Applied Languages Books

Elements of the Theory of Computation (2nd Edition) I just got through reading other book and I realized the only reason I understood it at all was that I had read this book.When I first read this book I thought some of the parts elementary, but comparing it to the above text I realized it was doing the job of teaching by giving good illustrations of the processes involved.

If you are a computer scientist who would like to delve into the foundations of computing for the first time, this is the perfect book for you. The author uses unlimited register machines as his computing model, then shows equivalence with this model and other models , such as the Turing machine. The reader should find more advanced topics, such Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, the Recursion Theorem's, and Reducibility to be quite accessible.

Cutland's book "Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory" is without doubt the best introduction to recursion theory available on the market. Elementary Recursion Theory is a logician's expression for theoretical computer science, with an emphasis on negative results, i.e. what computers cannot do. Cutland could have exploited Church's Thesis in the manner of H. Rogers, and this could have perhaps make the book readable for a larger public from the human science. Instead Cutland defines the computable functions in a rather standard way through the use of the Register Machine. Then all the basic chapter of recursion theory are introduced, including a gentle explanation of Kleene second recursion theorem, on recursive operators, on formal arithmetic and Godel's incompleteness theorem, Post creative and productive sets. It contains a chapter on Blum complexity theory, with the gap theorem and Blum's speed-up theorem. The book is a must for those who want to penetrate this fundamental subject.

This introduction for undergrads assumes no specifics other than general experience in college math. The writing is clear and exercises are interspersed and follow naturally from the explanations. Proofs are explanatory and easy to follow, though often rather informal.

However, it looses some of its best qualities about halfway through the book. The early chapters give excellent context and motivation, but by chapter 4 that is mostly gone. It seems that the push to cover more topics is what led to making the introduction of new topics more and more brief. The later chapters give little feeling for how it all fits together and why we should care. You can look up the same topics in Rogers or Odifreddi to get an idea of the interesting things that could have been said.

This is a well-written book, and gives a satisfying account of the field of recursion theory. It covers basic aspects of recursion theory, Godel numbering, the structure of recursive and recursively enumerable sets, and even a brief (and quite sketchy) foray into complexity results at the end. It is, however, worth deciding whether you are in the target audience before making a purchase.

If you are trying to make a first transition over into theory topics from, say, a career of practical software development tasks, then this is the wrong book. Try Sipser's Introduction to the Theory of Computation instead. Sipser is more willing to spend time on demonstrating the intuitive picture, and relies less on formal mathematical arguments. This book can come later to fill in some of the mathematical properties.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, this is a passable but mediocre reference book for recursion theory. It omits major topics, such as the arithmetic hierarchy. It deviates considerably from other traditional treatments. These decisions will get annoying if you plan to read bits and pieces rather than learn in sequence according to the author's presentation. A better reference is Hartley Rogers' Theory of Recursive Functions and Effective Computability.

Buy this book if you are in the middle. It's a great book if you've seen some decidability results, but not a formal mathematical treatment; and if you intend to follow the book and learn what it decides rather than look up specific topics. In that situation, it's hard to see how you could do better.

This is a great book intended for practitioners and "light" theoreticians. It contains precise explanations that show how to use the cross entropy method efficiently for both estimation of rare events and for optimization. The code is valuable and covers a large variety of applications. The book is deductive and easy to follow, and not cluttered with too much notations.

I really liked the applications chapters - easy to follow and show what all the fuss is about. Seems like the kind of book you'd like to have around if you're actually solving optimization problems.

This book provides an excellent introduction to the Cross-Entropy (CE) method, which is a new and interesting method for the estimation of rare event probabilities and combinatorial optimisation.

The book contains all of the material required by a practitioner or researcher to get started with the CE method. The fact that accompanying Matlab code is freely available renders this field especially accessible to new-comers.

The book has a strong practical flavour, and is easy to read. It will be of interest to anybody working in the field of Monte-Carlo simulation and/or stochastic optimisation.

The cross entropy method (CE) is a modern technique attacking optimization and estimation problems by simulation. It has been introduced by the first author and it is elaborated thoroughly in this book. The reader will find a lucid introductory chapter into the subject followed by the core of the book consisting of a chapter where CE returns an iterative algorithm for adaptive importance sampling simulation, and a chapter where CE is transformed into a randomized algorithm for solving combinatorial optimization problems. The book concludes with several chapters with applications including detailed numerical results and some Matlab codes.

I read the book with great pleasure because it is a well written exposition of a fascinating method containing many illustrative examples and realistic applications. I think that it is appropriate for both practitioners and theorists in simulation and optimization. While reading the book I got encouraged to apply CE to several other problems because the CE basics seems so simple while the results are marvellous. I am interested specifically in rare event simulation so I focused on reading the simulation part where I found many inspiring new ideas. In fact, I applied CE to a reliability problem and obtained results far better than existing methods. The simulation chapter is the most mathematically oriented, for instance it gives a proof of convergence and it contains recent developments in simulation of rare events with heavy tails.

I can recommend this book to everyone who likes to learn new ways for solving estimation and optimization problems.

Although Cross Entropy is a relatively new methodology in optimization, there has seen an "explosion" of new articles offering theoretical extensions and new applications in the last few years. Hence, this book comes just in time to review the state of the art and help "new comers" enter this field. The method is presented in a clear, easy-to-follow manner and the best part of the book, in my opinion, is the focus on several areas of application where tough problems were already solved with CE. I have recently used this book to support a novel CE application to project management and found it extremely useful. I think it should become a standard piece in the "tool-box" of both scholars and practicionairs interested in optimization.

The cross-entropy method is an exciting new technique for rare event simulation and stochastic optimization.
The book unfortunately is a 99% copy and paste of the public available tutorials and papers. I bought the book before looking in the internet, so do not do the same mistake by me.

Furthermore it is quite disappointing if every chapter is written in a highly redundant manner(which follows automatically if every chapter is a paper on its own).

The topic and method is great but the book doesnt add much what the papers wont tell.

Don't get me wrong - Ms. Bannister has done a laudable job with this "instructional manual." The only point I feel compelled to make is this "survival guide" is "97%" better suited for a first year school librarian. After a full year "on the job", most of her book's contents are researched and dealt with - by necessity. Read this book the summer before starting as a first year school librarian or after being away from the profession for a few years.

This book truely is a survival guide! As a new media specialist I was basically clueless about how to get started. This book offers suggestions for everything a media specialist has to deal within an elementary school. It offers everything from positioning furnisher, sample activities/lesson plans, reproducible worksheets and letters, etc. This book is easy to read and understand. I would recommend it to all new media specialist or veterans looking for new ideas.

This book, which I discovered in a catalog from World Almanac, I believe, was a very useful asset in my two years of learning experience as an emerging librarian. I found information which was verified in my graduate school coursework to gain my Masters' Degree in Library Science. Later, I found many recommendations and commendations for this volume. I will continue to return to this book for resources and ideas and good basic aids to the librarian in an elementary school. Additionally, their are great ideas that can translate to middle school and high school librarians and their many, multi-tasking roles!

That's what this book does. It helps very much.
It has forms, charts, letters, and patterns to
help you. Topics such as physical organization
of the library, how to build
support for your programs, discipline,
storytimes, and booktalks are just a
few of the many subjects covered in this book.

It goes beyond what you learn in school and it is
all in this one handy volume.

As a recently certified school library media specialist, I was excited to see this title. I purchased it without checking the date. Big mistake. The book has more information on card catalogs than computerized catalog systems. The information on planning and lessons was very basic. The "chapter" on dicipline is 9 pages long (3 pages of reproducibles). I was hoping for information on weeding, collection development and promoting the library to students, and actual lesson ideas. This book does not deliver. It may have been useful 14 years ago, but should not be considered today. Any introductory class on educational media or library science will cover all of this and more.

Nice introduction to linear programming, but new standard definitions have already arrived, making many "good books" obsolete. The book sometimes isn't very clear and should be more explicit and should give more examples.

Luenberger's optimization book is very good and well worth having. However, it should be noted that the "new" 2004 edition published by Springer-Verlag is nothing more than an exact reprint of the 1984 2nd edition that was formerly published by Addison-Wesley. Accordingly, a good used copy may be more worthwhile than an overpriced "new" one.

This is the fourth such case I have come across wherein a publisher chooses to engage in such misleading marketing practices. The other three are "Engineering Optimization - Methods and Applications" by Reklaitis (1983), "Hydraulic Control Systems" by Merrit (1967), and "Dynamic Systems" also by Luenberger (1979). All three are now being sold as new publications by Wiley (according to Amazon). I suspect there are many other examples as well.

Looking from outside, the book seems very good. However, when you open the cover you are shocked by the press quality. It seems like the book just came from an illegal copy shop. Sometimes you can not read small indices in formulas. For a book having this context, a better press quality should be used. I could make a better copy with a copy machine. The paper quality is around average.

I have profitably used the book to apply constrained minimization procedures in the field of computational contact mechanics. I think it is not a secret that quite often books on mathematics are written from matematicians for matematicians. Hence it is quite hard for engineers both to read and to extract valuable information from them. With this respect this book is a shining star. It presents the topics in a very precise but clear and understandable way. Moreover the notation also is the best compromise between coinciseness and clarity. Matematicians, please, look at this book and follow such style; we engineer desperately need to communicate with you.

I have the 1977 edition from my father's MIT days. I am a Mathematician and I can verify that the book written in 1977 is of the same style that good books have today! A book is not made obsolete because some new "elegant" terms arise. Ok Luenberger did not know about Interior Point Algorithms and to tell you the truth why should he? I do not know other editions but in the first edition in chapter 7 "Basic Descent Methods" everyone who is able to read clearly and unbiased the second paragraph will agree with me that Interion Point Algorithms IS NOTHING NEW in the theory of MATHEMATICS!!! What you need to know ,the magic, is in the chapters 7-11. From there you can read everything else you like and get in touch with what is about to come in the next 25 years(See Ye : "Interion Point Algorithms"). But remember you are already in stars before reading the new books...

I could neither read the book cover to cover nor expect anyone will accomplish this with sanity. This book is written as a text book that student will buy class notes instead or a self-promotion material which left untouched; Almost all supporting material are assembled from various sources. The author claim it's done to protect its customer's privacy but the result does not make sense and appear to be too much artificial. Besides the lack of "real" hard evidence to demostrate the author's theory, there are too many opinions from places to places. We don't assume a cause of an event by collecting opinions from a group of people. Only an controled experient can proof a theory. Over all the book is poorly written. However, it serve as a good weapon through corporate ladder. It can be uses in two way. Pick it up and hit someone. Its hard cover and weight can result a deadly attack. Otherwise one can pick up technical terms through out the book and make anyone in front of you shut up.

What's good about this book: The mention of function point vs lines of code. The importance of software measurement and it's value. Lastly, it provide you an template of basline report if the CEO ever ask.

What put this book useless: neither example nor explaination on how to calculate function point from a spec or project files. The detailed work require too much labor to accomplish.

Conclusion: a minimum software measurement is essential to evaluate a team's performance. a size of code / bug rate and few other key variables can show the quality and progress of an project. Thus a project schedule can be forcasted and updated. But we need to ask if the author had pushed the case to the extreme so the business solely based on selling measurment report like himself can exist and keep sucking our money.

It's hard to encapsulate in a few words what this book has done for me since I've started reading it. If you're part of any stage of your company's development cycle and care about the quality of the products you deliver ... this is a must read. Chris Showers Inmar Enterprises

I bought this book as a suppliment to Software Engineering Economics, by Boehm, because of it's later publication date. However, once I read the book I believe that the Boehm should be a suppliment to this work. Before reading this book I was unfamiliar with function points. We are now implementing them in our company. If this book does not bridge the gap between technical and management it goes a long way toward that end.

Software engineering is not a discipline backed by science; it has many theories but few metrics and objective data to evaluate the theories. However, software must be built, people are hired to meet important business goals, and projects and careers are dependent on an accurate assessment of project factors. Jones' book supplies an objective way for software engineering managers to compare their projects against empirical data gathered from over 6700 software projects. The next time a manager challenges your effort and schedule estimates, you can turn to Jones' book (Chapter 3 is a must read for even time pressed managers and the charts alone worth the value of the book) and find the objective data to back you up. Neil Olsen

How To Win Friends And Influence People is a classic. Truly a life-changing book. Unfortunately, THIS republication of the book has such small typesize... probably only 8 or 9 pt.... that it is unreadable. Too bad that the publishers decided to save a few pennies by crunching the text. They killed the book.

Cómo Ganar Amigos E Influir Sobre Las Personas es un libro clásico. De verdad, es un libro que puede cambiar la vida de uno. Desafortunadamente ESTA impresión del libro usó letra tan pequeña que ni se puede leerla... quizás es tamaño 8 o 9. Parece que la imprenta decidió de ahorrar unos centavos por cortar el # de páginas, y en el proceso mató al libro.

Is a very good book, it gives you a lot of examples of what to do. I think it is one of the best books out there about the topic.

desde mucho tiempo habia oido hablar de este libro y me parecia un poco cursi,hasta que me lo encontre en la casa de un amigo. inmediatamente empeze a leerlo y fue; unico el placer de darem cuenta algo tan sencillo, como el como comportarme estuviera tan mal en mi,cuando solo tenia que analizar y hacer las cosas mucho mejor, y hasta con menor esfuerzo. me abrio y sigue habriendo los ojos a muchos aspectos de mi vida vitales para mi desarrollo personal y con los demas. y no..es, que estuviera tan mal pero no hiba a llegar a ningun lado como hiba. en el cielo le lleguen mis gracias dr Dale

Después de más de 60 años de escrito, el libro del señor Dale Carnegie continúa vigente. Cómo es esto posible? Pues muy fácil, las excelentes ideas allí expuestas, no han sido adoptadas por muchos, a pesar de haber vendido millones de copias. El hombre común y corriente es fácilmente impresionable cuando se le presentan conceptos que prometen un cambio radical en su vida, sin embargo luego del entusiasmo inicial, todas estas ideas son olvidadas, tales son los casos famosos de libros de autores como Og Mandino o Wayne Dryer. En su libro, el señor Carnegie insiste en la re-lectura una y otra vez, y en la aplicación constante de los conceptos allí expuestos, ya que sabe que de otra manera sus palabras no dejarán huella. Las ideas que el señor Carnegie presenta en su texto son demasiado obvias, tan obvias que nadie las nota en su propia vida; sólo cuando el autor las muestra de tal manera que no se pueden negar, es en ese momento cuando el lector se enfrenta con la realidad. Todos nos sorprendemos ya que el señor Carnegie, apoyado en testimonios e historias de personajes famosos, logra mostrarnos tantos y tan distintos errores que cometemos a diario. Pero sobre todo, nos sorprendemos con la solución que nos presenta para superar esos errores. De manera magistral el autor apela al mismo egoísmo de cada uno para trabajar de manera inversa, es decir, hacerle creer a los demás que siempre hacemos lo que ellos quieren. Y al parecer esta solución funciona, y funciona tan bien que, a fuerza de fingir este comportamiento y de re-leer el texto, el individuo termina apropiando la idea de hacer que la otra gente se sienta importante.

Tal vez el mayor mérito lo logra el autor en el aspecto de la influencia sobre las personas, para ello propone unas reglas básicas de comportamiento, que de ser practicadas, conducen a un éxito en las relaciones interpersonales y de paso a conseguir cualquier cosa que uno se proponga. De todo esto, lo que causa mayor admiración al lector es darse cuenta que todas las personas sin distinción de raza, color, sexo, religión o condición social, tienen las mismas necesidades básicas, las mismas expectativas y por sobre todo, el interés de colocar el YO, el mí mismo por sobre todas las cosas y de cómo al lograr manipular este interés se puede "dominar" a los demás. Es interesante la lectura de este libro por todas las oportunidades que ofrece para el mejoramiento del trato con los demás, pero por sobre todo, porque el señor Carnegie en ningún momento intenta imponer sus ideas, simplemente sugiere, jugando de alguna manera con el mismo lector, a quién le aplica el mismo tratamiento de hacerlo sentir importante.

I found this book very useful. I teach a muli-level ESL class to adults and I use this book for all levels. This book is better than most out there.

The book has 2 basic parts--the first is about safety, hygiene, etc., and I don't have a need for this in my ESL classroom. The second part covers just about every second-language cultural issue (money and measuring are the 2 I've referred to in the 2 weeks I've had the book, but there are TONS!) and I believe it will be extremely helpful. The book was recommended to me by a veteran ESL elementary school teacher who uses it often. It would be useful for ESL teachers at all levels, I think. Great info on verb tenses and, like I said, TONS more!

In reviewing the book ESL Smart: Ready-to-Use Life Skills and Academic Activities for Grades K-8, I believe it is an invaluable resource for anyone working with English Language Learners, particularly newcomers and beginners. This book provides a wealth of ideas about how to facilitate the acculturation of ELLs into our American public schools. The book is a source of ideas and topics that can be adapted for a broad range of social and academic skills required of ELLs to be successful in our public schools. This book is precisely the type of reference book every ESL teacher should have on the shelf.

1. Illustrations-two thumbs down
2. Lesson plan/student worksheet conflicts
3. Best for use in the American ESL classroom

I bought this book to help me teach ESL in China. I found that the illustrations are more like frustrations because they are so terrible and confusing. I think my ESL students could have produced a better looking book.
Moreover, this book supplies lesson plans for the teacher and worksheets for the students... However, they are often combined... So if you were to xerox a worksheet for a class, it would have part of your lesson plan "instructions" listed on the top of the worksheet right under the student's name and date.
The topics I think are only ok if you are teaching students who are living in the states. They describe safety issues and hygiene typical in America, but "Greek" to any foreigner.

This book provides a thorough survey of pretty much all the arts (not just visual arts) using plenty of well-chosen examples, many examined in some depth.

The organization of the book generally has a chapter for each art form, with each chapter mostly organized into various themes. This complements other books organized according to an historical approach.

By the time one has progressed through the journey of the entire book, the diligent reader should come away enriched with new perspectives on life and reality.

The one downside of the book, which isn't minor, is that I found much of the writing to be unnecessarily complicated and tedious. I'm not saying that the authors needed to "dumb it down," but I do think they could have conveyed their message much more clearly without compromising its substance. It's as though they just adopted a clunky, somewhat highbrow style at the outset, got used to it, and than ran with it all the way through the book, forgetting the needs and wants of their audience in the process. Lest one think I'm being too critical, consider the book The Annotated Mona Lisa: A Crash Course in Art History from Prehistoric to Post-Modern, which is both enlightening and a joy to read.

The above issue brings my rating down to 4 stars, but I still certainly recommend the book because of the considerable value it brings to the reader. Just be prepared to be genuinely attentive as you read it. Your investment of time and effort will be well rewarded.

I love to buy my books on this web site because i never had any problems with orders.

Speedy and as ordered. If you are ordering this book for a class, make sure you get the correct ISBN number. There is a 2008 edition of this book!

I ordered using ISBN number as given by my university. What I received was not the same ISBN. It was the same title of the book, just the incorrect revision. I am doing an accelerated course, so the seller's offer of just return it for a full refund was not very helpful to me. I don't know if the problem was with the seller or Amazon. I am quite dissapointed that I got the wrong book. There are discrepancies.

This is a good place to start for getting a base of vocabulary, worksheets, and discussion questions for Romeo and Juliet. It is basically just a collection of worksheets (most of which you won't have time to use) that you can pick and choose from. I usually use some of the questions in discussion. A lot of times I will use part of what they have for a worksheet and combine it with something I have. For the price, this book is a good resource that you will definately find useful.

As a first year English teacher, the thought of teaching Shakespeare intimidated me. Thankfully, a more experienced teacher loaned me a copy of this book. It was a lifesaver. It gave me a place from which to start. The helpful vocabulary lists and exercises, as well as the pre and post reading activities gave me terrific ideas to use in the classroom. I immediately ordered my own copy of this book. I will not hesitate to loan it to the newest English teacher down the hall.

If you are reasonably new to teaching Shakespeare this book has some good ideas to liven up your class.

It breaks down the activities into different acts, and it uses approaches that will appeal to different learning styles. There are a number of useful activities, worksheets, and practices quizzes that will get you up and rolling. When a new teacher is stuck, this is one of the books that I loan them.

For the experienced teacher, or someone who considers themself well-versed in Shakespeare, this book is a little elementary. It functions great in support, but lacks a little all on its own. I do however find it useful in conjunction with books like Shakespeare Set Free.

This is a book aimed at children or novice adults.

There is nothing in it for an experienced microscopist.

My son is into scanning electron microscope pictures of insects and other things. Lots of interesting photos, wonderful for elementary age children.

Since Usborne books are geared for children, not professionals, it is written exactly the way it should be. My kids' classmates were fascinated with the pictures. The fifth graders were just starting to use microscopes and this book really whet their appetites. They went on to find more microscope books and information.