Cambridge U. Pr.
Algebraic and analytic geometry.
Designing this as an undergraduate classroom text, Neeman (mathematics, Australian National U.) carefully considers the needs of most modern students by highlighting the ways in which this field combines algebra and geometry with analysis. With pauses on occasion to briefly describe areas of specialization, Neeman prepares readers by describing algebraic and analytic subspaces, elliptic curves and notation, then explains manifolds, schemes, the complex topology, making a scheme analytic and taking the high road to "analytification," coherent sheaves, projective space in terms of statements and proofs, and the proof of Serre's famous algebraic geometry and analytical geometry (also known as GAGA for its nomenclature in French), which Neeman wisely refers to as the "punch line." Neeman is generous with his examples, tips and remarks and provides a very helpful glossary. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The classical fields; structural features of the real and rational numbers.
Each of these fields comprise several closely interwoven algebraic and topological structures. Salzmann (mathematics, U. Tübingen) and his fellow authors Grundhöfer (mathematics, U. Würzburg), Hähl (mathematics, U. Stuttgart) and Löwen (mathematics, Technische U. Braunchwieg) explain the interaction and interdependencies of these fields. They begin with real numbers, describing real numbers as an ordered set and explaining the concept of real numbers as a field and as an ordered group and a topological group. They explain complex numbers and rational numbers, expanding on the latter as a field and describing rational numbers as a field, then work through the concept of completion, as chains, ordered groups, topological abelian groups, and topological rings and fields. They conclude by explaining the field of p-adic numbers, their squares, absolute values and valuations, the topologies of valuation type, local fields and locally compact fields. They provide exercises with hints and solutions. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Computational thermodynamics; the Calphad method.
Lukas (U. Stuttgart emeritus) and co-authors Sundman (Paul Sabatier U.) and independent scientist Fries provide the first introductory guide to this method of computation that combines data from thermodynamics, phase diagrams, and atomistic properties such as magnetism into a unified and consistent model. They introduce the science and art of computational thermodynamics and the past and present of the Calphad technique, the scientific basis of the technique (including thermodynamics, crystallography, equilibrium calculations and optimization methods), first principles and thermodynamic properties, experimental data needed for optimization, models for the Gibbs energy element, assessment methodology, optimization tools, and thermodynamic databases. They also offer a series of case studies, including a complete assessment of the Cu-Mg system and a complete binary system (Ca-Ng) and provide a list of websites along with comprehensive references. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Concurrent and real-time programming in Ada 2005.
Burns and Wellings (U. of York, England) discuss the Ada tasking model in computer programming applications, and how it is the only ISO standard real-time programming language that is concurrent and object-oriented. Designed as an update to the duo's 2005 book, Concurrency in Ada, this volume takes a look at the new developments in programming techniques and changes in the Ada language. This is intended as both a tutorial for professional software engineers and advanced computer science students. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Drug abuse; concepts, prevention, and cessation.
Sussman and Ames (U. of Southern California) provide a comprehensive resource on drug abuse that includes conceptual issues regarding definitions on drug use, misuse, abuse, and dependency. The text also addresses a number of theoretical bases presently used in developing prevention and cessation programs, specific program content from evidence-based programs. These topics are examined from four perspectives: neurobiology, cognition, small groups, and the large social and physical environment. In addition, the book explores drug types and the history of drug use and misuse. The book will interest students, professionals in chemical dependence programs, and others working in psychology, public health, and preventive medicine. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Elements of string cosmology.
The fascinating and emerging science relating string theory's impact on the foundations of primordial cosmology are clearly presented in this detailed text. Designed to present string theory to astrophysicists and, in turn, cosmology to string theorists, the volume presents chapters on basic string cosmology equations, conformal invariance and string effective actions, duality symmetries and cosmological solutions, inflationary kinematics, and the string phase. Subsequent chapters describe scalar perturbations, the anisotropy spectrum of the CMB radiation, dilaton phenomenology, and elements of brane cosmology. Gasperini (theoretical physics, U. of Bari, Italy) has presented a Ph.D. course on this topic and organized the chapters and content accordingly, with more advanced topics and computations presented in separate appendices at the end of many of the chapters. The text is designed for teaching graduate courses, and will also be of interest to readers with basic knowledge of relativity and quantum field theory. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
An introduction to Gödel's Theorems.
How did Gödel establish the two Theorems of Incompleteness, and why do they matter? Smith (U. of Cambridge) advises readers to take their time in answering these and related questions he poses as he presents a variety of proofs for the First Theorem and shows how to prove the Second. He also examines a group of related results with the same care and attention to detail. In 36 well-paced chapters Smith builds his case from a basic introduction to Gödel's theorems on to such issues as the truths of arithmetic, formalized arithmetics, primitive recursive functions, identifying the diagonalization Lemma in the First Theorem and using it, dirivability conditions in the Second Theorem. Turing machines (and recursiveness) and the Church-Turing thesis. Accessible without being dismissive, this is accessible to philosophy students and equally suitable for mathematics students taking a first course in logic. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
An introduction to many-valued and fuzzy logic; semantics, algebras, and derivation systems.
Suitable for graduate and advanced undergraduate courses, this opens with a succinct review of the philosophy of fuzzy logic, its history and scope. Bergmann (computer science emerita, Smith College) then reviews classical propositional logic, including its language and semantics, and the language and semantics of first-order logic. She then describes alternative semantics for truth-values and truth-functions (with numeric truth-values and abstract algebras), then covers the semantics of three-valued propositional logics, derivation systems for three-valued propositional logic, three-valued first-order logic semantics, derivation systems for three-valued first-order logic, alternative semantics for three-valued logic, fuzzy propositional logics, fuzzy algebras, semantics of fuzzy first-order logics, derivation systems for fuzzy first-order logic, extensions of fuzziness and fuzzy membership functions. Bergmann provides exercises with each chapter. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The mathematics of logic; a guide to completeness theorems and their applications.
Kaye (pure mathematics, U. of Birmingham) gives undergraduate and first-year graduates key materials for a first course in logic, including a full mathematical account of the Completeness Theorem for first-order logic. As he builds a series of systems increasing in complexity, and proving and discussing the Completeness Theorem for each, Kaye keeps unfamiliar terminology to a minimum and provides proofs of all the required set theoretical results. He covers König's Lemma (including two ways of looking at mathematics), posets and maximal elements (including order), formal systems (including post systems and compatibility as bonuses), deduction in posets (including proving statements about a poset), Boolean algebras, propositional logic (including a system for proof about propositions), valuations (including semantics for propositional logic), filters and ideals (including the algebraic theory of Boolean algebras), first-order logic, completeness and compactness, model theory (including countable models) and nonstandard analysis (including infinitesimal numbers). (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The normal personality; a new way of thinking about people.
The standard extrinsic and intrinsic categories of motivation don't take into account individual differences, which are often mistaken for signs of mental problems. So argues Reiss (psychology, Ohio State U.) in presenting his theory of motivation analysis that states that 16 normal motivators — rather than unconscious anxieties — drive most behavior. The book includes a summary chart of basic desires underlying normal personality traits, and the self-administered Reiss Motivation Profile Estimator. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Nuclear implosions; the rise and fall of the Washington Public Power Supply System.
Pope (American history, U. of Oregon, Eugene) has written a compelling account of the memorable and influential WPPSS disaster, when a plan to build five nuclear power plants in Washington State ended in bond default and years of legal battles. Drawing on years of research, Pope reconstructs the story of WPPSS against a background of American energy policy, economics, and needs in the 1970s and 1980s. The lessons to be drawn from the fiasco are illuminated through detailed attention to all sides of the story, a chapter on sociological theories of construction management demonstrating weaknesses in large infrastructure projects, and the epilogue, which ties the lessons of WPPSS into issues of energy policy that are all too current now. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Practical algorithms for image analysis; description, examples, programs, and projects, 2d ed. (CD-ROM included)
New to the second edition of this well-designed textbook and reference are sections on Gabor filtering, thresholding by connectivity, and a chapter describing all the programs. The book's focus is on hands-on applications and includes a separate chapter of projects, many of them new to this edition, applying the processes described. The sections are grouped by operation and provide clear instruction on the procedure, with before and after images, keywords, specific applications, and related procedures. The various programs used for a procedure, such as global, gray-scale, or binary image analysis are each discussed in separate section, with programs provided accordingly. The CD-ROM contains C programs used in the procedures and executable with a graphic interface for Windows and Linux. Of the three authors, O'Gorman and Michael J. Sammon were both with Bell Laboratories and are now with Avaya Labs: Michael Seul, formerly of AT&T Bell Laboratories, is the founder of BioArray Solutions. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Probability, geometry, and integrable systems; for Henry McKean's seventy-fifth birthday.
The three main themes of this book — probability theory, differential geometry, and the theory of integrable systems — reflect the broad range of mathematical interests of Henry McKean, to whom it is dedicated. Written by experts in probability, geometry, integrable systems, turbulence, and percolation, the 17 papers included here demonstrate a variety of techniques that have been developed to solve various mathematical problems in these areas. The topics are often combined in an unusual fashion to give solutions outside of the standard methods. A few specific topics explored are stochastic evolution of inviscid Burger fluid, singular solutions for geodesic flows of Vlasov moments, and reality problems in soliton theory. Pinsky teaches mathematics at Northwestern University; Birnir, at the University of California-Santa Barbara. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Quantum gravity. (reprint, 2004)
This is a paperbound edition of a work first published in 2004; though not a revision, some new bibliography and notes have been added to the text. Rovelli's engaging text openly acknowledges the many key mysteries remaining in our understanding of quantum gravity, even as he elucidates the science that defines it. The work is divided into two sections, on the relativistic foundations — with chapters on general relativity, mechanics, and Hamiltonian general relativity — and on loop quantum gravity, which includes a chapter on spinfoams. The appendices provide a historical view of the problem. Because of its coverage of basic concepts and their applications to a complex problem, this is an excellent text for graduate courses. Rovelli is with the Institut Universitaire de France. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Science, politics, and evolution.
Lloyd (Indiana U.) compiles many of her own essays on the subject of the theory of evolution, and how it relates to politics, sexuality, feminism and evolutionary psychology. As one of the leading scientific philosophers in the academic world, the author places the evolutionary debate into different contexts, including a strict discussion of Darwin's theory of natural selection, units and levels of selection, pluralism and even the double standard encountered by women's in today's society. With a slight edge toward feminism, this textbook is aimed at both biology and anthropology students, as well as graduate students in women's studies. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Spline functions; basic theory, 3d ed.
Covering the basic theory of splines, and no applications, Schumaker (mathematics, Vanderbilt U.) looks at the main algebraic, analytic, and approximation-theoretic properties of various spaces of splines (really just dolled-up spaces of piecewise polynomials). The material can be used for a one-semester introductory course, and assumes no more mathematics than calculus and linear algebra. The first edition was published by Wiley-Interscience in 1981, and the second, published by Krieger in 1993, was essential just a corrected version of the first; this third contains a supplement describing innovations in the theory over the past 20 years. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Statistical physics of fields.
Kardar, who has taught a statistical physics of fields course at MIT for the last 20 years, has finally put the content of his lectures into a single textbook. Designed for advanced students of physics, this book expands upon the notion of fractals, and concentrates on the shape, symmetry and locality of these entities. The author uses his work in particle physics as a foundation to explore statistical fields, fluctuations, the scaling hypothesis, lattice systems, and directed paths in random media. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Stochastic partial differential equations with Lévy noise; an evolution equation approach.
Peszat and Zabczyk (both are in the department of mathematics of the Polish Academy of Sciences) offer an important contribution to the literature on stochastic processes that will be of interest to graduate students and researchers. Their theory builds on the results of equations driven by Wiener processes and results of both Lévy and Wiener noise are discussed in tandem. Eight initial chapters provide a foundation to the theory that follows, with discussion that includes the basis of equations with Lévy noise, probability theory with martingales, Lévy processes and semigroups, cylindrical processes and reproducing kernels, and stochastic integration. Existence and regularity are explored in chapters that examine wave and delay equations, equations driven by spatially homogeneous noise, and equations with noise on the boundary, among other topics. The theory is then applied, in five chapters on invariant measures, Lattice systems, stochastic Burgers equation, an environmental pollution model, and in six bond market models. Several appendices provide a number of related proofs and results. A list of symbols is provided. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Therapy after terror; 9/11, psychotherapists, and mental health.
In the days immediately following 9/11 even those of us who watched from the other side of the country vividly recalled images and needed immediate answers to questions. Mental health professionals on the front lines in New York had to deal with the horror placed upon their own souls in the dust and ruin along with that of their clients. Practitioner Seely (anthropology, Columbia U; psychology, Barnard College) explains how the crisis affected those professionals who counseled the victims and were themselves victims. Basing her observations on interviews, she shows the remarkable variety of behaviors in the first minutes and days, the impact on those already in care, and the personal and professional consequences for therapists. She includes commentary on the political dimension of mental health practices and the increasing medicalization of the mental health system. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The troubled pregnancy; legal wrongs and rights in reproduction.
In the context of the UK Abortion Act 1967 and other Commonwealth, European, and US legal responses, Mason (emeritus, forensic medicine, U. of Edinburgh School of Law) examines those aspects of the problem pregnancy that require or involve medico-legal intervention. While wrongful death is a well-known concept, wrongful birth due to poor prenatal care or failed sterilization is analyzed here in a review of relevant cases, including those involving liability for a resultant unwanted or disabled child. Another concept emphasized is that pregnancy extends to the duty of care of the newborn. He points out that unlike U.S. courts, UK courts have traditionally been reluctant to interfere with clinical judgement. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Understanding probability; chance rules in everyday life, 2d ed.
Tijms (operational research, Vrije U., Amsterdam) introduces novices to probability not through the standard theorem-proof style, but informally by using examples from real-life contexts. The account can be used as the core text in courses ranging from social sciences to engineering that require a good deal of student participation, or as a supplement in a more mathematical treatment of probability. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
