Perspective Books

Any serious researcher will appreciate this text. The picture (obviously) doesn't match the actual book. Hard nosed and serious research as well as solid advice from some of the best in the world (Brazil and Hawaii) at rescue.

Excellent resource for aquatic professionals who are interested in drowning research. Compiles most of the important research about drowning into one text.

This is a well written, coherent book on the benefits of globalisation to developing countries and the reasons why it appears that globalizations fails these countries. It is a must read for all those anti-globalization supporters who argue that free trade hurts developing countries.

The author is in no way a champion of conservative economics and was indeed for many years (and probably still is), extremely leftwing in many of his thoughts and ideas. Additionally, he has also spent a lot of time studying developement in Africa and hence, he writes with some authority as to what will benefit developing countries economically, which gives credibility to his work, unlike a number of other pro-globalization writers.

Finally, this book comes across not as a rant against the right, demonising the evils of coroporations and their government lapdogs (in the vein of Naomi Klein and others), but rather as a well structured argument supporting the need for more globalization in the developing world. Nor is the book a Ra-Ra chant extoling the virtues of internet acess to Indian farmrs, in the frame of Thomas Friedman, but rather quietly chip away the rhetoric that oftern surrounds this topic and making a strong, pro-globalization, case.

This book is a must read for those who are looking for reasons why globalizations helps developing countries and for those on the left who doubt its benefits.

It's a shame that this book doesn't appear to be that popular (judging by the lack of other reviews). This book is a refreshingly clear and coherent study of the modern phenomenon of "globalization". After wading through swamps of economic illiteracy and knee-jerk corporation-bashing from incoherent academics like Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky, it's a real treat to hear from a "leftist" who actually knows what he's talking about.

The author's background is in development economics, and unlike most pampered first world'activists, he has spent many years in the most desperately poor places of the world. His stated priority is to advocate policies that will allow the poorest people of the world to improve their standard of living, and to anyone who doesn't understand the benefits of trade, his conclusion is surprising: We need MORE 'globalization', not less.

For starters, we need completely free trade in agricultural products, a market in which the loudest defenders of "free trade" (ie the US) are notorious for their subsidies and tariffs.

Whether all of the policy prescriptions are realistic or not is another matter (his recommendations for increased UN power already seemly sadly anachronistic given the current mood in the US), but it's a great and rare pleasure to read a coherent analysis of the modern economic system and a fairly scathing indictment of the fashionable 'anti-globalization' movement from someone with impeccable left-wing credentials.

Code reuse has been a part of the software development culture since two programmers first met at the coffee dispenser. There is an enormous amount of hard and anecdotal evidence that programmer productivity dramatically rises when developers share their ideas and where each does what they do best. Component development starts with this idea and extends it to a formal process. A component is a unit of software that can be linked to other components, where the sum total is a working application. The internal workings of the components are generally unknown to the user, a formal specification of what it accepts as input and returns as output is generally the only available information. The purpose of this book is to describe a working process where components are developed for reuse and later modification as necessary.
The component development process described begins at the beginning, in the lifecycle models used to construct the components. Since a component is in many ways a stand-alone piece of software, the lifecycle of a component is almost identical to that of a stand-alone application. The only real difference is that the construction of components is often considered to be similar to factory operations. While they are difficult to execute in practice, applying the quality control tactics and structured design processes used in factories to software development has several advantages. Starting with a reasonably firm understanding of what the product should be, constructing blueprints incorporating previous successes and then testing the product before release are sound development processes. As is the case with the parts built in a factory, a way usually must be found to test the component before it is "plugged in" to the rest of the application.
Select Perspective is a set of best practices for the development and use of object-oriented software components and is described in this book. I found the various steps of the select perspectives approach to be sensible. The chapter and section headers use a lot of terminology from factories and this is a reasonable thing to do. As the number of available components grows, one of the most important skills will be the ability to comparison shop for components. This important skill is the primary topic of chapter four, where the subtitles are: acquire component, classify and certify component or service, maintain components, locate and retrieve candidate component and monitoring component and service reuse. Since not all components will do exactly the same thing, the comparison will be evaluating a combination of functionality, speed of execution, ease of maintenance and the price. This will be a very difficult thing to do well.
A detailed case study of a select cruises business is given in an appendix. Use cases, UML class and sequence diagrams are used to describe the application in detail. While the diagrams are well done and the case study is easy to follow, some detailed understanding of UML is necessary if you are to understand them. This is also true for the bulk of the text, although the depth of UML knowledge does not have to be as great. UML diagrams are used to illustrate the topics, but since they are supplementing the textual explanations, it is possible to understand them without knowing a great deal of UML.
While it has not progressed as fast as most people predicted, component-based development is the way in which software will be developed in the future. As the number of source lines in applications exceeds ten million, there is no way that such programs can be built and maintained if they are not constructed from understandable, distinct and testable components. This book sets down a formal, but not overly rigid set of processes that can be followed to successfully implement component-based development.

If you where wondering how to do Component Based Development, stop now and read this book. The book gives some real good insights, based on the real live experiences of the authors.

When compared to other development processes like the Unified Process, this methodology is fully Service and Component Based. From the early start in the Select Perspective process, all activities are aimed at Reusing services and components before Buying them, and only as a last choice build them yourselves.

The book has some great modeling examples. This was the first time I have seen a straight foreward way of using UML for modeling against a Service based Architecture.

A must for people that are serious in adopting a Service and Component Based development process.

great history of a unique new york town

This book documents the rise and fall of this once flourishing spa resort village. Although much has changed since the book was written in the early 1980's, it summarizes and reflects the history of the village at the time. There is a new book published by the Sharon Historical Society called, "Reflections on Sharon", a pictorial history from 1797-1997 which details 200 years of the town & village. It also documents the more recent history through 1997 and illustrates Sharon's current push towards revitalization with the infusion of new residents and businesses.Only 1000 books were printed and they are already almost sold out. You can email dawne@roseboro.com for more info.

Drs. Eda Goldtein and Maryellen Noonan are to be congratulated for their extremely helpful book on short-term treatment that applies psychodynamic and psychosocial theories and treatment principles to brief treatment. This is the first social work text that presents an integrative perspective to short-term work that is highly applicable to clients who come for social work services in agency and private practice. The book is user friendly and contains clear guidelines for short-term work and numerous rich case examples. This book is excellent for students and trainees, beginning workers, and for those who are seeking a clearer understanding of short-term treatment with a broad range of clients. The authors have not only given general principles an techniques but have applied these to work with special populations and to family and group modalities. Professors of social work practice will find this book especially helpful. The authors draw on their vast clinical, supervisory, and teaching experience and have given us a book that fills a gap in the field.

Scale-denting Eda has written another classic, this time integrating diversity with short-term treatment. Buy it, sit with a box of donuts, and enjoy.

I bought this book and sadly didn't read it for many months. I wish I had read a review like this and perhaps, would not have wasted time. Once I began, I breathed it in and hated having to put it down.

Dr. Ahmed writes about what he knows, as an astronomer about science and as a Muslim believer in one God, about his faith's tenets and history. All he requires from the reader is an open mind. Because of those two characteristics, he can and does explain Islam's perspective on science and religion. They are not at odds in a Muslim's worldview and have never been - he goes over the fascinating history of the Middle Ages, also, in which no tension existed between the Islamic faith and scientific achievement.

Very enjoyable to read, it's a fascinating journey into astronomical observations and stargazing history, and along the way you glean some important insights into how Muslim achievement has also shaped Western history. Without reading books such as these, from a Muslim scientist's perspective, you can not attain an understanding of the modern and empirical approaches to science that Islam's holy book, the Qur'an, established as a foundation of Muslim scientists' inductive research. A case in point is Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen in Latin), a Muslim optician/physicist who pioneered the scientific method in the 11th century; a new book by Bradley Steffens (available on Amazon) corroborates that Ibn al Haytham is one of the top 10 scientific geniuses in history! Now all we have to ask is why we are not taught about them?

This book is one of the best books I have ever read that explains science in terms of religion... This book exlpains how the religion of Islam has in its Holy Book the Quarn explained sciences that scientists have just recently discovered. This book shows how the 2000 year old Holy Book of Islam explains concepts of science, and politics, and many other important subjects. I definitly recommend this book to Muslims and Non-Muslims alike. For Muslims it will teach them how the Quran explains scientific phenomenons. For Non-Muslims it will show how the Quran indeed explains scientific concepts only recently discovered today. And will help give a better and more correct view of the religion of Islam.

This work brings into the light the hardships that women on welfare endure. It does women on welfare justice that this work was published. The author was very thorough in her research, and brought out many things about our welfare system that I was unware of. I would definitely recommend this book to other people. It's a must read!

Finally, a book that discusses the subject of poverty, welfare dependency and our economic system by using the plain, spoken English language. Gone are the doctorial essays on social stratification, mind-numbing research statistics, and twenty letter words. This book provides a superb overview of the subject without it being too elementary. She uses renown experts on the subject, and than paraphrases/summarizes their conclusions in easy to understand language. As a teacher of poverty at a community college, it was a welcome relief to assign readings from this book because the students were able to grasp the subject so much better than with textbooks written for people already having a good foundation in economics, sociology and scientific inquiry. Thank you Karen Seccombe for telling it like it is, and doing it in language that most can understand.

Social Determinants of Health: Canadian Perspectives
General editor, Dennis Raphael

New Book -- Available August, 2004

Uniting top academics and high profile experts from across the country,
this contributed volume is the first of its kind published in Canada. It
summarizes how socio-economic factors affect the health of Canadians,
surveys the current state of eleven social determinants of health across
Canada, and provides an analysis of how these determinants affect
Canadians' health. In each case, the book explores what policy options
would contribute to better health outcomes, and how to ensure that these
options are pursued.

Eleven critical areas are investigated: Aboriginal status, early life,
education, employment and working conditions, food security, health care
services, housing, income and its distribution, social safety net, social
exclusion, as well as unemployment and employment security. Gender, and how
its meaning is constructed within Canadian society, is another important
social determinant of health. All contributors systematically consider how
it impacts upon and interacts with their specific social determinant of
health to influence health.

Contributors:

Pat Armstrong Andrew Jackson Irving Rootman François Aubry Muriel
Kearney Chandrakant P. Shah Nathalie Auger Ronald Labonte Michael
Shapcott Gina B. Browne David Langille Valerie Tarasuk Toba
Bryant Richard Lessard Luc Thériault
Tracey Burns Lynn McIntyre Emile Tompa Robert Choinière Michael
Polanyi Diane-Gabrielle Tremblay Ann Curry-Stevens Michael
Rachlis Louise Tremblay Janice Foley Dennis Raphael Charles
Ungerleider Martha Friendly Marie-France Raynault Yves
Vaillancourt Grace-Edward Galabuzi Barbara Ronson

This volume will serve as an important text for students and also a good
solid resource for teachers and researchers. The major strengths of this
book lie in its breadth of social determinants of health. Most academic
works do not focus on such a wide range and if they do, they do not include
much current research information. [The book] definitely presents the
material in an original way as it is based on up-to-date, new research in
the areas." Catherine Chiappetta-Swanson, McMaster University

August 2004 1-55130-237-3 pb 400 pp C$45.95 US$37.95

Distributed by Georgetown Terminal Warehouses Limited

As a policy analyst working on employment-related issues, I look for research and studies that do the following:
·provide insights into the problems confronting the labour market,
·discuss evidence-based policy changes that will address the problems,
·supply specific recommendations for changes to actual existing laws and policies (since policy makers are more likely to react to these kinds of recommendations than to more broad types of recommendations), and
·understand that promoting better public awareness of the issues is an important component of policy change (since policy change often happens in response to public pressure).

Social Determinants of Health provides these kinds of insights and policy advice. For instance, citing the fact that women are more likely than men to work in insecure jobs, in part because responsibility for family care is gendered, one article proposes that Canada go further in encouraging men to share family responsibilities by providing at least one additional month of parental EI benefits only for fathers. Another article outlines the health consequences of non-standard work hours, contingent work, and job insecurity - an excellent contribution to our understanding of employment and wellbeing.

This charming book explains why math olympiad puzzles are fun, and gives 15 year old insights ( in two senses --- most of the text was written by the 15 year old Terence Tao, but revised with some additional good exercises 15 years later by 30 year old Fields medalist Terence Tao.) The style is chatty, and the advice and worked examples are very good and do not require any math beyond pre-calculus. The level of difficulty is just right for would be high school math competitors, and adults with some math who enjoy a mild challenge.

I came across this book after reading about Terence Tao, a recent Fields medalist. It's interesting to see a book like this by such an accomplished mathematician. The book gives practical approaches to solving the types of math problems encountered in math olympiad competitions. I am not, nor have I ever been, a math olympian, but I found the book to be entertaining and useful for intellectual fortification purposes.

Space Politics and Policy is an essential reading to any student of space policy. The essays are well written and
concise. Careful reading of the book will provide greater context and depth to understanding more contemporary space literature. Dr. Eligar Sadeh's introduction should be kept in the forefront of the reader's mind to gain greater insight of the subsequent essays by various renowed personalities in the field.

Quick disclaimer in that I used this text book while attending a course led by the author in prepublished addition in 2002. That being said, I still feel to this day, 3 years later that this book is a good source for understanding the players involved in space exploration. I've referred back to it more than a few times throughout my career as someone involved in doing business with the government. The book is set up as a series of essays about a particular topic written by experts that specialize in that particular topic. A quick look at the table of contents reads as a whos who in the academic space policy world.

If understanding today's political decision making process used for government space acquisition is your goal, then I highly recommend this book.