Philo Janus, “Pro PerformancePoint Server 2007: Building Business Intelligence Solutions”
Apress | ISBN: 1590599616 | August 15, 2008 | 472 pages | PDF | ~16MB
Pro PerformancePoint Server 2007 is Microsoft’s latest product in its line of business intelligence applications, a piece of software that gathers data from corporate databases and delivers it to an end user in a friendly, graphical fashion. PerformancePoint offers the next step in the digitization world. Businesses now have gigabytes upon terabytes of data in databases; there’s a need to interpret the data and glean key business insights from it and PerformancePoint. (more…)

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations.
By Amy Shuen

* Publisher:   O’Reilly Media, Inc.
* Number Of Pages:   266
* Publication Date:   2008-04-17
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0596529961
* ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780596529963
* Binding:   Hardcover

Product Description:

Web 2.0 makes headlines, but how does it make money? This concise guide explains what’s different about Web 2.0 and how those differences can improve your company’s bottom line. Whether you’re an executive plotting the next move, a small business owner looking to expand, or an entrepreneur planning a startup, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide illustrates through real-life examples how businesses, large and small, are creating new opportunities on today’s Web. This book is about strategy. Rather than focus on the technology, the examples concentrate on its effect. You will learn that creating a Web 2.0 business, or integrating Web 2.0 strategies with your existing business, means creating places online where people like to come together to share what they think, see, and do. When people come together over the Web, the result can be much more than the sum of the parts. The customers themselves help build the site, as old-fashioned “word of mouth” becomes hypergrowth. Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide demonstrates the power of this new paradigm by examining how: Flickr, a classic user-driven business, created value for itself by helping users create their own value Google made money with a model based on free search, and changed the rules for doing business on the Web-opening opportunities you can take advantage of Social network effects can support a business-ever wonder how FaceBook grew so quickly? Businesses like Amazon tap into the Web as a source of indirect revenue, using creative new approaches to monetize the investments they’ve made in the Web Written by Amy Shuen, an authority on Silicon Valley business models and innovation economics, Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide explains how to transform yourbusiness by looking at specific practices for integrating Web 2.0 with what you do. If you’re executing business strategy and want to know how the Web is changing business, this book is for you.

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Data Mining in Finance: Advances in Relational and Hybrid Methods (The Springer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science)
By Boris Kovalerchuk, Evgenii Vityaev

* Publisher:   Springer
* Number Of Pages:   328
* Publication Date:   2000-03-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:   0792378040
* ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780792378044
* Binding:   Hardcover

Product Description:

Data Mining in Finance presents a comprehensive overview of major algorithmic approaches to predictive data mining, including statistical, neural networks, ruled-based, decision-tree, and fuzzy-logic methods, and then examines the suitability of these approaches to financial data mining. The book focuses specifically on relational data mining (RDM), which is a learning method able to learn more expressive rules than other symbolic approaches. RDM is thus better suited for financial mining, because it is able to make greater use of underlying domain knowledge. Relational data mining also has a better ability to explain the discovered rules - an ability critical for avoiding spurious patterns which inevitably arise when the number of variables examined is very large. The earlier algorithms for relational data mining, also known as inductive logic programming (ILP), suffer from a relative computational inefficiency and have rather limited tools for processing numerical data.
Data Mining in Finance introduces a new approach, combining relational data mining with the analysis of statistical significance of discovered rules. This reduces the search space and speeds up the algorithms. The book also presents interactive and fuzzy-logic tools for `mining’ the knowledge from the experts, further reducing the search space.
Data Mining in Finance contains a number of practical examples of forecasting S&P 500, exchange rates, stock directions, and rating stocks for portfolio, allowing interested readers to start building their own models. This book is an excellent reference for researchers and professionals in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, data mining, knowledge discovery, and applied mathematics.

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Making IT Count: Strategy, Delivery, Infrastructure (Computer Weekly Professional)
By Nancy Olson, Leslie Willcocks, Peter Petherbridge

* Publisher:   Butterworth-Heinemann
* Number Of Pages:   288
* Publication Date:   2002-05-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:   075064821X
* ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780750648219
* Binding:   Paperback

Product Description:

‘Making IT Count: from strategy to implementation’ focuses on the practical elements of delivering Information Technology strategy. Studies regularly show that over half of Information Technology strategies are never implemented, or are unsuccessful in delivering the desired results, and that a significant percentage of strategies implemented were never in the original plans. The linkage between strategy development and delivery needs a very clear focus; this is the key topic that the authors address.

The book highlights eight major fallacies in managing IT, and eighteen better practices. It then details how to draw up strategy, instigate navigation techniques and make sourcing decisions. Change and delivery are a major focus, as is infrastructure development. Caselets and full length case studies of organizations such as General Electric, Siemens, Colonial Mutual, Charles Schwab, Macquarie Bank, ICI, United Airlines, Norwich Union, Walgreens and Dell and have been included to show how strategies have been successfully implemented and managed.

Shows practitioners how to actually carry out, develop and implement an Information Technology strategy
Contains “caselets” and full case studies of recent successful implementations of Information Technology strategies by organizationsAuthors combine a wealth of experience and expertise to provide practical guidance to professionals

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Real World Camera Raw with Adobe Photoshop CS (Real World)
By Bruce Fraser

* Publisher:   Peachpit Press
* Number Of Pages:   256
* Publication Date:   2004-07-18
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:   032127878X
* ISBN-13 / EAN:   9780321278784
* Binding:   Paperback

Product Description:

Call it a control thing, but until recently–or, more specifically, until the availability of digital raw camera formats–you simply weren’t ready to make the move to digital photography. Raw formats, however, changed all of that by allowing you to retrieve images before any in-camera processing has been performed. Photoshop’s Adobe Camera Raw plug-in makes that process even easier by providing a standardized way of accessing and working with these uncompressed digital negatives in your favorite image-manipulation software. In the first volume devoted exclusively to the topic, best-selling author Bruce Fraser shows you how to take advantage of Adobe Camera Raw to set white balance, optimize contrast and saturation, handle noise, correct tint, and recover lost detail in images before converting them to another format. After learning about the raw formats themselves, you’ll discover hands-on techniques for exposing and shooting for digital raw, using the File Browser to preview images and automate tasks, and building a workflow around the digital raw process.  (more…)

Ron Cody, “Cody’s Data Cleaning Techniques Using SAS, Second Edition”
SAS Press | ISBN: 1599946599 | May 13, 2008 | 272 pages | PDF | 1.2MB
Thoroughly updated for SAS 9, this second edition addresses tasks that nearly every SAS programmer needs to do - that is, make sure that data errors are located and corrected. Written in Ron Cody’s signature informal, tutorial style, this book develops and demonstrates data cleaning programs and macros that you can use as written or modify for your own special data cleaning needs. Each topic is developed through specific examples, and every program and macro is explained in detail. (more…)

Engineering Education: Designing an Adaptive System
Publisher: National Academies Press | 96 pages | 1995-06-30 | 0309052785 | PDF | 4,5 Mb
Traditionally, engineering education books describe and reinforce unchanging principles that are basic to the field. However, the dramatic changes in the engineering environment during the last decade demand a paradigm shift from the engineering education community. This revolutionary volume addresses the development of long-term strategies for an engineering education system that will reflect the needs and realities of the United States and the world in the 21st century. The authors discuss the critical challenges facing U.S. engineering education and present a plan addressing these challenges in the context of rapidly changing circumstances, technologies, and demands.
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Introducing ZBrush
474 Pages | PDF | 14.2 MB

Learn to sculpt detailed, lush, organic models with the hottest tool on the 3D market - ZBrush - and this step-by-step guide.
Introducing ZBrush is the ideal initiation to this revolutionary software.
Starting with the basics, it builds from the ground up, combining straightforward text with practical examples that make it fun to learn ZBrush’s core tools and concepts.
Professional animator and ZBrush artist Eric Keller walks you through the hands-on tutorials and teaches you the skills you need to create hyper-realistic digital models like a pro.
From creating illustrations in 2.5 dimensions to sculpting with digital clay, you’ll master ZBrush’s powerful tools for creating fantastic images and 3D models for use in animation programs like 3ds Max and Maya.
Whether your new to the ZBrush interface or a CG veteran looking for the latest techniques, Introducing ZBrush will help you fulfill your artistic potential by giving you the power to create stunning digital art with a distinctively fine art feel.

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3DCreative Collection (35 Issue 2006-2008)
RS | 35 Issue (more…)