Applied Languages Books

Image processing is used to improve the visual appearance and transmission of images to a the human eye. It also concerns the preparation of images with respect to measuring an image's features and structures. Now in a newly updated and significantly expanded fifth edition, "The Image Processing Handbook" by academician John C. Russ (Materials Science and Engineering Department, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, North Carolina) "The Image Processing Handbook" features an informative chapter explaining which visual cues elicit a response from the viewer; descriptions of the latest hardware and software for image acquisition and printing including digital cameras; multichannel images and an analysis of their principle components; the issues of deconvolution, extended dynamic range images, and image enlargement and interpolation, and so much more. Enhanced with more than 2000 illustrations, and with the availability of a companion CD-ROM, "The Image Processing Handbook" is a seminal and essential addition to professional and academic library Computer Science and Electrical Engineering reference collections.

This, the fifth edition of this industry standard reference book on image processing has been significantly expanded. There are some 600 new and revised images. A major feature of the new edition is to describe the new advances that have come about in hardware for image capture and printing. This includes both new versions of traditional equipment and new emerging technologies. The text has been expanded in areas like deconvolution, extended-dynamic-range images and multichannel imaging including principal-components analysis.

In general this book does not cover the background mathematics that enables image processing. Those are left to specialty books on the subject. Instead this book is intended to be used in conjunction with hands-on equipment where the reader is encouraged to experiment with different methods to determine what is needed for the particular job.

While suitable for use as a text, this book is really a handbook for technical users. The book is more oriented to what the various tools availavle to help actually do.

I am a biologist with a little background in math. Using this book and matlab I could quickly implement basic feature recognition tools to analyze microscope images. The book focuses on concepts and explains them in intuitive language rather than in mathematical terms. Overall, it worked perfectly for me, but could be over-simplying for people with technical background.

John Russ' book on image processing was never intended to be a textbook on how to understand and write your own image processing algorithms, as you might believe by looking through the table of contents. It does cover just about everything you would see in such a textbook, but from a user's standpoint of these operations, not as an author of image processing code who needs to understand the algorithms behind these operations. Instead, Russ explains all of the operations, their value in various applications, and provides many illustrations showing before and after pictures of what each operation does. There are no algorithms, pseudocode, or mathematics in this book.

The jewel in the crown of this book is the companion CD. It contains over 200 Photoshop plug-ins for performing the operations mentioned in this book. These plug-ins work on 8-bit grayscale and 24 bit RGB images and are divided into the categories of image adjustment, color manipulation, image math, boolean operations, Fourier processing, morphological operations, neighborhood processing, distance-map operations, thresholding, feature measurement, calibration, stereology, and surface rendering. The bad news is that you have to obtain the CD separately. If you need to understand the detailed mathematics behind such operations, you might consult Digital Image Processing by Gonzalez and Woods, and then come back to this book for the tools to accomplish the operations explained in that book. The updates to this fifth edition include an additional chapter on human vision and how it ties into image processing. Also, the author has updated his sections on image acquisition hardware and software to describe the latest tools available. Finally, the topic of tomographic imaging has been expanded and given its own chapter and the chapter on 3-D image acquisition has been deleted.

This is an excellent book on image processing from a systems engineering and user standpoint. You will be disappointed if you expect to learn the algorithms behind the techniques demonstrated in this book.

As others have stated, this book comes as close as you'll ever get to a single-source reference on image processing. But if I were ever going to shoot anything down in it, I'd say that a little more mathematical background on some topics (and maybe pseudocoded examples) would help. For example, in the satellite geometric correction section, only a very high level view is given yet this is a challenging topic that could use more depth. Geometric transformations in general could use more depth, e.g. camera calibrations or image warping/morphing/mapping to other projections for example. Another example would be the need for a little more depth on how to make slow algorithms fast ...like convolution multiplications for example. Sure, you could write out the multiplies and spot commonalities, then re-use results that appear in more than one subsequent equation and what not, but some exploration of matrix math and how to make it efficient would be nice. But again ...I'm picking at small things here, and if John's book covered everything that I'd like it to, then it would become 2 books, not one ...hey! Now THERE's an idea! A 2+ book set by John Russ that covers a broader range of topics and does so in greater depth! That's something that I'd pay for (and much better to read than Ballard & Brown)

Its a shame this book is now hard to get. I had to track it down in a crisis. This book for me achieved no small feat. I was able to refactor an app based on Core J2EE patterns. That book, while explaining the patterns in this book, is vague. I really spent a lot of time on the Core book. For those types this book will be appreciated that much more.

This book is about code - about %90 of the pages have source. Perhaps the first book I ever seen that has compilable, working code. Also, I think the examples and interfaces in this book are much better than the Core book.

In short, if you have the core patterns book and are stuck, this indeed could be exactly what you need. I would say you could skip that book and start with this one.

I've read a lot of patterns books. Most didn't really help. Some got me to the point of asking new questions. This book, and "design patterns explained", are in my view indispensable classics. They left me with a clear understanding of what I was trying to learn.

One negative point: I read the comparison between "service to worker" and "dispatcher view" several times and I still don't get what they are trying to say. This is one of the few places in the book where there is no code, and it probably could have helped me here. To be fair, it does have some nice sequence diagrams but its seems lacking compared to the rest of the book.

This book is really excellent. It contains the Core J2EE
patterns and theserverside.com patterns (in <Patterns>>) and explain you the relationship between them. It
contains lots of demonstrable code.

Web tier patterns can be used as template for web tier for
any j2ee project; persistence framework explained the
Data Access Object and Value object in the clearest way;
it always contains security patterns and integration
patterns, which are not discussed too much in other books
as <>. This book is the perfect companion
for the J2EE Core Patterns book and <>,
and even wider than them.

This book presents patterns inside frameworks, so you can
easily see how it is used in real life. This book uses UML
in a very elegant way so it's also useful to learn UML
in J2EE.

A must for J2EE lovers.

Daniel

SCJP, SCJD, SCWCD, SCJEA and IBM Certified XML Developer.

Definitely a good, simple, clear introduction to J2EE design patterns, this book has the advantage of presenting example code in the form of little applications instead of just snippets and lacks all the 'mystical yadda yadda" that pattern books often employ to make their simple content pass for rocket science. I have been somewhat disappointed by the security chapter which is basically just an overview of the J2EE standard security model. Also, being a book "practice oriented" I would have loved to see details on the deployment of the source code presented. Overall a 3 and 1/2 star book that gets a little bonus for being simple and practical.
Previous knowledge of design patterns in general would certainly help you to get the most from this text. For a simple,clear, no bs introduction I recommend Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design
by Alan Shalloway, James R. Trott.

THE book to understand and use J2EE patterns effectively! Excellent concept introduction to begin with, to tide over the pattern non-gurus, comparison with established OO design patterns to ones mostly used in the J2EE community including ones on theserverside.com, plenty of demonstrable code some of which found their way into our deployed apps, great emphasis on patterns applied to specific layers of an application like persistence, web, security, performance etc. Great insight into usually tricky integration topics.

The web tier chapter details patterns that could be used for request processing with session management, view manipulation, validation and security. The persistence framework chapter was perfect for our implementation with its data access layer strategy based on DAOs and value objects, though we would have liked to see some transaction management patterns. The scalability and performance concerns have been closely investigated, as have all security designs like single-access, check-point and role patterns. A working example targeted for a leading app server could have proved useful here, though there is plenty of code available for download. After all is said and done, the chapter on integration where everything comes together nicely, scores top marks for topics not usually found in other books.
An excellent addition to anyone's J2EE repertoire.

From the number of reviews on this site(just 3)it appears that this book is not getting the attention it deserves!

This book starts where "Core J2EE Patterns" ends. Instead of being one more book on patterns catalog and snippet code, it plucks related patterns and weaves them into a framework. This framework-oriented approach starts with the simple but pertinent observation that standard J2EE patterns like Service-to-Worker and Dispatcher View can be reinterpreted as micro-frameworks and continues throughout the rest of the book. For example, chapter 3 combines 3 patterns( DAO, VO, Service Locater)together to lay the foundation of a persistence framework.

Another positive aspect of this book is that it devotes complete chapters to security and integration patterns.Of late, integration patterns have become important enough to merit a web site of their own ( integrationpatterns.com ) and it is quite hard to find other good references on security patterns.

Thus this book has a lot of new things and perspectives to offer and deserves more attention than it seems to be getting.

Finally a criticism : This book mentions other books by name and ISBN numbers without mentioning the author(s) of the books. This is the first time in my life I have seen such a practice. This is definitely a bad practice and an antipattern and a cruelty to poor authors who deserve to be mentioned by name.

I have bought the first edition and now the second. I also have other books written by John Hunt. His writing is as always clear, sharp and insightful. It shows through in this book too. Whereas some other bible books would need 1,000 pages, John can do with much fewer ones. And yet it can be much more far reaching. Teaching solid OO concepts while bringing the best out of Java, this book is a pleasure to read. So much that it will keep you wondering why other books never manage to be so clear and at the same time so complete. You will not be sorry.

Object oriented programming was a difficult concept to understand after years of procedural languages. I was scared of being left behind and chose Java to take me into the 21st century. After flittering between several books I finally found John Hunt's book and am now making my living out of programming in this amazing and versatile language.

I went searching through the library for a book to help with my software engineering class project and eventually found Java and Object Orientation. All I've got to say is this book is incredible. The writing is clear and to the point. Example code turned out to very helpful (and useful). This book really helped to understand not only how to design good object-oriented programs, but also how to design a good object-oriented GUI. I recommend it to any computer science student or professional in search of a good book on Java and OO design and programming.

The book is very logical and i think is one of the best available.

I had bought a number of Java books before this one and been left confused by Java. This book clarified everything for me and now I understand Java - Excellent

When having to solve problems regarding algorithms, this book is one of the frequently used books. It shows besides the interesting details also the larger overview, which certainly adds to your better understanding.

I found this book at a university book shop back when I was 14 years old and bought it to learn more about certain algorithms. The reason I bought it was because it looked like it would provide very concrete advice on how to achieve an implementation while not requiring more advanced mathematics than I knew at the time.

Now, many years later I have to say that I can't think of any algorithm book I've come across that manages to balance theory and concrete solutions so well; and I own quite a few books on algorithms. (Some might object to the fact that the book uses Pascal as the implementation language, but I think I've seen this book tailored for other languages too).

Also, for a general book on algorithms, Sedgewick managed to pick a very good mix of topics to cover. According to a friend of mine (whom happens to know Sedgewick personally), the book just represents a cross-section of what Sedgewick himself was interested in.

This book was very useful to me when I was a teenager starting to understand bread and butter algorithms, and it continues to be a good reference still to this day. I would recommend you buy this book if you need a good book on fundamental algorithms.

(Also, the typography is very sober and clean, and the illustrations to most of the problems are very clear)

This text covers the most useful material presented in Knuth's seminal series, but is much more readable in Pascal than in Knuth's notation, which was based on programming language concepts of the late 60's.

The example code is actually run by the typesetting system to generate the graphs showing the operation or efficiency of the algorithm, so you have a high confidence factor in the example code. Too bad it's in Pascal -- which is probably why this book is out of print.

I was very surprised at the low ratings awarded by reviewers to the paperback edition of Sedgewick's "Algorithms in C" -- yet there were good reviews of the hardcover edition. Evidently the example C code didn't meet the high standards of the Pascal version.

Sedgewick provides a very clear and intuitive exposition of the essence of many algorithms.

The book covers a breadth of topics, from sorting and searching, to computational geometry and mathematical algorithms. It is an extremely well-written book. Each algorithm has been carefully implemented in Pascal (you may also want to have a look at the editions of the book for C++ and other languages). It is an excellent book, both for practitioners and programmers, as well as an introduction to the theory of algorithms!
Highly recommended!

This book presents an interesting challenge. It talks about algorithms yet it does not present algorithms, nor does it define algorithm as anything more than a "problem-solving method suitable for implementation as computer programs[p.4]." Instead, it exhibits programs which are the implementations of algorithms and discusses them as if the algorithm is apparent. The reader is left with the challenge of learning to discriminate between what is essential about an algorithm, and how to preserve that in an implementation, versus what is inessential to the algorithm and introduced on account of the implementation and the use of particular programming tools.

I am concerned that this approach, while well-motivated, is not successful. My evidence is in the criticisms of this and later editions that dwell on the choice of programming language and on stylistic matters in the use of the chosen language. This places too much emphasis on code. Although code rules these days, I remain unconvinced that this simplification is a good thing. For me, one of the great insights in development of software is identification of layers of abstraction for conquering the organization of complex application programs. Separating design, algorithm and implementation is a critical first step toward that mastery.

Meanwhile, "Algorithms" serves up a handy set of recipes for a variety of basic computing situations. The 45 sections cover fundamental methods of widespread application in computing and software development. The presentations are straightforward and illuminating. The compilation bears re-examination every time one sits down to identify key methods for a new application.

I recommend supplementing this material with the practical methods of Kernighan and Plauger's "Software Tools" and the insightful explorations of Bentley's "Programming Pearls." Most of all I encourage development of enough sense of the material in Donald Knuth's "Art of Computer Programming" to be able to read the discussions of algorithms and problems there, even if you never use the particular implementations.

How often have you presented--or been presented with--an extensive table of raw data only to hear the question "what does it all mean and how can we leverage it?"

There is a wealth of useful data hidden within our own raw data. This book presents the statistical methods required to transform these data into useful information, in the form of mathematical equations (e.g. Cost Estimating Relationships).

It is simply one of the most important texts for Decision Support and Knowledge Discovery you can find. This book is an excellent value and is an absolute must-have for Program Managers, Project Managers, and Parametricians.

The book provides a solid approach towards dealing with software development project data. It is also written in an easy to understand style although the subject itself is far from easy.
This should provide software development managers with a well founded handle to get more grip on development efforts.

This book has a powerful format that blends practical "how to" and common sense with the power and rigor of statistical analysis. I will use this book as a "primer" when implementing software metrics in the corporate arena. This book is a "must have" for anyone implementing a corporate software measurement program. I also wish I had this book in my graduate offerings for Software Development and Design. Existing software curriculums can be sadly lacking the foundations and fundamentals for software measurement and statistics. This book literally makes statistics easy, sensible, and straight forward even for the complexities of software development and technology.

If you're working in SQA or managing software development projects this book is an excellent introductory text to statistical analysis. Although I found "Measuring the Software Process" by William Florac and Anita Carleton to me a more in-depth book that book assumes that you've established a metrics program and that you already have a working knowledge of statistics.

What I like about this book is that it's a tutorial on the statistical skills and knowledge that you'll need, and it combines this learning goal with the basics of software metrics and how they can be employed to measure productivity, estimate projects, and manage costs and organizational quality. The core approach is data analysis, and the main tools that the book employs are multi-variate techniques, regression analysis and correlation and sensitivity tests. The author has a talent for clearly explaining a dry subject, and while it will take a good deal of effort to master the material because of its nature, the excellent writing and illustrations will make it easy to quickly grasp statistical fundamentals and put them to use.

The lessons are taught within the framework of four case studies that are realistic and apply to the real world. The case study topics are: productivity analysis, analysis of time to market factors, development cost analysis, and maintenance cost drivers. These cover the full range of both internal development and product-line software engineering. I especially like the inclusion of maintenance costs as a topic of study because this area contributes significantly to total costs of ownership, but is often overlooked.

As of the date of this review there are two primary books that address measurement from a statistical perspective: this one and Florac's and Carleton's "Measuring the Software Process". Deciding which is better is a matter of assessing your needs. The key strengths of this book is the tutorial nature and the wide range of case studies that are used to reinforce the learning. The key strengths of "Measuring the Software Process" is that it goes much deeper into analysis and also includes statistical process controls and other techniques that are present in highly mature development organizations. Regardless of which book you choose (or if you choose both), the information and knowledge to be gained is the foundation of SQA and best practices in project management.

Being a researcher in software metrics, I am really pleased to see a book that is suited for software managers with the correct level of detail in statistics. I particularly enjoyed reading the 4 chapters with case studies. Its a must have for anyone in the field of software metrics and measurement.

This is not a common book on Computability and Complexity as Hopcroft-Ullman, Sipser or Papadimitrou. You won't find here too many words describing topics: you'll find the power and elegance of a superlative mathematical approach from one the best authors of the century in the field. Conversely, you'll find here a detailed and elegant treatment of the whole history of computational models that starts at the Primitive Recursive Functions, something you won't find in the other books above mentioned.
A special note goes to the chapter on Blum's complexity, which is about the only good place where I found it and from where I studied for my course on Complexity I.
For this reason the book requires quite more attention than others, but it really worths all the time one can spend reading it. Truly understanding Computability and Complexity as Professor Davis teaches them with this book is in my opinion a definitely high achievement, bringing the sensation that you grasp it totally, with no space for ambiguity or weakness.

The authors of this book define theoretical computer science as the mathematical study of models of computation, and they do an excellent job of detailing the major results in the theory of computation as related to mathematical logic. Mathematicians, programmers, and philosophers will find the book an effective one in which to learn computability theory, and it serves well as a textbook for courses in the subject.

After a brief review of elementary mathematics and mathematical logic in chapter 1, the authors move right into the consideration of computable functions in chapter 2. They choose a particular abstract programming language in which to study the computability theory, which is built from variables, and programs that can be built from lists of instructions. Examples of programs are given, which have a Fortran flavor, with examples of computing partial functions. Unfortunately, a plethora of GOTO statements appear in the programs, and throughout the rest of the book, which is surprising given the publishing date. The use of these GOTO statements in the book is a major annoyance.

Then in chapter 3, the authors discuss primitive recursive functions, beginning with a treatment of composition, followed by the all-important concept of recursion. The class (PRC) of primitive recursive functions is introduced, and shown to be computable. The primitive recursive predicates are introduced, followed by a proof that the existential and universal quantifiers over an element of a PRC class are also PRC. This is followed by a discussion of minimalization and Godel numbers.

The next chapter is very interesting, wherein the famous halting problem is discussed and related to Church's thesis. The authors stress, most importantly, that an algorithm cannot be defined outside of the choice of a language, and therefore Church's thesis cannot be proved as a theorem. The authors also introduce recursively enumerable sets and show, via diagonalization, that non-recursively enumerable sets exist. They give an interesting example of a function that is computable but not primitive recursive.

The next chapter extends the results to strings of symbols instead of just numbers, and the authors introduce programming languages for doing string computations. One of these is the famous Post-Turing language, which they use to discuss the halting problem, with a variant used in the next chapter on Turing machines. The authors discuss the famous halting problem for Turing machines in this chapter. This is followed in chapter 7 by a discussion of productions and simulation of nondeterministic Turing machines. A very lucid treatment of Post's correspondence problem is given.

Things get somewhat more complicated in chapter 8, where the authors attempt to classify unsolvable problems. It contains one of the best discussions I have seen in the literature on oracles, and the authors give a very clear treatment of arithmetic hierarchies.

The second part of the book reads more like a book on compilers, as the authors delve into the area of grammars and automata. Regular languages, deterministic and non-deterministic finite automata are discussed, and Kleene's theorem, which states that regular languages and finite automata define the same languages, is proven. The context-free languages, so familiar from the study of compilers, are discussed also, along with a proof that a context-free grammar can be reduced to a Chomsky normal form grammar. Pushdown automata, needed for accepting context-free languages, are treated in detail. The authors give a good explanation here as to the additional facilities needed for a finite automaton to decide if a word belongs to a "bracket" language. Chomsky hierarchies are also discussed, and the authors motivate nicely the need for a linear bounded automaton to accept context sensitive languages.

Part three of the book is an overview of mathematical logic, and begins with a treatment of the propositional calculus. The satisfiability problem is discussed for this system, along with how to reduce formulas to normal form. The important compactness theorem is given a very detailed proof. Predicate calculus is then discussed, and Herbrand's theorem, which effectively reduces logical inference in predicate calculus to a problem of satisfiability of universal sentences, is proven. This theorem is fascinating and has important applications to automated theorem proving, as it ties together semantic and syntactical properties of a formal system. The Godel incompleteness theorem and the unsolvability of the satisfiability problem in predicate logic is proven.

In part 4, issues in computational complexity are addressed, the measure of complexity given in terms of the Blum axioms. This is a very abstract way of introducing complexity theory, as it introduces measures of complexity that more general than time and space complexity. The fascinating gap theorem, comparing program performance on two computing machines via complexity measures, is proven. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the speedup theorem, which essentially states that there is a wildly complicated recursive function such that for any program computing this function, there exists another program computing the function that works a lot faster for almost every input. The polynomial-time computability is discussed along with the famous P vs NP problem, with the discussion given in terms of Turing machines. Examples of NP-complete problems are given.

The last part of the book covers semantics, with operational and denotational semantics defined and compared. The emphasis in this part is on programming languages and constructions that one would actually find in practice, and so the preceding chapters on computable functions must be extended. The concept of an approximate ordering is introduced to allow for the instantaneous of a computation at some point before its completion. The denotational semantics of recursion equations and infinitary data structures are discussed, with the latter put it in to deal with the sophisticated systems that are constructed here. The discussion here is very involved, but the authors do a fair job of explaining the need for these types of data structures. The same is done for operational semantics, and the authors finally show that the computable numerical functions are actually partially computable. They then show the existence of computable irrational numbers.

I haven't found a better book on the Theoretical foundations of Computer Science. However since this IS theory the text can be a bit cryptic. Still, I'd recomend this book to any PhD Candidate or full Professor. Even a lowly Master's student like myself could use it.

I first learned computability from this book and I loved every minute of it. It has lots of material and is superbly written. In fact, I think the chapters on logic are the most painless way to learn that subject. There are many other books around on this subject, but this is the ultimate!

It taught me how to think about the theory of computation. The exercises added to the second edition are a big improvement over the first editon.

This book makes a good technical companion to Kahn's historic treatment in 'The Code Breakers'. It covers the technology up through the advent of computers. Its treatment is technical, going into details about how an encryption technique is performed, and how it is attacked. This book is the first place where I've seen the Enigma machine described in enough detail to understand how it works (or they worked since there were many variations and many of them are discussed here), and how to actually build (or simulate) one. It's a big book, and I carried it around for months, sometimes just diving into a chapter or topic. I loved it.

This book is the best book I have found so far on mathematical cryptology. Although the author does a fairly sketchy treatment of DES and IDEA compared to some other books out there, I feel that he makes up for it by placing all of the most common cryptographic systems in the context of a coherent and rigorous mathematical framework. Many other cryptology books fail to tie all the various cryptographic methods together using the powerful tools of modern mathematics. Dr. Bauer's text however, leaves no question in the student's mind where all the techniques fit into the theoretical framework. The second half of the book is also a pleasant surprise: a very readable but mathematically rigorous explanation of cryptanalysis. The author presents a number of statistical methods of attack that are difficult to find all in one place in the open literature. Dr. Bauer does a thorough job of explaining and augments the theory with many examples. This thorough treatment of cryptanalysis distinguishes his book from many other books on cryptology. Many authors of cryptology books pay lip-service to Kerckhoff's maxim (Only a cryptanalyst can judge the security of a crypto system.) but few bring the student enough cryptanalytic knowledge to even begin to evaluate the crypto systems presented in their books. Dr. Bauer does an excellent job of balancing cryptography with cryptanalysis. I highly recommend this book for any serious student of Cryptology. It is a real gem.

I read this book in the original German (even though reading in German is still a labor for me), and the effort was amply rewarded. This book is a first course in cryptography, at the upper undergraduate or beginning graduate level. Its competition would be books like Denning's or Beker and Piper or Koblitz' series. Denning's book is still great and worth buying (and Ms. Denning is a wonderful, accomplished, and intelligent person), but Bauer is more modern and complete. Koblitz' books are all first rate, but Bauer stays on the task of cryptology much more exactly and usefully. This is the basis of an excellent course in several German universities, especially in Munich. If I taught another course purely on cryptography (and not as part of a larger math curriculum---where Koblitz' book is best), I would certainly use this as the text. However, even though this is best, I really think everyone should still buy, read, and treasure Ms. Denning's book, Cryptology, too. (A true classic is never actually superseded.) Buy Bauer. It is better than an existing classic. While I don't have the English version yet, and cannot, therefore, vouch for the quality of the translation, I think that Springer Verlag is such a reliable editor that we can both trust that the translation will be good before we even see it.

This is an amazing book, and relatively inexpensive; Springer-Verlag has done it again.

Rather than being a dry recitation of encryption and cryptanalysis schemes, Bauer provides a great deal of information about what actually goes wrong when one tries to construct a cipher that must be used under pressure by non-cryptologists, with plenty of historical examples to illustrate his points. And he discusses at some length the ways in which cryptanalysts can hope to unravel ciphers and codes too strong to be broken by standard methods. Much of what he has to say I had never seen in print before; some of it was brand new to me. Perhaps it helps that Bauer is German, and doesn't have to write with the uneasy feeling that NSA or MI-6 is looking over his shoulder at every line he writes. For example, his explanation of how Robert Murphy compromised an American cipher in WW II so badly that the Germans could read it easily is one that I think some American officials would probably still prefer not to have in print.

Despite comments by other reviewers and by Cryptologia, I think it requires a certain mathematical sophistication to absorb much of the material in this book. The math is not hard, but Bauer implicitly assumes a mathematical mindset and a familiarity with the terminology of pure mathematics that most college undergraduates don't have. So I wouldn't choose it as the primary text for a first course in cryptology, but I would certainly use it as a supplementary text. I know of no other book that contains so much material on the practical realities of cryptology.

The book is full of very good and interesting technical information. The part on cryptanalysis is rather new and informative. The history part is mostly taken from Khan's book (you'll find some pictures in both) so there is nothing really new in this area

Just bought the book and it has been useful already. If you are serious enough about computer science to want to know what is in the professional literature this is full of wonderful summaries.

This book is an incredible resource for all people interested in software engineering and AI. I've used numerous ideas in from this book in current research projects, and I'm sure that my copy will become well worn with time! -Ben Peterson, Computer Science student

This book is a compilation of texts on different, very interesting, fields on theory of complexity and theory of algorithms. It is very usefull for all that are interesting in the field. Contains mary recent results and concepts.

Knuth's Art of Computer Programming summarized the state-of-the-art in research into algorithms in the seventies and set bar formidably high both in breadth and depth of presentation. Atallah's Handbook is one of the better attempts to survery the present, much wider scope of research in the field, even if it's lacking in Knuth's profundity. It most certainly makes an interesting read if you have the time it takes. If you enjoyed reading Knuth, you will enjoy browsing through Atallah as well.

I live, study and work in the New York Tri-State region and this book is pretty great because the author also lived, worked and studied in the same region. Whats good about that? The Human Development and Expliotation is our region is very diverse and often connects directly with other prominent regions around the globe. The author basically covers alot of legalities, origins, design principles, and field work analysis really well.
This was one of the easier to read text in my classes, not because it is written in laymans terms, but he writes the ideas in a clear concise manner and covers alot of material with great efficiency using (the best I've seen in any enviro-engineering text) superb diaghrams, pictures and charts.
As a whole I felt the text demystifies alot of what this field is about so I usually recommend it to other non-environmental engineers, planners and designers that I come across in my school and work.

The book is expensive but I felt it was one of those few (if any) books you'll ever buy in college that is worth every penny.

This one is a keeper!

GREAT!!!!!

This text is one of the most definitive AND USEFUL shelf references for the environmental health sciences. Detailed, accurate, wide-ranging on topics of immediate interest to the practicing sanitarian, engineer or the very interested non-practitioner. Support from the publisher has been poor. For two years after the announcement of the current addendum, the publisher "disavowed knowledge" of an addendum. When published, the addendum had the same ISBN number as the complete text -- creating the unture appearance of a "reduced" price complete addition. Salvato, could for the price of this text, be on a more current update of information contained in some chapters (2-3 year cycle). The scope of this work would justify numerous consulting authors. While it is one of the best shelf references and "learning texts" it could still be improved and be better supported by a publisher that sometimes seems to have insulated itself from the buying public.

I have just reviewed the ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEERING AND SANITATION 1994 SUPPLEMENT, by Joseph A. Salvato and Joe E. Beck. It's a great resource for professionals seeking a broader vision of environmental health practice areas and where we are heading. Prof. Beck obviously put a lot of work into conceptualizing this volume and working with the distinguished contributors. It shows. In particular, I found the first chapter, Stakeholder Focused Interactive Planning (SFIP)by Joe Beck and Steven Ison to be a brilliant piece on the desirability of (indeed, the imperative for our profession to) include the public in problem-solving and planning. I have used this process and mediated disputes ranging from siting controversies (haz. waste facility siting in Massachusetts) to determining future land use options at Hanford in the nuclear weapons complex. I commend both Beck and Ison for their clear portrayal of the paradigm as well as the steps one undertakes in conducting such planning. Federal government engineers and planners have been learning the hard way about what happens when decisions are made without public input and without regard to the values, interests, and expectations of so-called stakeholders. At Hanford, more than $20 billion in appropriations has yielded preciously little in terms of actual cleanup: one may wonder if Congress will continue to appropriate the substantial $6 billion a year for the Dept. of Energy's Environmental Management Program without consensus of the public on #1) the benefits or #2) the ameliorated risks from present expenditures. Current stakeholders come from a wide range of public interest groups and they do not get along particularly well. They do not have current programs or projects that reflect the use of the SFIP and researchers should be asking themselves, "Why not?" (Resources for the Future [RFF] has an on-going research project that tackles public participation in environmental decision making).

I would also like to comment on Ch. 6 "The Institutional Environment: Biosafety" by Darly Rowe. The importance of Dr. Rowe's conclusion that we must rely on consultation and working with the client on biosafety issues cannot be overstated. I also like the typology which places biosafety issues in proper perspective. We seem to be deluged with risks and risk information, and his approach is clear, concise and elegant. In sum, I believe that environmental health professionals can apply the insights in this series of articles in a way that will help supplant the "command-and-control" mentatlity that has battered so many of our colleagues and public health/environment inspectors, and baffled decision makers in the past two decades. Asst. Prof. R. Steven Konkel, Ph.D., EKU

If you have any interest in understanding how language develops you should read this book. It's been fun to apply what I learned here as I listen to my four year-old daughter struggle with how to pronounce certain words and come up with the proper conjugations of irregular English verbs. Dr. Black makes an otherwise dry subject interesting.

For any serious NT Greek student, this book is very insightful to the many phonemic changes in the language. It is not a definitive book on lingustics, which the author himself claims, but, it does get you started in the area of linguistics that might give you some insight into the English language. Black writes in a way that doesn't overwhelm the student with his scholarship, which he definitely has, but he writes in a way that even someone who is a beginner in the study of the language can understand. I recommend it for any beginner or intermedeate student who would like to get a better handle on why some things change in the Greek language that may have confused you before.

Black invites the reader to apply the techniques of modern linguistics to the analysis of New Testament Greek. This excellent general introduction covers the phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and historical linguistics of koine Greek. It assumes no Greek or linguistics background.

I give the chapter headings and some subheadings:

1. Introducing Linguistics: The Landscape and the Quest
2. Phonology: The Sound of Greek (Phonetics and Phonemics)
3. Morphology: The Anatomy of Greek Words
4. Syntax: The Architecture of the Greek Sentence
5. Semantics: Determining Meaning (The real jewel in this work--Word and Concept, Semantic Classes, Ambiguity, Denotation/Connotation, Idioms, Rhetorical Language, Semantic Change, Discourse Analysis!)
6. Historial and Comparative Linguistics: The Biography of Greek

In a Greek course I taught 2004/2005 based upon the Gospel of John (Beginning Greek: A Functional Approach) the class at one point wrestled with the disambiguation of a problemmatic participial phrase in John 1:9. ["He (Christ) was the true light that enlightens every man 'coming into the world.'"]. Should the phrase "coming into the word" go with "man" or "light"? Both are grammatically possible: the participal could be (1) accusative masculine singular or (2) nominative neuter singular. Black explains that the larger context with its emphasis upon the incarnation of Christ (see 1:14) settles the issue (2).

Highly recommended. Although it covers alot of ground, the explanations are short and to the point and examples abound. A delightful 172 pages that would lay a great foundation for someone contemplating linguistics as a major or who wants to conscientously apply a knowledge of koine to NT interpretation.

New Testament (Koine) Greek has long been taught as just another dead language. Black, an experienced teacher of Greek, changes the paradigm. Applying modern linguistic theory, Black shows how many of the so-called irregularities of Greek are actually normal and regular. The book covers the gamut: phonetics, morphology, syntax, semantics, etc. each section concludes with a short bibliography which can help students and teachers learn even more about linguistics and Koine Greek. An important text for newcomers and a useful review of Greek to sharpen rusty skills.