Conferences Books

These proceedings contain 218 papers representing the work of authors from countries across the world. These papers cover a wide range of research and applications in safety and reliability issues that concern all types of systems, processes and structures. Some of the topics included are from aerospace, automotive, civil, mechanical, offshore, nuclear, chemical, electronics, software and other types of engineering. These two volumes should serve as a valuable reference on the state of the art of recent developments in safety and reliability.

Negotiate a tentative settlement between Israel and the Palestinians, then find oil under the West Bank. Call a hasty secret conference to settle the impending crisis and hold it on the rural estate of a former senior American government official, situated between two towns in Maine, Frank Mills and Franks Mill, who have been feuding for over a century. Invite some 200 delegates, British, Russian, French, German, Italian, Polish, Egyptian, Saudi, Chinese, and Canadian. (Send the Canadian invitation by mistake to the Premier of Quebec and get two Canadian delegations insisting on attending.) Do not, of course, invite the Israelis, Jordan or the PLO. As Sir Lawrence Bloomsbin puts it, "Never invite anyone directly involved. Too close to the situation, and their presence makes conference protocol even more delicate than usual. The Empire prospered when we ran it as a committee of one. Once we began colonial conferences, consultations and tea with the King, we started becomin' an ex-colonial power. Toss in the CIA, Mossad, the PLO, the IRA, and EUGG (the Ecological Urban Guerrilla Group) and hold the affair in the midst of the annual Middle Maine Seafood Festival. Shake it all up and you have the ingredients for The Secret Conference by Rufus Marlowe. There is a host of comic characters, many of whom are nevertheless human and sympathetic enough that you care what becomes of them. Adrian Peary Delano Shoredice III and his wife, Alice, owners of the country estate and central players in the drama, are three-dimensional people. You have met Greta Mills, First Selectman of Frank Mills, and Alan Pruitt, her counterpart in Franks Mill in numerous small towns, wisecracking and manoevring to get the best of their opponents. The romance between Mary, the enviro-terrorist, and Tom, the large, rural sheriff, is unusual but appealing. The author is a humorist and a gentle satirist, whose ear for dialogue allows him to catch and satisfyingly exaggerate national and occupational styles, from the extremes of Washington bureaucratise - "Satelliting those modalities into the process caused a severe reprioritizing of the then decision-making system" - as Gaylord Beauregard, aide to the Secretary of State, puts it, to the down-to-earth repartee of the rival town authorities - "You control the ferry and the only place it can dock. We own most of the island. What would you do if we ran a jeep road down to the water, put in a causeway and held the festival without you?" "I'd take my outboard through the mud flats at thirty knots," Moodie promised grimly. "The lake'd most probably blow up and even if it didn't, the stink'd last a month." As the delegates work for a solution to the Palestine problem - out in the middle of Mud Lake with a wire twisted around the propellor of their boat, the Russian, Grishinko, asks,"Vy will Israel accept half loaf ven can steal whole bakery?" Adrian couldn't resist. "Because the middle yeast will rise against them if they do Š" The whole is complicated with several unusual romances and all comes to a successful conclusion in a most satisfying way. I was reminded of P.G. Wodehouse and Stephen Leacock, but the author adds a military flair and an understanding of the bureaucratic mind which give verisimilitude to a highly unlikely series of events. Enjoy yourselves!

Messrs. Seaxton and Betts, editors of the AMERICAN ARCHITECT magazine in 1927-30, compiled this originally two volume display of photographs, drawings, plans, and renderings of some 100 then new theatres. It is a somewhat technical gallery of how architects met the challenge of designing theatres for the multiple use concept then becoming commonplace, but its multitude of photos will delight anyone interested in the physical nature of theatres. This one-volume reprint contains an added Index to the theatres therein, but the non-glossy paper is not as faithful to the photos as is the glossy paper of the first edition, still to be seen in some libraries. Still, the first edition is absolutely unobtainable, and this edition is more than adequate! The 342 pages of this handsome hardbound book should please anyone who loves beautiful theatres as well as the somewhat technically oriented text. There are, of course, a few typos such as the caption being wrong for the lower left photo on page 58 of "book 1" (section) which is identified correctly on page 15, and the photo on page 28 of "book 2" (section) is really the MIDLAND THEATER, Kansas City, MO. The accuracy of these and other details can be verified by the Theatre Historical Soc. of America in Elmhurst, IL. Especially for would-be architects, this will take one into a dreamland of fantastic architecture which is now seeing some of the theatres pictured herein restored to usefulness, and this volume will generate a longing for the delightful aura of lavish (and not so lavish) movie palaces and theatres from the recent past. Had color photos been available at that time, this book would deserve 5 stars! This volume's worthy successor is the title: "BEST REMAINING SEATS: The Story of the Golden Age of the Movie Palace" (1961), or its later reprint edition: "The Best Remaining Seats: The Golden Age of the Movie Palace"(1987), both available here at Amazon.com. While not an architect's book per se, it is the seminal historic work in the field and not to be missed.

To an observer from the Cold War, these Pugwash Proceedings of 1996 might have seemed as the fevered dreams of world peace. Set 5 years after the collapse of the unlamented Soviet Union, when Russia and the US had begun a massive build-down of their nuclear arsenals.

But the participants at these Proceedings are unsatisfied. Several articles discuss the fear of nuclear proliferation. India and Pakistan are mentioned prominently and presciently. Only a few years later, both would detonate fission bombs.

Not all the papers concern nuclear weapons. Conventional weapons also figure. Like perhaps outlawing land mines? Or more effective peacekeeping in Africa? There are even articles on global warming and its possible geopolitical impact.

The papers can be read by a general audience. No specialised background is needed. But an index to the book would have been nice, given its size.

Like every Siggraph preceedings this one present a broad range of ideas that present new ways of accomplishing graphical effects on a computer. THe more memorable ideas presented included Non-Photorelistic rendering.

As anticipated, I found the book to have sections pertinent to the use of magic lanterns in theatres. I gave a talk to my retirement club on Music in Silent Films, and was able to use some references from the book. Well researched and full of detail. Also quite readable.

This book is elegant and accessible, with a coherent presentation, but is a bit dry and unmotivated. The book would benefit from more applications, which should not be hard to find. I felt like Chapter 8 was the high point of the book, with a discussion of random walks, a matrix-tree theorem and invariant field theory.

The researcher who needs an arsenal of technical results in a clear style will find it here; the student who desires some added perspective may come away somewhat dissatisfied.

The games in this book require few props, which is one reason i like it. However there are many numerical and verbal exercises which might not be suitable for all groups. The games are well classified and easy to find in the book. The ones on creative thinking, learning and communication are particularly good. I work with students and have used many of the games with success. This book can be used for any type of audience, overall it is a pretty good buy.

This book asserts three subjects:

-subfactor theory: It gives the possible values of the index, nevertheless it is too sketchy and one solely interested in this subject should read his inventiones papers.

-knot theory: this is the best part of the books which explain without prerequisites and with great clarity the way to compute knot invariants.

-a pot pourri about 'knot and statistical mechanics' generalization. This part is the worst since the book is now quite old and the idea are not clear.

This book as the virtues of lectures (clarity, geometric ideas) and it's defaults (few computations, lack of rigor)

Well, as I was looking for a concise and accurate account of the Yalta Conference, I stumbled upon this. And I consider it a very lucky find as it is both well-written and informative. The prspective of some thirty years the author (a journalist) has to the described facts gives the work a necessary gravity and (relative) objectivity. There are no assumptions, only hard facts from Sulzberger's own experience (he was in Crimea at the time) and interviews with the Conferences' main and not-so-main participants. What rises it in my opinion even more is the lack of the unfortunately popular national prejudice. A best book on Yalta I've seen (and believe me, I browsed through a couple).