Design Books

I decided to start with this book as I think it is the most convenient to start in the data mining field. One big advantage of the book is the way data mining techniques are explained. It is mainly based on textual and graphical explanations. There is little equations, only what is necessary to implement the algorithms.

This book widely cover areas such as data preparation and understanding, classification, anomaly detection, association analysis and clusering. Although the book has a strong emphasis on the two last ones, nearly all standard data mining techniques are at least briefly discussed. However, this book does only have a fiew pages about kernel methods for example. Indeed, it is normal, as kernel methods are more suitable for machine learning (I mean making prediction) than data mining (I mean looking for description).

Therefore, this book is:

* able to explain data mining without thousands of equations
* a good way to start with data mining
* covering nearly all standard data mining techniques
* focused on association analysis and clustering

and it is not:

* a good book for kernel methods and other advanced techniques
* written in the statistical nor in the database perspective

My comment: if you are in the data mining field and not comming from mathematics or databases, then you really should buy this book.

Data mining could be considered to be "Artificial Intelligence Lite", since it deals with many of the same issues in learning, classification, and analysis as they occur in the field of artificial intelligence but does not have as its goal the construction of "thinking machines." Instead, the emphasis is on practical problems that are important in business and industry, even though the solutions of many of these problems makes use of techniques that a thinking machine should be expected to have. Data mining has become an enormous industry, and has even been the subject of political and legal concerns due to the efforts of some governments to mine data on its citizens. This book gives a general overview of data mining with emphasis on classification and associative analysis. Anyone who is interested in data mining could read the book, but some rather sophisticated background in mathematics will be needed to read some of the sections. Pseudocode is given throughout the book to illustrate the different data mining algorithms. There are also exercises at the end of each chapter, but noticeably missing in the book is the inclusion of real case studies in data mining. The inclusion of these case studies would alert the reader to the fact that data mining is of great interest from the standpoint of business and industry, and would lessen the belief that data mining is just another academic field or just another branch of statistics.

Speaking somewhat loosely, the goal of data mining is to find interesting patterns in massive amounts of data or the classification of such patterns. This entails of course that one have a notion of what is "interesting" and one of the main problems in data mining is to find suitable `interestingness measures'. And since one is typically dealing with large amounts of data, one must use various statistical sampling and preprocessing techniques to massage the data and obtain a `representative' sample of the original data. In addition, one must be able to handle data that is `anomalous', i.e. data that has characteristics that are markedly different from most of the other data, or that has attributes that are unusual if compared with typical values for those attributes. These issues and techniques are discussed in detail in the first three chapters of the book, where the authors outline some of the bread-and-butter topics needed for effective manipulation of data.

The real substance and power of data mining comes from its role in classification and for discovering interesting patterns in huge data sets. The authors, in chapters 4 - 7, discuss various powerful techniques for data classification and association analysis. Association analysis in particular has been used quite extensively in recent years, due to the use of market basket transactions in on-line purchasing and the goal of marketers to learn the purchasing behavior of their customers. Association analysis uncovers relationships in the marketing data in the form of `association rules'. For disjoint itemsets X and Y, an association rule is a logical implication expression between these itemsets that has a certain `strength' that is measured by its `support' and `confidence.' The support measures how often a rule is applicable to a given data set, while the confidence measures how frequently the items in Y appear in X. The support reflects the ability of the rule to be not due to chance alone, while the confidence measures the reliability of the rule inference. The collection of all association rules that can be formed from a data set is too large to be practical and so strategies must be developed to prune the number of rules. The authors discuss in detail various methods for dealing with this computational drawback, such as `frequent itemset generation' and `rule generation.'

The detection of anomalies consists of the identification of `outliers', which as the name implies are data objects that lie "far away" from the other data objects. It remains of course to quantity what it means to be "far away" and for this reason this branch of data mining, as the author points out, is sometimes called `deviation detection' or `exception mining'. The omission of outliers is sometimes justified, since they are merely artifacts that only serve to alter the statistics of a particular data set. However, sometimes their presence signals important information, if not a major scientific discovery. Data mining therefore must contain tools that detect anomalies intelligently and efficiently. The authors discuss anomaly detection in fair detail, emphasizing the statistical techniques that are available to do it. They classify the techniques for anomaly detection as being `unsupervised', `supervised', and `semi-supervised'. As the name implies, supervised anomaly detection requires the existence of a training set with both anomalous and "normal" data with each class being labeled as such. When these labels are unavailable, one has to perform unsupervised anomaly detection, and for this approach to work the anomalies must be distinct from one another. If the normal data is labeled but the anomalies are not, one must do semi-supervised anomaly detection. The only weakness in the authors' discussion is that they do not include real-world case studies that illustrate the different techniques, such as clustering and density methods.

This book gives an excellent overview of data mining techniques, and gives thorough information about machine learning fundamentals. The key advantages of this book are its clean structure and high quality content and illustrations.

I've just made it through the first 6 chapters of the book so far but I really enjoy this book so far. This book is terrific at introducing this material in an easy-to-understand manner. I've found myself using to supplement my machine learning textbook when more thorough explanations are needed. The section on support vectors was the easiest to grasp from about a dozen references I had on hand. I've seen a few typos here and there but I suppose that's expected from a first edition.

This book is amazingly well written. Everything is explained in a very clear and to-the-point style. The book can be read from front to back or used as a reference book. It contains countless diagrams and the structure of the content is immediately apparent.

The book covers a lot of the important aspects of data mining. It provides algorithms and techniques for classification, clustering, association analysis, and anomaly detection. Every algorithm is not only formally stated, but also explained in a way that conveys intuition.

I only wish other authors also wrote books this way.

This was my textbook for my algorithms class at UW-Madison.
I like it better than Cormen's book, (introduction to algorithms) I think it's more readable and easy to follow.

A couple of caveats:
1.) This book is more of a survey. It does a deep-dive of some algorithms, but a lot of them only get a high-level description. If you are interested, you will have to look elsewhere for details, etc.

2.) The exercises are very well-written, and very interesting, some of them have been interview questions that I have encountered. The thing is, there is no answer key, and the hints section is not very useful at times.

Still, this book opened my eyes to the beauty of algorithms and math, and the elegance of solutions that are possible for "hard" problems.
After you read this book, you will have an idea of what is possible and it will give you enough ammunition, enthusiasm, and background for digging deeper.
A great collection to pair with is Sedgewick's collection on algorithms, Bundle of Algorithms in Java, Third Edition (Parts 1-5): Fundamentals, Data Structures, Sorting, Searching, and Graph Algorithms, Third Edition which may fill in some of the detail that this book may lack.

For those of you who've always wanted to throw the Cormen text out the window rejoice you finally can! This book is an excellent introduction to algorithms. Though not as thorough as the Cormen text it's orders of magnitude more readable!

Even though this book is only a few years old, it seems like a well-worn classic. That is not to say that it is outdated and irrelevant; it is exactly the opposite! While my knowledge of algorithms textbooks isn't encyclopedic, I can say that this book was way ahead of the curve in it's layout. Before it, most books presented a bunch of algorithms with some loose affiliations such as being search algorithms or dealing with graphs. This book groups algorithms into major themes and makes it much easier to learn the fundamentals of algorithm design. There have been a new set of algorithms textbooks coming out as late (Kleinberg and Tardos, Dasgupta et al, etc) that have the same approach as this book because it works so well. Don't miss out!

This book presents the field of algorithm analysis from a different perspective. This book attempts to provide you with enough foundation to not only pick common sorting, searching, etc., algorithms for a problem, but shows you how to design new algorithms if need be. The book is an introduction, so keep that in mind. But the foundation it paves should last you a lifetime.

I recently finished using this book for a course. I found it to be very well written and the presentation was excellent. Most books on algorithms are hard to read and overly mathematical. This book emphasizes more the textual explanation of algorithms for practical applications and not as much on theoretical proofs etc. The exercises at the end of the chapters strongly reinforce the contents and insightful hints to every exercise are given at the end of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed using this book and found it challenging. Other books I used for reference such as the MIT classic Introduction to Algorithms was also useful but much more difficult to understand initially.

Several years ago I bought a reprint of Dr. Morse book and it has become not only a treasured Clasic but a Bible of information. Although there are no pictures, none are needed with Dr. Morse drawings and detail descriptions.
E L Smith

"Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings" is a great book. If you've any interest in traditional Japanese architecture, get this book. Edward Morse was an American who went to Japan in 1877 to study brachiopods. He ended up recording a vanishing way of life instead. He tells you how Japanese homes were built and why they were built that way. Not much escapes his eye. In serviceable prose and clear drawings, he tells us about carpenters and their tools, houses, furnishings, privies, fences and gateways, water supplies and gardens. Most of it he compares favorably to American and European counterparts.

Best of all, it's a Dover book and cheap.

I bought this book about 3 years ago from Amazon. So you'd think that it would be old hat by now. Yet I find myself picking it up at least once every few months to either refer to it for a construction detail or just to look for something new. What a wonderful resource for traditional Japanese design this book is.

Trained as a Zoologist, Morse put his scientific powers of observation and systematic description to work during the 1880's in producing the sketches and text that describes a world of everyday Japanese design right before it was swamped with Western influence and largely disappeared. There are plenty of books that can show you pictures of ancient Japanese temples and teahouses, but what about the method of constructing the roof of an ordinary 19th century Tokyo home? This was stuff that few people thought was worth recording for posterity. Which is why Morse's book is so unique and valuable to us.

Anyone with more than a passing interest in the way that things are built or designed would do well to put this book on their shelf. Interior decorators, architects, DIY types (such as myself), finish carpenters, contractors and furniture makers should all have a tattered, dog-eared copy of 'Japanese Homes and Their Surroundings' within easy reach. It is a constant source of inspiration.

I picked up the Dover paperback edition at a library book sale and was charmed by the author's detailed drawings as much as the description of domestic life in 19th century Japan. Morse originally published this in 1885, barely 30 years after Perry's expedition, and traveled around Japan documenting as many houses and styles as possible (including those of the Aino culture). There are no photographs, but the intricate line drawings and intimate descriptions of functional households -- kitchens and cooking utensils, washing areas, sleeping quarters -- are minutely detailed and thoroughly described in the text. Not just a book for those interested in architecture but history as well.

I purchased this book simply to get a quick overview of Japanese domestic architecture. The price is always right with Dover books so I just ordered it without any research. What a pleasant surprise to find myself reading a definitive work on the subject a few days later. The text is thoughtfully written and the illustrations skillfully done. As with any well written and illustrated book, color pictures are not overly missed. As a result of this book I find myself much more interested in Japanese architecture than I ever intended to be and heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in home or interior design.

Clare Phillips's small volume is the best short history of jewelry I have ever seen. The text, though relatively slender, is packed with information, and the illustrations are lovely and educational. If you can only afford one book on the history of jewelry, this is the book to get.

Jewelry: From Antiquity to the Present is a well written book with accompanying pictures to exemplify every style of jewelry popular in the Old World throughout history. Focusing primarily on Europe, this is a great overview of all the techniques and materials used in jewelry creation. The book is enjoyable enough to read page by page, as opposed to using it solely as a reference book. I highly suggest it to anyone interested in gaining an understanding of how jewelry has evolved throughout history.

This is the book i've been looking for, a complete review about jewelery history,with good pictures and confiable information.Best for those who want to have an overview since the ancient world up to the modern times.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and it has done its job - leaving me wanting to know more. Clare Phillips covers the trends and machinations of each distinct period in jewellery making so I gained a good understanding of the styles of jewellery and their evolution and the historic influences of society and how this manifested in jewellery. It is well written and easy to follow with wonderful colour and black and white plates as the best examples of the period discussed. If you don't know the various styles of jewellery and their production period - this is an ideal book to start learning.

I am a beginning collector, It gave me a big frame and lots of information. I am still looking for a good book that helps me in buying. This is more a history.As a history book it is great.

A truly inspirational book! Kaffe Fassett is one of the great designers of own times. This book allows a view into his magical universe of colour. A definite must for everyone who loves knitting.

I needed a book with just designs I could use in knitting. This is perfect for what I had in mind. TONS of designs and all beautiful. Great Book

Kaffe Fassett is the best in knitwear designs! Use the designs in this book for your knitwork or use them as a source of inspiration and invent your own designs. It realy is great!

Excellent resource for color work. And I mean color work as in knitting, embroidery, tapestry, mosaic. Doubles as all of that! This was my first book by Kaffe. Now I own a half dozen of them. And love them all.

The best thing about this book is it's so full of design patterns. Having the charts for colorful designwork is handy. So many books are full of the actual garment patterns, this one is full of the design patterns making it easy for the creative knitter to find a design and adapt it to whatever knitting project they choose. It's great for the experienced knitter, however, it may not be the best or most useful for a new knitter although, it's definately one for the new knitter to have in their library as inspiration and future use.

This book is not Landscape as "Spirit" but Landscape as "Symbolism". Which is ok but that is not why I purchased this book. I wanted a book that taught or "pointed" towards how to create or how a Zen garden is created. To see what the inner Zen world looks like when projected outward into a Zen garden.

The book starts out with the idea that a garden designed from the Zen perspective is a Mandela. Then the Mandela is created using elements in the garden to symbolize Heaven, Earth and Man. Then the book goes on to say that one level down, the garden can be created using garden elements to symbolize Earth, Fire, Water, Fire, Air and Space. For me this "Spirit" theory was very incoherent. A Zen Master experiences "The Tao" and reacts intuitively. This Spirit theory seemed to contradict Zen teachings. In fact the arrangement of stones in many of the photographs and plans are "too" ordered; too balanced and unnatural; unintuitive.

Don't get me wrong, it is a beautiful book with many beautiful "details" to learn from. But good eastern minded landscaping "responds" to the site NOT created things like miniature mountains, miniature trees that represent fire, perfectly placed stones, perfectly placed plants in between perfectly placed stones and so on and so on???

Nature and Zen are natural not contrived. Zen is natural or consists of "a suchness" or an experience of "The garden IS" not something that reflects levels of symbolic hierarchy.

This is a great book that one can return to time after time. It presents landscaping principals in the context of the garden as a place for reflexion and meditation. As gorgeous as the photos are, I find the text even more meaningful.

this book's title, if the picture of the cover is real, is different from the Amazon title. who proof's this stuff?

This gorgeously made and printed book will inspire ANY gardener or person who enjoys gardens. The photos take you into a world of amazing gardens. I'm not a garden nut, but I love a beautiful book and this one is on my coffee table. The writing is clear, creative, and very informative. This book is an excellent gift to anyone who loves architecture, design, or landscapes.

This book is remarkable in at least three regards. First, it is so finely produced that we, as readers, can actually feel our way into the gardens it is showing us. Second, the principles of garden-making it offers us are profound, simple and flexible: we can see how the Mosko gardens emerge from them, and how our own might too. Third, and most unusual, it is deeply spiritual, coming from years of meditative practice in the Zen and Tibetan tradtions, as well as in unnamed native traditions of spirit. In the deepest sense this book is beauty as instruction.

This is a wonderful book. The photography shows every detail of the exquisite designs, which are breath-taking. The commentary is very interestsing and gives an insight into life in the 1800's according to the way women dressed. I would love to be able to wear any of the fabulous dresses shown.

This book by Mr. Burbidge is a feast for the eyes. The book features dozens of 29-inch fashion dolls wearing costumes from the 1850s to around 1914. Being oversized dolls, each costume can have incredible detail. Mr. Burbidge has labored to create accurate period detail in each dress. Each doll is shown in a full-page picture with period hairstyles and accessories. Each accompanying page includes a description of the outfit, small inset pictures of close details, an interesting quote from historical sources about the time period and usually some tidbit about where the author found the material for the gown. Frequently the author will explain things about high society of the era and how certain items would be viewed - for instance, whether a gown would be considered racy because of its color or how young ladies didn't wear expensive jewelry with a gown until after they were married.

There are only 2 things that I found lacking about this book and they are really trivial items in my mind. The first is that the color of the full-page images is sometimes a bit "off". The dolls often feature very soft colors and the images have a warm tone that can wash them out. The inset detail shots usually have a better color representation.

The second is that the reader should not expect accurate period undergarments on the dolls. The crinolines and petticoats are fairly accurate, but there are no corsets shown.

All in all, the book is beautiful and informative. If you didn't know better, you would almost think the images were of full-size mannequins dressed in real period costumes. And the accompanying text is suitable for anyone, even if they have no knowledge of the eras shown.

If you're into miniatures, or just fabulous seamestry, you will love this book and this man's work with textiles, and fashion of a romantic era like none you've seen. These are fashions we will never see again in our society, (thank goodness - can't imagine wearing this stuff). But at the same time, I love to see how elegant and fabulous ladies looked in these garments. This man was responsible for making some of the most fabulous wedding gowns in our country for over a decade and now has preserved for us a fashion era that won't be brought back in it's entirety ever again. A must see for those that are into preserving a culture and miniatures.

I found this book very useful as a source for inspiration. Good quality pictures of very Victorian looking dresses. It is not a "how to" book, but if you have some experience in sewing, there you can find good ideas how it all must look then finished.

This book is a total delight for fans of couture, especially La Belle Epoch. Nothing will compare to seeing the exquisite Les Petites Dames in person, but this book comes close! I was fortunate enough to acquire some of these pictures when they were marketed in small groups, so I was thrilled to find that Mr. Burbidge had since expanded the collection and subsequently published it in its entirety (also the book goes into more detail). Just loved it!!

To read Van Gogh's letters is to come as close to sitting aside this world class artist as possible. I dare say, he wrote almost as good as he painted--his passion verily jumps off the page.

In this addition, we are treated to an excellent selection of Van Gogh's letters (mainly to his brother Theo) from each seminal period in his extraordinary life. In between the sections, the editor provides us with fascinating details into the travails of Van Gogh's personal life.

Alongside Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, this collection is essential reading for all artists.

Van Gogh is a tremendously powerful letter- writer. In these letters mostly written to his brother we see a great , suffering , soul, a devoted artist tormented and striving. This may all sound like 'cliche' but Van Gogh is perhaps the most conspicuous example of the cliche of the suffering , rejected in- his- life artist who knows great recognition only after death.
Van Gogh is a person of great intelligence, and of a very strong conscience. There are no greater letters I think ever written by an artist.And while they may be filled with a troubled and agonized spirit they too have a great richness of feeling and appreciation of life.

I bought this book several years ago in a college bookstore. How fortunate these students were to have been able to read and discuss this with others! I have had a long interest in Van Gogh and found this book to be fascinating, an almost voyeuristic look into his short life. I am glad to see that it is available * * and would hope that people now seeing the traveling Van Gogh portraiture exhibit might read it.

De Leeuw has compiled letters covering over 25 years of Van Gogh's life, letters that offer the reader an intimate look into the artist's thoughts and emotions. He writes about his friendships, his family, his attempts at love affairs, his religious beliefs and questions, and most importantly, about his art. These letters reveal him as anything but the anti-social person often portrayed in the past, with the ones about his relationship with his brother Theo being particularly touching.

Van Gogh was a prolific correspondent and an absolutely wonderful writer. His prose is remarkable--he could have been a writer as well as an artist. These letters shed light on the inner thoughts and the inspiration for his art and show him as a person of great passion and compassion.

this collection of van gogh's letters to his brother Theo both captivated me and broke my heart. Such an intimate look into the vulnerability of the artistic soul. Those who appreciate the artistic process will love this collection of letters. You don't need to be an admirer of Van Gogh's to appreciate this; but you will walk away admiring the man behind the sunflowers.

A very fine collection of the letters, with multiple sides of VVG revealed. To read a collection of letters by an artist whose work you know very well is to invite yourself to take a look at him as a person. As a person, I found that I liked him best in these letters when he was struggling with his religion, his art, and his purpose. I'm glad that Roskill didn't make a selection that focused solely on the more famous and theatrical depressions.

I don't agree that this work reveals Van Gogh as a writer. For me, they definitely confirmed his status as a painter. At his best in these letters, he's painting with words.

Which doesn't make it a less interesting read. I found this a good adjunct to taking a look at the work again, it added an extra dimension to experiencing him as a painter.

Well worth the time it takes.

Carol and Tena really put their hearts and souls into this second book. Instead of rehashing anything, they used Lifelines to go deeper and show even more great altered techniques one can use in their art making process.

I really love Tena's mini book called It's a Blog World (pg 28). Most of the journaling for this project was complete because Tena printed her entries straight from her blog and added them to her scrapbook, giving a genuine and real diary-like quality to the project.

Carol's quirky altered torso, (pgs 48-49) where she applied map tissue paper and a skirt of transferred black-and-white images is a totally cool project that showcases how true paper arts is so much more than simple scrapbooks.

I found Lifelines chock-full of great altering techniques that once you learn, you can utilize again and again in your own work. What a lovely book! Thanks Carol and Tena for being so cool and cutting edge.

Like many other Amazon buyers, there are occasions when I purchase a book and wish I'd been able to see it before pressing the Buy Now button. Although sometimes it's the overall quality of the publication, it is more usually because the content doesn't live up to the cover. (And Amazon does often require us to judge a book by its cover)

One this occasion, the beautiful cover doesn't begin to do justice to the fabulous pages inside. In fact I am so pleased with this book that I am at risk of running out of superlatives. I own dozens and dozens of craft books, but this one is sure to take pride of place.

Four things really stand out for me. (1)The range of techniques is varied and extensive (2)The "how to" section on each technique is reasuringly clear and provides both pictures and text (3)The authors provide list of supplies required to achieve each technique AND supplies required to complete the actual project example in the book (4)This publication won't overwhelm the enthusiastic novice or disappoint the experienced memory artist.

The one word of warning is that some of the supply lists are longish.So, those with more stuff than they know what to do with will get to use alot of it. Having said that, the supplies aren't exotic, horribly expensive or hard to find.

Buy and enjoy!

LIFELINES is packed with concepts for memory art products which honor friends, family and personal interests, and shows how to produce mixed-media collages blending a scrapbook approach with pop art and ephemera effects. Collections strong in crafts projects will find this a very popular lend, appealing to patrons who want to produce high-quality keepsake editions of their memories for families and friends.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

I've been looking to break out of my traditional scrapbooking rut, but often feel the "altered look" is a bit too much. And at first, based on the cover, I almost passed this book by. I'm glad I didn't. This book is filled with awesome ideas, great pictures and detailed instructions. A combination most books lack these days. I've looked it over several times and still see new things. I'm inspired so much, that I plan to make all my christmas gifts this year. Highly recommend this book!

How many times have you purchased a book on Amazon and regret that you weren't able to look through it before buying it? It has happened to me more times than I care to admit, but this book by Carol Wingert and Tena Sprenger is a pleasant surprise. The techniques are fun and varied. The instructions are clear, concise and very easy to implement. I was really surprised at all the fun things you can do with everyday products!

Enjoy,
Cris Cunningham

Beautiful, gorgeous artwork. Highly recommended

This coloring book is a great first look at the desert for young children. It is written from a thoughtful, interesting perspective that will appeal to children of all ages who have an interest in science, little critters or the environment.

The illustrations are great and very likeable to children. I was so pleased to give this book to my nephew for both his entertainment and for educational purposes. I have several other books written by this author and have been pleased with all of them. This is not a typical coloring book. Great job to the author.

Storad and Atwood have done it again. I hope to take my Colorado kids to the desert this spring so that they can see firsthand all of the wonderful, magical things we have learned about insects and the desert. This book has engaged them and taught them in a way I rarely see in juvenile non-fiction.

As a teacher of second and third graders I am constantly looking for resources that my students can use while researching science and social studies topics. One of our course of study requirements is to study animals and their habitats. Since we live in Ohio, it is difficult to find information about the desert. Little Lords of the Desert provides accurate information written at an appropriate reading level. My students also gain information from the realistic drawings of the animals. This is an invaluable resource that should be a part of every primary classroom library.