Recent Advances in Applied Probability
August 26th, 2010
The possibility of the present collection of review papers came up the last day of IWAP 2002. The idea was to gather in a single volume a sample of the many applications of probability.
As a glance at the table of contents shows, the range of covered topics is wide, but it sure is far away of being close to exhaustive.
Picking up a name for this collection not easier than deciding on a criterion for ordering the different contributions. As the word ‘advances” suggests, each paper represents a further step toward understanding a class of problems. No last word on any problem is said, no subject is closed.
Tags: Thinking in Java
August 26th, 2010
The satisfaction of doing a new edition of a book is in getting things “right,” according to what I have learned since the last edition came out. Often these insights are in the nature of the saying “A learning experience is what you get when you don’t get what you want,” and my opportunity is to fix something embarrassing or simply tedious.
Just as often, creating the next edition produces fascinating new ideas, and the embarrassment is far outweighed by the delight of discovery and the ability to express ideas in a better form than what I have previously achieved.
Photoshop Elements 4 For Dummies
August 26th, 2010
Elements is a feature-rich program, and this book is an effort to provide a comprehensive introduction. So although we may skip over a few little things, all you need to know about using Photoshop Elements for designing images for print, sharing, Web hosting, packaging in many different ways, e-mailing, and more is covered in the pages ahead. If you’re ready to go a bit further, we also included Bonus Chapters on this book’s Web site at www.dummies.com/go/elements4.
As we said, Photoshop Elements has something for just about everyone. Hence, we know our audience is large, and not everyone will use every tool, command, or method described in this book. Therefore we added a lot of cross-references in the text in case you want to jump around.
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Computational Statistics Handbook with MATLAB
August 26th, 2010
Computational statistics is a fascinating and relatively new field within statistics. While much of classical statistics relies on parameterized functions and related assumptions, the computational statistics approach is to let the data tell the story. The advent of computers with their number-crunching capability, as well as their power to show on the screen two- and threedimensional structures, has made computational statistics available for any data analyst to use.
Computational statistics has a lot to offer the researcher faced with a file full of numbers. The methods of computational statistics can provide assistance ranging from preliminary exploratory data analysis to sophisticated probability density estimation techniques, Monte Carlo methods, and powerful multi-dimensional visualization. All of this power and novel ways of looking at data are accessible to researchers in their daily data analysis tasks.
Adobe Acrobat 6 PDF For Dummies
August 26th, 2010
This book is your complete introductory reference to the reading, writing, and managing of PDF files for any and all of their many purposes, from preparing prepress documents for printing on sophisticated imagesetters to publishing your life story as an eBook for sale on the bevy of online bookstores. Because the way you make, prepare, and sometimes even read a PDF file varies according to the purpose you have in mind for it, you will find that this book’s information emphasizes more the purpose you ultimately have in mind for the PDF file than the features used to accomplish this purpose in the various programs such as Acrobat, Adobe Reader, and the Acrobat eBook Reader.
As a result, this book is not meant to be read from cover to cover. Each discussion of a topic briefly addresses the question of how a particular feature enables you to accomplish your purpose before launching into how to use it. In Acrobat, as with most other sophisticated programs, there is usually more than one way to do a task. For the sake of your sanity, I have purposely limited the choices, usually by giving you only the most efficient ways to do a particular task. Later on, if you’re so tempted, you can experiment with alternative ways of doing a task. For now, just concentrate on performing the task as described.
Biosphere
August 26th, 2010
The necessary conditions for the existence of protein–nucleic acid life are the presence of liquid water, some protection against high-amplitude temperature jumps and cosmic factors (these may be the atmosphere and or a thick layer of water or same rocks) and the accessibility of biogenes, which are macroelements and microelements.
Two geosphere-related canalizing vectors of biosphere evolution can be discerned. One is associated with an irreversible cooling and oxygenation of the planet and the associated complex pattern of interplaying endogenous cycles, which affect climates as well as the amount and composition of the biogenes in the ‘‘liquid water zone.’’ Change of the convection mode in the mantle between 3 and 2 Byr ago had the most important implications for the biosphere: the formation of plate tectonics (a deep ocean and continents), enrichment of the chemical composition of the effusive material and the ‘‘plume dropper,’’ which changes the oceanic-to-continental area ratio and the mantle-to-island-arc volcanism intensity ratio every 30 Myr.
Fungi: Biology and Applications
August 26th, 2010
Fungi make an enormous contribution to our life. The role of yeast in the production of alcohol and bread is well characterized. We consume fungi directly in the form of edible mushrooms and in ‘blue cheeses’ which get their characteristic flavour and aroma from the presence of fungi. Fungi are also used for the production of antibiotics, such as penicillin, and enzymes for use in the food industry. Over the last three decades fungi have been utilized for the production of recombinant (‘foreign’) proteins, some of which have great therapeutic potential. Although infrequently recognized as important decomposers of organic detritus, fungi play a significant role in degrading biological matter, such as fallen leaves. On a more negative note some fungi (for example members of the genus Candida or Aspergillus) are capable of causing serious lifethreatening infections in immuno-compromised patients, and other fungi canbe serious environmental contaminants.
The Power of Creative Intelligence
August 24th, 2010
People have ‘miraculously’ recovered from critical illnesses such as cancer, and have overcome severe disabilities, simply though sheer willpower – their brain’s control over their body.
You can affect ‘automatic’ bodily processes like your temperature and heart beat, physical health and athletic performance solely through the power of your thoughts. In 1970, an Indian yogi, Swami Rama, caused two areas a couple of inches apart on his right hand to change temperature, in opposite directions. The rate of the temperature change was about 2°C (4°F) per minute, and he was able to maintain the change until there was a
temperature difference of 5°C (10°F)
The tennis player Billie Jean King was considered by her opponents to be almost unbeatable once she had mentally ‘programmed’ her body to win, despite the fact that there was no particular physical area in which she was superior to everybody else.
Beginning PHP, Apache, MySQL® Web Development
August 24th, 2010
Welcome to Beginning PHP, Apache, MySQL® Web Development, your guide to developing dynamic Web sites using these popular open source solutions. Consider us your tour guide as we travel through the various adventures that await you.
Okay, so perhaps it won’t be that glamorous or exciting, but we do promise an enjoyable learning experience. The main purpose of this book is to provide you with a taste of what can be done with Web development using these three modules together.
While we’ve given you only the tip of the iceberg, it will be enough to get you started and to get those creative juices flowing when designing and developing your own site. Each of these modules is complex in and of itself, and this book merely covers the basics of all three.
Calculus Demystified
August 23rd, 2010
[Calculus Demystified. Steven G. Krantz. McGraw Hill]. Calculus is one of the milestones of Western thought. Building on ideas of Archimedes, Fermat, Newton, Leibniz, Cauchy, and many others, the calculus is arguably the cornerstone of modern science. Any well-educated person should at least be acquainted with the ideas of calculus, and a scientifically literate person must know calculus solidly.
Calculus has two main aspects: differential calculus and integral calculus. Differential calculus concerns itself with rates of change. Various types of change, both mathematical and physical, are described by a mathematical quantity called the derivative. Integral calculus is concerned with a generalized type of addition, or amalgamation, of quantities. Many kinds of summation, both mathematical and physical, are described by a mathematical quantity called the integral.
Science Attachés in Embassies
August 23rd, 2010
THE UNITED STATES’ INTENTION TO INCREASE INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION IN SCIENCE AND technology (S&T) is welcome news. Such efforts would be particularly effective in the Muslim world, where countries are in need of the economic development that would result from improvements in their S&T sectors. Last year, President Obama appointed three Science Envoys to Muslim-majority countries: Bruce Alberts, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences (and current Editor-in-Chief of Science); Ahmed Zewail, Nobel Laureate and professor at the California Institute of Technology; and Elias Zerhouni, former director of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The appointment of several more Science Envoys is expected soon. However, this promising new initiative will require committed institutional support, which can best be provided by the appointment of Science (and Technology) Attachés in the relevant U.S. embassies.
Human Drug Metabolism. An Introduction
August 23rd, 2010
[Human Drug Metabolism. An Introduction. Michael D. Coleman. Aston University, Birmingham. John Wiley and Sons]. ‘Throw physic to the dogs; I’ll none of it’ exclaims the eponymous Macbeth in Act 5, Scene 3, in one of Shakespeare’s shortest and most violent plays. This response to the lack of efficacy and severe toxicity of early seventeenthcentury therapeutics unfortunately has some resonance today. Despite the spectacular advances made in the last 50 years, many medicines in practice are neither beneficial nor safe. Indeed, increasing numbers of patients are dying as a result of their treatment, rather than their condition. There are many reasons for our inability to eradicate ‘iatrogenic’ (literally, physician induced) disease; these might include pharmacological interactions or factors relating to the patient’s condition. However, the metabolism of drugs by the patients’ own systems can have a powerful influence on the success of treatment.
Design Quarterly: Growth and Densification
August 23rd, 2010
Vancouver’s downtown building height restrictions and view corridors were a hot topic of debate lately. The view corridor policy, formally adopted in 1989, was being re-examined by the city, sparking intense dialogue between advocates and critics.
As a long time Vancouverite, I love our downtown skyline and being able to see our spectacular mountain backdrop and waterways. It sets our city core apart from others and why Vancouver has been often recognized as one of the most livable in the world. So I’m glad council rejected the recent proposal for new taller towers. How the city chooses to address future growth and densification will be an important one to monitor.
Of course, exceptions for taller buildings have been made — as long as they respect the view corridors. Set to become Vancouver’s second tallest building is The Private Residences at Hotel Georgia, our feature project. The $480 million development includes the construction of a 500 foot mix use tower and the complete renovation of the adjacent historic Hotel Georgia. Read about the distinctive design for the tower’s form and the various green features incorporated including the use of solar cells (a first for a Canadian residential building).
Capitalism and Freedom
August 23rd, 2010
[Capitalism and Freedom. Milton Friedman.The University of Chicago Press, Chicago]. This book is a long-delayed product of a series of lectures that I gave in June, 1956 at a conference at Wabash College directed by John Van Sickle and Benjamin Rogge and sponsored by the Volker Foundation. In subsequent years, I have given similar lectures at Volker conferences directed by Arthur Kemp, at Claremont College, directed by Clarence Philbrook, at the University of North Carolina, and directed by Richard Leftwich, at Oklahoma State University. In each case I covered the contents of the first two chapters of this book, dealing with principles, and then applied the principles to a varied set of special problems.
I am indebted to the directors of these conferences not only for inviting me to give the lectures, but even more for their criticisms and comments on them and for friendly pressure to write them up in tentative form, and to Richard Cornuelle, Kenneth Templeton, and Ivan Bierly of the Volker Foundation who were responsible for arranging the conferences. I am indebted also to the participants who, by their incisive probing and deep interest in the issues, and unquenchable intellectual enthusiasm, forced me to rethink many points and to correct many errors. This series of conferences stands out as among the most stimulating intellectual experiences of my life. Needless to say, there is probably not one of the directors of the conferences or participants in them who agrees with everything in this book. But I trust they will not be unwilling to assume some of the responsibility for it.
Speaking of Crazy Ideas
August 18th, 2010
When the notion of a sports edition made its way to the Entrepreneur newsroom (which consists of four editors and a Wii), it was, not surprisingly, met with a certain amount of hesitation. “It’s insane. How can a business magazine dedicated to entrepreneurs pull off a sports issue?” Needless to say, we like it best when we’re told something can’t be done. We trusted our crazy idea on this one, and so we present the very unlikely, first-ever sports edition of Entrepreneur magazine.
Digging into sports team transformations proved to be powerful and thoughtprovoking. Ten years ago, the Minnesota Twins had bragging rights as baseball’s worst team. They were the real-life Bad News Bears. Fans turned their backs on the struggling organization, the stands were all but empty, and the franchise was on the brink of dissolution. But Jim Pohlad, who owns the Twins along with his brothers, had a different take on the situation. The thinking? Turn the team around by approaching every move as a business. They created a business plan replete with growth and expansion strategies. Pretty bold for a team one small step away from a dirt nap.
Madness: A Brief History
August 18th, 2010
A bill of fare might be helpful. The next chapter looks at madness understood as divine or demonic possession. Prevalent amongst pre-literate peoples the world over, such supernatural beliefs were then embodied in Mesopotamian and Egyptian medicine and in Greek myth and art.
As reformulated and authorized by the teachings of Christianity, they remained current in the West till the eighteenth century, though increasingly discounted by medicine and science.
It is to the birth of medical science that Chapter 3 turns, examining the rational and naturalistic thinking about madness developed by Graeco-Roman philosophers and doctors and incorporated in the subsequent Western medical tradition. Lunacy and folly meanwhile became symbolically charged in art and literature: these cultural motifs and meanings of madness are explored in Chapter 4.
Hacker
June 7th, 2010
[Steven Levy]. I was first drawn to writing about hackers—those computer programmers and designers who regard computing as the most important thing in the world—because they were such fascinating people. Though some in the field used the term “hacker” as a form of derision, implying that hackers were either nerdy social outcasts or “unprofessional” programmers who wrote dirty, “nonstandard” computer code, I found them quite different. Beneath their often unimposing exteriors, they were adventurers, visionaries, risk-takers, artists . . . and the ones who most clearly saw why the computer was a truly revolutionary tool. Among themselves, they knew how far one could go by immersion into the deep concentration of the hacking mind-set: one could go infinitely far. I came to understand why true hackers consider the term an appellation of honor rather than a pejorative.
The Future of Globalization
June 6th, 2010
Contemporary globalization has been severely jeopardized by recent turmoil. The end of the economic expansion of the 1990s, the 9/11 tragedy, and the war in Iraq have shocked the international system to an extent not seen in years. Not only have the fairness and adequacy of globalization been doubted by various parties for some time now, but lately its very irreversibility has been called into question by the sheer force of geopolitical and economic turbulence. This book considers the forces that propel globalization and the forces that resist it. Local and regional experiences from Bangladesh, China, India, Latin America, and the Middle East are analyzed, as well as some of globalization’s most potent risks.
Giving voice to sophisticated and illustrative reasoning, The Future of Globalization offers useful insights into the extraordinary human achievement brought about by increasing international economic integration, interdependence, and interconnectedness – and shows how this has been a powerful force for the progress of humankind. The contributors take stock of the debate on globalization and explore ways to make globalization more beneficial for individuals, communities, and countries, as well as to reduce its insufficiencies and mitigate the risks it faces.
The Big Three in Economics
June 6th, 2010
During the past three centuries, three economists stand out as archetypes, symbols of three distinct approaches to economic philosophy. In the eighteenth century, Adam Smith, a student of the Scottish Enlightenment, expounded a “system of natural liberty” (what we might term a liberal democratic order consisting of an unfettered market and limited government), and elucidated how a nation flourishes and advances the standard of living of its citizens. In the nineteenth century, the German philosopher Karl Marx attracted and inspired workers and intellectuals who felt disenfranchised by industrial capitalism and sought radical solutions to inequality, alienation, and exploitation of the underprivileged. Finally, in the twentieth century, the British economist John Maynard Keynes sought to stabilize a crisis-prone market system through activist fiscal and monetary government policies.
Advanced Photoshop Elements 7 For Digital Photographers
May 29th, 2010
Nearly without exception, human beings the world over are fascinated by the photograph. A photograph is a timeless, compelling, emotive and honest representation of our world; of the places we’ve been, the events we’ve witnessed, the people we’ve met and loved. The photograph is a refl ection of our world and ourselves; our mind’s eye projected onto cotton vellum or computer screen. The persistence of vision ex machina. Indeed, the photographic image is the true iconography of the modern world.
For the photography enthusiast, these are very exciting times. In the span of less than 10 years, we have witnessed the evolution of photography from a mostly silver halide fi lm-based process to a completely digital process. The individual photographer now has the capability to shoot, ‘develop’, and create prints using an entirely digital workfl ow, and completely within the comfortable confi nes of his or her own study.
