Timothy Masters was a lonely, troubled teenager with a penchant for gory artwork when he first saw Peggy Lee Hettrick… …her dead, mutilated body nearly frozen in the early morning of Fort Collins, Colorado. Not believing it could really be a dead body, thinking he was the victim of yet another prank by his abusive classmates, the fifteen-year-old didn’t go to the police—but they came to him. So began a decade-long investigation led by a relentless detective who was sure that Masters was the killer, even without a shred of physical evidence. Against all reason, a conspiracy of silence and circumstantial evidence eventually put Masters behind bars. Only the determination of a lone investigator who believed the young man was innocent would reveal the shocking truth, and free Masters after ten years in prison. This is the compelling true story of one life ended in blood and murder, one life ruined by coincidence and prejudice, and justice long denied but finally found.
Assess the quality of your prediction and classification models in ways that accurately reflect their real-world performance, and then improve this performance using state-of-the-art algorithms such as committee-based decision making, resampling the dataset, and boosting. This book presents many important techniques for building powerful, robust models and quantifying their expected behavior when put to work in your application. Considerable attention is given to information theory, especially as it relates to discovering and exploiting relationships between variables employed by your models. This presentation of an often confusing subject avoids advanced mathematics, focusing instead on concepts easily understood by those with modest background in mathematics. All algorithms include an intuitive explanation of operation, essential equations, references to more rigorous theory, and commented C++ source code. Many of these techniques are recent developments, still not in widespread use. Others are standard algorithms given a fresh look. In every case, the emphasis is on practical applicability, with all code written in such a way that it can easily be included in any program. What You'll Learn Compute entropy to detect problematic predictors Improve numeric predictions using constrained and unconstrained combinations, variance-weighted interpolation, and kernel-regression smoothing Carry out classification decisions using Borda counts, MinMax and MaxMin rules, union and intersection rules, logistic regression, selection by local accuracy, maximization of the fuzzy integral, and pairwise coupling Harness information-theoretic techniques to rapidly screen large numbers of candidate predictors, identifying those that are especially promising Use Monte-Carlo permutation methods to assess the role of good luck in performance results Compute confidence and tolerance intervals for predictions, as well as confidence levels for classification decisions Who This Book is For Anyone who creates prediction or classification models will find a wealth of useful algorithms in this book. Although all code examples are written in C++, the algorithms are described in sufficient detail that they can easily be programmed in any language.
Discover the essential building blocks of a common and powerful form of deep belief net: the autoencoder. You’ll take this topic beyond current usage by extending it to the complex domain for signal and image processing applications. Deep Belief Nets in C++ and CUDA C: Volume 2 also covers several algorithms for preprocessing time series and image data. These algorithms focus on the creation of complex-domain predictors that are suitable for input to a complex-domain autoencoder. Finally, you’ll learn a method for embedding class information in the input layer of a restricted Boltzmann machine. This facilitates generative display of samples from individual classes rather than the entire data distribution. The ability to see the features that the model has learned for each class separately can be invaluable. At each step this book provides you with intuitive motivation, a summary of the most important equations relevant to the topic, and highly commented code for threaded computation on modern CPUs as well as massive parallel processing on computers with CUDA-capable video display cards. What You'll Learn Code for deep learning, neural networks, and AI using C++ and CUDA C Carry out signal preprocessing using simple transformations, Fourier transforms, Morlet wavelets, and more Use the Fourier Transform for image preprocessing Implement autoencoding via activation in the complex domain Work with algorithms for CUDA gradient computation Use the DEEP operating manual Who This Book Is For Those who have at least a basic knowledge of neural networks and some prior programming experience, although some C++ and CUDA C is recommended.
Discover the essential building blocks of the most common forms of deep belief networks. At each step this book provides intuitive motivation, a summary of the most important equations relevant to the topic, and concludes with highly commented code for threaded computation on modern CPUs as well as massive parallel processing on computers with CUDA-capable video display cards. The first of three in a series on C++ and CUDA C deep learning and belief nets, Deep Belief Nets in C++ and CUDA C: Volume 1 shows you how the structure of these elegant models is much closer to that of human brains than traditional neural networks; they have a thought process that is capable of learning abstract concepts built from simpler primitives. As such, you’ll see that a typical deep belief net can learn to recognize complex patterns by optimizing millions of parameters, yet this model can still be resistant to overfitting. All the routines and algorithms presented in the book are available in the code download, which also contains some libraries of related routines. What You Will Learn Employ deep learning using C++ and CUDA C Work with supervised feedforward networks Implement restricted Boltzmann machines Use generative samplings Discover why these are important Who This Book Is For Those who have at least a basic knowledge of neural networks and some prior programming experience, although some C++ and CUDA C is recommended.
Discover the essential building blocks of a common and powerful form of deep belief network: convolutional nets. This book shows you how the structure of these elegant models is much closer to that of human brains than traditional neural networks; they have a ‘thought process’ that is capable of learning abstract concepts built from simpler primitives. These models are especially useful for image processing applications. At each step Deep Belief Nets in C++ and CUDA C: Volume 3 presents intuitive motivation, a summary of the most important equations relevant to the topic, and concludes with highly commented code for threaded computation on modern CPUs as well as massive parallel processing on computers with CUDA-capable video display cards. Source code for all routines presented in the book, and the executable CONVNET program which implements these algorithms, are available for free download. What You Will Learn Discover convolutional nets and how to use them Build deep feedforward nets using locally connected layers, pooling layers, and softmax outputs Master the various programming algorithms required Carry out multi-threaded gradient computations and memory allocations for this threading Work with CUDA code implementations of all core computations, including layer activations and gradient calculations Make use of the CONVNET program and manual to explore convolutional nets and case studies Who This Book Is For Those who have at least a basic knowledge of neural networks and some prior programming experience, although some C++ and CUDA C is recommended.
This book begins by presenting methods for performing practical, real-life assessment of the performance of prediction and classification models. It then goes on to discuss techniques for improving the performance of such models by intelligent resampling of training/testing data, combining multiple models into sophisticated committees, and making use of exogenous information to dynamically choose modeling methodologies. Rigorous statistical techniques for computing confidence in predictions and decisions receive extensive treatment. Finally, a hundred pages are devoted to the use of information theory in evaluating and selecting useful predictors. Special attention is paid to Schreiber's Information Transfer, a recent generalization of Grainger Causality. Well commented C++ code is given for every algorithm and technique. The ultimate purpose of this text is three-fold. The first goal is to open the eyes of serious developers to some of the hidden pitfalls that lurk in the model development process. The second is to provide broad exposure for some of the most powerful model enhancement algorithms that have emerged from academia in the last two decades, while not bogging down readers in cryptic mathematical theory. Finally, this text should provide the reader with a toolbox of ready-to-use C++ code that can be easily incorporated into his or her existing programs.
Build, test, and tune financial, insurance or other market trading systems using C++ algorithms and statistics. You’ve had an idea and have done some preliminary experiments, and it looks promising. Where do you go from here? Well, this book discusses and dissects this case study approach. Seemingly good backtest performance isn't enough to justify trading real money. You need to perform rigorous statistical tests of the system's validity. Then, if basic tests confirm the quality of your idea, you need to tune your system, not just for best performance, but also for robust behavior in the face of inevitable market changes. Next, you need to quantify its expected future behavior, assessing how bad its real-life performance might actually be, and whether you can live with that. Finally, you need to find its theoretical performance limits so you know if its actual trades conform to this theoretical expectation, enabling you to dump the system if it does not live up to expectations. This book does not contain any sure-fire, guaranteed-riches trading systems. Those are a dime a dozen... But if you have a trading system, this book will provide you with a set of tools that will help you evaluate the potential value of your system, tweak it to improve its profitability, and monitor its on-going performance to detect deterioration before it fails catastrophically. Any serious market trader would do well to employ the methods described in this book. What You Will Learn See how the 'spaghetti-on-the-wall' approach to trading system development can be done legitimatelyDetect overfitting early in developmentEstimate the probability that your system's backtest results could have been due to just good luckRegularize a predictive model so it automatically selects an optimal subset of indicator candidatesRapidly find the global optimum for any type of parameterized trading systemAssess the ruggedness of your trading system against market changesEnhance the stationarity and information content of your proprietary indicatorsNest one layer of walkforward analysis inside another layer to account for selection bias in complex trading systemsCompute a lower bound on your system's mean future performanceBound expected periodic returns to detect on-going system deterioration before it becomes severeEstimate the probability of catastrophic drawdown Who This Book Is For Experienced C++ programmers, developers, and software engineers. Prior experience with rigorous statistical procedures to evaluate and maximize the quality of systems is recommended as well.
Discover a variety of data-mining algorithms that are useful for selecting small sets of important features from among unwieldy masses of candidates, or extracting useful features from measured variables. As a serious data miner you will often be faced with thousands of candidate features for your prediction or classification application, with most of the features being of little or no value. You’ll know that many of these features may be useful only in combination with certain other features while being practically worthless alone or in combination with most others. Some features may have enormous predictive power, but only within a small, specialized area of the feature space. The problems that plague modern data miners are endless. This book helps you solve this problem by presenting modern feature selection techniques and the code to implement them. Some of these techniques are: Forward selection component analysis Local feature selection Linking features and a target with a hidden Markov modelImprovements on traditional stepwise selectionNominal-to-ordinal conversion All algorithms are intuitively justified and supported by the relevant equations and explanatory material. The author also presents and explains complete, highly commented source code. The example code is in C++ and CUDA C but Python or other code can be substituted; the algorithm is important, not the code that's used to write it. What You Will Learn Combine principal component analysis with forward and backward stepwise selection to identify a compact subset of a large collection of variables that captures the maximum possible variation within the entire set. Identify features that may have predictive power over only a small subset of the feature domain. Such features can be profitably used by modern predictive models but may be missed by other feature selection methods. Find an underlying hidden Markov model that controls the distributions of feature variables and the target simultaneously. The memory inherent in this method is especially valuable in high-noise applications such as prediction of financial markets.Improve traditional stepwise selection in three ways: examine a collection of 'best-so-far' feature sets; test candidate features for inclusion with cross validation to automatically and effectively limit model complexity; and at each step estimate the probability that our results so far could be just the product of random good luck. We also estimate the probability that the improvement obtained by adding a new variable could have been just good luck. Take a potentially valuable nominal variable (a category or class membership) that is unsuitable for input to a prediction model, and assign to each category a sensible numeric value that can be used as a model input. Who This Book Is For Intermediate to advanced data science programmers and analysts.
Renowned pastor and New York Times bestselling author Timothy Keller continues his Encounters with Jesus eBook series with The Obedient Master, an exploration of Jesus’ active willingness to face death and how this obedience affects our lives. Jesus’ experience in the garden at Gethsemane is well known, yet it is both more horrifying and more beautiful than we realize at first glance. Timothy Keller, pastor of New York’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church and New York Times bestselling author of The Reason for God, examines this biblical passage to show us how clearly Jesus saw the penalty he would have to pay for our sins and how this payment ensures our standing as righteous in the eyes of God.
Discover hidden relationships among the variables in your data, and learn how to exploit these relationships. This book presents a collection of data-mining algorithms that are effective in a wide variety of prediction and classification applications. All algorithms include an intuitive explanation of operation, essential equations, references to more rigorous theory, and commented C++ source code. Many of these techniques are recent developments, still not in widespread use. Others are standard algorithms given a fresh look. In every case, the focus is on practical applicability, with all code written in such a way that it can easily be included into any program. The Windows-based DATAMINE program lets you experiment with the techniques before incorporating them into your own work. What You'll Learn Use Monte-Carlo permutation tests to provide statistically sound assessments of relationships present in your data Discover how combinatorially symmetric cross validation reveals whether your model has true power or has just learned noise by overfitting the data Work with feature weighting as regularized energy-based learning to rank variables according to their predictive power when there is too little data for traditional methods See how the eigenstructure of a dataset enables clustering of variables into groups that exist only within meaningful subspaces of the data Plot regions of the variable space where there is disagreement between marginal and actual densities, or where contribution to mutual information is high Who This Book Is For Anyone interested in discovering and exploiting relationships among variables. Although all code examples are written in C++, the algorithms are described in sufficient detail that they can easily be programmed in any language.
What does a former Gulf War Veteran have to do with nuclear blackmail? What does a kidnapping of the Secretary of Defense have to do with Fidel Castro? Meet Oggie, (pronounced doggie without the d) a Vet with determination, drive and a goal. Injured in the first Gulf War, he comes home and meets his destiny; life without the use of his legs. Never one to let life define him, he learns to ski, play competitive basketball, and gain his degree in finance. Called to serve the President of the United States as head of the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Administration), he finds himself embroiled in a game of nuclear blackmail with the leaders of the United States, China, India, and Cuba. How will Oggie exorcise himself from this International conspiracy? Using his skills learned from the first Gulf War, he finds a gift from the most unlikely characters. Need more? Want it? Find out how he foils the maniacal designs of the worlds most recognized leaders.
This text serves as a cookbook for neural network solutions to practical problems using C++. It will enable those with moderate programming experience to select a neural network model appropriate to solving a particular problem, and to produce a working program implementing that network. The book provides guidance along the entire problem-solving path, including designing the training set, preprocessing variables, training and validating the network, and evaluating its performance. Though the book is not intended as a general course in neural networks, no background in neural works is assumed and all models are presented from the ground up. The principle focus of the book is the three layer feedforward network, for more than a decade as the workhorse of professional arsenals. Other network models with strong performance records are also included. Bound in the book is an IBM diskette that includes the source code for all programs in the book. Much of this code can be easily adapted to C compilers. In addition, the operation of all programs is thoroughly discussed both in the text and in the comments within the code to facilitate translation to other languages.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
Deep belief nets are one of the most exciting recent developments in artificial intelligence. The structure of these elegant models is much closer to that of human brains than traditional neural networks; they have a 'thought process' that is capable of learning abstract concepts built from simpler primitives. A typical deep belief net can learn to recognize complex patterns by optimizing millions of parameters, yet this model can still be resistant to overfitting. This book presents the essential building blocks of the most common forms of deep belief nets. At each step the text provides intuitive motivation, a summary of the most important equations relevant to the topic, and concludes with highly commented code for threaded computation on modern CPUs as well as massive parallel processing on computers with CUDA-capable video display cards. Source code for all routines presented in the book, and the DEEP program which implements these algorithms, are available for free download from the author's website.
In The New Masters of Capital, Timothy J. Sinclair examines a key aspect of the global economy—the rating agencies. In the global economy, trust is formalized in the daily operations of such firms as Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which continuously monitor the financial health of bond-issuers ranging from private corporations to local and national governments. Their judgments affect unimaginably large sums, approximately $30 trillion in outstanding debt issues, according to a recent Moody's estimate. The difference between an AA and a BB rating may cost millions of dollars in interest payments or determine if a corporation or government can even issue bonds Without bond rating agencies, there would be no standard means to compare risks in the global economy, and international investment would be problematic. Most observers assume that the agencies are neutral and scientific, and that they interpret their role in narrowly economic terms. But these agencies, by their nature, wield extraordinary power and exert massive influence over public policy. Sinclair offers a highly accessible account of these institutions, their origins, and the rating processes they use to judge creditworthiness. Illustrated with a wide range of cases, this book offers a fresh assessment of the role of an often-overlooked institution in the dynamics of modern global capitalism.
Now in paper! An invaluable reference text for singers, teachers, and vocal and operatic coaches, this volume contains the complete song texts of the songs for voice and piano by Chausson, Debussy, Duparc, Faure, and Ravel. All these song texts are in an easy-to-read three-line format; Line 1: the original language text; Line 2: a vertically accurate word-by-word translation into English, using the exact word order of the original language; Line 3: a poetic reconstruction of Line 2 into a more poetically understandable English form. This format differs from purely poetic or singing translations by giving the user an exact, accurate knowledge of each word as it is understood by a native language singer. Cloth edition published in 1991. Available in paperback in 2001.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
In The New Masters of Capital, Timothy J. Sinclair examines a key aspect of the global economy—the rating agencies. In the global economy, trust is formalized in the daily operations of such firms as Moody's and Standard & Poor's, which continuously monitor the financial health of bond-issuers ranging from private corporations to local and national governments. Their judgments affect unimaginably large sums, approximately $30 trillion in outstanding debt issues, according to a recent Moody's estimate. The difference between an AA and a BB rating may cost millions of dollars in interest payments or determine if a corporation or government can even issue bonds. Without bond rating agencies, there would be no standard means to compare risks in the global economy, and international investment would be problematic. Most observers assume that the agencies are neutral and scientific, and that they interpret their role in narrowly economic terms. But these agencies, by their nature, wield extraordinary power and exert massive influence over public policy. Sinclair offers a highly accessible account of these institutions, their origins, and the rating processes they use to judge creditworthiness. Illustrated with a wide range of cases, this book offers a fresh assessment of the role of an often-overlooked institution in the dynamics of modern global capitalism.
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