Neural Networks started as an academic discipline over 50 years ago with the publication by McCulloch and Pitts of their famous result that any logical problem can be solved by a suitable network composed of so-called binary decision nodes. These are processors which make the simplest possible decision, that is, whether or not to respond to a...

Apple announced the original iPad on January 27, 2010, and the technology world hasn’t been the same since. Customers rushed to buy the tablet, snapping up more than 300,000 the day it went on sale. Competitors rushed to copy it, with Samsung, Motorola, Amazon, and others creating their own variations on the app-friendly...

PHP Master is aimed at intermediate PHP developers—those who have left their newbie status behind, and are looking to advance their skills and knowledge. Our aim as authors is to enable developers to refine their skills across a number of areas, and so we’ve picked topics that we felt have stood us in the best stead to grow...

I first met Peter Plesch in the late 1950s when he had established his vacuum techniques in Keele and I was embarking on my PhD. My visit to Keele was to seek advice (freely given) on handling sensitive reaction systems. I rapidly came to appreciate that Peter operated on a somewhat higher intellectual plane than many academics. All...

Welcome to Computer Science Made Simple, a novice’s guide to one of the most important fields today. I wrote this book with several kinds of readers in mind. For the person curious about how computers work and what the computer terms used in magazine advertisements mean, this book will provide the answers. For those considering...

Bioinformatics is an emerging field in which statistical and computational techniques are used extensively to analyze and interpret biological data obtained from high-throughput genomic technologies. Genomic technologies allow us to monitor thousands of biological processes going on inside living organisms in one snapshot, and are...

Yowza! The point I'm trying to get across is this. The broader mobile and device industry has finally gone mainstream. Why...

This book is written for those who are about to use their fi rst home computer or those who have yet to explore the wider opportunities afforded by a computer beyond searching the Internet and sending the occasional email message. You have my word that there will be very few acronyms and those that do appear will be fully explained in...

Late last year, in 2008, I was fi nishing work on another book called Electricity for the Entertainment Electrician & Technician when Danielle Monroe, one of the many wonderful people at Focal Press, sent me an email. Almost as an afterthought—one of those oh-by-the-ways—she mentioned that we should start work on...