CRC Press

Cytokine gene polymorphisms in multifactorial conditions.

Multiple sclerosis, diabetes, and psoriasis are among the diseases related to cytokine gene polymorphisms in multifactorial conditions. In this volume, Vandenbroeck (genomics, Rega Institute for Medical Research, Belgium) compiles essential information from a vastly expanding body of literature on the subject, for use by clinicians, as well as students of genetics, immunology, and cell biology at the advanced undergraduate level and above. The first section provides background on the biology of cytokines and relevant statistical and genotypic analysis. The second section discusses polymorphisms in relation to individual genes. The final and most extensive section expounds on the preliminary material from a multifactorial, disease-centered point of view. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Electrical impedance tomography; methods, history, and applications.

This relatively new medical imaging method, also known as EIT, has proven to be portable, safe and cost effective and so is likely to find a variety of applications among mathematicians, physicists, electronic engineers and clinicians interesting in extending and developing its uses. Supported by non-technical appendices giving the basics on EIT and bioimpedance, the papers collected here provide comprehensive information on algorithms (the reconstruction problem), hardware (instrumentation), applications (for the thorax, brain function, breast cancer screening, gastrointestinal imagery and other applications such as hyperthermia and intra-pelvic venous congestion) and new directions such as magnetic induction tomography, magnetic resonance electrical impedance tomography, and industrial applications. The collection closes with reports form medical researchers. Each paper includes references. Distributed in the US by Taylor & Francis. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Elements of matrix modeling and computing with MATLAB.

With its frequent references to applications and their associated modeling processes, second-year students of math and engineering will find this a practical guide to studying both matrix computation and numerical linear algebra. White makes good his promise to emphasize skills over theory as he focuses on such applications as circuits, trusses, mixing tanks, heat conduction, data modeling, motion of a mass and image filters as he addresses vectors in the plane, vectors in space, linear initial value problems, Eigenvalues and differential equations, image processing in space domain and frequency domain, and three approaches to solving Ax=d (unique, least squares and multiple). He provides solutions to odd-numbered exercised, which he provides liberally through the topics, and provides dozens of figures. He also makes liberal use of the capabilities of the software, especially with more complicated calculations. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Emerging infectious diseases and the threat to occupational health in the U.S. and Canada.

In this collection of articles, experts give advice based on their research on a variety of situations, including those inevitably caused by overload of resources such as medical mistakes, lab accidents, and accidental contamination of medical staff. Topics include investigations of how SARS is introduced and spread, personal protective equipment such as respirators for health care workers, knowledge gaps and research priorities for effective prevention against occupationally acquired respiratory infectious diseases, deterioration of the public health system and ineffective use of resources, killer flu, and the behavior of bureaucracies accountable for public safety. Appendices include interim guidance for protecting health care workers caring for patients potentially exposed to aerosolized Yeshina pestis from a bioterrorism event. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Engineering electromagnetics; applications.

Derived from the 2004 Handbook of Engineering Electromagnetics, this is intended as a desk reference for engineers who are applying electromagnetics in a variety of professional settings. It fills a gap between textbooks, with lots of theory but not much practical information, and specialized texts with lots of formulas and graphs but not much insight into the underlying physical concepts. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Engineering vibrations.

Bottega (mechanical and aerospace engineering, Rutgers U.) balances physics/mechanics and mathematics in this wide-ranging resource for students and professionals working on mechanical and structural vibration. With illustrations, examples and case studies supplementing the text, Bottega starts with an overview of basic principles, including equivalent systems, springs in parallel and in series, elementary dynamics and complex numbers, then moves to free vibration of single degree of freedom systems, forces vibration of single degree of freedom systems in both periodic and non-periodic excitations, operational methods, dynamics of multi-degree of freedom systems, free vibration of multi-degree of freedom systems, forced vibration of multi-degree of freedom systems, dynamics of one-dimensional continua, free vibration of one-dimensional continua, and forced vibration of one-dimensional continua. Each topic includes a bibliography and exercises. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Environmental impacts of treated wood.

Urban, suburban and rural developments around the world extensively use treated wood products to retard or stop rot and infestation. However, some of the treatments have proven to be health hazards, and only some communities know about the latest information concerning regulations and environmental impacts. This collection of 26 papers cover environmental impacts, assessment and management of human health risks, and end-of-life management and impacts with such topics as the impact of chromated copper arsenate, production and management in Europe, Asia and Oceania, study designs for environmental impacts, leaching of chemicals and the impact on the soil, modeling for leaching of inorganic components, effects on soil and water, the cost of human exposure to chromated copper arsentate, methods of evaluating contamination, risks to children, identification and disposal of treated woods, biomediation through bacteria and other removal techniques, and disposal in landfills. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

The ergonomics kit for general industry, 2d ed.

This kit provides businesses with everything they need to make their employees sit up straight and work pain-free. The kit provides practical advice about identifying and implementing low-cost improvements and includes worksheets, checklists, planning guides, employee feedback forms, a program audit and other materials to make the process effective. This second edition includes new material on problem-solving, many examples of simple, low cost approaches, and electronic copies of forms, worksheets, a PowerPoint presentation and a guide for conducting basic training sessions. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Esophageal diseases; an atlas of investigation and management.

Aimed at gastroenterologists and other medical professionals, this atlas provides information on the anatomy, physiology, and diseases of the esophagus. Various techniques for testing and assessment are also covered. The volume is thoroughly illustrated with color clinical photographs, diagrams, and radiographic images. Vaezi is Clinical Director of the Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology at Vanderbilt U. Medical Center in Nashville. Distributed in the U.S. by CRC Press. Oversize: 9.75x12.25 inches. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Fundamentals of machining processes; conventional and nonconventional processes.

A textbook for undergraduate students enrolled in production, materials and manufacturing, industrial, and mechanical engineering programs, this volume provides fundamental theoretical analysis of machining by cutting, abrasion, erosion, and combined processes. Author El-Hofy (production engineering, Alexandria U., Egypt) presents the principles and theories of material removal and applications for conventional and non-conventional machining processes, discusses the role of machining variables in the technological characteristics of each process, and provides treatment of current technologies in high speed machining and micromachining. In addition to the analysis, El-Hofy also includes machining data, solved examples, and review questions. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Fundamentals of natural computing; basic concepts, algorithms, and applications.

De Castro (computer and electrical engineering, Catholic U. of Santos) describes combining patterns found in nature and typical computer behaviors to design a new and innovative generation of computers. Striving to be a complete guide, this includes theoretical material as well as practical instructions, right down to the code, integrating the basic concepts, algorithms and applications from a wide range of disciplines. He describe concepts ranging from parallelism and the ability to distribute to adaptation and reductionism, the ways in which computer design can be inspired by nature in evolutionary biology, evolutionary computing, or simulated annealing, neurocomputing with such techniques as neural networks, swarm intelligence, including swarm robotics, and immunocomputing, including artificial immune systems. Phenomena include fractals, cellular automata, L-systems, iterated function, fractional Brownian motion, and artificial life and closes with descriptions of new natural materials used in computing. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Fundamentals of natural gas processing.

The twin audience intended for this introduction to natural gas processing consists of those just entering the field and those providing narrow products and services to the industry wishing to better understand their place in the industry. Authors Kidnay (emeritus, chemical engineering, Colorado School of Mines) and Parrish (a retired research associate from ConocoPhilips) first provide overviews of the industry as a whole and gas plant processing specifically. They then present chapters discussing field operations and inlet receiving , compression, gas treating, gas dehydration, hydrocarbon recovery, nitrogen rejection, trace-component recovery or removal, liquids processing, sulfur recovery, transportation and storage, liquefied natural gas, and capital costs of gas processing facilities. Appendixes include a glossary of gas process terminology and description of physical constants and physical properties. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Global software development handbook. (CD-ROM included)

Researchers and practitioners of software engineering and related fields discuss how to develop software using teams of people who do not know each other, speak different languages, and live in different time zones. They set out the best practices as companies have learned from experience and as found from experimental research. Among their topics are motivation and critical success factors, architecture and risk analysis, development teams and supplier manager, and infrastructure support and communication. The disk contains a video overview of one of the case studies. Distributed in the US by Taylor and Francis. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Handbook of cell-penetrating peptides, 2d ed.

Langel (neurochemistry, Stockholm U.) presents this updated explanation of the unique properties and common terminology of cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs), which have the ability to translocate the cell membrane and gain access to the cellular interior. The 33 chapters are organized by six main themes: classes and prediction of CPPs, functionality of shuttling proteins and protein-derived peptides, applications of CPPs in gene modulation and protein transport, selective targeting to tumors and other tissues with CPPs, and CPP methods. Specific topics include pharmacology and in vivo efficacy of pepducins in hemostasis and arterial thrombosis, applications of CPPs as signal transduction modulators, mechanistic insights into guanidinium-rich transporters entering cells, and toxicity methods or CPPs. This text is appropriate for advanced (bio-)chemistry students as well as researchers. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Handbook of photochemistry, 3d ed.

This handbook for photochemists has been a major reference in the field since the 1973 edition, which pioneered presenting data on photochemical parameters in an accessible way. In this update of the 1993 edition, new introductory chapters offer an overview of the photophysics of organic molecules in solution and of transition metal complexes. The subsequent ten chapters discuss the photophysical properties of organic and inorganic molecules. Volume highlights include updated data tables on many new compounds, and a chapter on a corrective to the most frequently encountered problems in photoluminescence measurements. Miscellanea include information on spin-orbit interactions, physical constants and other key conversion factors. The authors are affiliated with the U. of Bologna, Italy. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Handbook of statistical distributions with applications. (CD-ROM included)

Writing for non-statistician practitioners and researchers in such diverse fields as economics, engineering, the social sciences, and biology, Krishnamoorthy (mathematics, U. of Louisiana at Lafayette) presents a reference work intended, in combination with the accompanying CD-ROM, to aid in the applications of statistical distributions and models used to used to describe the distributions of real-life data sets from "modeling the size grade distribution of onions to modeling global positioning data." Table values, important formulas, and results of many commonly used statistical distributions are provided. The CD-ROM contains a statistical computing software call StatCalc for computing table values, moments, and other statistics. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Human developmental toxicants; aspects of toxicology and chemistry. (CD-ROM included)

Schardein (a fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences) and Macina (of Macina Informatics, which provides computational toxicology services to industry and government) present concise summaries of 50 known toxicants that adversely affect human development as a result of exposure prior to conception or during prenatal and postnatal development. Going beyond identification of congenital malformations, they also identify incidents of growth, viability, and functional changes found in the literature. The developmental toxicology of animals is also included for comparative purposes and because they sometimes have been predictive of human potential for toxicity. Basic chemistry of the substances is covered following the information on toxicology. The included toxicants were selected in light of the importance in commerce and public health, the availability of quality of data, and their representation for affecting the various classes of developmental toxicity. The accompanying CD-ROM contains an electronic database consisting of the individual three-dimensional chemical structures and physicochemical/topological properties together with the associated biological data, stored as an SD file. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

In silico technologies in drug target identification and validation.

Considerably cheaper than doing actual in vivo or in vitro experiments, in silico analysis involves having a computer think about what might happen given this or that set of circumstances. Contributors mostly from drug companies, but also some universities, describe how such techniques are used to identify and validate potential targets for drugs, and explain how the available computational tools and databases are used within each step. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Insect symbiosis; v.2.

The first volume was published in 2003, and the second presents a few repeat authors describing new aspects of their research, along with a new group of contributions. Bourtzis (molecular biology and biochemistry, U. of Ioannina, Greece) and Miller (entomology, U. of California, Riverside) present 15 contributions covering such topics as mollicutes associated with arthropods and plants, the evolutionary origin and maintenance of the mutualistic symbiosis between termites and fungi, paternal sex ratio chromosomes in parasitoid wasps, and insect pest control using Wolbachia and/or radiation, among others. For students and researchers in entomology, evolutionary biology, physiology, parasitology, genetics, animal behavior, and the control of agricultural and disease-carrying pests. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Interventions, controls, and applications in occupational ergonomics.

This is one volume of two comprising the second edition of The Occupational Handbook (the other is Fundamentals and Assessment Tools for Occupational Ergonomics. The ergonomics discipline takes a holistic approach to the design of work systems aimed at optimizing human well-being and overall system performance. Containing 52 contributions from academics, clinicians, and practitioners, this resource for professionals and students provides detailed information on a broad range of ergonomic interventions, medical management techniques, and related applications. Chapters in the final section discuss interventions for specific industries, such as poultry processing and general construction. Editor Marras is co-director of The Ohio State U. Institute for Ergonomics, and Karwowski is director of the Center for Industrial Ergonomics at the U. of Louisville. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Introductory statistical inference.

Designed for a one-semester, first-year graduate course in probability and statistical inference, this text will serve students in a variety of programs, including engineering, economics, agriculture, bioscience, finance, and psychology. Mukhopadhyay (statistics, University of Connecticut) reviews basic concepts and methods in probability theory, moments, and moment generating functions, then moves on to cover areas such as multivariate random variables, sampling distribution, convergence, point estimation, Bayesian methods, and large-sample methods. The author also provides a historical context for statistics and statistical discoveries. Learning features include chapter exercises and selected answers, worked examples, and computer simulations. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

An introduction to cryptography, 2d ed.

According to the followers of Pythagorus, "numbers rule the universe," and the undergraduate readers for whom this text is written will agree. Updating his text with recent discoveries (such as an unconditional deterministic polynomial-time algorithm for primality testing), popular references and eight appendices on computer arithmetic, Mollin (mathematics, U. of Calgary) covers the mathematical basics (including primes, induction, primitive roots, complexity, and the work of Euler, Fermat, Wilson, Legendre and Jacobi) and the cryptography basics (including ciphers, modes of operations and attacks) and includes the design elements of DES and AES, public-key cryptography (including ElGamal and digital envelopes), primality testing, factoring (including Pollard's algorithms), electronic mail and Internet security (including firewalls and cookies), and leading-edge applications such as login and network security, viruses and other infections, smart cards, and biometrics. Mollin also includes dozens of mini-biographies, including that of the aforesaid Pythagorus. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

An introduction to intersection homology theory, 2d ed.

Their intent is not to introduce intersection homology theory, say Kirwan (Oxford U.) and Woolf (U. of Liverpool), but to advocate for it among mathematicians with an interest in singular spaces. The volume is a series of notes from a first-year graduate course for students in different branches of mathematics, and assumes fairly basic mathematical knowledge. The 1988 first edition is here augmented with several new topics, and revised for clarity and emphasis. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Introduction to polymer chemistry.

Aiming his text mainly at an undergraduate audience, Carraher (Florida Atlantic U.) presents the basic science of polymers, covering factual, theoretical, and practical matters. Following the introduction, 15 chapters discuss polymer structure, molecular weight of polymers, naturally occurring polymers, step-reaction polymerization, ionic chain-reaction and complex coordination polymerizations, free radical chain polymerizations, copolymerization, organometallic and metalloid polymers, inorganic polymers, reactions of polymers, spectrometric characterization and testing of polymers, rheology and physical tests, additives, synthesis of reactants and intermediates for polymers, and polymer technology. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Introduction to randomized controlled clinical trials, 2d ed.

Now in its second edition, this text is published by Chapman & Hall/CRC (the first edition was published by Edward Arnold). Matthews (U. of Newcastle) continues to emphasize statistics rather than the administrative aspects of clinical trials and adds material on more sophisticated methods for balancing treatment allocations and on analyses of clinical trials with binary or survival time outcomes. Twelve chapters, each with concluding exercises (solutions included at the end of the book), cover the definition of a randomized trial; bias; determination of how many patients are needed; methods of allocation; assessment, blinding, and placebos; analysis of results; monitoring accumulating data; subgroups and multiple outcomes; protocols; crossovers, equivalenc, and clusters; and meta-analyses. (Annotation ©2006 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)