Industrial Books

This publication comprehensively covers both the art, and the science, of landslide causation, investigation, analysis, and remediation. It is the one book that a practitioner should have when dealing with landslide issues. The quality of the figures, the procedures for making preliminary cost estimates, and the detailed case histories substantially add to the value of the book.

Without question on of the most comprehensive texts about landslides to date. The text is full of practical and helpful case histories which are invaluable and set this book apart from the rest. Chapters on slope stability anaylses and dewatering alone are worth the price of admission. A must reference for all practicing geotechnical engineers.

I can't imagine a clearer, more comprehensive or better organized treatment of this subject. This is a "must have" text for practicing engineering geologists and geotechnical engineers. It contains a wealth of information and many good case histories, and is far superior to anything else I've seen on this subject. I only wish it had been available earlier in my career.

"Landslides in Practice" is the best practitioner's book on landslides I've seen. This excellent book is complete, logically arranged and written with an economy of words that makes the book highly useful as a practical reference. The full discussion of remedial measures - when and when not to use them, and cost estimating will be particularly useful in my work. I know I'll use this book often.

Landslides in Practice is an outstanding technical publication aimed at geotechnical engineers and geologists. I am very impressed with the format, layout and technical content. The book is well divided into three sections, with useful case histories in the third section. All figures are well presented and easy to follow. I am also impressed with the opportunity to estimate "ballpark" costs for various mitigation techniques. This textbook may become the "bible" on landslide design and mitigation. I will definitely keep it as my main resource for landslide/slope stability assignments.

This is the best lego mindstorms book ever printed it is in-depth in the theory behind the robots.

This is the book of the greatest, most complex Lego pieces to date, and I highly recommend it to anyone thoroughly engrossed in the area of Lego programming. It is an invaluable resource with amazing graphics, and very creative new inventions which serve as a wonderful catalyst for my own ideas. Great guide.

This book has gathered together "Masterpieces" from some of the the world's greatest LEGO creators. Builders from the US, Canada, Italy, Netherlands, and Japan have brought you their passions, the theories behind each masterpiece, and detailed building and programming techniques. "LEGO Mindstorms Masterpieces" is truly at the zenith of all related books and I believe it will become a true masterpiece both in name and in reality.

This book began in July of 2002. And, while the the creation, writing and editing was extremely difficult, the authors fought mightily to accomplish our goal: to build LEGO robots both suitable for Master Builders and worthy of this book's title! Amazing PneumADDic II and Synchropillar by Kevin as a computer processor specialist and creator of LPub and LSynth. Splendid Stair-Climber by Doug who is a well known creator of several Omni Drive Vehicles. And, two awesome works - Learning Brick Sorter and The LEGO Turing Machine that were invented by the famous Ferrari brothers - they are co-authors of the best selling "Building Robots with LEGO Mindstorms" and have been called the "DaVincis of LEGO". Biped robot expert Miguel created complex SSCT faithfully based on the real robot that was active for life search and explore in WTC, New York. Lastly, a robotic arm driven by 10 motors and feedback system - CyberArm IV that I have created as a series in four years. All of these are the real robots that are backed by real robotics - only the materials are LEGO! We are very pleased that we could explore a new frontier in LEGO Mindstorms, and be able to offer it in book form.

As the one of pioneers of LEGO robots, I have had my experience of the results in the MIT Media Lab fortunately in the middle of the 80s, and the result of my writing of over half year keeping is included in bundle CD-ROM as a over 50 pages bonus chapter. I have tried to write about a lot of topics to explain the world of robots and LEGO Mindstorms - history of LEGO robot or their philosophy of the LEGO Group, precious list and description of early LEGO educational sets for control learning, personal robot boom in the 80s, from a more than 300-year-old Japanese automata (the Karakuri) to the latest state-of-the-art robotics. I believe that my discussion and description about the way of thinking and creation - included building, programming, CAD and even about Art - are useful in particular.

We hope that this book will never lose its value and that it will become loved by people of all generations.

From Tokyo
Hideaki Yabuki
Media Activist

Included are complete building instructions for some truly amazing robots/machines. You'll need LOTS of Lego to build them though. Even if you haven't you'll be inspired by the authors imagination and ingenuity. The writing is good, and the descriptions/instructions detailed and clear.
The best reason though for buying the book is the included CD which contains no less than ten other Mindstorms books in PDF format,including the most excellent 'Building Robots with Lego Mindstorms'. I had expected to find software and sample programs, but their absence is more than made up for by the books.

After building many of the robots presented in Lego Mindstorms Masterpieces published by Syngress, I feel I am now qualified to give a fair personal assessment of this book. I have purchased many Lego Mindstorms books and each one has great ideas and a lot to offer. All books have shortcomings and room for improvement. How good a book is depends on how well it address the readers needs. My needs center on my use of Lego Mindstorms to teach mechanical engineering, logic, programming and robotics to my 13-year-old daughter. Lego Mindstorms Masterpieces is the newest addition to our Lego toolbox. There are so many positive things to say about this publication I'll place the very few items I would have preferred done differently at the end of this review.

A few key benefits this book offers to anyone involved with Lego Mindstorms are complete, well illustrated assembly instructions, detailed commentary by the authors with additional tips to aid in the construction, explanations of where the inspirations for the creation came from with historical references, web site listings for additional information and a e-book CD-ROM with program files. Many of the authors have active web sites of their own and are available to generously help people stuck during construction.

Lego Masterpieces not only expand the reader's knowledge of Lego Mindstorms applications, but engineering and robots in general. The concepts presented can be applied anywhere the logic, computers, or machines are designed and built. The book shows that the construction of a machine must go hand in hand with the programming to best fit an application. Giulio Ferrari explores basic Artificial Intelligence and the foundations of modern computers with the Turing Machine. Another chapter presents the mechanics and theory of creating logic cells amazingly through the use of pneumatics and then combining them into the synchronous PneumADDic II calculating machine by Kevin Clague. And again by Kevin, the building of an asynchronous artificial muscle using Autonomous Pneumatic Circuits in the Synchropillar without RCX programmed control. An all terrain wheeled vehicle by Doug Carlson uses his Tri-Star drive design called the Stair Climber and will crawl over and out of almost anything. A spy robot by Miguel Aguilio called The Shape-Shifting Camera Tank utilizes Vision Command's camera, can increase or decrease it's height and you may control it with it's own Lego parts constructed joystick. The Learning Brick Sorter by Mario Ferrari, which combines a robotic arm with an automated task, blends the machine with excellent basic AI programming, which can learn new tasks. And finally, the most advance Lego robotic arm I've ever seen is in the chapter on CyberArm IV by Hideaki Yabuki. Not only does this arm have five Degrees of Freedom and 180-degree rotation, but you can also build the optional Power Glove to operate the robotic arm from your own hand movements!

The few complaints I have of this book are that the Bill Of Materials on some of the chapters are printed so small and illegible that I couldn't read them with a magnifying glass! Adding a page and printing the illustrations larger and clearer would have better represented the quality of the overall material. The other complaint is found in most books. Someone should proof read it before publication. Spell checkers don't think!

My final message about this book is BUY IT and start collecting the parts you'll need. It expands the frontiers of Lego Mindstorms and you'll need all the parts you can get your hands on!

This book covers a lot of ground on NXT-G programming and is a must have resource for anyone serious about programming in NXT-G as the on line help included with the NXT set is not adequate.
As a professional programmer and a robotics hobbyist, I would recommend that anyone wanting to bring out the full potential of their NXT creations move to a text based language like Robot-C instead. While NXT-G is good for simple programs, it is just to difficult to create anything of any complexity as the graphical elements and all those connecting lines distract you from what you are trying to accomplish.
I am giving this book 5 stars because it does well at what it is, a reference / guide to the NXT-G programming language. It is NXT-G itself that I would only give 2 stars.

We bought this book for our nine year old son who had recently received the Mindstorms NXT for Christmas. He could not put the book down - read it from cover to cover and thinks it is a great book. Highly recommend.

The book consists of 26 chapters plus 1 appendix.

The first 2 chapters cover the questions of "What is a robot" and "What is a program" and introduce the topic of pseudo code. There are many different methods when it comes to pseudo code, but this method will hopefully help teachers, parents, and students to understand how to take an idea for a program and turn it into actual NXT-G block code.

All 36 blocks are covered (the book is useful for both the retail version software and the educational version), and each block has its own chapter with the exception of a couple of blocks that share a chapter (such as the Random block and Number-To-Text block that share chapter 14).

There is a chapter dedicated to the concept of data plugs and wires (Chapter 7). This can be one of the more confusing elements of NXT-G, so this chapter uses a simplified method of showing how data types (number, text, logic) are passed between blocks.

Another chapter provides a walkthrough on creating a My Block. My Blocks are powerful methods for simplifying NXT-G programs, and this chapter shows how the ability to re-use My Blocks can be helpful.

Finally, the appendix covers some basic math such as converting back and forth between degrees and rotations. It also explains the LCD screen's resolution and how the X/Y coordinates work.

Teachers, parents, coaches, and kids should find this book useful. It's written in a very friendly and easy-to-read style and provides plenty of sample programs in each chapter to demonstrate how to use the blocks. Also, coverage of each block's configuration panel is also provided. Overall, the book can be used as an additional source of information on the NXT-G programming language to supplement the Help files included with the software.

When it comes to wanting to do Lego Mindstorm NXT-G, this is the first book you should get. The book shows the reader what different blocks are and how they work. The book also reads in terms that middle school students can understand and follow. Programming is the most difficult item that you have to do with a roboit. This book shows is a great resource for people that are in to lego roboits.

There's no other book out there that covers the NXT-G programming language. Jim Kelly covers the subject thoroughly, in a clear, friendly and encouraging style.

The book not only covers NXT-G, it's also a primer on what programming is and how it works. With this book, teachers, students and beginners will have everything they need to understand how NXT-G works and how to use it. Advanced users will learn a thing or two as well, particularly with respect to some of the lesser known blocks within the NXT-G program.

If you love the architecture of post-war America, then this is the book for you. I am a huge fan of Wayne McAllister's work and this book gives you the lens with which to view the progression of his buildings which began early on and literally exploded in the 1950's.

We all remember restaurants and hotels and some homes with this man's 'signature' all over them: rock exteriors, large sheets of glass, inset lighting, and brick planters. Some decry this look as cheap and tasteless. But in reality it wed form and function with a certain aesthetic quality that will never be duplicated.

Today, everything from buildings to cars all look alike. That 'certain something' is missing. Still, it is great to look back to a time when restaurants, hotels, motels, and cars looked cool. This book is a walk down memory lane and I return to it often. Well done, Chris Nichols!

This book was a delight to read. The illustrations are beautifull and informative. The research that has been put into this book is of great value. This book is of great lasting value for Baja California history as well as California and Nevada.

If you are into architecture books, books about Vegas, 1950s car culture, or anything retro, this book will be one you enjoy. I really like it as a coffee table book, because it has great pictures, but it is also a great read and seems well researched.

Nichols presents an interesting look at many of the historic landmarks of Los Angeles and Las Vegas, painting the picture of times since forgotten. Being in my 20s, many of the landmarks I knew in name only, although I have seen and been to some, but in both cases, Nichols' book manages to evoke feelings of nostalgia and longing. The book is obviously painstakingly researched, and the sheer number of rare and hard-to-find photographs are enough to make any architecture or food history buff go ga-ga.

Nichols gives a nostalgic retrospective on the long live and prodigious output of Wayne McAllister. In no small part, the book walks the reader back through the last 60 years of urban commercial architecture in the southern California region. McAllister lived a very long time, and he was responsible for designing iconic landmarks that at least in the hazy afterglow of memory, epitomise a classic time.

The book is replete with many photos and illustrations, the cover being an example of the latter. The most common image, if not exactly the most enduring, is Bob's Big Boy. I remember in the early 80s, when I arrived in Los Angeles, how these fast food restaurants and their mascots were everywhere. Even getting a cameo role in Terminator. Alas, as the years wore on, the Bob's Big Boys got steadily deprecated. Not many left.

Another type of McAllister's work has also fallen into the tar pits of history. He designed many of the drive-ins that dotted Los Angeles. And which were an indelible part of many teenagers' experiences. Sadly, most are long gone, brought down by the VCR and its successors. At least in the book, you can see several as they once were, at the peak of their glory. Actually, no matter how pretty the architecture, the sound was often bad, the food dreadful, the movies second rate and the nearby cars often had loudmouths.

Great book. But for some readers old enough, there is a certain bittersweet tinge to all this.

This book changed my life and my career. Reading it made me certain I was in the wrong place, in the wrong industry at the wrong time (for me). Companies that adhere to the tenets of LP&P will not have the retention issues most companies are dealing with today. People are drawn to and loyal to bosses who hold them in positive regard. Such companies are out there. Such leaders do exist and together they attract the best and brightest and the profits take care of themselves.

This book encourages those of us who want to make a little difference every day. It also dares us to be bold and public and exemplary in holding others in conspicuous--and high--regard. Written from experience on the inside of corporations, yet rich with values and insights, it is the most "balanced" look at leadership this year.

There are "how to treat people" books out -- and tons of "how to make more profit" books. Mark this book as one of the very few that integrates the themes with effective, believable ideas about how to manage more productively (and humanely!) tomorrow. One neologism worth noting in this book: altrupreneur. The word symbolizes the writers' core idea: that you can be an entrepreneur while being altruistic. You don't have to exploit to advance, they say, in convincing, straightforward language, statistics, and quotes.

Altrupreneur: One who conducts the affairs of an enterprise with conspicuous regard for the welfare of others." An excellent concept and philosophy that we should all learn to grasp as we operate in today's business environment. Nagle and Pascarella, very successful in their own right, quickly get to the essence of the successful business formula. It comes down to people! They cover the gamut from "Healing the Wounds of Betrayal," to "Creating a Mindset for Change," to "Building Community from Complexity." They reference that to the alrtupreneur, the company is a system but not just a system; it is something more human than that--itis a community. Furthermore, the new covenant being established in the altrupreneurial workplace exchanges accountability and continuous improvement for a reasonable and competitive income and continued opportunities for employability. This is best summarized by two quotes in the book; 1) "Did you do what I told you?" the traditional manager, versus 2) "What results did you get?" What did you learn? today's effective manager. An excellent book, with excellent insights. I have personally purchased a number of these and have passed them on to CEOs of both small and large firms with which I do business!

The truly successful organizations in the next century will be those that learn how to engage and energize the creativity an enthusiasm of their human assets. This is the next frontier in competitive advantage. In fact, there's always likely to be someone out there who can outspend you on those things. What makes your company unique is your people. Their innovation, creativity, and enthusiasm can't be copied. And, if that uniqueness is directed to creating processes, products, and services that are better than your competitors, you have an unbeatable advantage.

In Leveraging People and Profit the authors introduce a new term, altrupreneur. Altrupreneur is defined as one who conducts the affairs of an enterprise with conspicuous regard for the welfare of others. The altrupeneur is not one who acts only for the welfare of others, but one who acts with awareness of others' welfare as one of his or her top priorities.

The authors go on to outline a leadership model which includes the following.

1. The very essence of leadership is you have to have a vision. It's got to be a vision you articulate clearly and forcefully on every occasion. You cannot blow an uncertain trumpet. 2. Employees want and expect leaders to set direction and determine the business focus. Leaders are relying more on the power of influence than of command and control. 3. To be credible as a leader, you must first clarify your own values, translate them into a set of guiding principles, a credo, that you can communicate to the people you hope to lead. These overaching values help employees make decisions consistent with the aspirations of the company. 4. A leader must earn the trust of those he/she expects to lead. 5. Establish a mutual service compact which helps people understand where they fit in the value chain, aligns recognition programs to reward organizational successes, establishes training and personal development programs to reinforce continuous improvement, develops a communicaiton plan to ensure every employee understands values and vision and allocates resources to support improvment initiatives.

When an organization is energized by a vision that draws out the best efforts of all stakeholders in a positive and mutually beneficial context, there is virtually no limit to what is possible. Human creativity is not maximized until it is challenged by the impossible.

A very intuitive (geometrical) exposition of matrix calculus, adjoint problems, bilinear identity and Green's function (and more). If you really want to understand these concepts, read this masterpiece!

Some mathematics and physics writers stand head and shoulders above the rest. Goldstein...Liboff...Morrison...Morse and Feshbach...and Lanczos. A joy to read, if you are both mathematically and verbally inclined.

As the other reviewers have said, this is a master piece for various reasons. Lanczos is famous for his work on linear operators (and efficient algorithms to find a subset of eigenvalues). Moreover, he has an "atomistic" (his words) view of differential equations, very close to the founding father's one (Euler, Lagrange,...).

A modern book on linear operators begins with the abstract concept of function space as a vector space, of scalar product as integrals,... The approach is powerful but somehow we loose our good intuition about differential operators.

Lanczos begins with the simplest of differential equations and use a discretization scheme (very natural to anybody who has used a computer to solve differential equations) to show how a differential equation transforms into a system a linear algebraic equation. It is then obvious that this system is undetermined and has to be supplemented by enough boundary condition to be solvable. From here, during the third chapters, Lanczos develops the concept of linear systems and general (n x m) matrices, the case of over and under determination, the compatibility conditions, ...
It is only after these discussions that he returns (chapter 4) to the function space and develops the operator approach and the role of boundary conditions in over and under-determination of solutions and the place of the adjoint operators. The remaining of the book develops these concepts : chp5 is devoted to Green's function and hermitian problems, chap7 to Sturm-Liouville,... The last chapter is devoted to numerical techniques, amazing if one think that the book was written at the very beginning of computers, which is a gem by itself.

Somebody writen:
"Some mathematics and physics writers stand head and shoulders above the rest. Goldstein...Liboff...Morrison...Morse and Feshbach...and Lanczos. A joy to read, if you are both mathematically and verbally inclined."

I think some mathematics and physics writers stand head and shoulders above even Goldstein...Liboff...Morrison...Morse and Feshbach. It is the case of Lanczos and Dirac.

This book has material I've found in no other book. Lanczos is a pleasure to read -- his writing is clear, elegant, and entertainingly opinionated. I've liked every book of his that I've read.

This book is classic Dobie in style and is "the" book on Texas Longhorns. Dobie takes us through the history of the breed, through the animal, through the men and women that loved, used and abused them, and through the many tales that surround them, both fiction and fact. The animal stands large in this work, but the flavor of the old days, of the hardships, of the ranch life, of the love for the land of the people who lived and died there is a part of it too. For anyone with an interest in this breed, this book is a must read. For anyone else with a feel for the Southwestern United States, Texas, cowboys, or the land, it's time well spent.

As horses were introduced to America by the Spanish, so too were cattle, and both species became feral, then wild, and learned to survive on their own under extreme conditions in the west. Not infrequently some retained some of their domestication. Texas was the land of their beginning as catalysts to a lifestyle peculiarly western because of how they developed. The Longhorns were tough individuals as well as part of a breed apart, and Dobie was just the sort of person to describe them for what they were, and the men who made it their purpose to use them. Dobie is a story teller of exceptional talent as well as an historian of necessity if his stories are to carry any weight. Each Chapter deals with an aspect of the beast and its habitat from which they were removed to form enormous herds driven north by cowboys over tractless miles to railheads when they arrived or to distant markets before their coming. Cowboys were tough, but also gentle as they crooned softly to the cattle on a stormy night hopefully to prevent "stompedes." Dobies' tales of individual Longhorns illustrates that within the being of some was a spirit that exceeded normal expectation, and contributed to human emotions in spite of themselves. The Longhorns began to fade as bloodlines were mixed to improve the breed, and as railheads came closer to the herds. For "improved" cattle had not the prowess or the ability to survive without the help of man as did the pure Longhorns. They were a breed in transition from one life style to another, but their memory remains because of Dobie and his tales. Fascinating reading.

THIS BOOK WAS GREAT COLLECTION OF STORIES ON THE LONGHORN. IT STARTES WITH THE INTRODUCTION OF CATTLE AND HOW THE LONG HORN CAME TO BE. THERE ARE A FEW TALES OF THE LONG HORNS LONG HORNS,AND AFEW ON WHY IT WAS THE PERFECT ANIMAL FOR TEXAS CATTLEMEN.THE BOOK IS ENDED ON A SAD NOTE THAT TALKS ABOUT THE LAST OF THE WILD LONG HORNS

Frank Dobie, a University of Texas professor, spent years collecting stories of the old southwest. Many are tales that he wrote down of 19th Century life. Several are collected into volumes about important parts of life at the time, including "Longhorns" and "The Mustangs".

They provide great insight into the origin of those animals and their importance to people who lived in those times.

Another excellent Dobie book is "I'll Tell You a Tale," with excerpts from these two books and others. The anthology includes tales of gold, stories of irony, Old West characters, and saddle stories.

J. Frank Dobie spent his life documenting the grassroots history of Texas and this book is probably his finest examples. I've read all of his books and found this one to be the most informative. There's also a wonderful collection of photographs of many of the different variations of horn and hide at the rear of this book. You'll learn how the cattle came north from Mexico in the beginning and how early settlers rooted them out of the thickets of East Texas to start their herds. You'll learn about many of the principal cattlemen of early Texas including their drives north to the Kansas railhead.

If you enjoy Texas history you'll really enjoy this book.

I though that some parts overdone with comic characters and Japanese attitudes but overall fascinating. I loved examining the photos of some of the earlier robots over 200 years old. Some look incredibly intricate as well as beautiful.

I also felt inspired to get one of these modern robots too.

All of my life, I have been promised that the age of the robot is just around the corner. It seems like one of those things that is always in the immediate future, and always just out of reach, an eternal carrot that we keep moving towards, always one step ahead. Fifty years ago, they figured we would all be living with robots in our homes by now, doing domestic chores, entertaining us, educating us. Our plastic pal whose fun to be with!

"Loving the Machine" again makes this promise, and again I am inclined to believe it. Author Timothy Hornyak plays show and tell, taking you on a guided tour through robotics from the primitive first attempts to the modern marvels of Asimo and the semi-android Replee Q1expo. They really are stunning, and one can almost feel the fire of creativity and inspiration driving modern robotics research. The scientists are building robots out of passion, out of a real sense of discovery rather than commerce, and that is what always drives technology forward. All of the different fields are coming together, mixing software with hardware, sharing breakthroughs and triumphs that far outnumber failures and disappointments.

Ostensibly, "Loving the Machine" is also about Japan's relationship with the robot, and it is. Japan's culture of robots stretches back into its distant past, with the Karakuri automatons that are still wonders of ancient technology, unable to be replicated today. Whereas Western cultures have Superman, Japan has Mighty Atom, the robot superboy. Whereas the US has GI Joe, Japan has the super robots Gundam and Mazinger Z. Japan has nurtured a deep-seated love for the robot, and the whole country holds its collective breath waiting for the first truly intelligent robot to announce its own birthday. However, in attempting to contrast cultures, this is where the book loses its footing. The author makes much of The Terminator and the Replicants from "Blade Runner", stressing the West's fear of technology out of control, but never mentions R2-D2 and C-3PO from "Star Wars", Rosie the Robot Maid from "The Jetsons" Johnny 5 from the films "Short Circuit," Bender from "Futurama," or Isaac Asimov's heartbreaking hero from "The Bicentennial Man" There is not even a mention of how the fearsome Terminator returns for a second movie, this time as the hero saving a young boy. While not on the same level, the West has also long had a love affair with cute, friendly robots who are friends and companions rather than just functional machines.

I've been let down before, but "Loving the Machine" has given me a boost, returning me to the childhood where, when asked to draw a picture of what I thought life would be like in the year 2000, I drew a happy home complete with robot butler and flying car. The flying car may be out of the question, but there is at least still some hope that I might live to see the first truly intelligent robot announce its own birthday. Frankly, I can't wait.

What else can I say that my title doesn't convey?

My only carp--perhaps--is that the author fails satisfactorily to address the issue of why robots, so very hyped (albeit less so than, say, thirty years ago), have failed to establish significant inroads in domestic settings. Visit a Japanese automobile factory and you'll see robots everywhere--mounting parts, soldering, painting (even painting one another--accidentally, one hopes!). But in the home--as comedically immortalized in Woody Allen's 1974 hootfest, "Sleeper"--you don't see robots other than as curiosities, such as non-pooping "dogs."

Hornyak could have made the book more entertaining by including the anecdote about Herbie--had he known it. Herbie was a non-anthropomorphic robot that delivered inter-office mail in an AT&T facility in Silver Spring, Maryland. His route was not preprogrammed, but was "taught" to him by spray-painting a gradually fading metallic stripe onto the carpet: Herbie would follow the stripe, stopping whenever someone stood in his path. (Herbie was very polite: not only did he move slowly, but he did not step on feet.) One conniver thought it would be funny to spray-paint the stripe right over to the fifth-floor picture window, whereby Herbie committed hara-kiri in a spectacular blaze. (The jokester was less upset at being fired than at the eighty-thousand-dollar legal judgment.)

Do you want to know what's going on in the world of human-like robots? This book will bring you up to the present and it's happening in Japan. It's good light reading with the right balance of photos of robots. Not any kind of depth - just a light entertaining read. Kid's will like it as well as any adult who's interested in cartoon robots and real cutting edge human-like robots.

The book really shows how easily human-like robots are slipping in the psychie of Japan (and eventually the rest of us). Are we really ready for the coming robot world? Doesn't matter. We're all being softened up by these friendly and so nice robots. Nice, nice robots. Step by step with the help of their human inventors and advertisers, they've started their march into human society. I'd suggest watching the movie "I Robot" after you've read the book, or give both as a gift.

Loving The Machine: The Art And Science Of Japanese Robots is a fascinating and informative tribute to Japanese popular culture and its love affair with humanoid robots ranging from anime's Astro Boy to automatons imagined in speculative fiction to have existed in the Edo period of Japanese history. In stark contrast to American movies portraying robots as ruthless, Terminator-style killing machines, Japanese cinema and television has a tradition of gentler robots that mimic human activities. Full-color photographs on every page illustrate this unique analysis of what Japanese culture celebrates robots, Japan's historical connections to robots, and what modern technology indicates the future holds. Loving The Machine is very highly recommended reading -- especially for modern Japanese culture buffs.

The book exceeded all my expectations as a comprehensive discourse on Flip Chip technologies. It is extremely difficult to write a book that caters equally well to students and professionals alike, but the author seems to have succeeded in the task. For professionals in the field of electronic packaging, the book is an invaluable and comprehensive resource whether to refer a quick topic, or to study a concept in detail. It is also very up-to-date, complete with current international papers. For students, the fluid style makes good reading and the important concepts are explained thoroughly. Finally, the informations are very useful, and sometimes even lead to contemporary research issues.

As someone who was in the industry, and currently working at the University of Oxford - I can say that the book works great for both. Altogether, an excellent and timely book for electronic packaging people!

It is my pleasure to see our friend, John Lau, having another book (this is John's 12th book) published in the area of electronic packaging. The flip chip technology was developed more than 3 decades ago. However, due to the cost and reliability issues, flip chips were not yet widely adopted in the packaging industry. With the recent development of underfills and low-cost substartes, the aforementioned issues have been substantially improved. The present book appears just in time to promte the flip chip technologies to the packaging industry once again.

The 16 chapters in this book cover a wide spectrum of flip chip technologies. Following the introductions in Chapters 1 and 2, it is a pleasure to find a full chapter focused on lead-free solders. This is an emerging area in electronic packaging and should deserve special attention. Chapter 4 is another important subject in this book. Without high-density PCBs and substrates, the applications of flip chips would become very difficult. Chapter 5 introduces flip chips with conductive adhesives. This is mainly for chip-on-glass (COG) applications. The next three chapters provide abundant information regarding underfill encapsulation. In particular, the analyses and discussion for imperfect underfills are rather unique. After a brief chapter on the thermal management of flip chip on board, a comprehensive coverage on wafer-level packaging is provided. This is another highlight in this book. Several wafer-level chip scale packages (WLCSP) are introduced and the technlogy of wafer-level metallization and redistribution is discussed in depth. Chapters 11 and 12 concern two special topics: via-in-pad (VIP) and Direct Rambus (RIMM), respectively. The provided information is rather new. The next three chapters are focused on three forms of plastic ball grid array (PBGA) packages. Although two of them use wire bonding as the chip-level interconnect, they serve as good references for the comparison with solder-bumped flip chip PBGA packages. The last chapter of this book gives plenty of experimental results from failure analysis. This information is very helpful for understanding the failure mechanism of flip chip assemblies.

In summary, the present monograph is a very good reference book on low-cost flip chip technologies. The information is unique and up-to-date. I enjoy this book a lot and find it very helpful to my research work. It is a great value to the packaging engineers and researchers!

As the electronics industry is being driven by market demand to produce multi-functional, high-performance, miniature, and light-weight products, flip chip technology has been identified a key enabler, as well as a core technology for future electronics products. Although there have been numerous studies on this subject, they are scattered in different sources of literature and thus make it difficult for any one who would like to obtain a general, systematic, and comprehensive understanding of this technology.

This book comes just in time to fulfill the need and, in my opinion, is a best-in-class in the area of flip chip technologies for organic boards. Its 16 chapters cover a full spectrum from theory to application and provide scientists and engineers with an excellent, most up-to-date reference in flip chip technologies.

The book discusses major applications of flip chip technologies in direct chip attachment, wafer level CSP and plastic BGA, together with numerous examples of packages either being widely used in industries or emerging as a trend in the future. Each technology is discussed in detail from various aspects, such as design, PCB requirements, manufacturing, material, thermal management, failure analysis, and reliability, along with comprehensive references of literature. In fact, most of them represent previous work done by the author, who is not only a leading expert in electronic packaging industry but an active author of more than 10 books in the area of electronic packaging.

I found this book extremely useful to my research in electronic packaging technologies and thus highly recommend to whomever might need to understand and apply this technology to their work or studies.

Yi-Hsin Pao, Ph.D. Manager, Materials Engineering Dept. Visteon Automotive Systems Ford Motor Company

I found this book an excellent one for engineers in research and development department, such as the packaging R/D team I am associated with. For an R/D engineer, this is a perfect reference book to get a brief idea about relevant technologies in every aspect of flip chip packages and the advantage/drawback of one technology over others. This is important as for most of the development teams wafer level packages and flip chip technologies are still under development or in the trial run stage. Further, as cost is always the primary concern for essentially all the packages, including, of course, flip chip packages, this book does offer a lot of kits and alternatives for R/D engineers to choose which material and process technology should be the most suitable for them to develop. This book also offers many types of new flip chip and wafer level packages, along with abundant up-to-date references in each chapters, that can stimulate a good engineer and trigger new ideas for either new improvement or inventing new packages for their specific applications.

On the other hand, it is also a very suitable reference book for a packaging class in the graduate school level. For students with material or chemistry/chemical engineering background, they can very much understand two-thirds of the contents. As to students with mechanical or electrical engineering background, with instructor's guidance, they can also grasp this part of knowledge with reasonable effort. For the rest one-third of contents that involves the use of the theory of fracture mechanics and finite element methods, most students should also be able to understand the spirit without much difficulty through the instructor's explanation.

Enboa Wu, Director for Electronic Packaging Technology Division, ERSO/ITRI, Taiwan; and Professor of Institute of Applied Mechanics, National Taiwan University.

I bought this book at NEPCON West on February 29 and read it on my way home to Boston. I like it very much!

This book covers all the important subjects (many of those I am not aware of) on low-cost flip chip Technologies. Also, for each subject, useful data, technical know-how, and engineering analyses are presented.

I strongly recommend it to everyone who is working in electronic packaging and interconnetions. I am sure you will find it useful!

I started reading this book and nearly threw it down after just two chapters. There were numerous spelling and grammatical errors which initially made me question the validity of the material being presented. Fortunately I pressed on. This book, though not a masterpiece of English prose, is hands down the most understandable, comprehensive text on the subject that I have read. The book breaks down material from vastly diverse disciplines and explains them in a manner that a layman can understand. Prior to reading this book, I read Space Mission Analysis and Design (SMAD), also of the NASA Space Technology Series. I found that this book (The Lunar Base Handbook) presented the same topics as SMAD, but in a more understandable format. I found myself often reading a topic in The Lunar Base Handbook and then continuing my education in other books from the Space Technology Series such as SMAD. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in lunar development or space exploration.

In this book, Peter Eckart has assembled the collective writings of many of the leaders who are developing advanced engineering and science concepts for a return to the moon and the establishment of a permanent lunar base, which is capable of exploring the moon in great detail. These writings are not reprints from a conference or a previously published paper, but a detailed summary of the work to date on a variety of subjects from the site selection of a lunar base and the transportation means to get to the moon, to the details regarding advanced exploration and regenerative life support systems. The book also includes the more mundane systems needed to make a lunar base function, such as the thermal control system and the communication system.

While portions of this book maybe overly technical for some readers, there are numerous sections that provide a general overview of equipment, lunar exploration history, and transportation techniques. There are two sections, one written by Buzz Aldrin and one by Jack Schmidt that describe in great detail various aspects of lunar exploration. Typically, most astronauts authored writings found in books are simply a page or two. All in all, I couldn't find a topic that was omitted from the book.

I also conducted a comprehensive review of several sections of the book, which are related to my engineering area of expertise. Specifically, I reviewed the thermal control system, power system, EVA, and life support sections. In all these sections, I only found one error, which appeared to be a typo. The lone error leads me to believe that other sections were equally as error free.

In summary, I always enjoy reading books like these, because they show that even though the US government does not support going back to the moon, many individuals are still committed to returning people to the moon. Finally, regardless of your technical ability, you can learn a great deal from this book.

This book, which is not only extensive and exetremely usefull but also very easy to read, provides the only complete overview of aspects considering the moon from an engineering point of view. All aspects are explained and start with basics and summarizes all possibilities. My book is full of post-it notes where the parts are marked that I had to use frequently. It is the most used book from all my moon-related books I have, because it is so complete. The essays from lunar explorers around the world are a nice extra. It would be a good study object for a course.

This book, which is not only extensive and exetremely usefull but also very easy to read, provides the only complete overview of aspects considering the moon from an engineering point of view. All aspects are explained and start with basics and summarizes all possibilities. My book is full of post-it notes where the parts are marked that I had to use frequently. It is the most used book from all my moon-related books I have, because it is so complete. The essays from lunar explorers around the world are a nice extra. It would be a good study object for a course.

This book is a MUST for eveyone seriously interested in lunar exploration. Since Wendell Mendells generatuion-inspiring lunar base document, this is the most complete overview on technical and non-technical aspects of the selenological adventure. One can start as an amateur: after having completed this large volume he/she will have an excellent interdisciplinary insight into our future on the Moon.