You’ve heard the hype about Hadoop: it runs petabyte–scale data mining tasks insanely fast, it runs gigantic tasks on clouds for absurdly cheap, it’s been heavily committed to by tech giants like IBM, Yahoo!, and the Apache Project, and it’s completely open source (thus free). But what exactly is it, and more importantly, how do you even get a Hadoop cluster up and running?

From Apress, the name you’ve come to trust for hands–on technical knowledge, Pro Hadoop brings you up to speed on Hadoop. You learn the ins and outs of MapReduce; how to structure a cluster, design, and implement the Hadoop file system; and how to build your first cloud–computing tasks using Hadoop. Learn how to let Hadoop take care of distributing and parallelizing your software—you just focus on the code, Hadoop takes care of the rest.

Best of all, you’ll learn from a tech professional who’s been in the Hadoop scene since day one. Written from the perspective of a principal engineer with down–in–the–trenches knowledge of what to do wrong with Hadoop, you learn how to avoid the common, expensive first errors that everyone makes with creating their own Hadoop system or inheriting someone else’s.

Skip the novice stage and the expensive, hard–to–fix mistakes...go straight to seasoned pro on the hottest cloud–computing framework with Pro Hadoop. Your productivity will blow your managers away.

What you’ll learn

• Set up a stand–alone Hadoop cluster the smart way, laid out simply and step by step so you can get up and running quickly to build your next data center, collaborative, data–intensive Internet services application, Software as a Service (SaaS), and more.
• Optimize your Hadoop production tasks like an experienced pro.
• Work with time–proven, bulletproof standard patterns that have been tested and debugged in high–volume production.
• Understand just enough theoretical knowledge to know why something works in Hadoop, without getting bogged down in abstruse walls of theory.
• Get detailed explanations of not only how to do something with Hadoop, but also why, from a front–line coder with years in the Hadoop game.
• Turn someone else’s expensive cluster–wide “wrong” into an orderly, productive "right" with professional–level debugging and testing.

About the Author

Jason Venner has 20+ years of software engineering, managing, designing, and coding. He has been a VP, director, and consultant. Currently, his interests and expertise are in Java, Hadoop, cloud computing, and more. For more, visit www.prohadoopbook.com.

Recent trends and events worldwide have increased public interest in nonviolence, pacifism, and peace psychology as well as professional interest across the social sciences. "Nonviolence and Peace Psychology" assembles multiple perspectives to create a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the concepts and phenomena of nonviolence than is usually seen on the subject. Through this diverse literature - spanning psychology, political science, religious studies, anthropology, and sociology - peace psychologist Dan Mayton gives readers the opportunity to view nonviolence as a body of principles, a system of pragmatics, and a strategy for social change. This important volume draws critical distinctions between nonviolence, pacifism, and related concepts. It classifies nonviolence in terms of its scope (intrapersonal, interpersonal, societal, global) and pacifism according to political and situational dimensions. It applies standard psychological concepts such as beliefs, motives, dispositions, and values to define nonviolent actions and behaviors. It brings sociohistorical and cross-cultural context to peace psychology. It analyzes a century's worth of nonviolent social action, from the pathbreaking work of Gandhi and King to the Courage to Refuse movement within the Israeli armed forces. It reviews methodological and measurement issues in nonviolence research, and suggests areas for future study. Although more attention is traditionally devoted to violence and aggression within the social sciences, "Nonviolence and Peace Psychology" reveals a robust knowledge base and a framework for peacebuilding work, granting peace psychologists, activists, and mediators new possibilities for the transformative power of nonviolence.

The aim of this book is to give a user friendly tutorial of an interdisciplinary research topic (fronts in random media) to senior undergraduates and beginning graduate students with basic knowledge of partial differential equations (PDE) and probability. The approach taken is semi-formal, using elementary methods to introduce ideas and motivate results as much as possible, then outlining how to pursue rigorous theorems with details found in references of the bibliography. As the topic concerns both differential equations and probability, yet probability is traditionally a technical subject with heavy measure theoretical treatment, the book strives to develop a simplistic approach so students can grasp the essentials of fronts and random media and their applications in a self-contained tutorial. The scope of the book goes from wave properties of scalar deterministic PDEs (Burgers, Hamilton-Jacobi, reaction-diffusion etc.) to the asymptotic analysis of their stochastic versions.

Pro SQL Server 2008 Analytics provides everything you need to know to develop sophisticated and visually appealing sales and marketing dashboards using SQL Server 2008 and to integrate those dashboards with SharePoint, PerformancePoint, and other key Microsoft technologies.

The book begins by addressing the many misconceptions that surround the use of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and giving a brief overview of the business intelligence (BI) and reporting tools that can be combined on the Microsoft platform to help you generate the results that you need.

The focus of the book is to help you implement a successful business intelligence project of your own. The text discusses many of the required project planning components, provides overviews and examples associated with Microsoft’s BI tools, and gives detailed examples of successful dashboard implementations.

What you’ll learn

• The key functional and technical components of a successful report/dashboard implementation
• What Microsoft tools are provided both within and without SQL Server 2008 to help you achieve an integrated solution
• How to determine whether your performance indicators are correct for your business and how to roll them out to your organization in an effective way

About the Author

Brian Paulen cofounded Madrona Solutions Group in July 2005. He has overall responsibility for the firm’s growing business and for managing client and partner relationships. Additionally, Brian works to ensure that Madrona can offer an exciting and challenging environment for its employees. He has extensive project and program management experience, and is an expert in delivering strategic sales and marketing solutions. Prior to founding Madrona Solutions, Brian was the director of the CRM practice at Two Degrees Consulting. There, he had overall responsibility for sales and client delivery of CRM solutions. Earlier, Brian was a member of the CRM team at Equarius (now Interlink Group), working primarily with clients in the Pacific Northwest. His career began at Accenture (formerly Andersen Consulting), working out of their New York office. Brian holds Bachelor of Arts degrees in political science and international business from Lehigh University.

Jeff Finken cofounded Madrona Solutions Group in July 2005 and brings years of experience to his role as director of Madrona’s BI practice. He particularly focuses on working with sales, marketing, and IT leaders to define KPIs that drive improved organizational performance. Prior to joining Madrona, Jeff led and delivered BI projects while at Deloitte Consulting and Onyx Software. Specific clients have included Microsoft, Paccar, Pemco, Expedia, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Learn how to develop applications for Android mobile devices using simple examples, ready to run with your copy of the SDK. Author and Android columnist, writer, developer, and community advocate Mark L Murphy shows you what you need to know to get started on programming Android applications–everything from crafting GUIs to using GPS, accessing web services, and more!

The Android development platform, created by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, is a platform in its truest sense, encompassing hundreds of classes beyond the traditional Java classes and open source components that ship with the SDK. Some Android books race through the material, trying to cover as much ground as possible in as few pages as possible. Experienced writer and community advocate Mark Murphy shows you how to develop Android applications simply and with care.

The book includes dozens of sample projects, ready to run with your copy of the SDK–not just one huge project where you have difficulty finding the specific examples of the technique you are looking for. You can even get these sample programs online at Apress.com.

What you'll learn

• Discover what Android is and how to use Android to build Java-based mobile applications for Google Phones G1 and more phones as they hit the market
• Work with the new Android 1.x SDK
• Create user interfaces using both the Android Widget framework and the built-in WebKit-powered web browser components
• Use scripting with BeanShell
• Work with menu inflation, fonts, SDK tools, rotation events, and more
• Work with TabActivity, MyLocationOverlay, DDMS, and more
• Utilize the distinctive capabilities of the Android engine including maps, Internet access, integrated search, media playback, and more
• Use and create similar sample Android applications for services, content providers, mapping, and location-based services/events

About the Author

Mark Murphy is the founder of CommonsWare and the author of The Busy Coder's Guide to Android Development. A three-time entrepreneur, his experience ranges from consulting on open source and collaborative development for Fortune 500 companies to application development on just about anything smaller than a mainframe. He has been a software developer for over 25 years, working on platforms ranging from the TRS-80 to the latest crop of mobile devices. A polished speaker, Mark has delivered conference presentations and training sessions on a wide array of topics internationally.

Mark writes the "Building Droids" column for AndroidGuys and the "Android Angle" column for NetworkWorld.

Outside of CommonsWare, Mark has an avid interest in how the Internet will play a role in citizen involvement with politics and government. He is a contributor to the Rebooting America essay collection, and his personal blog features many posts discussing "cooperative democracy."

I come from a background of static typing and rigid languages: C, C++, C#. I’m seeing more than one trend at work here. For the longest time I felt something of a warm, fuzzy sensation when it came to my programming. The data type on the left matched the data type on the right. All was well. Then Python walked through the door.

Python’s not the only game in town to use dynamic typing (also known as duck typing, which you will learn about in due time), but it did catch my eye and challenged my perspective as a programmer. “What is this? How does one accurately program anything in this fashion? Five hundred lines of code and not one duck! Python’s a liar.” A little unsettling, you can imagine.

Build a django content management system, blog, and social networking site with James Bennett as he introduces version 1.1 of the popular Django framework.

You’ll work through the development of each project, implementing and running the applications while learning new features along the way.

Web frameworks are playing a major role in the creation of today’s most compelling web applications, because they automate many of the tedious tasks, allowing developers to instead focus on providing users with creative and powerful features. Python developers have been particularly fortunate in this area, having been able to take advantage of Django, a very popular open source web framework whose stated goal is to "make it easier to build better web applications more quickly with less code".

Practical Django Projects introduces this popular framework by way of a series of real–world projects. Readers follow along with the development of each project, implementing and running each application while learning new features along the way. This edition is updated for Django 1.1 and includes an all-new chapter covering practical development tools and techniques you'll be able to apply to your own development workflow.

About the Author

James Bennett is a web developer for the World Company of Lawrence, Kansas, and is a major contributor to the Django project. His current role within the Django community is as the software project’s release manager.

"style, language, layout,common sense, Minitab output, dire warnings,practicalities,examples,punchy headings and warmth of humour..." (MSOR Connections, Vol 8 No 1)

Need to know how to build and test models based on data? Intermediate Statistics For Dummies gives you the knowledge to estimate, investigate, correlate, and congregate certain variables based on the information at hand. The techniques you’ll learn in this book are the same techniques used by professionals in medical and scientific fields.

Picking up right where Statistics For Dummies left off, this straightforward, easy-to-follow book guides you beyond Central Limit Theorem and hypothesis tests and immerses you in flavors of regression, ANOVA, and nonparametric procedures. Unlike regular statistics books, this guide provides full explanations of intermediate statistical ideas; computer input dissection; an extensive number of examples, tips, strategies, and warnings; and clear, concise step-by-step procedures—all in a language you can understand. You’ll soon discover how to:

• Analyze data and base models off of your data
• Make predictions using regression
• Compare many means with ANOVA
• Test models using Chi-square
• Dealing with abnormal data

In addition, this book includes a list of wrong statistical conclusions and common questions that professors ask using computer output. This book also adopts a nonlinear approach, making it possible to skip to the information you need without having to read previous chapters. With Intermediate Statistics For Dummies, you’ll have all the tools you need to make important decisions in all types of professional areas—from biology and engineering to business and politics!

About the Author

Deborah Rumsey has a PhD in Statistics from The Ohio State University (1993). She is a Statistics Education Specialist/Auxiliary Faculty Member for the Department of Statistics. Dr. Rumsey has been given the distinction of being named a Fellow of the American Statistical Association. She has also won the Presidential Teaching Award from Kansas State University. She is the author of Statistics For Dummies, Statistics Workbook For Dummies, and Probability For Dummies. She has published numerous papers and given many professional presentations on the subject of statistics education. Her passions include being with her family, bird watching, solving Sudoku puzzles, getting more seat time on her Kubota tractor, and cheering the Ohio State Buckeyes on to another National Championship.

"Problems in Real Analysis: Advanced Calculus on the Real Axis" features a comprehensive collection of challenging problems in mathematical analysis that aim to promote creative, non-standard techniques for solving problems. This self-contained text offers a host of new mathematical tools and strategies which develop a connection between analysis and other mathematical disciplines, such as physics and engineering. A broad view of mathematics is presented throughout; the text is excellent for the classroom or self-study. It is intended for undergraduate and graduate students in mathematics, as well as for researchers engaged in the interplay between applied analysis, mathematical physics, and numerical analysis. Key features of this title are as mentioned below. It uses competition-inspired problems as a platform for training typical inventive skills. It develops basic valuable techniques for solving problems in mathematical analysis on the real axis and provides solid preparation for deeper study of real analysis. It includes numerous examples and interesting, valuable historical accounts of ideas and methods in analysis. It offers a systematic path to organizing a natural transition that bridges elementary problem-solving activity to independent exploration of new results and properties.

About the Author

Teodora-Liliana Radulescu received her PhD in 2005 from Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, with a thesis on nonlinear analysis, and she is currently a professor of mathematics at the "Fratii Buzesti" National College in Craiova, Romania. She is a member of the American Mathematical Society and the Romanian Mathematical Society. She is also a reviewer for Mathematical Reviews and Zentralblatt fur Mathematik. Vicentiu Radulescu received both his PhD and the Habilitation at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6), and he is currently a professor of mathematics at the University of Craiova, Romania and a senior researcher at the Institute of Mathematics "Simion Stoilow" of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, Romania. He has authored 9 books and over 100 articles. Titu Andreescu is an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Texas at Dallas. He is also firmly involved in mathematics contests and Olympiads, being the Director of AMC (as appointed by the Mathematical Association of America), Director of MOP, Head Coach of the USA IMO Team and Chairman of the USAMO. He has also authored a large number of books on the topic of problem solving and Olympiad-style mathematics.

This book is motivated by the following convictions:

1) Quantitative risk assessment (QRA) can be a powerful discipline for improving risk management decisions and policies.
2) Poorly conducted QRAs can produce results and recommendations that are worse than useless.
3) Sound risk assessment methods provide the benefits of QRA modeling – being able to predict and compare the probable consequences of alternative actions, interventions, or policies and being able to identify those that make preferred consequences more probable – while avoiding the pitfalls.

This book develops and illustrates QRA methods for complex and uncertain biological, engineering, and social systems. These systems have behaviors that are too complex or uncertain to be modeled accurately in detail with high confidence. Practical applications include assessing and managing risks from chemical carcinogens, antibiotic resistance, mad cow disease, terrorist attacks, and accidental or deliberate failures in telecommunications network infrastructure.

The societal burden of cancer is one of the major public health challenges of our time, yet that burden is not equally shared by all. Troubling disparities have been documented not only by racial/ethnic group but also by social class, insurance status, geography, and a host of other factors. Furthermore, such disparities represent the end result of a constellation of forces stemming from both within the health care system and outside of it. Many currently existing cancer disparities are preventable. To date, few publications capture the breadth and depth of the dimensions of cancer disparities from both the clinical and public health perspective.In this volume, we will broaden concepts of disparities beyond traditional race/ethnicity discussions to explore a more systematic analysis of how, where, and why disparities occur across the cancer continuum. We will also analyze the issue of social disparities with respect to certain major cancers, with emphasis on the particular role of socioeconomic position. This volume reflects the work of a number of experts in cancer disparities, led by members of the Executive Committee of the Program-in-Development for the Dana Farber/Harvard Cancer Center. In particular, this volume updates and expands an earlier 2005 monograph on the topic published in the journal "Cancer Causes and Control" (Nancy Krieger PhD, Editor).