Artificial Intelligence Books - Page 12

Kickin' Bot: An Illustrated Guide to Building Combat Robots (ExtremeTech)

Grant Imahara

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Subjects -> Professional & Technical -> Engineering -> Computer Technology -> Robotics & Automation

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

Enter the arena of the metal gladiators

Do you have what it takes to build a battle-ready robot? You do now. Here are the plans, step-by-step directions, and expert advice that will put you in competition-while you have a heck of a lot of fun getting there.

Grant Imahara, the creator of the popular BattleBot Deadblow, shares everything he’s learned about robot design, tools and techniques for metal working, the parts you need and where to get them, and plenty of tips to keep you off the ropes. When you’re finished, you’ll be ready to rumble.

Just a few of the topics you'll learn:

• Robot design 101
• Chemicals and power tools
• Popular materials compared
• Cutting your armor
• Things to know about screws
• Top ten drive motors
• Bearings, casters, couplers, and U-joints
• Roller chains and sprockets
• Better traction through chemistry
• Choosing speeding controls
• Batteries and wiring
• The driving test
• Rammers, hammers and crushers

Monte Carlo Strategies in Scientific Computing (Springer Series in Statistics)

Jun S. Liu

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

This paperback edition is a reprint of the 2001 Springer edition.

This book provides a self-contained and up-to-date treatment of the Monte Carlo method and develops a common framework under which various Monte Carlo techniques can be "standardized" and compared. Given the interdisciplinary nature of the topics and a moderate prerequisite for the reader, this book should be of interest to a broad audience of quantitative researchers such as computational biologists, computer scientists, econometricians, engineers, probabilists, and statisticians. It can also be used as the textbook for a graduate-level course on Monte Carlo methods. Many problems discussed in the alter chapters can be potential thesis topics for masters’ or Ph.D. students in statistics or computer science departments.

Jun Liu is Professor of Statistics at Harvard University, with a courtesy Professor appointment at Harvard Biostatistics Department. Professor Liu was the recipient of the 2002 COPSS Presidents' Award, the most prestigious one for statisticians and given annually by five leading statistical associations to one individual under age 40. He was selected as a Terman Fellow by Stanford University in 1995, as a Medallion Lecturer by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (IMS) in 2002, and as a Bernoulli Lecturer by the International Bernoulli Society in 2004. He was elected to the IMS Fellow in 2004 and Fellow of the American Statistical Association in 2005. He and co-workers have published more than 130 research articles and book chapters on Bayesian modeling and computation, bioinformatics, genetics, signal processing, stochastic dynamic systems, Monte Carlo methods, and theoretical statistics.

"An excellent survey of current Monte Carlo methods. The applications amply demonstrate the relevance of this approach to modern computing. The book is highly recommended." (Mathematical Reviews)

"This book provides comprehensive coverage of Monte Carlo methods, and in the process uncovers and discusses commonalities among seemingly disparate techniques that arose in various areas of application. … The book is well organized; the flow of topics follows a logical development. … The coverage is up-to-date and comprehensive, and so the book is a good resource for people conducting research on Monte Carlo methods. … The book would be an excellent supplementary text for a course in scientific computing … ." (SIAM Review)

"The strength of this book is in bringing together advanced Monte Carlo (MC) methods developed in many disciplines. … Throughout the book are examples of techniques invented, or reinvented, in different fields that may be applied elsewhere. … Those interested in using MC to solve difficult problems will find many ideas, collected from a variety of disciplines, and references for further study." (Technometrics)

TCP/IP Sockets in Java, Second Edition: Practical Guide for Programmers (The Practical Guides) (The Practical Guides)

Kenneth L. Calvert, Michael J. Donahoo

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Networking -> Networks, Protocols & APIs -> TCP-IP

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Total reviews: 7 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The networking capabilities of the Java platform have been extended considerably since the first edition of the book. This new edition covers version 1.5-1.7, the most current iterations, as well as making the following improvements:

The API (application programming interface) reference sections in each chapter, which describe the relevant parts of each class, have been replaced with (i) a summary section that lists the classes and methods used in the code, and (ii) a ?gotchas? section that mentions nonobvious or poorly-documented aspects of the objects.

In addition, the book covers several new classes and capabilities introduced in the last few revisions of the Java platform. New abstractions to be covered include NetworkInterface, InterfaceAddress, Inet4/6Address, SocketAddress/InetSocketAddress, Executor, and others; extended access to low-level network information; support for IPv6; more complete access to socket options; and scalable I/O. The example code is also modified to take advantage of new language features such as annotations, enumerations, as well as generics and implicit iterators where appropriate.

Most Internet applications use sockets to implement network communication protocols. This book's focused, tutorial-based approach helps the reader master the tasks and techniques essential to virtually all client-server projects using sockets in Java. Chapter 1 provides a genral overview of networking concepts to allow readers to synchronize the concepts with terminology. Chapter 2 introduces the mechanics of simple clients and servers. Chapter 3 covers basic message construction and parsing. Chapter 4 then deals with techniques used to build more robust clients and servers. Chapter 5 (NEW) introduces the scalable interface facilities which were introduced in Java 1.5, including the buffer and channel abstractions. Chapter 6 discusses the relationship between the programming constructs and the underlying protocol implementations in more detail. Programming concepts are introduced through simple program examples accompanied by line-by-line code commentary that describes the purpose of every part of the program. The book's Web site contains many examples of command-based sockets-related code discussed throughout the book. No other resource presents so concisely or so effectively the material necessary to get up and running with Java sockets programming.

KEY FEATURES

* Focused, tutorial-based instruction in key sockets programming techniques allows reader to quickly come up to speed on Java applications.
* Concise and up-to-date coverage of the most recent platform (1.7) for Java
applications in networking technology
* Provides code for all example programs via a companion Web site to let the reader see the important objects and methods in context and to understand the purpose of each line of code.

Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and Machine Learning

David E. Goldberg

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Read a review article instead! 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I agree with another reviewer who said the book was unnecessarily long. Genetic Algorithms are a great programming tool, and there are some tips and tricks that can help your programs converge faster and more accurately, but this book had a lot of redundant information.

If you are interested in using GA for solution-finding, I doubt you'll find much useful in this book beyond the first chapter or so. Many of the examples later in the book were so specific that I couldn't see how they could be usefully generalized. Really optimizing a GA approach for a specific problem domain takes a fair amount of tuning, and this book won't help much with that.

I think time spent surfing siteseer or other publication sites would be better spent than reading this book.

Editorial Review:

This book brings together - in an informal and tutorial fashion - the computer techniques, mathematical tools, and research results that will enable both students and practitioners to apply genetic algorithms to problems in many fields. Major concepts are illustrated with running examples, and major algorithms are illustrated by Pascal computer programs. No prior knowledge of GAs or genetics is assumed, and only a minimum of computer programming and mathematics background is required. 0201157675B07092001

MATLAB(r) Programming for Engineers

Stephen J. Chapman

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

It Could be Better. 3 out of 5 stars.
13 of 15 people found this review helpful.

The book is a good start to MATLAB students but there is a lot of errors in the text. Despite the author's appeal asking everybody to show him the errors, I think it would be better to rewrite the book, mainly because his work could be more useful if he insert a specific chapter about I/O operations, which is, in my opinion, the most dificult thing to do in MATLAB. Examples of I/O operations with several data formats would be useful too.

Editorial Review:

This text is an introduction to MATLAB as a technical programming language. It is written to teach students how to write clean, efficient, and well-documented MATLAB programs. Stephen Chapman emphasizes top-down programming methodology and encourages students to think about the proper design of a program before beginning to code. The book is carefully structured to provide the students with programming practice boxes that highlight good programming practices, boxes that detail common pitfalls in MATLAB programming, as well as numerous programming exercises and examples. The book is design to emphasize how to take advantage of MATLAB's unique functionality and write reliable MATLAB programs. Students are taught how to use MATLAB as a programming language and how to locate any desired function with MATLAB's extensive on-line help facilities.

All of Nonparametric Statistics (Springer Texts in Statistics)

Larry Wasserman

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

The goal of this text is to provide the reader with a single book where they can find a brief account of many, modern topics in nonparametric inference. The book is aimed at Master's level or Ph.D. level students in statistics, computer science, and engineering. It is also suitable for researchers who want to get up to speed quickly on modern nonparametric methods.

This text covers a wide range of topics including: the bootstrap, the nonparametric delta method, nonparametric regression, density estimation, orthogonal function methods, minimax estimation, nonparametric confidence sets, and wavelets. The book has a mixture of methods and theory.

From the reviews:

"...The book is excellent." (Short Book Reviews of the ISI, June 2006)

"Now we have All of Nonparametric Statistics … . the writing is excellent and the author is to be congratulated on the clarity achieved. … the book is excellent." (N.R. Draper, Short Book Reviews, Vol. 26 (1), 2006)

"Overall, I enjoyed reading this book very much. I like Wasserman's intuitive explanations and careful insights into why one path or approach is taken over another. Most of all, I am impressed with the wealth of information on the subject of asymptotic nonparametric inferences." (Stergios B. Fotopoulos for Technometrics, Vol. 49, No. 1., February 2007)

Galatea 2.2

Richard Powers

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 57 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Just a big stinking let down. 2 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

I felt like the first hundred or so pages of the book promised a lot of truly vicarious devastation, but then I got to the end and Powers' had delivered nothing. This book is dullsville; read it and feel absolutely nothing during the story's climax. In all fairness, Powers writes very well, it's just that the content of this book bores me. Maybe my problem is that I was expecting it to be much more sci-fi and dramatic, and to me it read more like a semi-masturbatory litany of the sufferings of the author at the hands of his bipolar ex-girlfriend.

What Is Love? (Baby, Don't Hurt Me) 2 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

I'll read anything by Richard Powers. For my money, few authors are as insightful or as capable of delivering that insight in a manner that is simultaneously mind-boggling and relevant. I'm pretty sure the man is a genius, but he's capable of building rungs into his writing, of making it accessible to those who don't mind putting in the work to make the vertical climb.

The problem with "Galatea 2.2" isn't Powers' ability to sculpt a sentence. He's in top form here (I've never read him in any other form, honestly). I take issue with the story itself.

The title is derived from the Greek myth of Pygmalion, king of Cyprus. With his own hands, Pygmalion supposedly crafted a statue of a beautiful woman. He named the creation Galatea and fell in love with it. Aphrodite eventually answered his prayers to animate the statue, and the two of them married and lived happily ever after. It's one of those tales that eschews any discernable point; it's less about dedication and devotion and more about a fractured self-love that fails to recognize itself as such. Scholars debate over whether or not the ending could accurately be classified as "happy."

Powers, it seems, agrees with this ambiguous assessment, because his novel takes the story to a place that is anything but vague. The Galatea in his book is a neural computer-network that eventually achieves something that could be artificial intelligence. It is called Helen. The Pygmalion? The author himself.

The story is one of those weirdly-turned "quasi"-"auto"-"biographies," with the writer inserting recognizable elements of his own life into the text, and then filling in the spaces with stuff that may or may not be "based on a true story." A story so de-fictionalized, only your author knows for sure.

Powers (the character, not the writer), has just come out of a really rough relationship with a woman named "C" and has decided to return home to Illinois to his old alma mater (lovingly referred to as "U") where he is spending a year as an "in-house author." I'm not sure what that is, or who is to benefit from the arrangement other than Powers, but it sounds like a sweet gig.

It's not so sweet for Powers, who has a particularly virulent case of writer's block. He has the first sentence, but the more he tries to build on it, the more he realizes that it's the first sentence that has HIM. He starts to wonder if it's not a jagged shard of his past that has stuck in his brain and refuses to be removed.

Powers eventually meets a scabrous researcher named Lentz who convinces him to take part in an experiment to teach a computer all of the canonical works of Great Literature, from Shakespeare to Seuss. Powers gets down and dirty with the work, the two men building a thought-machine that ends up spanning the globe, an interconnected webwork of systems and databases that collectively becomes known as Helen and that, amazingly enough, starts to simulate real thought and emotion.

This is, truly, an astounding breakthrough, so I wondered why no character in the book treated it as such. Moreover, Powers seemed mostly bored with his Helen plot-thread, coupling it with constant flashbacks to his relationship with "C." Although they form less than half of the novel, these remembrances were so tedious and ill-placed that they seemed to take up most of the book. Engorged with sentimentality, they could have been perhaps revealing or even a fine counterpoint to his relationship with the computer, Helen, if the character of "C" hadn't been so crippled by histrionics and narcissitic ambivalence. It was never, EVER clear to me why Powers was so in love with this woman. Although, if there's one thing love does do on a consistent basis, it is cloud the minds of the normally sane; Powers (the character) never really seems to know why he loves her, either.

It gets tiresome. You've got the intriguing progress of Helen (and the mysteriously crabby character of Lentz) propelling one half of the novel with a good deal of steam, but it's dragging this gigantic corpse of a plot-line behind it, gouging out a scar in the ground that Powers lovingly describes in patient, probative detail. His past is an important element to the story, but I was never convinced it was important enough to necessitate so much meandering, so much redundancy, so much fondling.

That's what you get when you have a book that doesn't have the guts to announce how real it is to the world. If Powers really wanted to bare his soul, he should've been bold enough to discard every excess bit of stitching. Instead, he tries to artfully clothe himself with fig leafs of fiction, and the result is, well, I'm reminded of The Simpsons where offended citizens get blue jeans put on Michelangelo's David. Except, in this case, the jeans are tacky bell bottoms.

Just as tacky is Powers' final point, the reason he has the parallel plots of "C" and Helen. Powers' message would be more at home in an episode of Sesame Street or on a PBS After-School special (starring Levar Burton, perhaps). The best and most poignant part of the whole book comes when Powers finally unsticks from his mind that tenacious opening sentence he could never complete. But that comes after a whole lot of instigating silliness, and the subtly beautiful moment propagates an ending of maudlin moralizing. I won't give anything away, but I will say that Helen's final symbolic act as an artificial entity that has reached self-awareness is so trite and formulaic, I was astounded that Powers even bothered.

It's a book about obsession (much less love) and dissociation from the self, the world, the heart. It's about redemption, revelation, and recompense for sins you didn't even know you were committing. It's a complex, tangled knot of ideas that could've been a treatise on something beautifully incomprehensible. Instead, Powers boils it down to its most generic parts. Beautifully written though it may be, this is a diamond with one facet. What happens when an amazing writer falls in love with his own work? He fails to see its flaws; he lingers painfully over even its dullest surfaces; he writes "Galatea 2.2."

Editorial Review:

The fictional protagonist, Richard Powers, becomes involved with Philip Lentz and his scheme to train a neural net on a canonical list of great books until the machine is capable of passing an English literature exam. As the device grows, Powers is forced to reconsider his literary vocation.

Modern Multivariate Statistical Techniques: Regression, Classification, and Manifold Learning (Springer Texts in Statistics)

Alan Julian Izenman

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Editorial Review:

Remarkable advances in computation and data storage and the ready availability of huge data sets have been the keys to the growth of the new disciplines of data mining and machine learning, while the enormous success of the Human Genome Project has opened up the field of bioinformatics.

These exciting developments, which led to the introduction of many innovative statistical tools for high-dimensional data analysis, are described here in detail. The author takes a broad perspective; for the first time in a book on multivariate analysis, nonlinear methods are discussed in detail as well as linear methods. Techniques covered range from traditional multivariate methods, such as multiple regression, principal components, canonical variates, linear discriminant analysis, factor analysis, clustering, multidimensional scaling, and correspondence analysis, to the newer methods of density estimation, projection pursuit, neural networks, multivariate reduced-rank regression, nonlinear manifold learning, bagging, boosting, random forests, independent component analysis, support vector machines, and classification and regression trees. Another unique feature of this book is the discussion of database management systems.

This book is appropriate for advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and researchers in statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, psychology, cognitive sciences, business, medicine, bioinformatics, and engineering. Familiarity with multivariable calculus, linear algebra, and probability and statistics is required. The book presents a carefully-integrated mixture of theory and applications, and of classical and modern multivariate statistical techniques, including Bayesian methods. There are over 60 interesting data sets used as examples in the book, over 200 exercises, and many color illustrations and photographs.

Hands-On Networking Fundamentals

Michael Palmer

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Editorial Review:

Hands-On Networking Fundamentals has been designed with the novice networking student in mind. It is a doorway into learning about all types of networks from the ground up. This new book encourage new users to feel confident in moving onto a Network+ course of study while obtaining the skills necessary to perform network installations and basic troubleshooting. The student truly gets a hands-on, interactive learning experience. New concepts are presented in clear language and the hands-on activities along with realistic case studies reinforce learning at each step. In the context of learning network fundamentals, students also learn practical design methods for home, small business, and large enterprise networks.

Power Electronics: Converters, Applications, and Design, 2nd Edition

Ned Mohan, Tore M. Undeland, William P. Robbins

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Subjects -> Computers & Internet -> Computer Science -> Circuitry -> Circuit Components

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Had What I needed. 5 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

Although a little light on full converter schematics, this textbook contained excellent descriptions of converter building blocks and semiconductor device physics. It is excellent that it came with a simulator program too.

Good overview ... a bit thin on some subjects 3 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Good power electronics textbook. I use it for my power electronics course at Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It covers a lot of material well, including switching power converters, thermal and magnetics design. It's a bit thin in some important subjects, such as current mode control.

Marc T. Thompson, Ph.D.

Editorial Review:

Cohesive presentation of power electronics fundamentals for applications and design in the power range of 500 kW or less. Describes a variety of practical and emerging power electronic converters made feasible by the new generation of power semiconductor devices. This revised edition includes an expanded discussion of diode rectifiers and thyristor converters as well as new chapters on heat sinks, magnetic components which present a step-by-step design approach and a computer simulation of power electronics which introduces numerical techniques and commonly used simulation packages such as PSpice, MATLAB and EMTP. Contains a significantly expanded set of end-of-chapter problems.