Once Upon an Algorithm

Author: Martin Erwig
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262036630
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 333

Book Description
This easy-to-follow introduction to computer science reveals how familiar stories like Hansel and Gretel, Sherlock Holmes, and Harry Potter illustrate the concepts and everyday relevance of computing. Picture a computer scientist, staring at a screen and clicking away frantically on a keyboard, hacking into a system, or perhaps developing an app. Now delete that picture. In Once Upon an Algorithm, Martin Erwig explains computation as something that takes place beyond electronic computers, and computer science as the study of systematic problem solving. Erwig points out that many daily activities involve problem solving. Getting up in the morning, for example: You get up, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast. This simple daily routine solves a recurring problem through a series of well-defined steps. In computer science, such a routine is called an algorithm. Erwig illustrates a series of concepts in computing with examples from daily life and familiar stories. Hansel and Gretel, for example, execute an algorithm to get home from the forest. The movie Groundhog Day illustrates the problem of unsolvability; Sherlock Holmes manipulates data structures when solving a crime; the magic in Harry Potter’s world is understood through types and abstraction; and Indiana Jones demonstrates the complexity of searching. Along the way, Erwig also discusses representations and different ways to organize data; “intractable” problems; language, syntax, and ambiguity; control structures, loops, and the halting problem; different forms of recursion; and rules for finding errors in algorithms. This engaging book explains computation accessibly and shows its relevance to daily life. Something to think about next time we execute the algorithm of getting up in the morning.

Once Upon an Algorithm

Author: Martin Erwig
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262545292
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 333

The Constitution of Algorithms

Author: Florian Jaton
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262542145
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 401

Book Description
A laboratory study that investigates how algorithms come into existence. Algorithms--often associated with the terms big data, machine learning, or artificial intelligence--underlie the technologies we use every day, and disputes over the consequences, actual or potential, of new algorithms arise regularly. In this book, Florian Jaton offers a new way to study computerized methods, providing an account of where algorithms come from and how they are constituted, investigating the practical activities by which algorithms are progressively assembled rather than what they may suggest or require once they are assembled.

Once Upon a Time, There Was You

Author: Elizabeth Berg
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1588368939
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305

Book Description
BONUS: This edition contains a Once Upon a Time, There Was You discussion guide. Even on their wedding day, John and Irene sensed that they were about to make a mistake. Years later, divorced, dating other people, and living in different parts of the country, they seem to have nothing in common—nothing except the most important person in each of their lives: Sadie, their spirited eighteen-year-old daughter. Feeling smothered by Irene and distanced from John, Sadie is growing more and more attached to her new boyfriend, Ron. When tragedy strikes, Irene and John come together to support the daughter they love so dearly. What takes longer is to remember how they really feel about each other. Elizabeth Berg’s immense talent shines in this unforgettable novel about the power of love, the unshakeable bonds of family, and the beauty of second chances.

Algorithms

Author: Panos Louridas
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262358670
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 314

Book Description
In the tradition of Real World Algorithms: A Beginner's Guide, Panos Louridas is back to introduce algorithms in an accessible manner, utilizing various examples to explain not just what algorithms are but how they work. Digital technology runs on algorithms, sets of instructions that describe how to do something efficiently. Application areas range from search engines to tournament scheduling, DNA sequencing, and machine learning. Arguing that every educated person today needs to have some understanding of algorithms and what they do, in this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Panos Louridas offers an introduction to algorithms that is accessible to the nonspecialist reader. Louridas explains not just what algorithms are but also how they work, offering a wide range of examples and keeping mathematics to a minimum.

Computer Science Distilled

Author: Wladston Ferreira Filho
Publisher: Code Energy
ISBN: 0997316012
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 188

Book Description
A walkthrough of computer science concepts you must know. Designed for readers who don't care for academic formalities, it's a fast and easy computer science guide. It teaches the foundations you need to program computers effectively. After a simple introduction to discrete math, it presents common algorithms and data structures. It also outlines the principles that make computers and programming languages work.

Real-World Algorithms

Author: Panos Louridas
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262035707
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 527

Book Description
An introduction to algorithms for readers with no background in advanced mathematics or computer science, emphasizing examples and real-world problems. Algorithms are what we do in order not to have to do something. Algorithms consist of instructions to carry out tasks—usually dull, repetitive ones. Starting from simple building blocks, computer algorithms enable machines to recognize and produce speech, translate texts, categorize and summarize documents, describe images, and predict the weather. A task that would take hours can be completed in virtually no time by using a few lines of code in a modern scripting program. This book offers an introduction to algorithms through the real-world problems they solve. The algorithms are presented in pseudocode and can readily be implemented in a computer language. The book presents algorithms simply and accessibly, without overwhelming readers or insulting their intelligence. Readers should be comfortable with mathematical fundamentals and have a basic understanding of how computers work; all other necessary concepts are explained in the text. After presenting background in pseudocode conventions, basic terminology, and data structures, chapters cover compression, cryptography, graphs, searching and sorting, hashing, classification, strings, and chance. Each chapter describes real problems and then presents algorithms to solve them. Examples illustrate the wide range of applications, including shortest paths as a solution to paragraph line breaks, strongest paths in elections systems, hashes for song recognition, voting power Monte Carlo methods, and entropy for machine learning. Real-World Algorithms can be used by students in disciplines from economics to applied sciences. Computer science majors can read it before using a more technical text.

Automating the News

Author: Nicholas Diakopoulos
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674239318
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 304

Book Description
From hidden connections in big data to bots spreading fake news, journalism is increasingly computer-generated. Nicholas Diakopoulos explains the present and future of a world in which algorithms have changed how the news is created, disseminated, and received, and he shows why journalists—and their values—are at little risk of being replaced.

Once Upon an Algorithm

Author: Clara O'Connor
Publisher: One More Chapter
ISBN: 9780008653675
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
A brand new spicy STEM romance for fans of Ali Hazelwood and Sally Thorne! What do you do when your mortifying Friday night blind date is sitting opposite you at your desk on Monday morning? A hot blind date in Paris with no strings? Practical Leonie would never do such a thing! But when a new dating app that uses science and logic leads her to gorgeous, so-not-her-type Jack the chemistry is off the charts. Only, when the morning after proves that opposites definitely don't attract, Leonie is relieved they never need to see each other again. Until she starts her new job and there he is, sitting in the boss's office, the man behind the best and worst night of her life. Readers are obsessed with Once Upon An Algorithm 'A delightful and engaging romantic novel that adds a fresh and modern twist to the world of love and algorithms.' 'Freaking PERFECTION. 10/10. This was just so so good. I couldn't get enough of it and wanted a thousand more pages of this.' 'Trust me when I say you won't regret reading Once Upon An Algorithm and I hope you cherished their love story as much as I did.' 'As someone who works on a SaaS product in real life, although as a marketer, it was almost weird (in a good way) to be placed in a setting that's so familiar. I'm used to not understanding much of what they professionally talk about in STEM romances, so it was fun to be on the other side this time.'

Computational Fairy Tales

Author: Jeremy Kubica
Publisher: Jeremy Kubica
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 199

Book Description
"Introduces principles of computational thinking, illustrating high-level computer science concepts, the motivation behind them, and their application in a non-computer fairy tale domain."--Amazon.com.