Controls Books

Very impressed. I am glad I read it again after all these years. The story of the Mad Man is very funny. I was cracking up while reading it.

Did you know that free schooling was only briefly offered in Nigeria? There's a poignant story about it here.

I learned a lot about Nigeria from these stories. Sometimes, the stories seemed to end a little too abruptly, but I guess that's part of the story format: it has to end sooner than a short novel, anyway.

Mr. Achebe is a fine storyteller and he has many interesting things to say about the people and customs of Nigeria. I recommend this book, but only after first reading his classic novel about 19th century Ibo tribe people, Things Fall Apart.

After reading these stories, I was both attracted to Nigeria and repelled by it (I've never been to Africa). Achebe does a good job of capturing the ambivalence aroused by Nigeria's exotic nature (to Americans) mixed with its societal dysfunctions.

Diximus.

This is an impressive collection of short stories that covers a twenty-year period of Achebe's writing. They also cover a period of history in his native Nigeria that spans from the late colonial period to the Biafran war. In them Achebe explores various aspects of a predominant theme in his work, i.e. tradition vs. modernism in his country (as introduced by British colonial administration). The various stories offer glimpses into the lives of people from various classes and walks of life. Achebe has a concise and eloquent writing style; he has an almost singular talent for making very pertinent observations in an extremely pithy fashion. Thus, for example, in the few pages of a story like "Dead Man's Path," Achebe brings to life the problems which ensue from the drive for quick modernization, the desire to adhere to tradition and the hypocrisy of Nigeria's colonial administrators. Also impressive is Achebe's mastery of narrative styles, i.e. first person, omiscient, etc. These stories can be read on their own, or as a supplement to Achebe's similarly powerful novels.

I have found this book so full of info. I don't know what I did without it.

Swartz and friends provide a thoughtful and extensive review of the history,methods,and applications of biofeedback practice. Primarily intended for health professionals, the book covers a variety of disorders/medical conditions that can be treated by biofeedback, and provides detailed instructions as to how to treat each disorder. Schwartz has been an integral figure in the development of professional standards for biofeedback practice as well, and the book also addresses this topic, as well as ethic issues. Has proven to be extremely helpful in training and practice. Well written.

If you are going to get into biofeedback as a practitioner you really must have this book. It provides a wonderfully comprehensive, detailed picture of a wide range of biofeedback applications, modalities, issues and techniques. Edited and partially written by Mark Schwartz, founder of the Mayo Clinic Biofeedback program, and Frank Andrasik, both past presidents of AAPB (Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback,) the book offers an encyclopedic amount of information on the most frequently used forms of non-EEG biofeedback. It only has one chapter on EEG biofeedback-- though that one, by Joel Lubar, is an excellent. Even practitioners getting into work which focusses primarily on EEG should buy this book and include in their library, since it offers valuable perspectives on working with the kinds of clients/patients likely to be encountered.

if you are getting into a practice, working with headache, stress disorder, behavioral medicine, etc. then this book should be on your bookshelf.

Frankly, being a bit of a bibliomaniac, I have at least 40 different biofeedback books-- one of the largest libraries on the subject anywhere. I've also co-edited two books on biofeedback myself (published in Russia.) As a biofeedback practitioner since 1972, a biofeedback product inventor, software developer international meeting organizer and entrepreneur, I have recommended the book to hundreds of people and have probably sold, over the years, through my business, at least 300 copies. I know that at least three or four years ago, before the release of the 2nd edition, I heard that over 12,000 copies had been sold. That's pretty amazing for a book of this sort.

other good books on biofeedback include: Basmajian, Fuller-Von Bozzay, and for EEG biofeedback: Wise, Evans & Abarbanel

Vitalism is a profoundly science-ejected concept, though many CAM or 'natural health' cabals falsely claim that vitalism survives scientific scrutiny.

One of my favorite passages from this book:

"the achievements of molecular biology in the twentieth century proved conclusively that it is not necessary to propose that life processes arise from some nonmaterial vital principle and cannot be explained entirely as physical and chemical phenomena. [E.g.] biological neural networks are created by nature, and the laws of nature should be applicable to them [p.003]."

-r.c.

Karl A. Greene in the foreword asserted that after reading this book, one will never look at neurobiology and the human brain quite the same again, and I fully concur. Baev introduces a modular framework that fuses neurobiology with control theory and opens the portals for artificial intelligence to enter. Unleashing the powers of hierarchical modeling, his monograph presents a thoroughly conceptualized and truly captivating approach to understanding the functioning of the human brain. Two thumbs up, I had to read this book five times to fully understand it, but I enjoyed it every single time.

Karl A. Greene in the foreword asserted that after reading this book, one will never look at neurobiology and the human brain quite the same again, and I fully concur. Baev introduces a modular framework that fuses neurobiology with control theory and opens the portals for artificial intelligence to enter. Unleashing the powers of hierarchical modeling, his monograph presents a thoroughly conceptualized and truly captivating approach to understanding the functioning of the human brain. Two thumbs up, I had to read this book five times to fully understand it, but I enjoyed it every single time.

This book is a good book about a girl with an eating disorder. This book has a good lesson about eating disorders. Someone who thinks they're big would probably like this book because they can relate to what's going on.

I love ballet and I always dream of being a ballet dancer though I know I am probably not good enough. I take ballet lessons and envy the girls who are very thin. Until I read this book I never really thought about how unhealthy being too thin can be. I think if Daly's father hadn't lost his job she'd still try to get too thin because she thinks and her teacher thinks she is fat when she isn't. I have a serious crush on Ray. Carlos is cool but Ray is more fun. Everyone should read this book. The kids and the story go on just like a real t.v. soap opera. I am never sure exactly what will happen. And you have to buy the next book to figure it all out. Even if you don't love ballet you will love the story. I already have book three, In the Spotlight and I really love that too. I don't want to give the end of two away so I can't say more. I only wish there were more about Laverne and about the ballroom school too.

This is the second book I've read in the series and it's even better than the first. I loved the story about Daly's family facing hard times and how that affected Daly and her eating problem. And then there's the story about Sophy and how she and Carlos might have a thing, or she thinks they do but he doesn't. And of course the dancing's all great--it's like this whole world that you really feel exists. I love these characters!

Software development has grown from a hobby/research level to a vast industry that the modern civilized world depends on. Who cared about quality assurance back 20 years ago? A few. Then in 80-90s the QA boom changed the market. Now, no commercial software development company can exist without QA department.

Every 3-5 year period brings a new aspect to the software development: documentation, security, migration. You name it...

I call this book a 'bible' because it covers almost every aspect of software development. It's big a help for ones who don't want to sink in the ocean of the buzz words.

I picked up this book coz I have read Saran's other work too. Having been in the software field for over 20 years, this book was a refreshing change. It is definitely more practical... the writings on systems and System Thinkers is refreshing. The attention on Quality had some good tips. I also like the way they have started with Failure upfront, and then tried to show ways to eliminate it.

Overall, a book that definitely opens one to think differently.

Saran & Krishnamurthy have managed to accomplish in this work a singularly new and valuable insight: that of bringing to the "art" of designing robust and valid software systems perspectives from the larger body of work and thought around the areas of general (not software specific) systems design, media ecology, even philosophy - that have long existed but (for reasons unknown) never till now been leveraged to add value to the software system's architect/ manager's arsenal of tools and knowledge. Particularly interesting are their inclusion of Ashby's Law of Requisite Variety and quotes from McLuhan's seminal work "Understanding Media" and their contextualization of these to the building of software systems.

In addition, another thing I greatly appreciate in this volume is the candid documentation of learning and thoughts from what is the authors' clearly hands-on experience in architecting and managing engineering lifecycles of complex software systems. They rightly point out that while failures and execution challenges have long been shared across and analyzed in industries other than software and consequently mitigated, that has not been the case for the area of software systems design. They attempt to fill this gap.

It is apparent that the authors clearly understand the challenges faced by techno management and business stakeholders that have long hampered efficiency and execution. They candidly and rightly acknowledge that "the map is not the territory". Rather than offer another complex and elaborate lifecycle management framework, they take the approach of offering a simple "SEE" model that is general enough to be implemented under business constraints. The comments are straightforward and made in context of the environment and business challenges, dynamics of the software industry today (especially applications development) - for instance there is a fairly comprehensive discussion of "insourcing" vs. "outsourcing" as strategic choices and outsourcing business models.

All in all, I recommend this volume, especially since it takes the practical approach of not offering a canned solution to building better software touted as a silver bullet - because none exists - and places emphasis instead on fostering thought and reflection through a number of insights, learning from hard experience, nuggets of wisdom and a general thought and planning model. After 15 years of building and managing the development of complex software systems, it's not often now that I come across a whole lot really "new" or "valuable" (to me) in works of such nature... But because of the observations I made above- I was pleased to discover that this book was a worthwhile exception!

This book for a diabetic cook book uses the run of the mill ingredients and every recipe has been just great - tastes good too. Only the banana bread and I think I did not cook it long enough.

I grew up having these recipees rested on me (and my brother David). My mother invented the idea of low-fat good taste cooking. I watched her painstakingly test and re-test every recipee. She always insisted on honest feedback. And you'll reap the benefits by buying this book. A true Godsend for diabetics and dieters.

Calculating cook is the book for people who like to eat good food, don't want to eat boring stuff, and like to cook. Recipes fit into diabetic exchanges (lots easier to keep track of than calories) and include extras for nondiabetics. All recipes come with calorie, exchange, fat content worked out by portion. I lost weight without grumbling too much by following the reccommended daily exchange. I am so sorry this is out of print. I lent my copy and it vanished. Hope it gets reprinted!

This book is one that you know you should read, but are a little afraid of the awareness you might gain from it. After all, life can be little more complicated when we actually have knowledge about the unseen dangers in our every day life. Jessie McLeod makes it easy, she did the research and then presents her well written experiences in a way that keeps you reading to the end. What you get is not only new knowledge, but hope. This is one of those books that gives you courage to live up to your values. This author sure has!

This book has a few problems with repetition in the beginning as the author justifies writing an autobiography in third person. Once you get into the courtroom scenes, though, you are hooked. This story is all the more riveting because it is true. This well-written book will make you cheer for "the little guy" (or gal in this case) and then make you run to your cupboards to start reading labels.

Buy it. Read it. You won't regret it.

Canary in the Courtroom is a book that is hard to put down. Ms. MacLeod has separated fact from fiction and exposed holes in several programs designed to protect the public from harmful chemicals. The book is a treatise on how individuals are lead to believe in the safety of chemicals and how one person fought for the truth to be told. For the sake of future generations health, lets hope we can learn through Ms. MacLeods ordeal! Rachel Carson would be deeply distressed to think pesticide poisoning is continuing on the human level.

An excellent book for the student becoming familiar with aviation radio communication.

Okay, my name is Nareg Minaskian. I am doing this review because the book was exellent. The book is really good for begining pilots that have trouble communicating with the ATC (air traffic control). It teaches you the principals of communication, what to say, what the ATC wants to know from you and many more. It even reviews what kind of traffic patterns there are, what are the sides of the patterns called and much more. This book I rate it a 5 out of 5 because it tells you everything that you need to know about communications between you and the ATC. The ATC is the most important thing in your whole flying career. They are the people that give you the clearences that you need and they tell you how to get wherever you want to go and even tell you what to do to get there. They basically baby-sit you and all you have to do is follow their directions. Once again, I recommend this book to any student pilots or even people that want to learn how to fly.

I picked the book Airplane Talk by Captain Carlson to critique. I chose that book because I think that it is a good book for me to read. The book is basically about radio communications and flying rules that include: traffic patterns, ATC, ATIS, and other kinds of communications. The book is helpful for beginning pilots that are having trouble with communications on the radio. This book is made for pilots and others that are interested in flying. For people interested, it gives them a taste of what its like to be a pilot. For pilots, it reviews basics of communication and some advanced rules. I would not recommend this book to children under 13 or people that are not interested in flying because it has words that a 12 year old will not know. Others will find it boring. They will not understand the words and will find it confusing. The ATC is the most important thing in your whole flying career. They are the people that give you the clearances that you need and they tell you how to get wherever you want to go and even tell you what to do to get there. They basically baby-sit you and all you have to do is follow their directions. The book talks about the ATC a lot. You'll learn a lot from the book. That is why I recommend this book to beginning pilots

When I got this book I was a bit skeptical of the idea of using the journaling aspect. As it turns out, this was the most useful part for me. Keeping an honest accounting of what I was really doing towards my goals has been an invaluable tool for me. Since no one else sees it but me I am totally honest and can take a real look at my progress (or lack of progress). Having it in a daybook form also made me feel like someone was along with me for the journey. On top of that, the food is great and very doable for a non-cook such as myself.

I love all three of Chef Kathleen's books. This book is nice because it can serve as a tool for keeping track of how you are doing on your weight loss plan. If you are interested in food journaling and want an organized format this book is great. It also contains some of her wonderful recipes. There are also some nutrition facts and answers to questions emailed to her. It is a tool and will only help if you use it.

We lost the weight with her first book Cooking Thin and we also cook from Getting Thin a lot. This day book is great! It has lots of recipes and tips on how to keep going, how to get motivated, how to make exercise, cooking and losing weight pretty darn easy and lots of fun. Every week has a theme and homework assignments with lots of tips for staying on your plan. There's a place to journal if you want to. And you can go on her website chefkathleen.com and join a group of people who are working their way through the book. Chef Kathleen is right there too. It's free and fun.

If you are a student of chemical engineering and you need to study process control, this is the best book to initiate. After you can look for more specialazed books. It's excellent for general view.

This is a no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point book, which effectively covers the topic of chemical process control. Though it is quite old now, much of the information is still very relevant and useful.

The way of simplifying explanations and writing from an understanding point of view (rather than merely presenting facts) is great and I wish all books were written in such a way!

Certainement le meilleur ouvrage dans le domaine de la régulation industrielle appliquée à l'industrie chimique.