Books about Modeling from Amazon.com

More than thirty years ago, Richard Bandler set out to discover how some therapists effected startling change with their clients, while others argued about theories while their patients waited in vain for help. Now widely regarded as the world's greatest hypnotist and one of the most brilliant minds in the field of personal change, Richard Bandler created patterns that became the bedrock of neuro-linguistic programming (NLP), arguably one of the most profoundly effective approaches for self-improvement. In Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation, he returns to his roots: hypnotic phenomena, trancework, and altered states to provide a highly compelling and effective prescription for quick and lasting personal change.

According to Bandler, "trance" is at the very foundation of human experience. People are not simply in or out of trance, but are constantly moving from one trance to another. We have our work trances, our relationship trances, and our parenting trances. Some of these states are useful and appropriate; others are not. With his signature wit and contrarian approach to therapy, Bandler shows how anyone can reset and reprogram their problem behaviors to reach desired alternatives with lasting and life-altering results. With intriguing case studies, client dialogues, and more than thirty exercises, Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation, is an engaging, read for anyone, whether they are new to NLP, want to further their NLP training, or simply want to make a positive difference in their own lives.

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Price: $10.47 [Notify me when price goes down.]

High Performance MySQL is the definitive guide to building fast, reliable systems with MySQL. Written by noted experts with years of real-world experience building very large systems, this book covers every aspect of MySQL performance in detail, and focuses on robustness, security, and data integrity. High Performance MySQL teaches you advanced techniques in depth so you can bring out MySQL's full power. Learn how to design schemas, indexes, queries and advanced MySQL features for maximum performance, and get detailed guidance for tuning your MySQL server, operating system, and hardware to their fullest potential. You'll also learn practical, safe, high-performance ways to scale your applications with replication, load balancing, high availability, and failover. This second edition is completely revised and greatly expanded, with deeper coverage in all areas. Major additions include: Emphasis throughout on both performance and reliability Thorough coverage of storage engines, including in-depth tuning and optimizations for the InnoDB storage engine Effects of new features in MySQL 5.0 and 5.1, including stored procedures, partitioned databases, triggers, and views A detailed discussion on how to build very large, highly scalable systems with MySQL New options for backups and replication Optimization of advanced querying features, such as full-text searches Four new appendices The book also includes chapters on benchmarking, profiling, backups, security, and tools and techniques to help you measure, monitor, and manage your MySQL installations..
Price: $30.19 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Blender is a free and open source 3D creation suite that is a real alternative to commercially available 3D design software A cross-platform software package with millions of downloads annually, Blender is now one of the world's most popular 3D design tools.

Although Blender is free, it's intended for design professionals and others motivated to become 3D artists. The Essential Blender will provide you with the knowledge you need to help integrate Blender into your work and begin to master its powerful creation tools.

If you've never tried 3D design before, an introductory chapter will familiarize you with relevant terminology and concepts. If you're already experienced with commercial 3D software, The Essential Blender will get you up to speed with Blender quickly.

After a tour of Blender's 3D modeling, animation, and rendering capabilities, you'll learn how best to use Blender for these tasks:

Object manipulation and animation

Mesh and sculpt modeling and shape animation

Materials and texturing (including UV unwrapping)

Lighting and rendering

Particle animation

Character rigging and animation

Node-based composition

The book is modular in its approach, with each topic addressed independently and accompanied by hands-on tutorial sections.

The combined expertise of key members of the Blender community, coupled with the experience of editor Roland Hess, bring you The Essential Blender--the definitive guide to Blender. You'll find a wealth of 3D design information inside that will help you to unlock your artistic potential and get the most out of Blender.

Includes a complete version of Blender 2.44 on the CD-ROM. Covers Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (x86 and PowerPC), Solaris, FreeBSD, and IRIX.

Produced by The Blender Foundation. Printed and distributed By No Starch Press..
Price: $26.49 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Single most authoritative guide from the inventor of the technique
* Presents unique modeling techniques for e-commerce, and shows strategies for optimizing performance.
* Companion Web site provides updates on dimensional modeling techniques, links related to sites, and source code where appropriate..
Price: $34.79 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Let this in-depth professional book be your guide to Blender, the powerful open-source 3D modeling and animation software that will bring your ideas to life. Using clear step-by-step instruction and pages of real-world examples, expert animator Tony Mullen walks you through the complexities of modeling and animating, with a special focus on characters. From Blender basics to creating facial expressions and emotion to rendering, you’ll jump right into the process and learn valuable techniques that will transform your movies.

Note: CD-ROM/DVD and other supplementary materials are not included as part of eBook file..
Price: $19.17 [Notify me when price goes down.]

Too often, finance courses stop short of making a connection between textbook finance and the problems of real-world business. Financial Modeling bridges this gap between theory and practice by providing a nuts-and-bolts guide to solving common financial models with spreadsheets. Simon Benninga takes the reader step by step through each model, showing how it can be solved using Microsoft Excel.

The long-awaited third edition of this standard text maintains the "cookbook" features and Excel dependence that have made the first and second editions so popular. It also offers significant new material, with new chapters covering such topics as bank valuation, the Black-Litterman approach to portfolio optimization, Monte Carlo methods and their applications to option pricing, and using array functions and formulas. Other chapters, including those on basic financial calculations, portfolio models, calculating the variance-covariance matrix, and generating random numbers, have been revised, with many offering substantially new and improved material. Other areas covered include financial statement modeling, leasing, standard portfolio problems, value at risk (VaR), real options, duration and immunization, and term structure modeling. Technical chapters treat such topics as data tables, matrices, the Gauss-Seidel method, and tips for using Excel. The last section of the text covers the Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) techniques needed for the book. The accompanying CD contains Excel worksheets and solutions to end-of-chapter exercises.

Praise for the previous editions:

"Benninga has a clear writing style and uses numerous illustrations, which make this book one of the best texts on using Excel for finance that I've seen."
—Ed McCarthy, Ticker Magazine

"The author describes this as a 'cookbook' and that is a good analogy.... Its breadth is extensive, covering simple present valuing and cost of capital ... to the likes of real options and early exercise of American-style options.... A worthwhile acquisition."
—Paul Dentskevitch, Risk Magazine

"Financial Modeling is highly-recommended to readers who are interested in an introduction to basic, traditional approaches to financial modeling and analysis, as well as to those who want to learn more about applying spreadsheet software to financial analysis."
—Edward Weiss, Journal of Computational Intelligence in Finance

"Financial Modeling belongs on the desk of every finance professional. Its no-nonsense, hands-on approach makes it an indispensable tool."
—Hal R. Varian, Dean, School of Information Management and Systems, University of California, Berkeley

"This is applied finance theory for the professional at its best. As a student, I and countless others learnt the intricacies of Lotus and financial theory from Professor Benninga's first book—Numerical Techniques in Finance. Now, as a professional, I do not have to 're-invent the wheel' in Excel. An invaluable guide. A must for all financial analysts."
—Vikas Nath, Global Strategist, Emerging Equity Markets, Union Bank of Switzerland, London.
Price: $57.99 [Notify me when price goes down.]

With revised material and new exercises based on ArcGIS version 9, this updated work acquaints geographers and GIS professionals with the principles of GIS as it teaches the mechanics of using ArcGIS software. Conceptual material is followed by scripted software exercises. Necessary GIS skills are presented in a variety of areas-map symbology, data overlay, map projection, and data conversion-as the making of maps and the analysis of geographic data is conceptualized. Spatial modeling exercises using the ModelBuilder technology of ArcGIS version 9 are also provided. Other topics covered include organizing data, planning a GIS project, creating derived data, and presenting results..
Price: $40.39 [Notify me when price goes down.]

All about the zillions of wonderful beads, beasties and thingamabobs you can make, and then bake to permanence, with polymer clay. A rainbow of one-ounce clay bricks is included..
Price: $12.85 [Notify me when price goes down.]