Principles of Strategic Data Science. Creating value from data, big and small

Peter Prevos

Mathematics and computer science form an integral part of data science, and understanding them is crucial for efficiently managing data. This book is designed to take you through the entire data science pipeline and help you join the dots between mathematics, programming, and business analysis. You’ll start by learning what data science is and how organizations can use it to revolutionize the way they use their data. The book then covers the criteria for the soundness of data products and demonstrates how to effectively visualize information. As you progress, you’ll discover the strategic aspects of data science by exploring the five-phase framework that enables you to enhance the value you extract from data. Toward the concluding chapters, you’ll understand the role of a data science manager in helping an organization take the data-driven approach.By the end of this book, you’ll have a good understanding of data science and how it can enable you to extract value from your data.

Building Web Applications with Flask. Use Python and Flask to build amazing web applications, just the way you want them!

Italo M Campelo Maia, Jack Stouffer, Gareth Dwyer, Italo Maia

Python Data Cleaning and Preparation Best Practices. A practical guide to organizing and handling data from various sources and formats using Python

Maria Zervou

Professionals face several challenges in effectively leveraging data in today's data-driven world. One of the main challenges is the low quality of data products, often caused by inaccurate, incomplete, or inconsistent data. Another significant challenge is the lack of skills among data professionals to analyze unstructured data, leading to valuable insights being missed that are difficult or impossible to obtain from structured data alone.To help you tackle these challenges, this book will take you on a journey through the upstream data pipeline, which includes the ingestion of data from various sources, the validation and profiling of data for high-quality end tables, and writing data to different sinks. You’ll focus on structured data by performing essential tasks, such as cleaning and encoding datasets and handling missing values and outliers, before learning how to manipulate unstructured data with simple techniques. You’ll also be introduced to a variety of natural language processing techniques, from tokenization to vector models, as well as techniques to structure images, videos, and audio.By the end of this book, you’ll be proficient in data cleaning and preparation techniques for both structured and unstructured data.

Nagios Core Administration Cookbook. Over 90 hands-on recipes that will employ Nagios Core as the anchor of monitoring on your network - Second Edition

Tom Ryder

Nagios Core is an open source monitoring framework suitable for any network that ensures both internal and customer-facing services are running correctly and manages notification and reporting behavior to diagnose and fix outages promptly. It allows very fine configuration of exactly when, where, what, and how to check network services to meet both the uptime goals of your network and systems team and the needs of your users.This book shows system and network administrators how to use Nagios Core to its fullest as a monitoring framework for checks on any kind of network services, from the smallest home network to much larger production multi-site services. You will discover that Nagios Core is capable of doing much more than pinging a host or to see whether websites respond. The recipes in this book will demonstrate how to leverage Nagios Core's advanced configuration, scripting hooks, reports, data retrieval, and extensibility to integrate it with your existing systems, and to make it the rock-solid center of your network monitoring world.

Photographic Rendering with V-Ray for SketchUp. Turn your 3D modeling into photographic realism with this superb guide for SketchUp users. Through concrete examples, screenshots, and images, you’ll learn the practical side to photographic rendering using V-Ray

Brian Bradley

Design Made Easy with Inkscape. A practical guide to your journey from beginner to pro-level vector illustration

Christopher Rogers

With the power and versatility of the Inkscape software, making charts, diagrams, illustrations, and UI mockups with infinite resolution becomes enjoyable. If you’re looking to get up to speed with vector illustration in no time, this comprehensive guide has got your back! Design Made Easy with Inkscape is easy to follow and teaches you everything you need to know to create graphics that you can use and reuse forever, for free!You’ll benefit from the author’s industry experience as you go over the basics of vector illustration, discovering tips and tricks for getting professional graphics done fast by leveraging Inkscape's powerful toolset. This book teaches by example, using a great variety of use cases from icons and logos to illustration, web design, and product design. You’ll learn about hotkeys and take a best-practices approach developed over ten years of using Inkscape as a design tool in production. What’s more, this book also includes links to free graphics resources that you can use in all your projects.Whether you’re a new user or a professional, by the end of this book, you’ll have full understanding of how to use Inkscape and its myriad of excellent features to make stunning graphics for your projects.

Pandas Cookbook. Practical recipes for scientific computing, time series, and exploratory data analysis using Python - Third Edition

William Ayd, Matthew Harrison, Wes McKinney

Unlock the full power of pandas 2.x with this hands-on cookbook, designed for Python developers, data analysts, and data scientists who need fast, efficient solutions for real-world data challenges. This book provides practical, ready-to-use recipes to streamline your workflow. With step-by-step guidance, you'll master data wrangling, visualization, performance optimization, and scalable data analysis using pandas’ most powerful features. From importing and merging large datasets to advanced time series analysis and SQL-like operations, this cookbook equips you with the tools to analyze, manipulate, and visualize data like a pro. Learn how to boost efficiency, optimize memory usage, and seamlessly integrate pandas with NumPy, PyArrow, and databases. This book will help you transform raw data into actionable insights with ease.

Composing Software. An Exploration of Functional Programming and Object Composition in JavaScript

Eric Elliott

This book delves into functional programming and composition techniques in JavaScript, starting with core concepts like pure functions, shared state avoidance, and higher-order functions to build modular, maintainable code. Early chapters explore the fundamentals of functional programming, immutability, and its growing influence in the JavaScript community. You'll learn essential topics such as function composition, currying, and higher-order functions, as well as advanced concepts like abstract data types, functors, and monads. The book discusses the evolution of functional programming, its role in modern software development, and addresses challenges like the software crisis and composing with classes. You'll learn essential topics like object-oriented programming, focusing on factory functions, functional mixins, and object composition. You'll also understand why traditional classes complicate composition and discover strategies for creating custom data types, lenses, and transducers. The book also covers best practices, emphasizing clean, reusable code and avoiding anti-patterns like excessive mocking. By the end, you'll be ready to apply functional programming techniques to tackle complex design challenges and write more maintainable JavaScript code.

Learning SciPy for Numerical and Scientific Computing. Quick solutions to complex numerical problems in physics, applied mathematics, and science with SciPy

Erik Christensen, Francisco Javier Blanco-Silva, Sergio J Rojas G, Sergio J Rojas G (USD)

Unity 5.x Animation Cookbook. An advanced solution to all your Animation problems

Maciej Szczesnik

This recipe-based practical guide will show you how to unleash the power of animation in Unity 5.x and make your games visually impeccable. Our primary focus is on showing you tools and techniques to animate not only humanoid biped characters, but also other elements. This includes non-humanoid character animation, game world creation, UI element animation, and other key features such as opening doors, changing lights, transitioning to different scenes, using physics, setting up ragdolls, creating destructible objects and more.While discussing these topics, the book will focus on mecanim, the Unity 3D animation tool, and how you can use it to perform all these tasks efficiently and quickly. It contains a downloadable Unity project with interactive examples for all the recipes. By the end of this book, you will be confident and self-sufficient in animating your Unity 3D games efficiently.

KnockoutJS by Example. Develop rich, interactive, and real-world web applications using knockout.js

Adnan Jaswal

KnockoutJS By Example is a project-based guide that introduces the key features and concepts of knockout.js. It helps you create an application skeleton and a Hello World application. You will develop a To-Do list application that aims to show the basic features of knockout.js in action, such as data binding and observables, following which you will develop a dynamic online customer registration form that captures and validates customer information. This book will further walk you through developing a customer banking portal, which demonstrates the use of knockout.js with components such as navigation bars, tabs, carousels, master details view, panels, forms, and wizards. You will also discover how to use token-based authentication and authorization to secure the customer banking portal, and move on to creating an editable products grid with CRUD operations. Finally, you will explore how to use the Google Maps API with knockout.js.KnockoutJS By Example will not only leave you with a basic understanding of knockout.js fundamentals but also take you through some of the advanced features. It will help you get a web application up and ready instantly.

Python Game Programming By Example. A pragmatic guide for developing your own games with Python

Alejandro Rodas de Paz, Joseph Howse

Developing Robust Date and Time Oriented Applications in Oracle Cloud. A comprehensive guide to efficient date and time management in Oracle Cloud

Michal Kvet

Proper date and time management is critical for the development and reliability of Oracle Databases and cloud environments, which are among the most rapidly expanding technologies today. This knowledge can be applied to cloud technology, on premises, application development, and integration to emphasize regional settings, UTC coordination, or different time zones. This practical book focuses on code snippets and discusses the existing functionalities and limitations, along with covering data migration to the cloud by emphasizing the importance of proper date and time management.This book helps you understand the historical background and evolution of ANSI standards. You’ll get to grips with data types, constructor principles, and existing functionalities, and focus on the limitations of regional parameters and time zones, which help in expanding business to other parts of the world. You’ll also explore SQL injection threats, temporal database architecture, using Flashback Technology to reconstruct valid database images from the past, time zone management, and UTC synchronization across regions.By the end of this book, you’ll be able to create and manage temporal systems, prevent SQL injection attacks, use existing functionalities and define your own robust solutions for date management, and apply time zone and region rules.

CompTIA Security+ Practice Tests SY0-501. Practice tests in 4 different formats and 6 cheat sheets to help you pass the CompTIA Security+ exam

Ian Neil

CompTIA Security+ is a core security certification that will validate your baseline skills for a career in cybersecurity. Passing this exam will not only help you identify security incidents but will also equip you to resolve them efficiently. This book builds on the popular CompTIA Security+ Certification Guide, which mirrors the SY0-501 exam pattern.This practice test-based guide covers all six domains of the Security+ SY0-501 exam: threats, attacks, and vulnerabilities; technologies and tools; architecture and design; identity and access management; cryptography and PKI; and risk management. You’ll take six mock tests designed as per the official Security+ certification exam pattern, each covering significant aspects from an examination point of view. For each domain, the book provides a dedicated cheat sheet that includes important concepts covered in the test. You can even time your tests to simulate the actual exam. These tests will help you identify gaps in your knowledge and discover answers to tricky exam questions.By the end of this book, you’ll have developed and enhanced the skills necessary to pass the official CompTIA Security+ exam.

Mastering Adobe Commerce Frontend. Build optimized, user-centric e-commerce sites with tailored theme design and enhanced interactivity

Jakub Winkler

Navigating the frontend realm of the Adobe Commerce platform can often feel like a labyrinth, given its multifaceted systems and intricate layering. This book demystifies Adobe Commerce frontend development, guiding you through its paths with clarity and precision.You'll learn how to set up your local environment, paving the way for a smooth development experience and navigate the platform's theming ecosystem, exploring layout XML systems and the power of templates. As you progress through the book, you'll leverage an array of JavaScript libraries and frameworks that Adobe Commerce boasts of, with special emphasis on RequireJS, jQuery, Knockout.JS, and UI Components. Additionally, you'll gain an understanding of the intricacies of Adobe Commerce CMS, explore frontend-related configurations in the admin panel, and unlock the secrets of frontend optimization.Practical exercises provided in the book will enable you to create top-notch Adobe Commerce sites that are functional, optimized, user-centric, and a step ahead in the ever-evolving frontend landscape.

Hands-On Blockchain for Python Developers. Empowering Python developers in the world of blockchain and smart contracts - Second Edition

Arjuna Sky Kok

We are living in the age of decentralized fi nance and NFTs. People swap tokens on Uniswap, borrow assets from Aave, send payments with stablecoins, trade art NFTs on OpenSea, and more. To build applications of this kind, you need to know how to write smart contracts.This comprehensive guide will help you explore all the features of Vyper, a programming language designed to write smart contracts. You’ll also explore the web3.py library. As you progress, you’ll learn how to connect to smart contracts, read values, and create transactions. To make sure your foundational knowledge is strong enough, the book guides you through Ape Framework, which can help you create decentralized exchanges, NFT marketplaces, voting applications, and more. Each project provides invaluable insights and hands-on experience, equipping you with the skills you need to build real-world blockchain solutions.By the end of this book, you’ll be well versed with writing common Web3 applications such as a decentralized exchange, an NFT marketplace, a voting application, and more.