Fully updated to reflect modern developments in the field, the Fifth Edition of An Introduction to Optimization fills the need for an accessible, yet rigorous, introduction to optimization theory and methods, featuring innovative coverage and a straightforward approach. The book begins with a review of basic definitions and notations while also providing the related fundamental background of linear algebra, geometry, and calculus. With this foundation, the authors explore the essential topics of unconstrained optimization problems, linear programming problems, and nonlinear constrained optimization. In addition, the book includes an introduction to artificial neural networks, convex optimization, multi-objective optimization, and applications of optimization in… [Continue Reading]

When it comes to protecting sensitive information like financial data, personal information, and intellectual property, encryption has become a must. By scrambling data through the use of algorithms, only those with access to decryption keys are able to read what's being secured. Encrypted traffic has fulfilled its intended mission: to lock down data. But, could it simultaneously be helping bad actors slip by undetected? And could encrypted traffic actually make it harder for network defenders to spot threats before it's too late? To find out, we sat down with Phil Owens, VP of customer solutions at Stamus Networks. Phil believes… [Continue Reading]

Your website’s command center, the WordPress dashboard, arrives with several widgets that enhance functionality. However, not all of these may be beneficial for every user. As plugins introduce more widgets over time, your dashboard may start to feel crowded and …

Two Irish County Councils and several other Irish, Northern Ireland, and UK government agencies are publishing press releases using the new Nooked hosted online RSS publishing service.

Landing pages are one of the best tools in a web marketer’s arsenal. They provide the pivotal first impression that can make or break a future customer relationship. Designing a landing page doesn’t seem like it would be too tricky to figure out but, in reality, there are many important skills involved that can take […]

The post How to Become a Landing Page Design Expert in 12 Months appeared first on The Design Inspiration.

Google's John Mueller posted some SEO advice on how to handle version history pages, for product releases, specifications, APIs and other version history. This advice is pretty similar to how to handle recurring event pages, like conferences and events. In short, the main page should keep the same URL and then archive the older version history details on an archive page URL.

John wrote on LinkedIn, "If you work on a website with versions (APIs? Specs?) or yearly editions, here's the top SEO improvement you can do: Use a stable URL for the current version."

I mean, if you like at Google Ads API, they use developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/release-notes and show the current version details there and then archive the older API versions on different URLs, like version 17 for example.

John wrote:

Add versioned directories if you like. This makes the current version much more visible in search, reducing guesswork by readers, and making it easier to link to. EASIER TO LINK TO.

Even better? keep the versioned URL for the current version, and use link-rel-canonical to refer to the stable URL. This lets people go directly to the versioned URL if they know it, while focusing search on the stable URL.

John added to explain, for API docs, technical specs, yearly events, etc, go with this format:

• .../spec/live/page < do this for SEO
• .../spec/2.1/page - rel=canonical to /spec/live/page
• .../spec/2.0/page - keep these

Forum discussion at LinkedIn.

A couple of months ago, we reported how Google Search will label if an image was AI-generated, edited by photo editing software or taken with a camera by working with Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) as a technical standard. Well, now Google officially supports C2PA metadata in the about this image feature.

Google wrote this morning, Google Search now supports this [C2PA] metadata in the "About this image" feature."

Google updated its image meta data documentation to add a new section for "How C2PA metadata can appear in Google Search results."

The new section reads:

If an image contains C2PA metadata, Google can extract those details and may show information in the "About this image" feature, such as how the image was created or if it was edited with AI tools. This metadata comes from a signer, which is usually an app, device, or service (for example, photo editing software, the camera itself, or other services that modify or create images) that meets the following conditions:

• The app, device, or service has adopted C2PA version 2.1 or later.
• The image's manifest must be signed by a certificate from a Certification Authority on the C2PA Trust List.

It does seem like Adobe products, like Photoshop, Illustrated, and others, do support this metadata.

I just wonder how it handles the image above, which I generate using Midjourney AI and then edit later in Photoshop.

Forum discussion at X.

A team of engineers from UNSW Sydney have successfully converted a standard diesel engine to run as a hybrid diesel hydrogen engine. The resulting hybrid reduces CO2 emissions by 85%, and increases output efficiency by around 26%.  The team, led by Professor Shawn Kook, spent some 18 months developing the direct injection dual fuel system. The retrofitted engine runs using 90% hydrogen. Professors Kook believe that the new tech could significantly reduce the emissions from the trucking industry and the...

The post Hydrogen Retrofit Reduces Diesel Engine Emissions By 85% appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

Seventeen long years ago I wrote a piece here called The Gadget Manifesto. It was a rant borne out of frustration with the relentless increase in junk technology. The problem was basically too much Far Eastern manufacturing capacity chasing too few consumers. Result…price plummeting, quality plummeting, consumers suffering. I’m revisiting this subject only because it looks like we’re clearly not going to reverse course any time soon. Nearly 2 decades on, we’re still buying this junk, and throwing it away...

The post The Gadget Manifesto Revisited – plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose? appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

Gary Arndt is a pretty unique individual.  He’s a polymath who triple majored in college and then went back to study additional subjects. He started an early internet company and then sold it for 7 figures before he turned 30. …

The post How Gary Arndt’s History Podcast Gets 1.5 Million Downloads Per Month appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

Vinny DelGiudice first dove into blogging to pass the time when he moved to Nevada by himself just out of grad school. Although that blog never really took off, he did learn a lot from the process. A few years…

The post How Vinny DelGiudice Grew His Italian-American Food Blog to +100k Page Views a Month appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

Mads Singers has a passion for management and for helping companies increase their revenue exponentially by tweaking and improving their business practices.  This Danish entrepreneur travels the world, speaking publicly and consulting privately with businesses and individuals to help them…

The post How Mads Singers Helps Companies 5x Their Business While Working Less appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

Taegan Goddard’s been in the blogging game for a long time, launching his first website before WordPress even existed.  He went on to create his current website, Political Wire , which has been not only running but growing consistently for…

The post How Taegan Goddard’s Political Blog Gets Up To 10 Million Visitors/Month appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

This week Jared Bauman sits down with Jake Cain, a long-time blogger with a portfolio of sites, a former Niche Pursuits employee, and an attendee at Google’s recent Creator Summit. In this interview, Jake shares his experience at the event,…

The post Jake Cain Was Inside Google’s “Secret” Meeting with 20 HCU Crushed Bloggers. Here’s What Happened appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

Welcome back to another episode of the Niche Pursuits News Podcast! This week Spencer and Jared break down the latest news affecting SEOs and small publishers, they share their side hustle progress, and they talk about some weird niche sites…

The post This 8 Letter Tweet Just Changed Search Forever appeared first on Niche Pursuits.

Learn more about GA4 engagement rate, industry benchmarks to compare your performance against, and our tips to optimize this metric.

The post Study: Average GA4 Engagement Rates by Industry appeared first on Portent.

March Madness is a big deal, and not just for student-athletes. 

It feels like just yesterday Google announced its plan to phase out the third-party cookie and sent the entire advertising industry into a tailspin.

Gen Z is well known for being social media savvy. But not all platforms are created equal, and with new trends emerging it can be hard to keep track of where Gen Z is spending its time. In this blog, we’ll walk through the apps where you’re most likely to find this cohort scrolling, liking, and viewing, covering the following topics: 

• What social media app has the highest reach among Gen Z? 
• What social media app has grown the fastest among Gen Z?
• How does Gen Z’s social media usage compare to the general population? 
• How does Gen Z’s social media usage compare to other age groups? 

Nos últimos tempos, a América Latina experimentou um rápido crescimento no uso de CTV, graças à ampla variedade de conteúdo e à expansão das plataformas de streaming de vídeo. Embora na América Latina o consumo tenha crescido consideravelmente, atingindo mais de 150 milhões de espectadores, o equivalente a 41% da população digital latino-americana, quando olhamos para os cortes de consumo por país, identificamos grandes lacunas na região, que representam oportunidades de crescimento em cada país.

From June 2022 to June 2023, there was a 22% increase in the number of females aged 18-24 who visited a sports website or app, more than any other age and gender breakout¹. This is happening as women's sports are becoming more mainstream, with new leagues, more investment, and increased screen time. It's also a major trend to watch during the 2023 Women's FIFA World Cup.

Fr. Stephen looks at the Christian understanding of power and the marvelous works of God. God's power is utterly unlike that of the world.

Fr. Stephen speaks about the "liturgy of the heart" as the longest liturgy of all and the true nature of worship.

Fr. Stephen reflects on the "theology of the image," particularly its importance in St. Paul.

The Orthodox faith is grounded in the experience of knowing God. Fr. Stephen looks at the boundaries of such knowledge and simple path to such knowledge given to us in the Tradition of the Church.

What is it that we hope for? Fr. Stephen suggests that there is a true life that can only be had in Christ - which is far more than mere existence.

Fr. Stephen speaks about the difference between feast days as mere events of the calendar and the reality of the Kingdom of God that awaits us in the Feasts.

Fr. Stephen suggests that the heart of our faith and our relationship with God can be found more quickly in such things as music and beauty. We often seek to substitute language about religious doctrine in the place of these more primary expressions of our Christian life.

In his recent series on the true and false self, Fr. Stephen looks at evangelism of the heart.

Are "mental" and "spiritual" the same thing? Fr. Stephen looks at how modern misunderstandings of the spiritual life can distort our Orthodox practices.

Fr. Stephen reflects on the complexity of the human heart through the work of Dostoevsky.

Fr. Stephen offers thoughts on the daily consequences of the "Word made flesh" and suggests ways that we might live Christmas every day of our lives.

Why do the Scriptures speak so frequently about the soul? Is it the same as my personality? Fr. Stephen Freeman speaks about the meaning of soul and its importance in a psychologized society.

Fr. Stephen offers a meditation on the theme of desire and ecstasy in the writings of the Fathers, and its importance for the gospel.

Fr. Stephen Freeman muses on the nature of English in our worship life, especially some of its problems. He points towards something beyond the words.

Fr. Stephen Freeman speaks about the the goodness of creation and the place that suffering holds within it - including a form of suffering that is not evil.

Much of the "baggage" we carry in our lives is something into which we were born. Understanding this and God's place in healing it is the subject of this talk by Fr. Stephen Freeman.

The clothing we wear, often with slogans and such, and other outward markings in our lives reflect a deeper spiritual need. The Scriptures speak of being "clothed with Christ." Fr. Stephen Freeman looks at this in terms of covering our shame, and our growth in the image of Christ.

On Star Trek, the guys wearing the Red Shirts are expendable. Fr. Stephen Freeman tells us there's a lot to think about in that.

Fr. Stephen looks at the difficulties of forgiveness and what it is, exactly, that is being asked of us in Christ's commandments.

In this podcast, Fr. Stephen speaks about salvation and the Church in the Orthodox understanding. He states that: "the Church is what salvation looks like," and explains how the Tradition of the Church sees our salvation in Christ as something we work out in the context of the believing community rather than as mere individuals.

In this podcast Fr. Stephen speaks about the experience of standing at the "edge" of Tradition as people look at the Tradition of the Church and discuss it, seek to appropriate parts of it, but remain outside of that Tradition. He emphasizes that the Tradition of the faith is nothing other than our union with the True and Living God and His union with us.

Fr. Stephen Freeman offers some honest thoughts on the sacrament of marriage and its importance in our culture.

The update is rolling out to several airlines soon, including United. Here's how it works.

Try or gift Xbox Game Pass for three months for nearly one-third off and play over 100 games including Starfield, Forza Motorsport, and Football Manager 2024 on your Xbox, PC, or mobile device.