Computer Science Books

It is assumed that the reader of this book has had a first course in circuit analysis and is familiar with Laplace transforms. Because the book is intended for undergraduates, algebra is used to explain the mathematical workings of the various filters rather than calculus if at all possible. The book concentrates on inductorless filters. Such filters are required for voice and data communications systems where the size and weight of inductors make their use not very feasible. An advantage of this approach is that the usefulness of the op amp can be stressed. Chapter 2 introduces the op amp in analog operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and integration. Chapters 3 and 4 constitute a review of sinusoidal steady-state topics recast to provide an introduction to first-order filters. Chapter five features the universal biquad, and through it the standard forms of filter response: lowpass, bandpass, highpass, bandstop, and allpass.

In the chapters that follow, the functions of a filter are studied in combination with the frequency-response approximation used by filter designers: Butterworth, Chebyshev, Bessel-Thompson, inverse Chebyshev, and elliptic. Chapter 14 treats the synthesis of doubly terminated passive ladders. This, together with Chapter 11, constitute an introduction to passive filter design. An important conclusion is reached in Chapter 14 in regards to sensitivity - the passive ladder circuit has low sensitivity. The study of simulated ladder circuits is begun in chapters 15 through 17. Simulation of the passive ladder is accomplished in three ways: by introducing new elements which make it possible to exclude the inductor, through the simulation of the block diagram representation of the ladder, and through the simulation of resistors using switched capacitors. All of these methods are discussed.

In spite of its academic origins this really is a very helpful design book. It has the circuits side by side with the math, and it also has design rules in numbered steps with very good illustrations and examples throughout. I highly recommend it for the library of the practicing engineer as well as the student.

(Reviewed by a practicing electrical engineer) This book is an excellent introductory text about analog filter design. It was written for use in teaching a junior-senior level undergraduate class at the University level. The book begins with a review of basic op amp circuits and then progresses to simple one-pole circuit designs. From there, the author builds a step-by-step theoretical background for active filter design, starting with the most fundamental two-pole building block (the biquad circuit), and then showing how to use these to design Chebyshev, Butterworth, and Bessel filter characteristics of any number of poles. Cauer, Inverse Chebyshev, and switched capacitor designs are also covered. Other highly useful chapters cover delay equalization, sensitivity to component variations, as well as a general design approach for choosing appropriate filter characteristics for a design requirement. The book's main focus is on active filter design using op amp's, although there is also one chapter devoted to passive filter design. Design is stressed in the examples and problems from the very beginning pages, as opposed to mere mathematical analysis. The mathematics are fairly straightforward, mostly algebra, and the text is fairly easy to read and follow. Examples illustrate each chapter segment, and each chapter has questions at the end. I would recommend this book for anyone seeking a basic theoretical understanding and design capability for active filters. (Probably other introductory texts would be better for passive filters.) This is not a "handbook" or "filter cookbook"; it actually lays the theoretical and mathematical groundwork for the filters it teaches you to design.

Great book. Must for any one working on ADCs and DACs.

One of the few books in the data converter field. I used this book when I took an advance course on analog circuit design and found this book to be very usefool. This book contain a good amount of information on data converter and cover almost every important areas - i.e specification, testing, High-speed/high accuracy architecture, sample and hold circuit, compartors, noise shaping coding, voltage and current reference sources and also contain a chapter on sigma-delta converters that can lead to more advanced study for IEEE books on oversampled data converters. If you are an analog circuit designer or want to be an analog circuit designer this book will be a good reference for data converter circuit.

Excellent work by excellent authors. Simply the best you can find in this field!

A graduate level book. It talks about the detail model and behavior of induction machine, synchronous machine and etc. The book gave me quite an idea of machinery. It was well written and explained in a detail and clear way. Since it is the first textbook I bought at USA, after reading, I cannot help wonder: that's the reason why American has advance technology, because they have good books. In my coutry, China, the authors likes to write hard, tough things in a small thin book and we can hardly understand them.

With a book as technical as this, it's hard to know who my potential review readers will be. Nevertheless, I will give a very CONCRETE and ACCESSIBLE review. Also you should bear in mind this: the book does have some concrete and accessible aspects before getting into complex issues; moreover -- and maybe this is the most important of all: the simpler, concrete and accessible aspects of this book DO HAVE UTILITY. I'll give a personal example of the utility of the book's simpler material at the end of my review. But now let's proceed in a nice logical order...

The book deals with "combinatorial optimization" problems. These are problems where there are (1) a gigantic number of discrete configurations that are possible, (2) a way of scoring how desirous a configuration is, and (3) ways to change the configuration from the present one. Examples include the scheduling problem of how to assign 20 workers to one job apiece for 20 jobs (with different worker/job pairings having different costs); and, of course, the famous traveling salesman problem -- requiring precisely one visit to each of N cities and a return to the first.

The most easily understood algorithm to solve combinatorial optimization is BLIND RANDOM SEARCH (BRS): generate a random configuration, score it, repeat (always keeping the best score yet encountered and its corresponding configuration saved in memory). You can have stop criteria as you wish -- including an OR'd pair (which I find to be itself a great improvement) -- such as UNTIL (a) score is X good or better OR (b) you've generated N random configurations.

BRS performs relatively poorly. A HUGE improvement is an algorithm called "Iterative Improvement" (II). This algorithm is covered on pages 6 thru 8 of the book. The idea is to take a BRS configuration then do some modest moves around that configuration -- scoring and repeating until you had k failures to improve. The best obtained is that one BRS "point". Generate a new BRS point and compare to the old as usual, but now the II loop probably substantially improved that old BRS score to which you are comparing.

Both BRS and II involve only "downhill" moves. Only a lower score and its companion configuration are kept and a new configuration never becomes the current one if its score is worse. The danger is "getting stuck" in a local minimum as opposed to the global minimum (truly best score). To avoid this danger there is the "probabilistic hill-climbing" algorithm of Metropolis. An improved configuration (one with a better score) still becomes the next current configuration, but you have some probability of taking the next current configuration as being the current contendor even if this contendor configuration has a worse score. The probability is related to the score and a parameter that might be thought of as temperature.

From the probabilistic hill-climbing algorithm of Metropolis, all you need to get to an annealing algorithm is a schedule for appropriately reducing the "temperature" parameter (which controls up-hill acceptance probability) in successive steps. The analogy is freezing a liquid to get its perfectly crystalline line-up of atoms, free of defects. Go too fast and you may get a glass rather than a crystal.

The book's chief aim is how to recommend IN GENERAL, without recourse to your specific problem, a schedule for the "temperature" changes. If this be your aim in considering the book, well it goes without saying you need not consider further: here's your book.

But what about the less technical reader? First of all, the book does gently introduce you to combinatorial optimization, blind random search, Metropolis and annealing. Second, the few pages on Iterative Improvement are EMINENTLY USEFUL in a PRACTICAL sense -- and are a good simple alternative to annealing (my example will be at the end). Third is that the book includes several ancillary extras.

The ancillary extras:

· tutorial on all of matrix mathematics
· tutorial on Markov Chains
· material on probability and conditional probability
· tutorial on Statistics -- esp. w.r.t. the Normal distribution and Central Limit Thm

I'm not saying that the ancillary extras are the best there is for a novice level reader, but most folks would not know of the existence of this material in a book called "The Annealing Algorithm".

The final bit of ancillary material is Pascal computer code for all the algorithms in the book and a complete program for doing the whole annealing bit on the electronic chip placement combinatorial problem.

MY EXAMPLE OF UTILITY OF ITERATIVE IMPROVEMENT ALGORITHM:

My problem is not combinatorial optimization, but can still use the ideas of iterative improvement since I am solving a deterministic problem (one without any random element) using Monte Carlo methods (using random numbers). My problem: I have the coordinates of the midpoint of a line segment; the line segment's length is also known and is roughly one-fourth the diameter of a circle; the line segment lies the annular area between this circle and a circle with a radius half-a-line-segment bigger radius than that of the original circle; lastly, given the rotation angle of my line segment, I ask this: what are the coordinates (x,y) of the intersection of the line segment and the original circle? (I took steps to check that YES, there was an intersection.) Solving the problem analytically didn't work. (Or at least, I couldn't do it.) I had used a BRS Monte Carlo approach. Then, re-reading this book, it occurred to me to use the book's algorithm (Iterative Improvement) on pages 6-8 (Pascal code page 8). I got a big improvement in lowering the error. Obviously, I had to delete details in this review (like how I even know error in my problem, and if I do know it, why can't I fix it exactly -- hint: circle is the locus of all points equidistant from a given point), but the POINT FOR YOU is that I attained a great improvement in my problem just by using the book's explicit algorithm (Pascal code) for Iterative Improvement.

Finally, the book is nice to read -- both very easy-on-the-eyes typography (unusual for a "math" book) and a good flow to the authors' writing.

The Annealing Algorithm is part of The Kluwer International Series in Engineering and Computer Science, concentrating on VLSI, Computer Architecture And Digital Signal Processing. The Consulting Editor, Jonathan Allen, has put together a concise, academic publication that introduces the conceptually simple procedures of simulated mathematical annealing and mathematical optimization. Research for the book was carried out at the Thomas J Watson Research Center of the IBM Corporation in Yorktown Heights, NY. Chapters include A Preview of The Annealing Algorithm, Preliminaries from Matrix Theory, (Markov) Chains, Chain Statistics, Annealing Chains, Samples from Normal Distributions, Score Densities, The Control Parameter, Finite-Time Behavior of the Annealing Algorithm, The Structure of the State Space, and (Pascal) Implementation Aspects. References and an Index are included. Mathematicians and computer science professionals seeking to learn about the conception of annealing as a combinatorial optimization tool, will find this publication interesting and will appreciate its use as a basis for further research.

I bought two different books from Amazon on the same day - One, Amazon was selling and the other a seller on Amazon. I got the book Amazon sold prompt and in very good condition. I never received the book or a response from the other person. My recommendation - don't buy from sellers on Amazon.

Amazon is easy to purchase from. I haven't been disappointed yet and this last book that I ordered came extremely fast and was exactly what I needed.

This excellent 200 page book describes itself as an "introduction to APL", and it does contain an efficient and orderly introduction to APL functions, operators, syntax, and arrays. By page 30 or so, however, it begins to use APL to solve some serious math problems--integration, Netwon's Method for solving roots of equations, the Power Method for estimating eigenvectors and eigenvalues, as well as common statistical methods. Instruction in APL language is integrated throughout with the exposition of these math problems.

Reiter broaches what is often viewed a multi-faceted task in a manner so as to make functioning in APL (A Programming Language) straightforward, practical, and useful. Basics are taught first, both Monadic and Dyadic use of the elementary operators, later introduction to Del, programming and the advantages of the branch. Mathematical concepts, including the basic linear, and the less familiar higher-order regression techniques are presented along with the APL equivalents of the algebraic technique for simultaneously solving equations.

I appreciated the updated reference for some of the more antiquated terms which may appear in other volumes of earlier vintage. No longer is fuzz tolerance, stack clear, clear stack, or such antiquated terminology present to confuse the reader. No more thorns, here. A simple )RESET sets everything clear.

Those familiar with the Interactive Approach would appreciate that A Rose is a Rose, and the standard for much of what we do, but for the newly initiated into the Magic of APL, Reiter makes all of the initial steps very )CLEAR.

The thema thoughout the excellent text/reference/adjunct to mathematical course is that set theory, Boolian Algebraic processes and APL work hand-in-hand.

After demonstrating basic skills in monadic and dyadic operators, the reader can go to DEL and really begin to gain the experience of just what APL is all about.

Again, )SAVE APL ! with all of its factorials and permutations. Reiter has certainly helped to do so by providing a work which will hopefully introduce a whole new generation to APL.

An excellent work by an erudite writer.

Jerrell L. Driver, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Health Services Provider Certified
Missouri PY00099
APL

This is a great book, for sure the best and most comprehensive book on stochastic hydrogeology available today. It covers nearly all the fundamental and practical aspects of stochastic hydrogeology, with emphasis on both the theoretical and practical aspects of the discipline. The language is simple, with many examples and case studies. The book is a great reference for scientists who are familiar with stochastic hydrogeology as well as for students and/or practitioners who may get informed about the discipline and learn how to implement the various tools available. The book is at the same time a very good introduction to the matter and a reference book for people who are already familiar with stochastic hydrogeology and want to keep updated with the most recent developments. This is the kind of book to keep on the desk.

Applied Stochastic Hydrogeology is easily the best book of this century in its field. Its intuitive and down-to-earth style makes even the most intricate aspects of stochastic analyses readily accessible to both graduate students and active researchers. The subjects the book covers range from stochastic site characterization and image reconstruction from sparse data to the concept of effective hydraulic parameters and probabilistic assessment of flow and transport in heterogeneous environments.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for quick building or construction reference. Excellent for Design students.

While I am not an architect or an engineer of any stripe, I have sold and setup CADD systems for engineers and seen them convert from their drafting boards (this was years ago - I am sure most students learn on computer systems today). I do like the fact that this text still talks about the manual methods of drafting and believe that it has some benefit to the student to learn to draw by hand in order to develop their sense for the methods and means in a very direct way. Learning to letter by hand, sketch freehand, and all the other aspects of architectural drawing can only help one use the computer-based systems in more rich ways. Also, even in our day and age it is conceivable that one would be in a situation where a computer system is unavailable and one has to produce a drawing. It is good to have the skills to do so. The text also discusses the use of CADD systems (particularly AutoCAD).

Since architectural and technical drawings are meant to communicate specific things to many users, it is good to learn the conventions as well as the lessons of what has been shown to work over the years and what does not. This book communicates this important information very well. There are twenty chapters and they are:

1) Drafting Equipment and Its Uses, 2) Computer-Aided Drafting and Design (CADD), 3) Lettering, 4) Drafting Expression, 5) Modular and Metric Drafting, 6) Basic Technical Drawing, 7) Axonometric and Oblique Pictorial Drawings, 8) Freehand Sketching, 9) Perspective Drawing, 10) Shades and Shadows, 11) Presentation Drawings and Renderings, 12) Principles of Light Construction, 13) Structural Member Selection, 14) Typical Architectural Details, 15) Basic Residential Planning, 16) Building Models, 17) Writing Specifications, 18) Working Drawings of Small Homes, 19) Residential Mechanical and Electrical Systems, 20) Drawing a Small Commercial Building.

As you can see, this book centers on learning how to draw residential and small commercial buildings. This is a great place to start and happens to be what I was interested in learning when I obtained this book.

There are six appendices that cover abbreviations, modular vertical brick coursing, metric system in construction, tables from the UBC, span tables for wood structural members, and heat loss / gain calculation examples. There is also a helpful glossary and a useful index.

A very good text that has helped many and has passed the test of time.

this book is the best what i read about the architectural programming, I take a few informations and I use it in my projects.

thanks

And I mean "enthusiastically" very pragmatically. This book is a refreshing addition to my resource collection because it opens up alternative methods to approach programming. I come to this stage of the process with much more confidence and resolve because I have this great book to consult If I should get stuck somewhere.

If you are a person that is seeking to become powerfully informed about this stage of designing, or if you are a person seeking to supplement some additional points of view about programming, this book would serve you extremely well.

I enjoyed the book for two reasons: Frist, it gave me an overview of the cutting-edge areas of modern science; Second, it did not flinch from asking hard questions related to awareness and consciousness. It also has a very readable chapter on ancient ideas on mind. The book will be of interest to those who are concerned with the interface between science and religion.

Our current state of knowledge -- from physics, biology, and psychology -- has so many contradictory aspects (such as determinism versus free will, or logic versus intuition, and the very possibility that somehow mind can make sense of the universe is so improbable if we are machines) that it would appear foolhardy to attempt a overarching synthesis of these strands. This is what this book attempts, and does it so with panache!

The subjects discussed in the book range from quantum theory, brains science, immunology, and evolution, but the book manages to find an appropriate voice so that there is not much jargon and a lot of insight that goes to the issue at hand. The question of "self" is raised for the individual as well as the immune system, and a historical look is provided at how consciousness was understood in the past and how it is understood now in the light of brain science.

I enjoyed the book greatly.