Learning Microsoft Cognitive Services. Use Cognitive Services APIs to add AI capabilities to your applications - Third Edition

Leif Larsen

Microsoft Cognitive Services is a set of APIs for integrating artificial intelligence in your applications to solve logical business problems. If you’re new to developing applications with AI, Learning Microsoft Cognitive Services will give you a comprehensive introduction to Microsoft’s AI stack and get you up-to-speed in no time.The book introduces you to 24 APIs, including Emotion, Language, Vision, Speech, Knowledge, and Search. Using Visual Studio, you can develop applications with enhanced capabilities for image processing, speech recognition, text processing, and much more. Moving forward, you will work with datasets that enable your applications to process various data in the form of image, video, or text.By the end of the book, you’ll be able to confidently explore Cognitive Services APIs for building intelligent applications that can be deployed for real-world business uses.

SQL Server 2017 Administrator's Guide. One stop solution for DBAs to monitor, manage, and maintain enterprise databases

Marek Chmel, Vladimir Muzny

Take advantage of the real power of SQL Server 2017 with all its new features, in addition to covering core database administration tasks. This book will give you a competitive advantage by helping you quickly learn how to design, manage, and secure your database solution. You will learn how to set up your SQL Server and configure new (and existing) environments for optimal use. After covering the designing aspect, the book delves into performance-tuning aspects by teaching you how to effectively use indexes. The book will also teach you about certain choices that need to be made about backups and how to implement a rock-solid security policy and keep your environment healthy. Finally, you will learn about the techniques you should use when things go wrong, and other important topics, such as migration, upgrading, and consolidation, are covered in detail. Integration with Azure is also covered in depth. Whether you are an administrator or thinking about entering the field, this book will provide you with all the skills you need to successfully create, design, and deploy databases usingSQL Server 2017.

Apache Hadoop 3 Quick Start Guide. Learn about big data processing and analytics

Hrishikesh Vijay Karambelkar

Apache Hadoop is a widely used distributed data platform. It enables large datasets to be efficiently processed instead of using one large computer to store and process the data. This book will get you started with the Hadoop ecosystem, and introduce you to the main technical topics, including MapReduce, YARN, and HDFS.The book begins with an overview of big data and Apache Hadoop. Then, you will set up a pseudo Hadoop development environment and a multi-node enterprise Hadoop cluster. You will see how the parallel programming paradigm, such as MapReduce, can solve many complex data processing problems.The book also covers the important aspects of the big data software development lifecycle, including quality assurance and control, performance, administration, and monitoring. You will then learn about the Hadoop ecosystem, and tools such as Kafka, Sqoop, Flume, Pig, Hive, and HBase. Finally, you will look at advanced topics, including real time streaming using Apache Storm, and data analytics using Apache Spark. By the end of the book, you will be well versed with different configurations of the Hadoop 3 cluster.

Practical GIS. Learn novice to advanced topics such as QGIS, Spatial data analysis, and more

Gábor Farkas

The most commonly used GIS tools automate tasks that were historically done manually—compiling new maps by overlaying one on top of the other or physically cutting maps into pieces representing specific study areas, changing their projection, and getting meaningful results from the various layers by applying mathematical functions and operations. This book is an easy-to-follow guide to use the most matured open source GIS tools for these tasks.We’ll start by setting up the environment for the tools we use in the book. Then you will learn how to work with QGIS in order to generate useful spatial data. You will get to know the basics of queries, data management, and geoprocessing.After that, you will start to practice your knowledge on real-world examples. We will solve various types of geospatial analyses with various methods. We will start with basic GIS problems by imitating the work of an enthusiastic real estate agent, and continue with more advanced, but typical tasks by solving a decision problem. Finally, you will find out how to publish your data (and results) on the web. We will publish our data with QGIS Server and GeoServer, and create a basic web map with the API of the lightweight Leaflet web mapping library.

Windows Forensics Cookbook. Over 60 practical recipes to acquire memory data and analyze systems with the latest Windows forensic tools

Scar de Courcier, Oleg Skulkin

Windows Forensics Cookbook provides recipes to overcome forensic challenges and helps you carry out effective investigations easily on a Windows platform. You will begin with a refresher on digital forensics and evidence acquisition, which will help you to understand the challenges faced while acquiring evidence from Windows systems. Next you will learn to acquire Windows memory data and analyze Windows systems with modern forensic tools. We also cover some more in-depth elements of forensic analysis, such as how to analyze data from Windows system artifacts, parse data from the most commonly-used web browsers and email services, and effectively report on digital forensic investigations. You will see how Windows 10 is different from previous versions and how you can overcome the specific challenges it brings. Finally, you will learn to troubleshoot issues that arise while performing digital forensic investigations. By the end of the book, you will be able to carry out forensics investigations efficiently.

Unity 2017 Mobile Game Development. Build, deploy, and monetize games for Android and iOS with Unity

John P. Doran

Unity has established itself as an overpowering force for developing mobile games. If you love mobile games and want to learn how to make them but have no idea where to begin, then this book is just what you need. This book takes a clear, step-by-step approach to building an endless runner game using Unity with plenty of examples on how to create a game that is uniquely your own.Starting from scratch, you will build, set up, and deploy a simple game to a mobile device. You will learn to add touch gestures and design UI elements that can be used in both landscape and portrait mode at different resolutions. You will explore the best ways to monetize your game projects using Unity Ads and in-app purchases before you share your game information on social networks. Next, using Unity’s analytics tools you will be able to make your game better by gaining insights into how players like and use your game. Finally, you’ll learn how to publish your game on the iOS and Android App Stores for the world to see and play along.

Bayesian Analysis with Python. Introduction to statistical modeling and probabilistic programming using PyMC3 and ArviZ - Second Edition

Osvaldo Martin

The second edition of Bayesian Analysis with Python is an introduction to the main concepts of applied Bayesian inference and its practical implementation in Python using PyMC3, a state-of-the-art probabilistic programming library, and ArviZ, a new library for exploratory analysis of Bayesian models.The main concepts of Bayesian statistics are covered using a practical and computational approach. Synthetic and real data sets are used to introduce several types of models, such as generalized linear models for regression and classification, mixture models, hierarchical models, and Gaussian processes, among others. By the end of the book, you will have a working knowledge of probabilistic modeling and you will be able to design and implement Bayesian models for your own data science problems. After reading the book you will be better prepared to delve into more advanced material or specialized statistical modeling if you need to.

Learning Elasticsearch. Structured and unstructured data using distributed real-time search and analytics

Abhishek Andhavarapu

Elasticsearch is a modern, fast, distributed, scalable, fault tolerant, and open source search and analytics engine. You can use Elasticsearch for small or large applications with billions of documents. It is built to scale horizontally and can handle both structured and unstructured data. Packed with easy-to- follow examples, this book will ensure you will have a firm understanding of the basics of Elasticsearch and know how to utilize its capabilities efficiently.You will install and set up Elasticsearch and Kibana, and handle documents using the Distributed Document Store. You will see how to query, search, and index your data, and perform aggregation-based analytics with ease. You will see how to use Kibana to explore and visualize your data. Further on, you will learn to handle document relationships, work with geospatial data, and much more, with this easy-to-follow guide. Finally, you will see how you can set up and scale your Elasticsearch clusters in production environments.