to building real-world embedded applications in C and C++ programming

Miguel Angel Garcia-Ruiz, Pedro Cesar Santana Mancilla

We live in a world surrounded by electronic devices, and microcontrollers are the brains of these devices. Microcontroller programming is an essential skill in the era of the Internet of Things (IoT), and this book helps you to get up to speed with it by working through projects for designing and developing embedded apps with microcontroller boards.DIY Microcontroller Projects for Hobbyists are filled with microcontroller programming C and C++ language constructs. You'll discover how to use the Blue Pill (containing a type of STM32 microcontroller) and Curiosity Nano (containing a type of PIC microcontroller) boards for executing your projects as PIC is a beginner-level board and STM-32 is an ARM Cortex-based board. Later, you'll explore the fundamentals of digital electronics and microcontroller board programming. The book uses examples such as measuring humidity and temperature in an environment to help you gain hands-on project experience. You'll build on your knowledge as you create IoT projects by applying more complex sensors. Finally, you'll find out how to plan for a microcontroller-based project and troubleshoot it.By the end of this book, you'll have developed a firm foundation in electronics and practical PIC and STM32 microcontroller programming and interfacing, adding valuable skills to your professional portfolio.

Mastering Prometheus. Gain expert tips to monitoring your infrastructure, applications, and services

William Hegedus

With an increased focus on observability and reliability, establishing a scalable and reliable monitoring environment is more important than ever. Over the last decade, Prometheus has emerged as the leading open-source, time-series based monitoring software catering to this demand. This book is your guide to scaling, operating, and extending Prometheus from small on-premises workloads to multi-cloud globally distributed workloads and everything in between.Starting with an introduction to Prometheus and its role in observability, the book provides a walkthrough of its deployment. You’ll explore Prometheus’s query language and TSDB data model, followed by dynamic service discovery for monitoring targets and refining alerting through custom templates and formatting. The book then demonstrates horizontal scaling of Prometheus via sharding and federation, while equipping you with debugging techniques and strategies to fine-tune data ingestion. Advancing through the chapters, you’ll manage Prometheus at scale through CI validations and templating with Jsonnet, and integrate Prometheus with other projects such as OpenTelemetry, Thanos, VictoriaMetrics, and Mimir.By the end of this book, you’ll have practical knowledge of Prometheus and its ecosystem, which will help you discern when, why, and how to scale it to meet your ever-growing needs.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications (MB2-868) Certification Guide. A practical guide on how to use and manage Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 that focuses on helping you to pass the Microsoft certification exam

Danny Varghese

Managing any relationship can be difficult. Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 enables an organization to manage their marketing, sales, and service efforts for a customer, and give users a 360 degree view of the customer.Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 Applications (MB2-868) Certification Guide will assist individuals in passing the certification exam by reviewing each topic covered by the exam in depth, providing questions to test your knowledge at the end of each chapter, and finally by providing a 75 question practice exam including answers.You'll start with an introduction to Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 along with an overview of the exam, benefits of certification, and helpful exam taking tips.The following chapters take a deeper look into the CRM application itself covering each of the key modules: marketing, sales, service, and service scheduling. At the end of the book, there is a 75 question sample certification exam.This book will help you attain the MB2-868 certification, making you more marketable.

Oracle Essbase 9 Implementation Guide. Develop high-performance multidimensional analytic OLAP solutions with Oracle Essbase 9 with this book and

Joseph Gomez, Joseph Sydney Gomez, Sarma Anantapantula

The hot new data analysis trends involve business intelligence and analytics. The technology that supports business intelligence and analytics better than anything else is today's multidimensional OLAP technology ñ and there is none better than Oracle Essbase! Although storing data in a cube and developing analytical applications leaves many people grasping for understanding, especially if their experience is with relational databases, embracing OLAP technology will pay big dividends in the long run.It's easy to develop multidimensional analytic OLAP solutions when you have got this Oracle Essbase book to hand. It is a step-by-step guide to timeless Essbase fundamentals, which takes you from a basic software installation through to launching a fully functioning Essbase database cube.This book will guide you through every stage of installing Oracle's Essbase software on your analytic server, the Essbase Administration Services client, and the client software itself. You will learn, in easy-to-understand language, the concepts of multidimensional database technology as you are taken step by step through building an actual Essbase application complete with database, database calculation scripts, and database report scripts.Once you have your system built and functional, the next course of instruction covers the available automation features included in your Essbase software package and how to use them. These chapters alone are worth the price of admission!As an IT professional you quite rightly have a desire to understand multidimensional OLAP ñ this book gives you that understanding. Should you wish to embark on an exciting career as an Essbase developer/administrator, this book provides a fantastic foundation from which to grow.Best of all, this book is filled with the tips and tricks that you can only get from many years and countless hours spent playing with Essbase. You get them all in just the time it takes you to complete this book.

JavaScript and JSON Essentials. Build light weight, scalable, and faster web applications with the power of JSON - Second Edition

Bruno Joseph D'mello, Sai S Sriparasa

JSON is an established and standard format used to exchange data. This book shows how JSON plays different roles in full web development through examples. By the end of this book, you'll have a new perspective on providing solutions for your applications and handling their complexities.After establishing a strong basic foundation with JSON, you'll learn to build frontend apps by creating a carousel. Next, you'll learn to implement JSON with Angular 5, Node.js, template embedding, and composer.json in PHP. This book will also help you implement Hapi.js (known for its JSON-configurable architecture) for server-side scripting.You'll learn to implement JSON for real-time apps using Kafka, as well as how to implement JSON for a task runner, and for MongoDB BSON storage. The book ends with some case studies on JSON formats to help you sharpen your creativity by exploring futuristic JSON implementations. By the end of the book, you'll be up and running with all the essential features of JSON and JavaScript and able to build fast, scalable, and efficient web applications.

BeagleBone Essentials. Harness the power of the BeagleBone Black to manage external environments using C, Bash, and Python/PHP programming

Rodolfo Giometti

Leaflet.js Essentials. Create interactive, mobile-friendly mapping applications using the incredibly light yet powerful Leaflet.js platform

Paul Crickard III, Paul Crickard