Best Selling Books by Melanie Mitchell

“After reading Mitchell’s guide, you’ll know what you don’t know and what other people don’t know, even though they claim to know it. And that’s invaluable.” —The New York Times A leading computer scientist brings human sense to the AI bubble. No recent scientific enterprise has proved as alluring, terrifying, and filled with extravagant promise and frustrating setbacks as artificial intelligence. The award-winning author Melanie Mitchell, a leading computer scientist, now reveals AI’s turbulent history and the recent spate of apparent successes, grand hopes, and emerging fears surrounding it. In Artificial Intelligence, Mitchell turns to the most urgent questions concerning AI today: How intelligent—really—are the best AI programs? How do they work? What can they actually do, and when do they fail? How humanlike do we expect them to become, and how soon do we need to worry about them surpassing us? Along the way, she introduces the dominant models of modern AI and machine learning, describing cutting-edge AI programs, their human inventors, and the historical lines of thought underpinning recent achievements. She meets with fellow experts such as Douglas Hofstadter, the cognitive scientist and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of the modern classic Gödel, Escher, Bach, who explains why he is “terrified” about the future of AI. She explores the profound disconnect between the hype and the actual achievements in AI, providing a clear sense of what the field has accomplished and how much further it has to go. Interweaving stories about the science of AI and the people behind it, Artificial Intelligence brims with clear-sighted, captivating, and accessible accounts of the most interesting and provocative modern work in the field, flavored with Mitchell’s humor and personal observations. This frank, lively book is an indispensable guide to understanding today’s AI, its quest for “human-level” intelligence, and its impact on the future for us all.

What enables individually simple insects like ants to act with such precision and purpose as a group? How do trillions of neurons produce something as extraordinarily complex as consciousness? In this remarkably clear and companionable book, leading complex systems scientist Melanie Mitchell provides an intimate tour of the sciences of complexity, a broad set of efforts that seek to explain how large-scale complex, organized, and adaptive behavior can emerge from simple interactions among myriad individuals. Based on her work at the Santa Fe Institute and drawing on its interdisciplinary strategies, Mitchell brings clarity to the workings of complexity across a broad range of biological, technological, and social phenomena, seeking out the general principles or laws that apply to all of them. Richly illustrated, Complexity: A Guided Tour--winner of the 2010 Phi Beta Kappa Book Award in Science--offers a wide-ranging overview of the ideas underlying complex systems science, the current research at the forefront of this field, and the prospects for its contribution to solving some of the most important scientific questions of our time.

Genetic algorithms have been used in science and engineering as adaptive algorithms for solving practical problems and as computational models of natural evolutionary systems. This brief, accessible introduction describes some of the most interesting research in the field and also enables readers to implement and experiment with genetic algorithms on their own. It focuses in depth on a small set of important and interesting topics—particularly in machine learning, scientific modeling, and artificial life—and reviews a broad span of research, including the work of Mitchell and her colleagues. The descriptions of applications and modeling projects stretch beyond the strict boundaries of computer science to include dynamical systems theory, game theory, molecular biology, ecology, evolutionary biology, and population genetics, underscoring the exciting "general purpose" nature of genetic algorithms as search methods that can be employed across disciplines. An Introduction to Genetic Algorithms is accessible to students and researchers in any scientific discipline. It includes many thought and computer exercises that build on and reinforce the reader''s understanding of the text. The first chapter introduces genetic algorithms and their terminology and describes two provocative applications in detail. The second and third chapters look at the use of genetic algorithms in machine learning (computer programs, data analysis and prediction, neural networks) and in scientific models (interactions among learning, evolution, and culture; sexual selection; ecosystems; evolutionary activity). Several approaches to the theory of genetic algorithms are discussed in depth in the fourth chapter. The fifth chapter takes up implementation, and the last chapter poses some currently unanswered questions and surveys prospects for the future of evolutionary computation.

A WORLD AWAY She never imagined she''d have the courage to leave everything behind and travel to Africa. Then, touched by tragedy, Leslie Carpenter finds herself devastated and alone. The health clinic in rural Kenya needs her expertise and gives her a reason to live again. Because she knows she''ll never love again. Leslie didn''t count on being dependent on a man like Ben Murphy, the rugged bush pilot who shuttles her between villages. Ben scares her. She can see that he''s in a dangerous line of work, with no respect for the law. Despite that, she also knows he''s a good man. She really wants to trust him, to believe in a future together. Except learning his secrets may put her life at risk….

Use Cutting-Edge Search Engine Optimization Techniques to Drive Breakthrough Results! In three new short e-books, Melanie Mitchell takes you to the cutting edge of search engine optimization (SEO), demonstrating how to use powerful new techniques to achieve unprecedented results! In SEO & PPC: Better Together, Mitchell transcends the debate between SEO and pay-per-click, showing how to use them both together to achieve better results than either can deliver alone. You’ll learn how to integrate SEO and PPC in campaigns that engage more consumers than ever before and use data from both to improve the performance of each. Next, How to Make SEO Work for You completely demystifies SEO, showing you how to grab value from “low hanging fruit” and start optimizing everything from pages, text, and keywords to images–even your page’s underlying HTML code. Mitchell shows how to craft a strategy that reflects your specific goals for attracting qualified traffic; measure everything from the quality of visitor engagement to sales conversions; structure sites that are friendlier to both searchers and search engines; earn the honest links that search algorithms love; and much more. Finally, in Unleash the Power of Paid Search, Mitchell brings together the processes, knowledge, and tools you need to build and manage exceptionally successful paid search campaigns. Mitchell guides you through the entire process of building and executing a winning campaign: defining goals and objectives, selecting keywords and match types, structuring accounts, scoring quality, managing ad copy, optimizing landing pages, monitoring, reporting, and more. These eBooks draw on Mitchell’s immense “in-the -trenches” experience to illuminate concepts, terminology, and best practices you need now, whether you’re “doing it yourself” or working with specialists.

Take charge of SEO in your organization: do what it takes to get outstanding search results that translate into improved business performance! World-renowned search strategist Melanie Mitchell covers everything you need to know to build a rock-solid foundation for search success in your organization. Named several times as a "top in-house SEO" by Natural Search Blog, Mitchell draws on her immense experience to help you tame the organizational and political challenges you''ll face in building a world-class SEO program. Mitchell shows how to align your organization departmentally, politically and culturally around winning in search... demonstrate what''s at stake, convincingly explain the opportunity SEO offers, and get real executive buy-in... clarify where you stand and what you can realistically achieve. Next, she presents a six-step, start-to-finish plan for success, encompassing creating your core SEO team, establishing accountability, developing and providing training, setting internal SEO standards, providing the right tools, and measuring, tracking, and optimizing your effectiveness. From integrating business and technical tasks to crafting effective in-house SEO instruction to building real-time dashboards, Mitchell explains what to do, what not to do -- and where you can start today!

Dental Instruments: A Pocket Guide to Identification is designed to be a dental assistant''s go-to resource, from clinical courses on their into their career. This quick reference and review covers dental instruments, their uses, their placement on a tray, and their different varieties with full color photos, illustrations, and dynamic learning features. Unique to this title is the companion student resources CD-ROM in the back of the book, which provides the student with an interactive learning experience. The CD-ROM includes an image bank, interactive tray set-ups, crossword puzzles, student quizzes, and more games and activities for self-study. Dental assisting faculty has the challenge of simulating a clinical environment and making a student comfortable and confident before they are with a patient in a real clinical setting. This text with the companion CD-ROM does just that.

This colourful book retells the Bible in 20 favourite episodes so that young children may begin to explore the Bible for themselves. The simple, short stories highlight key aspects of the Christian faith - love, obedience and trust - whilst Melanie Mitchell''s bright and smiley characters exude cheerfulness and faith. Ideal for very little children to browse on their own or have read aloud to them.

This book introduces the color green.

How do trees make sweet maple syrup? Follow each step in the food production cycle—from planting sugar maple trees to pouring syrup on pancakes—in this fascinating book!

A nurse far from home encounters a danger she can’t understand and a military man willing to risk his life—and heart—for her . . . Claire Olsen has been in Seoul, South Korea, for only one month. She doesn’t know anyone—aside from her roommate and her colleagues at the medical center—and she certainly doesn’t know why someone would attack her. Desperate to forget about the violent mugging, Claire tries to focus on her nursing, but one man won’t let her hide from the truth. Naval intelligence officer Luke Llewellyn is determined to keep Claire safe, whether she wants him to or not. But finding out why she’s been targeted means helping Claire unearth the secrets of her past. And following his heart means trusting Claire with his own secrets . . .

In SEO & PPC: Better Together, Melanie Mitchell shows how to use search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) together to achieve better results than either can deliver alone. You’ll learn how to integrate SEO and PPC in campaigns that engage more consumers and use data from both to improve the performance of each. Mitchell begins by comparing the paid and organic search marketing “pathways,” reviewing applications, overlaps, differences, strengths, weaknesses, and tradeoffs. Next, Mitchell shows how paid search data can be a gold mine when figuring out where to focus your SEO efforts, and understanding what content to optimize or build based on your actual ROI rather than relying on indirect traffic estimates from keyword research tools. She presents the latest research on synergies between SEO and PPC, shows how to handle new analytical complexities introduced by changes in Google’s search privacy policies, and offers practical, step-by-step guidance for building a KPI-linked dashboard that organizes your data and makes it more usable. From start to finish, Mitchell’s techniques and guidance are designed to help marketers become smarter about focusing their time and budgets, evaluating current returns, and optimizing the value of every campaign they create.

Paid search has grown and changed dramatically since it first exploded onto the marketing scene in 1997. Paid search is more complex now – but it offers businesses far more profit opportunities than ever before. In this concise eBook, renowned paid search expert Melanie Mitchell brings together all the processes, knowledge, and tools you need to build and manage paid search campaigns that deliver exceptional results. Mitchell first explains how well-crafted paid search campaigns can help you lead the conversation in your marketplace, extend and deepen your coverage, and more precisely target and measure your marketing program. Next, she guides you through the entire process of building and executing a winning campaign: defining goals and objectives, selecting keywords and match types, structuring accounts, scoring quality, managing ad copy, optimizing landing pages, monitoring, reporting, and more. Drawing on immense “in the trenches” experience, she presents specific best practices for everything from ensuring copy relevance to de-duping keywords, updating landing pages to pacing your expenditures. Along the way, she also reveals pitfalls that can increase your costs or even take your campaign offline, and shows exactly how to avoid them. Whether you’re already a search professional or you’re building your very first paid search campaign, this eBook will help you drive more clickthroughs, convert more prospects into sales, and earn more profits!

This simple title provides a fun look at all types of noses, ending with a human.

The psychologist William James observed that "a native talent for perceiving analogies is... the leading fact in genius of every order." The centrality and the ubiquity of analogy in creative thought have been noted again and again by scientists, artists, and writers, and understanding and modeling analogical thought have emerged as two of the most important challenges for cognitive science.Analogy-Making as Perception is based on the premise that analogy-making is fundamentally a high-level perceptual process in which the interaction of perception and concepts gives rise to "conceptual slippages" which allow analogies to be made. It describes Copycat - a computer model of analogymaking, developed by the author with Douglas Hofstadter, that models the complex, subconscious interaction between perception and concepts that underlies the creation of analogies.In Copycat, both concepts and high-level perception are emergent phenomena, arising from large numbers of low-level, parallel, non-deterministic activities. In the spectrum of cognitive modeling approaches, Copycat occupies a unique intermediate position between symbolic systems and connectionist systems a position that is at present the most useful one for understanding the fluidity of concepts and high-level perception.On one level the work described here is about analogy-making, but on another level it is about cognition in general. It explores such issues as the nature of concepts and perception and the emergence of highly flexible concepts from a lower-level "subcognitive" substrate.Melanie Mitchell, Assistant Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Michigan, is a Fellow of the Michigan Society of Fellows. She is also Director of the Adaptive Computation Program at the Santa Fe Institute.

This book is a collection of essays exploring adaptive systems from many perspectives, ranging from computational applications to models of adaptation in living and social systems. The essays on computation discuss history, theory, applications, and possible threats of adaptive and evolving computations systems. The modeling chapters cover topics such as evolution in microbial populations, the evolution of cooperation, and how ideas about evolution relate to economics. The title Perspectives on Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems honors John Holland, whose 1975 Book, Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems has become a classic text for many disciplines in which adaptation play a central role. The essays brought together here were originally written to honor John Holland, and span most of the different areas touched by his wide-ranging and influential research career. The authors include some of the most prominent scientists in the fields of artificial intelligence evolutionary computation, and complex adaptive systems. Taken together, these essays present a broad modern picture of current research on adaptation as it relates to computers, living systems, society, and their complex interactions.

From the trunk of a maple tree to the syrup on a stack of pancakes, discover how this sweet treat is made through leveled text and detailed photos.

Introduces the color blue with familiar objects that are blue.

Provides a simple introduction to mouths.

The web’s more crowded than ever – and that means Search Engine Optimization is more critical than ever. All too often, SEO is viewed as a mysterious “black art” – but it doesn’t need to be. In Understanding SEO: Building a Foundation for Long Term Success, leading practitioner Melanie Mitchell completely demystifies SEO, showing you how to grab value from “low hanging fruit,” and start optimizing everything from pages, text, and keywords to images – even your page’s underlying HTML code. Mitchell shows how to craft a strategy that reflects your specific goals for attracting qualified traffic. You’ll learn how to go beyond mere rankings to measure everything from the quality of visitor engagement to sales conversions; how to structure sites that are friendlier to both searchers and search engines; how to earn the honest external links that search engine algorithms love; and a whole lot more. Along the way, Mitchell explains all the concepts and terms you need to understand, so you can do it yourself, or work successfully with SEO specialists. If you’re responsible for attracting more and better web traffic, this is the simple, usable, up-to-date SEO introduction you’ve been looking for!

Introduces the color orange with familiar objects that are orange.

Understand the Business Value You’re Getting from Social Media, so You Can Optimize It: Now, Tomorrow, and for Years to Come Four great books show you how to capture the data you need to drive better results from social and online marketing—and use that data to improve ROI, quickly and continuously. In SEO & PPC: Better Together, Melanie Mitchell shows how to use SEO and pay-per-click together to achieve better results than either can deliver alone. You’ll learn how to integrate SEO and PPC in campaigns that engage more consumers and use data from both to improve the performance of each. Next, in How to Use Social Media Monitoring Tools, leading social media marketer Jamie Turner offers a fast-paced primer on social media monitoring and realistic, low-cost methods for getting started. Turner introduces many of today’s most valuable monitoring tools and presents a practical eight-step social media monitoring plan that can be implemented rapidly by virtually any company. In How to Make Money with Social Media Optimization, Robert Scott Corbett helps you master “SMO”: the strategic use of social media engagement to supercharge brands, extend reach, influence conversations, build share, and drive profits. Finally, in Marketing in the Moment: The Practical Guide to Using Web 3.0 Marketing to Reach Your Customers First, top Web marketing consultant Michael Tasner helps marketers, entrepreneurs, and managers move beyond hype and high-level strategy to proven tactics and successful ground-level execution. You’ll discover which new marketing technologies deliver the best results and which hardly ever pay for themselves...how to use virtual collaboration to accomplish marketing projects faster and at lower cost...how to build realistic action plans for the next three months, six months, and twelve months. Whatever you sell, these books will help you build leads, traffic, sales, market share, and profits! From world-renowned online marketing pioneers and innovators Melanie Mitchell, Jamie Turner, Robert Scott Corbett, and Michael Tasner

A brand new collection of state-of-the-art social media guides for business… 7 authoritative, up-to-the-minute practitioner’s guides 7 up-to-the-minute resources bring together today’s most valuable new social media techniques for business! Don’t know where to start with social media and online marketing in your business? Start here, with this easy-to-understand, easy-to-use, low-cost book collection! Jon Reed’s Get Up to Speed with Online Marketing helps you get started fast, find markets online, and effectively promote your business on a very limited budget. It covers websites, search engine marketing, email marketing, blogging, podcasts, online video, social networks, virtual worlds, social bookmarking, and more! Lauren Dugan’s Ultimate LinkedIn Checklist For Small and Medium Businesses shows how to use LinkedIn to leverage your entire network of partners, suppliers, employees, vendors, and competitors. Step-by-step instructions and easy checklists help you deepen the network links you already have – and tap into your network’s networks, uncovering talent, partnerships, vendors and customers you’ll never find any other way! Next, Jamie Turner’s How to Build a Mobile Website shows how to create mobile websites that are clean, simple, load quickly, and are optimized for mobile users. Discover how your customers want to interact with your brand on mobile devices, compare leading approaches to “mobilizing” websites, and avoid pitfalls that lose customers. Turner even offers a high-level overview of the mechanics of mobile site development, construction, and testing, addressing issues ranging from branding to performance and usability. Twitter 101 tells you all you need to know about Twitter marketing, even if you’ve never used Twitter before. Drawing on personal experience and up-to-the-minute industry research, Lauren Dugan covers strategy, tactics, tools, and more. Learn to time tweets for maximum impact, follow the right accounts, attract the right followers, do competitive research, network faster, turbocharge brands, engage users, and build word-of-mouth that generates real sales! Jamie Turner’s How to Use Social Media Monitoring Tools offers a fast-paced primer on social media monitoring and realistic, low-cost methods for getting started. Discover whether your social media presence is achieving results… align measurement with business objectives… measure branding and direct response… quickly capture emerging performance trends; and more. Turner briefly introduces tools from Google and many others, and offers a practical 8-step monitoring plan that even beginners can use. Next Melanie Mitchell brings together complete processes, knowledge, and tools that Unleash the Power of Paid Search . Discover how well-crafted paid search campaigns can help you lead the conversation in your marketplace, extend and deepen your coverage, and more precisely target and measure your marketing program. Next, walk through building and executing a winning campaign: defining goals/objectives, selecting keywords and match types, structuring accounts, scoring quality, managing copy, optimizing landing pages, reporting, and more. Finally, in Understanding SEO, Mitchell draws on immense in-the-trenches experience to completely demystify modern search engine optimization. Learn to grab value from “low hanging fruit,” and start optimizing everything from pages, text, and keywords to images and HTML code. Mitchell explains all the concepts and terms you need to understand, so you can do it yourself, or work successfully with SEO specialists. If you want to get started with social media in your business, this collection is the most valuable, cost-effective resource you can find! From world-renowned business social media experts Jon Reed, Lauren Dugan, Jamie Turner, and Melanie Mitchell

What uses do leaves have? Vibrant color photographs and simple sentences introduce students to this important plant part. This book meets both science and reading standards.

What uses do flowers have? Vibrant color photographs and simple sentences introduce students to this important plant part. This book meets both science and reading standards.

Introduces the color purple with familiar objects that are purple.

Plants grow from seeds. People eat seeds. What other uses do seeds have? Vibrant color photographs and simple sentences introduce students to this important plant part. This book meets both science and reading standards.

Introduces the color brown with familiar objects that are brown.

A basic overview of the life cycle of a frog.

A simple introduction to the sun.

An introduction to wood and its uses in everyday life.

Introduces the color black with familiar objects that are black.

A simple introduction to earth''s single moon.

Introduces the color yellow with familiar objects that are yellow.

Introduces the color red with familiar objects that are red.