Unlock the power of Python in ArcGIS® Pro with this definitive, easy-to-follow guide designed for users with limited programming or scripting experience.

Get started learning to write Python scripts to automate tasks in ArcGIS Pro with Python Scripting for ArcGIS Pro. This book begins with the fundamentals of Python programming and then dives into how to write useful Python scripts that work with spatial data in ArcGIS Pro. You’ll learn how to use geoprocessing tools; describe, create, and update data; and execute specialized tasks. With step-by-step instructions, practical examples, and insightful guidance, you’ll be able to write scripts that will automate and improve your ArcGIS Pro workflows.

This third edition has been revised for ArcGIS Pro 3.2 and Python 3.9.18 and includes updated images; a fully updated chapter 2; and expanded chapters 4, 8, 9, and 10.

The key topics you will learn include:

• Python fundamentals
• Setting up a Python editor
• Automating geoprocessing tasks using ArcPy™
• Exploring and manipulating spatial and tabular data
• Working with geometries using cursors
• Working with rasters and map algebra
• Map scripting
• Debugging and error handling

Helpful points to remember, key terms, and review questions are included at the end of each chapter to reinforce your understanding of Python. Corresponding data and tutorials are available online.

Whether you’re new to Python or already have some experience, Python Scripting for ArcGIS Pro is the go-to resource for learning the versatility of Python coding to solve problems and enhance productivity and efficiency in ArcGIS Pro.

Tackle complex spatial data tasks effortlessly with this easy-to-follow guide to writing specialized Python scripts and developing tools for spatial data in ArcGIS® Pro.

Advanced Python Scripting for ArcGIS Pro follows up on the topics explained in Python Scripting for ArcGIS Pro (Esri Press, 2024) and is now updated for ArcGIS Pro 3.2.

Intended for users who have a good foundation in Python, this book explores how to develop scripts into tools and notebooks to share with others, use third-party packages, and learn other more specialized tasks. By the end of this book, you’ll be confident in writing more advanced scripts, developing them into tools and notebooks, and sharing them with others.

The key topics you will learn include:

• Creating custom functions and classes
• Writing specialized scripts using ArcPy™
• Creating Python script tools and Python toolboxes
• Sharing scripts and tools
• Managing Python packages and environments
• Migrating scripts from Python 2 to 3
• NumPy, Pandas, and Matplotlib
• Creating and using notebooks
• ArcGIS API for Python and Jupyter Notebook

Helpful points to remember, key terms, and review questions are included at the end of each chapter to reinforce your understanding of Python. Companion data and tutorials are available online.

Packed with advanced techniques and practical examples, Advanced Python Scripting for ArcGIS Pro is perfect for more experienced ArcGIS Pro users who are looking to upgrade their Python skills and enhance their workflows.

A revealing look at how negative biases against women of color are embedded in search engine results and algorithms

Run a Google search for “Black girls”—what will you find? “Big Booty” and other sexually explicit terms are likely to come up as top search terms. But, if you type in “white girls,” the results are radically different. The suggested porn sites and un-moderated discussions about “why Black women are so sassy” or “why Black women are so angry” presents a disturbing portrait of Black womanhood in modern society.

In Algorithms of Oppression, Safiya Umoja Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color.

Through an analysis of textual and media searches as well as extensive research on paid online advertising, Noble exposes a culture of racism and sexism in the way discoverability is created online. As search engines and their related companies grow in importance—operating as a source for email, a major vehicle for primary and secondary school learning, and beyond—understanding and reversing these disquieting trends and discriminatory practices is of utmost importance.

An original, surprising and, at times, disturbing account of bias on the internet, Algorithms of Oppression contributes to our understanding of how racism is created, maintained, and disseminated in the 21st century.

A Next Big Idea Club "Must Read" for December 2023

  As all aspects of our social and informational lives increasingly migrate online, the line between what is "real" and what is digitally fabricated grows ever thinner—and that fake content has undeniable real-world consequences. A History of Fake Things on the Internet takes the long view of how advances in technology brought us to the point where faked texts, images, and video content are nearly indistinguishable from what is authentic or true.

  Computer scientist Walter J. Scheirer takes a deep dive into the origins of fake news, conspiracy theories, reports of the paranormal, and other deviations from reality that have become part of mainstream culture, from image manipulation in the nineteenth-century darkroom to the literary stylings of large language models like ChatGPT. Scheirer investigates the origins of Internet fakes, from early hoaxes that traversed the globe via Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs), USENET, and a new messaging technology called email, to today's hyperrealistic, AI-generated Deepfakes. An expert in machine learning and recognition, Scheirer breaks down the technical advances that made new developments in digital deception possible, and shares behind-the-screens details of early Internet-era pranks that have become touchstones of hacker lore. His story introduces us to the visionaries and mischief-makers who first deployed digital fakery and continue to influence how digital manipulation works—and doesn't—today: computer hackers, digital artists, media forensics specialists, and AI researchers. Ultimately, Scheirer argues that problems associated with fake content are not intrinsic properties of the content itself, but rather stem from human behavior, demonstrating our capacity for both creativity and destruction.

Best-selling author Cass R. Sunstein outlines the promise and limits of artificial intelligence

Imperfect Oracle is about the promise and limits of artificial intelligence. The promise is that in important ways AI is better than we are at making judgments. Its limits are evidenced by the fact that AI cannot always make accurate predictions—not today, not tomorrow, and not the day after, either.

Natural intelligence is a marvel, but human beings blunder because we are biased. We are biased in the sense that our judgments tend to go systematically wrong in predictable ways, like a scale that always shows people as heavier than they are, or like an archer who always misses the target to the right. Biases can lead us to buy products that do us no good or to make foolish investments. They can lead us to run unreasonable risks, and to refuse to run reasonable risks. They can shorten our lives. They can make us miserable.

Biases present one kind of problem; noise is another. People are noisy not in the sense that we are loud, though we might be, but in the sense that our judgments show unwanted variability. On Monday, we might make a very different judgment from the judgment we make on Friday. When we are sad, we might make a different judgment from the one we would make when we are happy. Bias and noise can produce exceedingly serious mistakes.

AI promises to avoid both bias and noise. For institutions that want to avoid mistakes it is now a great boon. AI will also help investors who want to make money and consumers who don’t want to buy products that they will end up hating. Still, the world is full of surprises, and AI cannot spoil those surprises because some of the most important forms of knowledge involve an appreciation of what we cannot know and why we cannot know it. Written in clear, jargon-free English and grounded in deep understanding, Imperfect Oracle provides a distinctly useful perspective on this complex debate.