Applications Books

This book is an excellent reference book on current approaches to some of the foundational questions in artificial intelligence, philosophy of mind, and engineering of intelligent systems. The editors as amply demonstrated by their other publications, have the rare ability to interrelate an amazing diversity of perspectives on Artificial Intelligence - from symbolic methods to neural networks and evolutionary apporaches, to uncover the shared principles and common foundations, and show how different paradigms can be brought together in synergistic ways to advance our ability to design and analyze intelligent systems. This book includes chapters written by some of the leading experts in the field. The book should be especially useful as a reference to graduate students and researchers interested in artificial intelligence, machine learning, cognitive science, software agents, and philosophy of mind. It should also be useful as supplementary reading for a graduate or upper level undergraduate course in artificial intelligence or cognitive science, or as a primary text for a seminar course. All in all, a great book!

Symbolic (e.g., logic based) and connectionist (e.g., neural network) models are often viewed as separate, and perhaps incompatible approaches to artificial intelligence and cognitive modelling. Far too many young researchers (including myself) have been swept away by the exaggerated claims of each camp. This collection of chapters is an excellent medicine for such a malaise. The chapters in this collection demonstrate, with pursuasive theoretical and philosophical arguments as well as empirical data that symbolism and connectionism can, and perhaps should, be reconciled. At the time this book came out, this was not a popular position. However, recent developments in AI and cognitive science have more than vindicated the views expressed in this book. Now (6 years later), some of the chapters are a bit dated. However, I recommend the book strongly to those who are interested in foundational issues in artificial intelligence and cognitive science.

As I mentioned, my search for COM understanding could end here. I just went through the chapter that explains COM. I felt really relieved and accomplished. I searched and read several other COM books but none of them were this good. I'll go through the reminder of the book to quench my thrist.

I just read the first chapter last night. I found it to be very clear and succinct. In flipping through the rest of the chapters, they appear to be of the same quality.

I have some brief C++ experience from several years ago, and more recently some Java. All of my COM experience is with VB. With this background I was able to easily grasp the concepts being explained.

My goal is to learn to write COM objects in C++ as quickly as possible. This book is my choice for that task. It seems to have the balance of fundamentals review and new information that's right for someone who already has the basics of the C++ language and wants to expand into COM.

I haven't tested the code examples, so I can't be sure there aren't typos, but the code I saw looked correct to my relatively novice eye.

At this point, I'm very pleased with the purchase of this book.

I had purchesed the 2002 seris for work and found the books to be the best step-by-step text on AutoCAD had had found to date. When my company updated to 2004, I checked to see if Mr. Metz had writen a new seris for the latest version. I was elated when I saw that he had. This new seris is as easy to use as the original.

These books are the most user friendly I have ever used. Weather you are a novice or seasoned AutoCAD user, these books should be on your shelf at work or home.

If there could be a higher rating then 5 stars, this AutoCAD seris would get my vote.

I've used the previous edition and am now using the new edition of these books for my high school technology classes and really like them. In place of lectures, I let the students work through the books at their own pace. These books are so well written with easy to follow instructions that my students learn the AutoCAD program very quickly. The best part is that after the students have completed the exercises in the books, I can assign them any drawing and they can do it.

I really recommend these books to any instructor who teaches an introductory course in AutoCAD or for any individual who wants to learn AutoCAD on their own.

Before purchasing this book, I looked online for professional reviews by architects and engineers dealing with CAD. This book was very well regarded and I was not disappointed. I would recommend this book for anyone interested in a well written learning tool for AutoCAD Architecture 2008.

Great Book! The best one I've tried so far. Very useful and easy to read and understand.

Ahh...Paul is the master of big thinking. I am by myself with a draftsman, using email. I only used 5% of the stuff, however it was great. The BEAST ADT shines, this is the Rolls polish, someday (when I die) I will put it all in place. :)

this is one case where "It was worth the wait!" Until now the only source i trusted for getting answers for how to deploy ADT3_3 was the Autodesk Newsgroups. What Paul has done here to collect his vast experience and knowledge of the product into a complete thought and then run it through the Autodesk gamut of approval is nothing short of tremendous.

Look -- let's admit it, ADT is a small BEAST. It can take months to implement some of these concepts fully into your firm. And if you think you will come to all the same conclusions Paul does on your own your crazy. I refer back to my brother who is in the music business "You have to know the rules before you can break them!" Paul knows the rules.

for lack of space i will comment only on content here . . .

i dove in this past weekend. i scanned 8 of the 13 chapters. (chapter 13 is available on the web site only). you don't have to read the book in order but i suspect to use it is as a guide you would need to follow it in order. So far i have found many good suggestions. and a few healthy disagreements too. it is really good reading!!! the same nice balance of technical assumptions and laymans terms that we have come to expect from Paul.

i foresee it becoming the guidebook for implementation as Autodesk Press intended for many offices. and for others such as mine it is an excellant balance and check to review current implementation. I also look forward to editing some of the included cd-rom content for documenting my own implementation, something i never seem to get to.

here's a couple specifics:

Pro's
page 41:
I agree with "include an OBJRELUPDATE/all statement in your Acad.lsp file."
Realizing that regenall does not regen adt objects was very helpful.

too many more to list.

Con's
page 47:
I don't agree with "Optimize for Speed check box in the Object Snap area . . . it is recommended that you not activate this feature"
I find little use for the extra snapping on the effected objects, and in a production environment; file sizes are large enough that performance would surely be sacrificed.

enjoy. cheers,

matthew

This book explains the basics of the networks and protocols used in industrial automation. It goes into detail about specific protocols, explaining their intended purpose, how they evolved, and what they're used for today. It explains the models that separate fieldbuses from control networks and where the lines blur. There is good discussion of field control vs distributed control. It explains how redundancy and failsafes come into play with each type of network.

I approached this book as an engineer who designs industrial products without any training in the purposes behind the various industrial communication systems. Users of industrial products often understand the relationships between the various standards intuitively but cannot explain it well to a product engineer with little manufacturing experience. This book clears it all up in under 150 pages of easy-to-follow text and diagrams.

Anyone who wants to take a couple hours to learn what's behind the apparent hodgepodge of communication standards used in industrial automation should read this book.

Dick Caro has a wealth of knowledge about automation networking--and it shows throughout this book. From his rendering of the history of industrial networks and fieldbuses to the technical review of the leading contenders, the book is a veritable encyclopedia on the subject. It has a permanent place on my reference shelf.
Gary Mintchell
Editor, Automation World

If you have ever been curious to know what is the mathematics behind the fancy formulas describing the average-case behavior of algorithms -- this book is for you. An excellent addition to the classic "The Art of Computer Programming" by D.Knuth, "Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms" by R.Sedgewick and P.Flajolet, and "Analysis of Algorithms" by M.Hofri, this book walks reader through a beautiful, and at the same time very diverse (not to say complex) world of mathematical tools and techniques needed to obtain precise answers to questions like "what is the average depth of a digital tree built over $n$ strings?", or "what is the average number of comparisons performed by a Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm when it searches for a given pattern of length $m$ in a random text of length $n$?".

Being well organized, the book present these (sometimes very sophisticated) techniques in a simple step-by-step fashion, starting with brief reviews of several known (and necessary for future presentation) results from probability, complex analysis/special functions, and information theory. The presentation of the numerous specific techniques is split in two parts: explaining probabilistic and analytic approaches to the analysis of algorithms correspondingly. Probabilistic techniques (inequalities of moments, limit theorems, large deviations, etc.) are very useful in the analysis of complex random structures, as they often yield simple estimates of their asymptotic behavior, where more accurate techniques fail or become prohibitively laborious. Analytic techniques (generating functions, singularity analysis, saddle point techniques, Mellin transform, analytic poissonization and depoissonization) on the other hand, represent a toolbox for exact modelling of the characteristics of the algorithms, yielding estimates of unparalleled precision.

As indicated by its title, this book is mostly devoted to the analysis of a special class of combinatorial algorithms - ones that operate with sequences of symbols, or sequences. For example, it includes a detailed analysis of various algorithms for searching and sorting alphanumeric sequences based on digital trees (tries, digital search tries, Patricia-tries, etc.), redundancy expressions for popular Lempel-Ziv data compression schemes, average complexity estimates for text pattern-matching algorithms (such as Knuth-Morris-Pratt scheme), and so on.

Following the tradition of "The Art of Computer Programming", the author wraps many results in the form of exercises, so that active readers can have fun solving them. These excersises are grouped into several classes, ranging from simple routine calculations to serious research problems (including ones that are currently unsolved).

Overall, this is a very good graduate-level textbook and a valuable (and almost self-contained) source of information for everyone interested in the analysis of algorithms.

If you have ever been curious to know what is the mathematics behind the fancy formulas describing the average-case behavior of algorithms -- this book is for you. An excellent addition to the classic "The Art of Computer Programming" by D.Knuth, "Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms" by R.Sedgewick and P.Flajolet, and "Analysis of Algorithms" by M.Hofri, this book walks reader through a beautiful, and at the same time very diverse (not to say complex) world of mathematic tools and techniques needed to obtain precise answers to questions like "what is the average depth of a digital tree built over $n$ strings?", or "what is the average number of comparisons performed by a Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm when it searches for a given pattern of length $m$ in a random text of length $n$?".

Being well organized, the book present these (sometimes very sophisticated) techniques in a simple step-by-step fashion, starting with brief reviews of several known (and necessary for future presentation) results from probability, complex analysis/special functions, and information theory. The presentation of the numerous specific techniques is split in two parts: explaining probabilistic and analytic approaches to the analysis of algorithms correspondingly. Probabilistic techniques (inequalities of moments, limit theorems, large deviations, etc.) are very useful in the analysis of complex random structures, as they often yield simple estimates of their asymptotic behavior, where more accurate techniques fail or become prohibitively laborious. Analytic techniques (generating functions, singularity analysis, saddle point techniques, Mellin transform, analytic poissonization and depoissonization) on the other hand, represent a toolbox for exact modelling of the characteristics of the algorithms, yielding estimates of unparalleled precision.

As indicated by its title, this book is mostly devoted to the analysis of a special class of combinatorial algorithms -- ones that operate with sequences of symbols, or sequences. For example, it includes a detailed analysis of various algorithms for searching and sorting alphanumeric sequences based on digital trees (tries, digital search tries, Patricia-tries, etc.), redundancy expressions for popular Lempel-Ziv data compression schemes, average complexity estimates for text pattern-matching algorithms (such as Knuth-Morris-Pratt scheme), and so on.

Following the famous tradition of "The Art of Computer Programming", the author wraps many (in some case very difficult to derive) results in the form of exercises, so that active readers can have fun solving them. As a special bonus, some of these "exercises" represent currently open research problems.

Overall, this is a very good graduate-level textbook and a valuable (and almost self-contained) source of information for everyone interested in the analysis of algorithms.

This book consists of a set of 5 volumes, each dedicated to different topics and each written by a different group of authors. Unavoidably this has led to much repetition, but the biggest weakness of the book is the absence of a common index for all the volumes in the end. One often has to make quesses and search several volumes to find what one wants and even then one may not find all the information there is in it. There are also differences between the authors in the quality of their writing and the brilliance of the late A.E.Bailey who wrote the original classic masterpiece is definitely absent. I also thought there were not suficient physical data for chemical engineers working on oils and fats and primary oleochemical derivatives, biodiesel etc. Nevertheless, the sheer size of this book, makes it easily the most comprehensive single source of information on oils and fats available today. For this reason, it is a necessary posession for any library on oils and fats worthy of its name.

A five volume set, much expanded over previous editions, to cover the latest processing technology as well as the latest developments in oilseeds. This is the definitive text that covers fats and oils, composition, processing and equipment, edible products, industrial products and derivatives (e.g. soap.) The only drawbacks are that there is no common index to all volumes and that there is a great deal of valuable information which is not findable through the index (i.e. one must actually READ the sections to unearth valuable facts and bits of information.)

I had to have this book for a college "Intro to Biology" and it was great. The book has a lot of information that I needed for class. It was easy to read, which was really great since I had a full class load. There are also really good diagrams and pictures to illustrate the examples and concepts from the book.

"Basic Concepts in Biology" touches the basic definitions of the scientific study of life; from the origin and evolution of life, to the biosphere, ecosystems, life energy and life organization, cells-prokaryotics/eukaryotics, DNA, proteins, photosynthesis, human genetics, bacterias, viruses, protistans, fungi, plants, animals, the so controversial issue of global warming, and many other very interesting topics. The topics are illustrated with beautiful and colorful pictures. In the back of the book there is a CD. If you are a student, please don't ignore it. The CD will help you to study in an easy and simple way. It is excellent...

This really is an outstanding book. My background? Years of C and VB development, but no .NET; then tons of SQL Server 2000/2005 work (am MCITP, MCT in SQL Server).

I specifically wanted a jump-start on accessing SQL 2005 databases from VB.NET, and this book does it. The same method is used throughout the book: (1) briefly explain a topic; (2) write some code to illustrate its usage; (3) explain salient points in the code. The examples are extremely short & simple. Each stands alone and illustrates a specific point about .NET or SQL 2005. The authors do not, as some do, create huge coding projects in which learning points are too easily lost. And, not a trivial point, each example works!

If you are a SQL Server professional, you can skip or quickly flip thru some sections that focus on T-SQL, but if you are already a .NET developer you probably won't want to skip anything, because virtually every code sample deals with database access.

Excellent, excellent book.

It's the Best for Beginners and intermediate in VB.net05 Databases,I have read several Books previously and I Couldn't Understand well ,From Beginning to The end This Book explain step By Step all you Need For starting Programming in Databases using VB.Net 2005 and gives you a guide of Books to continue the next grade.