Controls Books

N. Edward Walker, The Design Analysis Handbook. A Practical Guide to Design Validation. Newnes, 1998 A Review This is a very daring and matter-of-fact book. It deals with a very important issue: how to handle the uncertainty involved in the design of electronic circuits. This uncertainty has several sources: 1. The equations one uses in design are based on assumptions that simplify the real life situation; 2. The actual values of the electronic components differ from their nominal values; 3. The human error in handling the complex equations can seldom be avoided. The effects of these uncertainties often become visible in the late stages of product development, when correction measures are costly, if not ineffective, so that the final product does not meet the quality requirements. Ed. Walker's approach is consistent with the principles of concurrent engineering. He advocates the cooperation within a team of design and quality engineers, in order to get the product right the first time, by avoiding the bugs in the R&D and design phases. The first chapter examines the state-of-the-art of the design and Q&R engineering practices, pointing to the extending gulf between the two disciplines. The importance of robust design validation is emphasized and the disadvantages of the present tools and methods are mentioned. These will be examined in detail with some excitingly polemic overtones in chapter 5, under the heading "bad science". In the second chapter, a new kind of worst-case analysis is introduced, more efficient than the classical Monte Carlo simulation approach. The outcome of this analysis is a procedure for risk assessment and a methodology for design correction and optimization. Next, in the third chapter, several design validation topics are considered and computer-aided solutions are presented, notably the software tool Design Master that accompanies the book. I used this software in a teaching environment and I was impressed by its high quality. The author practices what he preaches, so that the software product he delivers has all the "abilities" involved by the "total" quality concept: usability, reliability, supportability, portability and so on. However, quality validation of software products is a topic not examined in-depth. The safety analysis presented in chapter 4 introduces in simple and straightforward manner methods like FMEA and FTA, which are extensively dealt with elsewhere, but within an excessively sophisticated framework. The last chapter offers useful and interesting tips for electronic circuit quality analysis. The "difficult" subjects, such as Power and Thermal analysis, Grounding and Layout and EMI / Noise control, usually avoided in textbooks, are duly examined in detail. The case studies concerning Rectifier Circuits, Power Supplies, Digital circuits are completely worked-out, so that everyone can use them as an available guide. The appendices provide templates for analysis reports, a framework for the application of the original methods proposed in the book and a whimsical overview of engineering projects. Th book is a no-nonsense, straightforward approach to difficult and sophisticated quality issues that can arise in an engineering environment. It provides useful guidelines, powerful tools and effective methods for total quality improvement and assurance.

The Design Analysis Handbook combines the best aspects of Design Validation methods, Worst Case Analysis and lessons learned I've seen in one text. Ed sucessfully captured and explained information and techniques that many companies fail to pass-on to new Engineers. This text should be a must read for new engineers.

The first four or five chapters of this book explain in detail the statistical analysis technique WCA+. The text is easy to read and requires only a limited probability and statistics background to understand how to apply the technique. The remaining chapters give concrete examples from the electrical engineering field. As a mechanical engineer I found the first few chapters very helpful and I have applied the technique successfully many times. Statistical design engineering is a must today and the WCA+ method is an excellent alternative monte carlo simulation. If you are concerned with the response of your system at the extreme values of the inputs then, this book is a must because monte carlo simulation just doesn't suffice.

Rather than recommend a 'one size fits all' costing solution, Designing Strategic Cost Systems provides tools for evaluating the costing needs of the organization and helps the user(s) select and design a system in light of the resources it has available for implementation and maintenance of the system. Additionally, the book provides strategies aimed not only at successful system implementation, but at obtaining the cost data that will enable the organization to make sound decisions to increase profitability and ensure long-term growth.

"I am an undergraduate accounting professor, and I recommend this book as a complement to your cost accounting text book. It is my experience that most undergraduate students lack working experience that would help them link the "concepts" in the text books with the "real world." I found that it is very difficult for students to visualize the following: how costs flow through a service or manufacturing company; how those costs are captured in a company¹s cost accounting systems; and what are the sources of the data, where do the numbers used in the calculations of the costs of products or services come from? This book helps them to "see" the flow of the data. Chapter 5, How to Calculate Costs, wraps up the concepts of direct material, direct labor and overhead, and enables the students to become aware of how costs are calculated in a simple and systematic way. Even though this book is easy to read and to understand, I recommend it for students beyond their second year of college. It is written in a practical way, and, while I was reading it, I felt that I was there working in the company.

I think that this book is a necessary tool in cost accounting

This book is outstanding because it describes the reality that many organizations are facing with their cost systems and provides the tools necessary to overcome them. The information is presented in a way that is simple, easy to understand and actionable by the reader. It also provides access to a supporting website where simulations, models, exercises, and key terms can be used by readers to adapt the concepts presented to their particular organizations.

This book is a must for those business professionals that are involved in the planning, design, or re-design of their organization's cost system. It provides a step-by-step approach from the detection of an obsolete cost system to the performance measurement after the system is implemented. It also describes the common errors that should be avoided in order to have a successful system implementation.

As highlighted by the author: "A cost system should not be focused on analyzing the past, but in making the critical link among operational measures, resource utilization and cost in order to impact the future". Without a doubt this book will significantly contribute to the knowledge base and expertise of any organization that uses it as a reference to evaluate the effectiveness of their cost system as a decision-making tool.

Ambrose is right on target. This model works. We have been using the model for two and a half years. The kids love it as do the staff. Kids take on ownership for their actions,learn how to problem solve and make good decisions. Bravo!

This book is a very well-designed guide to maintaining discipline in the classroom. There are plenty of interesting activities and suggestions. A must-have for any educator and anyone in the education field!

This book provides a down to earth approach to creating a healthy and productive classroom community. The author is clearly in touch with the needs of today's students. He offers educators a complete and compact guide to helping students identify and attain their goals.

As a debt counselor, most of my day is spent relating with and trying to assist those in debt. This book has been invaluable to my own education and the education of my clients. I am indebted to Feinberg for such a well written "insider's view" of the credit industry.

In my quest for the Holy Grail of books about personal debt and financial mastery, this book is a real treasure!
With a sharp sense of humour and a willingness to explore not just the practical but psychological aspects of the debt culture and "perma-debt" -- his term for those of us who get into endless credit card slavery -- this book reads almost as well as the mystery thriller I devoured last weekend.
And no, I'm not being cut into the profits in exchange for this gushing review.

Whether you're shopping for a loan, trying to refinance your mortgage, or hoping to avoid the pitfalls of car loans, credit cards, even loans between friends and family -- this guide will save you money.

I like easy or simple books and this was one that made it very easy to follow. The diet is one that is simple to do and though he doesn't say you have to be vegetarian he recommends it. The way he explains it makes it very easy to make this a way of life. He also has Eat More, Weigh Less Cookbook that is also very simple to use.

I puchased this book as part of the Hawaiian diet program. It came with the cookbook, 21 day get started meal guide, lose weight while you sleep booklet, 2 audio and 2 video tapes back in the year 2000. I have continued to work with the priciples of the Eat More, Weigh Less diet and it really does work !!! Dr. Shintani explains the scientific evidence while using humor and genuine concern to help guide all the people who want to sincerely make an effort for the last time in dealing with improving your overall health, and changing your diet while losing weight. The Eat More Index is the key !
There are many reasons why people are overweight. It can range from biological to psychological influences but...If one can make the commitment to change their behavior toward food and eat healthy...then YOU are half way there to a better newly improved YOU !!! The Eat More, Weigh Less priciples can truly help as you make your way to the new path...

I sincerely wish all of you Good Health as you enjoy a new(old) way to Eating More and Weighing Less.

THIS IS A WONDERFUL WAY OF EATING!! IT HAS CHANGED MY LIFE

Driven By Drugs: U.S. Policy Toward Colombia by Russell Crandall (MacArthur Assistant Professor of Political Science, Davidson College) is a straightforward history of American relations vis-a-vis Colombia with particular emphasis on the last decade. An exhaustively researched, scholarly presentation surveying U.S. drug dependency, and its relationship with the roots of violence and guerilla groups in Colombia, as well as the volatile political situation revolving about who owns the land and what is to be done with it, Driven By Drugs is a fascinating, insightful, revealing, and greatly disturbing account of the troubled interaction between these two nations. Driven By Drugs is an important contribution to academic and community library International Studies supplemental reading lists and reference collections.

Russell Crandall's "Driven by Drugs" is an excellent guide to understanding the impact of U.S. policies and the current chaotic situation in Colombia. The author provides background on U.S.-Colombian relations and an overview of Colombian society to help the reader contextualize recent events. While violence in Colombia is rooted in that country's stratified social relations, it is America's "War on Drugs" that now might rip apart what little remains of Colombia's civil society.

Professor Crandall teaches Political Science at Davidson College. Crandall writes in a concise and scholarly manner, and his expertise on the subject matter is readily apparent. The author uses solid research; the numerous footnotes include a number of first-person interviews with knowledgeable sources as well as author translations of Spanish-language sources. The author's arguments are convincing and his conclusions are air-tight as they appear to be based on a rational evaluation of the evidence.

Principally, Crandall argues that Colombian-U.S. relations changed from a mutually-agreeable anti-Communist philosophy to a "narcotized" orientation by the mid 1980s. The narcotized state of affairs, Crandall suggests, is driven by America's multiple addictions; this includes of course the widespread consumption of illicit substances among its population and a congress dependent on defense industry dollars. (To this I might also suggest a peculiarly American need to rationalize its foreign policies in a moralistic manner.)

Perhaps not surprisingly, recent Colombian administrations have had mixed reactions to U.S. policies. Crandall writes that in fact our efforts have only succeeded in undermining Colombia's central government at the same moment when narco-trafficers, paramilitary groups, and guerilla fighters have exploited fear and uncertainty among the populace in order to gain strength. One hopes that Crandall's plea for U.S. policy makers to learn "from past mistakes" and instead implement policies that address Colombia's core socio-economic needs is heeded soon.

With so much of today's news reporting obsessed with other regions of the world, I strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the decades-long war that America has been waging in Colombia.

Russell Crandall has broken new ground. His dynamic focus on U.S. policy during the Samper Administration (1994-1998) and the Pastrana Administration (1998-2002) provides a powerful insight as to why Colombia is the third largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in the world after Israel and Egypt. The author also cautions of the many political landmines in the road ahead. Crandall is a tier-one academic and a polished writer.

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I recommend this book highly. It is a well-written concise description of the transformation over the last decade of government policy/budgets and supporting media from helping citizens to tracking and punishing citizens. In combination with Gary Webb's Dark Alliance, it is an excellant tool to help understand how the "War on Drugs" works and how we have supported a variety of private and political purposes to use it and the enforcement bureaucracies to help ensure that wealth is controlled by a suprisingly small group of people in America. This is elitism at its most expensive and just the kind of environment that leads to symptoms like Y2K. When employees, organizations and constituents are out of alignment and financial disclosure of government investment not clearly and simply available by place and people, frightening things go on and citizens lose their ability and will to act. The American people can change this, and books like these help us see the world whole and begin a healthy and positive conversation.

I recommend this book highly. It is a well-written concise description of the transformation over the last decade of government policy/budgets and supporting media from helping citizens to tracking and punishing citizens. In combination with Gary Webb's Dark Alliance, it is an excellant tool to help understand how the "War on Drugs" works and how we have supported a variety of private and political purposes to use it and the enforcement bureaucracies to help ensure that wealth is controlled by a suprisingly small group of people in America. This is elitism at its most expensive and just the kind of environment that leads to symptoms like Y2K. When employees, organizations and constituents are out of alignment and financial disclosure of government investment not clearly and simply available by place and people, frightening things go on and citizens lose their ability and will to act. The American people can change this, and books like these help us see the world whole and begin a healthy and positive conversation.

I recommend this book highly. It is a well-written concise description of the transformation over the last decade of government policy/budgets and supporting media from helping citizens to tracking and punishing citizens. In combination with Gary Webb's Dark Alliance, it is an excellant tool to help understand how the "War on Drugs" works and how we have supported a variety of private and political purposes use it and enforcement efforts to ensure that wealth is controlled by a suprisingly small group of people in America. This is elitism at its most expensive and just the kind of environment that leads to symptoms like Y2K. When employees, organizations and constituents are out of alignment and financial disclosure of government investmen not clearly and simply available by place and people, frightening things go on and citizens lose their ability and will to act.

My work was helped by the lessons this book taught me. It helped me better appreciate the issues around working with IT for social good. Actually, it was kind of like deja vu.... I manage a corporate social responsibility program and the book described very similar issues I had been having with nonprofit, philanthropic and corporate partners I was trying to cooperate with. It really helped me understand their perspective better, placing me in their shoes. Fortunately, the book didn't just describe the problems, but offered strategies to resolve them too. If you work with technology to solve social issues, this book is an important read. It helped me at least, anyway.

Mr. Peizer's years of experience with both technology and philanthropy have offered up enough expasperation to guarantee his enlightement.

Do NOT try and save the world with technology until you have finished this book.

Greg Baldwin
VolunteerMatch

As a long-term leader in the field of social applications of information technology, I want to strongly recommend Jonathan Peizer's new book, THE DYNAMICS OF TECHNOLOGY FOR SOCIAL CHANGE. IT in the social sector is exploding, and yet many projects are not as successful as they could be. Jonathan has incredible learning and perspective to share from being at the center of this field over the last 15 years through his vantage point at George Soros' Open Society Institute.

This book is especially useful for practitioners. Quite often, we bumble about trying to find the best way to make things happen. It's rare to find writings that immediately speak to your experiences, but from a more thoughtful and analytical viewpoint. It often explains why certain initiatives failed and others succeeded. I had that kind of "aha!" moment when I first read some of Jonathan's essays years ago, and this book is a platform for expanding on these crucial topics.

The best example of these insights is the "Trusted Source Relationship" concept. In the book, JP explains why traditional marketing and sales have limited effectiveness in the social sector, and why trust is the most critical asset in effective technology implementations. However, the book is full of practical and realistic observations and recommendations. If you are planning on using IT to save the world, reading this book will greatly enhance your odds of success!

Edit of 21 Dec 07 to add links. This remains a core reference.

Ben Gilad, arguably one of the top five practitioner-scholars in the competitive intelligence arena (the others, in my opinion, are Jan Herring and Leonard Fuld, his partners; Babette Bensoussan in Australia, and Mats Bjore in Sweden), makes a very important contribution with this book. It is for business leaders what Kristan Wheaton's book, was and is for government leaders.

The author's earlier book, "Business Blindspots: replacing myths, beliefs and assumptions with market realities", remains one of the single best references for business intelligence professionals (but only available from Infonortics UK), together with Babette Bensoussan and Craig Fleisher's Strategic and Competitive Analysis: Methods and Techniques for Analyzing Business Competition

I regard this book as being primarily for the manager of the business enterprise rather than the business intelligence professional, primarily because it is very helpful in breaking through old mind-sets and suggesting that very specific attitudes and activities must characterize those endeavors that wish to avoid costly surprises. I would say that this book, together with Yale business author Jeffrey Garten's book, The Politics of Fortune: A New Agenda For Business Leaders are "must reads" for the senior executive who desires to not just survive but to excel in the 21st Century.

The author, who has a solid understanding of the history of surprise in military or national security circles, makes the point that surprise does not occur for lack of signs that can be detected, but for lack of a culture and mind-set open to seeing and understanding those signals.

The book combines survey results from professionals attending the Academy of Competitive Intelligence (the single best offering in the world) with real-world accounts, "gray box" supplementals, and "manager's checklists" at the end of each chapter that are in essence an executive summary of the chapter.

This is a 2-3 hour read, and well-worth anyone's time, but especially well-worth the time of the executive who is willing to consider the possibility that they are grossly unaware of real-world external threats to their future bonuses, and that there might be some relatively simple low-cost solutions to dealing with the threat that require, rather than vast sums of money, a change in mind-set.

Other recommended works on my short list (with reviews):
Measuring the Effectiveness of Competitive Intelligence: Assessing & Communicating CI's Value to Your Organization
Keeping Abreast of Science and Technology: Technical Intelligence for Business
The New Competitor Intelligence: The Complete Resource for Finding, Analyzing, and Using Information about Your Competitors
The New Craft of Intelligence: Personal, Public, & Political--Citizen's Action Handbook for Fighting Terrorism, Genocide, Disease, Toxic Bombs, & Corruption
THE SMART NATION ACT: Public Intelligence in the Public Interest

I ordered this book based on the previous reviewer's comments, and I was not disappointed. If I have one criticism, the book format "looks" a bit like the mass market, superficial, self-agrandizing lot. However, in reality it's quite meaty, well referenced, and insightful with what so far appears to be theoretically sound as well as practical recommendations.

Executives of big companies should read this book because the proposed method looks like an effective tool for companies to stay big. Executives of small companies should read the book because their bigger competitors may be reading it, and maneuvering against a large competitor who has a good early warning system could be tough. So if you're planning an asymmetric strategy, you better know what you're up against. Anyhow, even without any offensive intentions towards bigger companies, the leaders of small organizations should look into this book since lack of early warning can ruin small and big companies alike.

I also recommend the book to students of management as an insight into the tricky subject of how organizations build an image of their environment. Most of the literature on that field tends to be written in a researcher-to-researcher style, like books on organizational sensemaking or cognitive oligopolies. This book stands out since it's clear, solution oriented and written for practitioners.
Moreover, the book offers some solution to the never ending discussion regarding deliberate versus emergent strategy making. The book shows how to deal with a complex environment by understanding and monitoring it, instead of planning yourself to death with irrelevant tools or not planning at all.

The book also discusses organizational politics that might block a competitive intelligence function since it often lacks the direct access to decision makers that governmental intelligence agencies usually enjoy in their arena.