AK Peters Ltd.

Applied iterative methods.

This is not a text, warns Byrne (U. of Massachusetts-Lowell), though he has used earlier versions as a text in a graduate course on numerical linear algebra, and does include exercises for some chapters. Nevertheless, he insists it is just a series of essays on interactive algorithms that he happens to be familiar with, written for scientists and engineers, and mostly concerned with operators on finite-dimensional Euclidean space. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Audio anecdotes III; tools, tips, and techniques for digital audio. (CD-ROM included)

Students and practitioners in digital sound production are the intended audience of this last of three volumes, which comprises 26 essays by sound professionals detailing topics in history and practice in the field. Topics addressed include: how tape-based and hard-disk-based recordings are made, auditory scene analysis, real-time granular synthesis, voice concatenation, speech processing, applied signal processing, HRTF spatialization, music composition, and auditory psychophysics, among others. The accompanying CD-ROM contains demos, source code, and examples. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Making mathematics with needlework; ten papers and ten projects.

This unusual book grew out of a special session on mathematics education using fiber arts held at the January 2005 American Mathematical Society meeting. Editors Belcastro and Yackel are math professors affiliated, respectively, with Smith College and Mercer University; they present a lively introduction to what is obviously a subject of passionate interest, showing how mathematics and the various fiber arts are intertwined and proposing that the study of one illuminates the other. The contributed chapters offer suggestions for teaching in connection with fully explained projects such as making Möbius quilts, bi-directional hats (diophantine equations), Sierpinski shawls (Sierpinski variations & self similar crochet), and knitted toruses; symmetry patterns in cross-stitch, socks with algebraic structure, and Fortunatus's purse; and making a pillow of braid equivalence, embroidering a Holbeinian graph, and making hyperbolic pants. The book is attractively produced as if it were indeed simply a craft instructions book, and many color photos illustrate the projects. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Ray tracing from the ground up.

Ray tracing is an technique of computer graphics that creates images by shooting rays via a image-synthesis algorithm that determines the nearest object along a line of sight. Since the 1980s ray tracing has received a great deal of attention from researchers working to make ray tracing more tractable and to include more features. Suffern (information technology, U. of Technology, Sydney) describes how to write a ray tracer step-by-step, starting with design and programming and some essential mathematics and theoretical foundations, moving to such details as antialiasing, sampling techniques, mapping samples to a disk or a hemisphere, perspective viewing and developing a practical viewing system, nonlinear projections, stereoscopy, lights and materials, specular reflection, shadows, ambient occlusion, area lights, ray-object interconnections, affine transformations, transforming objects, regular grids, triangle meshes, mirror reflections, global illumination, simple and realistic transparency, texture mapping, procedural textures and noise-based textures. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)

Summa summarum.

With the intention of providing systemic techniques that will help graduate and upper-level undergraduate students, researchers and non-specialists evaluate almost any finite algebraic sum, this offers essential tools ranging from classic ideas of Euler to computer algorithms by Gosper, Wilf and Zeilberger. Larsen (mathematics, U. of Copenhagen) starts from the simple and builds to increasing complexity and sophistication, covering elementary properties, polynomials, linear difference equations, classification of sums, Gosper's algorithm, sums of Type II in various configurations, Zeilberger's algorithm, sums of Type III-IV, sums of Type V and harmonic sums. He also provides indices detailing indefinite sums and basic identities, including basic theorems from Gauss and Bailey. This is a title in a new series of monographs from the Canadian Mathematics Society and A K Peters, Ltd. introducing subjects of current interest. (Annotation ©2008 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)