When information is exchanged in XML format, there needs to be an agreement between the sender and receiver about the structure and content of the XML document. An XSD (XML Schema Definition Language) Schema can be used to enforce this contract and validate the XML data being exchanged and, given that a lot of applications exchange...

"AI Techniques for Game Programming" takes the difficult topics of genetic algorithms and neural networks and explains them in plain English. Gone are the tortuous mathematic equations and abstract examples to be found in other books. Each chapter takes readers through the theory a step at a time, explaining clearly how they can...

Penetration testing is often considered an art as much as it is a science, but even an artist needs the right brushes to do the job well. Many commercial and open source tools exist for performing penetration testing, but it’s often hard to ensure that you know what tools are available and which ones to use for a certain task....

The Foundry’s Nuke is fast becoming the industry leader in compositing software for film and TV. Virtually all the leading visual effects studios—ILM, Digital Domain, Weta Digital, MPC, Framestore, The Mill, and Sony Pictures Imageworks—now use Nuke as their main compositing tool. This is not surprising, as Nuke offers...

The field of multidimensional data structures is large and growing very quickly. Here, for the first time, is a thorough treatment of multidimensional point data, object and image-based representations, intervals and small rectangles, and high-dimensional datasets. The book includes a thorough introduction; a comprehensive survey to spatial...

Complex adaptive systems (cas), including ecosystems, governments, biological cells, and markets, are characterized by intricate hierarchical arrangements of boundaries and signals. In ecosystems, for example, niches act as semi-permeable boundaries, and smells and visual patterns serve as signals; governments have departmental hierarchies...

Optimal Estimation of Dynamic Systems, Second Edition highlights the importance of both physical and numerical modeling in solving dynamics-based estimation problems found in engineering systems. Accessible to engineering students, applied mathematicians, and practicing engineers, the text presents the central concepts and...

In 2000, I started my first PalmOS mobile app for an inventory-tracking project. The initial project was a full-staffed team effort that consisted of mobile developers, SAP consultants, supply-chain subject matter experts, middleware developers, QA testers, architects, business sponsors, and so forth. JavaME came up strong in 2002, followed...

As Ruby and Rails continues to grow, and more and more jobs are coming online that require you to effectively develop Ruby and Rails in the web tier. Beyond the Rails framework, there are still very few proven tools and IDEs to get the job done, at least until now. The NetBeans Ruby and Rails IDE, according to some, is by far the best and...