Computer and Science Books

Professonally compiled and deftly co-edited by the team of Ken Greenebaum and Ronen Barzel, Audio Anecdotes II: Tools, Tips, And Techniques For Digital Audio is a handy manual of tips, tricks, and techniques especially for professionals in the digital audio field. Volume two includes a variety of articles by expert authors concerning field recording, signal processing and filters, spatialization, computer techniques such as wrapped I/O and the ring buffer FIFO queue, music theory, sound design, and more. A glossary of audio terms will help those new to the lingo understand the more advanced essays, an index allows for quick and easy research, and an enclosed CD-ROm features demos, source code, and examples. A superb reference, resource, and research tool highly recommended for anyone applying digital sound to computer-created projects, including musicians, game developers, and software producers, Audio Anecdotes II combines expert knowledge and analysis with a straightfoward instructional style for effective communication.

Like Greenbaum's previous work in this series, this book is packed full of articles on all phases of audio processing and synthesis. It is to the audio processing world what the "Graphics Gems" series is/was to the graphics programming world. Continuing the tradition from the first volume, this volume presents additional processing techniques, explores new areas, and teaches some basic concepts.
The book begins with a section of tips on how to make good recordings in various environments. The next section goes into the technicalities of sound synthesis, more precisely oscillator control and subtractive synthesis. Section 3 is a continuation from Volume 1, in that it continues with a discussion of basic signal processing operators like filters and transforms. A particularly interesting paper in this section is the concluding chapter, on integer arithmetic-based fast Fourier transforms.Section 4 is about spatialization. It doesn't exactly reveal what happens inside your Sennheiser Toltec processor, but it covers the basic ideas. Low-level must-know techniques, such as circular FIFOs and framing, are covered in some detail in section 5. Section 6 presents some popular tools, such as the SoX library,which is the swiss army knife of sound processing programs, and the wonderful synthesis toolkit by Perry Cook which is featured in his own book, "Real Sound Synthesis for Interactive Applications". It was a surprise to see a page on the QED package. QEDesign is an easy-to-use, multi-platform advanced digital filter design package. It is completely menu-driven and user intuitive, affording almost a non-existent start-up and learning curve. it is neither unique nor the best, but it's just a page out of the entire book. Music theory is the topic of section 7. This may be a foreign language for many engineers, as well as a foreign approach. For example, the authors explain what consonance and dissonance are, and how they fit in the sound scale, but there is no discussion of what physically happens, or, to be more precise, what psycho-physically happens. Auditory displays and auditory feedback are central to section 8, on sound design. The final section, section 9, reads almost like a Scientific American article on sounds in nature. It is very instructive. A very useful glossary of audio terminology concludes the book.
I highly recommend this book as a supplemental reference to anyone involved in the fascinating world of audio processing. However,this is really not for recording engineers, as there is much mathematics, signal processing, programming, and even some music theory involved.
I notice that Amazon does not show the table of contents, so I do that here:
Preface ix
Introduction xiii
1. Field Recording 1
A Quick Field Recording Primer for the Adventurous Sound Effects Recordist Mike Caviezel 3
Holding on for Dear Life: Recording the Automobile Mike Caviezel 13
A Brief Introduction to Binaural Recording Gordon Hempton Ken Greenebaum 23
2. Synthesis 27
Ambient Synthesis with Random Sound Fields Hesham Fouad 29
Band Limited Oscillators Using Wave Table Synthesis Phil Burk 37
Subtractive Synthesis without Filters John Lazzaro John Wawrzynek 55
3. Signal Processing 65
Finite Impulse Response Filters Stuart Allman 67
Infinite Impulse Response Filters Stuart Allman 79
Replacing Analog Filters with DSP by Using the Bilinear Transform Stuart Allman 93
Floating Point Fast Fourier Transform Hal Chamberlin 101
Fast Fourier Transform Using Integer Math Hal Chamberlin 127
4. Spatialization 141
Spatialization with Stereo Loudspeakers Hesham Fouad 143
Spatialization with Multiple Loudspeakers Ville Pulkki 159
5. Computer Techniques 173
No Need to Shout: Volume Controls and the Digital Sound Convergence Ken Greenebaum 175
Count in Frames! (Not Samples or Bytes) Ken Greenebaum 183
Introduction to the Ring Buffer FIFO Queue Ken Greenebaum 193
Wrapped I/O Ken Greenebaum 209
6. Computer Tools 225
SoX Sound Exchange Library Chris Bagwell 227
The Synthesis ToolKit (STK) in C++ Perry R. Cook Gary Scavone 237
The QEDesign Filter Design Package Chris Bore 255
7. Music Theory 257
Basic Music Theory: Notation, Scales, and Chords Benjamin Tomassetti 259
Basic Music Theory: Rhythm and Meter Benjamin Tomassetti 289
8. Sound Design 303
Designing the Auditory Narrative: A Methodology for Sound Design Maribeth J. Back 305
Sound as Information: An Introduction to Auditory Display Rob Tannen 329
Auditory Feedback for Computer Devices Linda A. Roberts Cynthia A. Sikora 341
9. Nature 361
Brainwave Entrainment through Binaural Sound Jeffrey Thompson 363
Introduction to Bioacoustics Jeffrey Greenebaum 375
Glossary of Audio Terms 395
Contributor Biographies 429
Index

I am self studying Autocad at my work to be able to modify some existing Drawings. Two weeks ago I knew nothing about Autocad. As a student I always prefer a book that is intuitive enough to get the experience without having to ask a million questions about what the book is trying to achieve. This book has many full sized drawings, and step by step examples. I have downloaded the excercise drawings from their web site, and the examples are exceptional. This is a full course in autocad and if I were an instructor this is The BOOK I would use. But then again I dont need the instructor... I bought It.

I have learned more AutoCAD from this book, than from numerous other AutoCAD books, and local courses, combined! James Leach's well organized, straight forward approach to all aspects of AutoCAD, makes it possible (in fact enjoyable) to become a proficient CAD practicioner, on a topic by topic, self paced basis. After completing the 22 step WIREFRAME MODELING tutorial in Chapter 37 (complete with detailed step by step instructions), one can immediately re-apply this proceedure to their own "select" 3-D illustrations! This text is an indispensable learning tool and reference source.

There are plenty of AutoCad instructional books on the market, but what makes this different is its focus on the basics, and its use of 'mixed units' of measurement to illustrate drawing and editing tools for the application. It's designed for novice users of AutoCad 2008 and is perfect for self-teaching or classroom instruction: no previous CAD experience is needed and the 21 'workshops' which comprise the lesson plan are based on small projects, covering all first level commands. An excellent starting point for AutoCad learners.

This is a basic instruction book for anyone beginning Autocad. I had some background knowledge of Autocad from a class taken over ten years ago and had forgotten most of the commands. This book walks the reader through step-by-step for various commands and shows various ways to initiate the command (icon, drop down menu, command line) to make Autocad more user friendly to the reader's personal computer styles. I recommend this book for those in the civil engineering field. There are some steps that were not covered in this book that are probably considered intermediate drafting techniques, like inserting maps to scale.

Comparing with other similar books, this is the best book I read in this field. You have to read every sentance in this book very carefully, then you get the ideal on how to do or how to implement it. If author can update it with his new research result, it could be better.

It's a pity that most of the author's books seem to be out of print, since he's a very clear writer. This book isn't necessarily accessible to the complete beginner--the intended audience is advanced computer science students, computational linguists/natural language processing people, and library/information science students--but if you fall into one of those categories, you should find this a very readable book. The coverage of topics is heavily slanted towards practical applications--editting and formatting, compression, encryption, file access, information retrieval, indexing, abstracting, spell checking, syntax and style checking--rather than towards theoretical background. That's not a bad thing, though--for many of those topics, this might be the most accessible resource you'll find.

The book was published in the late 80's, and hence is a bit dated by now--for instance, the statistical revolution in NLP pretty much isn't covered (Bayes doesn't even show up in the index). However, that in no way detracts from the value of what IS covered.

"Automating with S7...STL/SCL" is a reference book for any EXPERT programmer using Siemens S7 PLCs. Hans Berger, the author, is the "father" of S7 PLC family (in a technical way). If you want to reach the EXPERT level, YOU MUST HAVE THIS BOOK!!! On the other side, if you know you will stay to ladder logic level at least 95% of the time (or, you "know and use / program" ten types of PLCs, ten types of drives, etc) then, YOU DON'T NEED THIS BOOK!

A must for the person using Siemens PLC's. This is the book for the beginner or for the experienced Siemens S7 Programmer. Book cover the things you need to know or reference when programming.

This book explains the basics of the networks and protocols used in industrial automation. It goes into detail about specific protocols, explaining their intended purpose, how they evolved, and what they're used for today. It explains the models that separate fieldbuses from control networks and where the lines blur. There is good discussion of field control vs distributed control. It explains how redundancy and failsafes come into play with each type of network.

I approached this book as an engineer who designs industrial products without any training in the purposes behind the various industrial communication systems. Users of industrial products often understand the relationships between the various standards intuitively but cannot explain it well to a product engineer with little manufacturing experience. This book clears it all up in under 150 pages of easy-to-follow text and diagrams.

Anyone who wants to take a couple hours to learn what's behind the apparent hodgepodge of communication standards used in industrial automation should read this book.

Dick Caro has a wealth of knowledge about automation networking--and it shows throughout this book. From his rendering of the history of industrial networks and fieldbuses to the technical review of the leading contenders, the book is a veritable encyclopedia on the subject. It has a permanent place on my reference shelf.
Gary Mintchell
Editor, Automation World

If you have ever been curious to know what is the mathematics behind the fancy formulas describing the average-case behavior of algorithms -- this book is for you. An excellent addition to the classic "The Art of Computer Programming" by D.Knuth, "Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms" by R.Sedgewick and P.Flajolet, and "Analysis of Algorithms" by M.Hofri, this book walks reader through a beautiful, and at the same time very diverse (not to say complex) world of mathematical tools and techniques needed to obtain precise answers to questions like "what is the average depth of a digital tree built over $n$ strings?", or "what is the average number of comparisons performed by a Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm when it searches for a given pattern of length $m$ in a random text of length $n$?".

Being well organized, the book present these (sometimes very sophisticated) techniques in a simple step-by-step fashion, starting with brief reviews of several known (and necessary for future presentation) results from probability, complex analysis/special functions, and information theory. The presentation of the numerous specific techniques is split in two parts: explaining probabilistic and analytic approaches to the analysis of algorithms correspondingly. Probabilistic techniques (inequalities of moments, limit theorems, large deviations, etc.) are very useful in the analysis of complex random structures, as they often yield simple estimates of their asymptotic behavior, where more accurate techniques fail or become prohibitively laborious. Analytic techniques (generating functions, singularity analysis, saddle point techniques, Mellin transform, analytic poissonization and depoissonization) on the other hand, represent a toolbox for exact modelling of the characteristics of the algorithms, yielding estimates of unparalleled precision.

As indicated by its title, this book is mostly devoted to the analysis of a special class of combinatorial algorithms - ones that operate with sequences of symbols, or sequences. For example, it includes a detailed analysis of various algorithms for searching and sorting alphanumeric sequences based on digital trees (tries, digital search tries, Patricia-tries, etc.), redundancy expressions for popular Lempel-Ziv data compression schemes, average complexity estimates for text pattern-matching algorithms (such as Knuth-Morris-Pratt scheme), and so on.

Following the tradition of "The Art of Computer Programming", the author wraps many results in the form of exercises, so that active readers can have fun solving them. These excersises are grouped into several classes, ranging from simple routine calculations to serious research problems (including ones that are currently unsolved).

Overall, this is a very good graduate-level textbook and a valuable (and almost self-contained) source of information for everyone interested in the analysis of algorithms.

If you have ever been curious to know what is the mathematics behind the fancy formulas describing the average-case behavior of algorithms -- this book is for you. An excellent addition to the classic "The Art of Computer Programming" by D.Knuth, "Introduction to Analysis of Algorithms" by R.Sedgewick and P.Flajolet, and "Analysis of Algorithms" by M.Hofri, this book walks reader through a beautiful, and at the same time very diverse (not to say complex) world of mathematic tools and techniques needed to obtain precise answers to questions like "what is the average depth of a digital tree built over $n$ strings?", or "what is the average number of comparisons performed by a Knuth-Morris-Pratt algorithm when it searches for a given pattern of length $m$ in a random text of length $n$?".

Being well organized, the book present these (sometimes very sophisticated) techniques in a simple step-by-step fashion, starting with brief reviews of several known (and necessary for future presentation) results from probability, complex analysis/special functions, and information theory. The presentation of the numerous specific techniques is split in two parts: explaining probabilistic and analytic approaches to the analysis of algorithms correspondingly. Probabilistic techniques (inequalities of moments, limit theorems, large deviations, etc.) are very useful in the analysis of complex random structures, as they often yield simple estimates of their asymptotic behavior, where more accurate techniques fail or become prohibitively laborious. Analytic techniques (generating functions, singularity analysis, saddle point techniques, Mellin transform, analytic poissonization and depoissonization) on the other hand, represent a toolbox for exact modelling of the characteristics of the algorithms, yielding estimates of unparalleled precision.

As indicated by its title, this book is mostly devoted to the analysis of a special class of combinatorial algorithms -- ones that operate with sequences of symbols, or sequences. For example, it includes a detailed analysis of various algorithms for searching and sorting alphanumeric sequences based on digital trees (tries, digital search tries, Patricia-tries, etc.), redundancy expressions for popular Lempel-Ziv data compression schemes, average complexity estimates for text pattern-matching algorithms (such as Knuth-Morris-Pratt scheme), and so on.

Following the famous tradition of "The Art of Computer Programming", the author wraps many (in some case very difficult to derive) results in the form of exercises, so that active readers can have fun solving them. As a special bonus, some of these "exercises" represent currently open research problems.

Overall, this is a very good graduate-level textbook and a valuable (and almost self-contained) source of information for everyone interested in the analysis of algorithms.

Les internautes cherchent en ligne les bibliotheques et les travaux faits par les bibliothecaires. Les derniers journaux sont deja en ligne. Les LawLib-L, Lib-Ref-L, et PACS-L se lisent deja en ligne. Les cours annuaires que suivent les bibliothecaires leur rendent de plus en plus experts des bonnes sources et des renseignements en ligne. Alors pourquoi les bibliothecaires ne mettent-ils pas les bouchees doubles pour classer tout ce qui est en ligne? Car actuellement les recherches trebuchent sur des mots et des techniques qui ne sont pas standardises.

Libraries take up quite a bit of the Internet, and library science is changing with computer technologies. One way to get to and beyond BASIC INTERNET FOR BUSY LIBRARIANS is checking up-to-date magazines and online resources for cyberadvances and choosing among discussion lists for information professionals, such as LawLib-L, LibRef-L, and PACS-L. Another way is becoming comfortable with library homepages on the web. Still another is making sure continuing education trains with the latest concepts and skills. Yet another is working with search engine producers to index and categorize resource records: search tools try different search techniques to bring about lots of search query matches; yet net searching might be more manageable, organized and predictable if search engines worked with the standardized subject headings and search techniques that librarians use. Laura K. Murray's book gets the job done, along with Pat Ensor's THE CYBRARIAN'S MANUAL, Patricia Iannuzzi's TEACHING INFORMATION LITERACY SKILLS, and Evan Morris' THE BOOKLOVER'S GUIDE TO THE INTERNET.

After over 20 years and on a shelf with dozens of more complete texts on any of the subjects covered by Arbib et al, this little text remains my first choice of reference. Why? Because it concisely covers the key definitions and thorems providing a formal basis for computation that are essential for graduate study.

This book is translated to Japanese at 1984.
It is refered on Switching Theory for Logic Synthesis by Tsutomu Sasao.
In Japan, it is classic textbook on computer science.

Dr. Purdum brings it home like nobody else does. He is an educator and he knows how to get you to understand the concepts of programming. He uses real world examples to connect your mind to information he is teaching. Now I can honestly say, I get it. Thank you Dr. Purdum.

I've read several of Dr. Purdum's books in the past and have always found them informative and enjoyable to read. Beginning C# 3.0, An introduction to Object Oriented Programming (Wrox) is one of his best book yet. As he asks in the introduction, there are dozens of C# texts out there, so why should you pick this one? His answer is that, while most of the other texts were written by extremely capable programmers, few of the authors have never stood in front of several hundred students looking for examples that teach the material yet are easy to understand and remember. Several of the key strengths of this book are the examples and the way Dr. Purdum anticipates the reader's questions.

For example, in covering the OOP concept of encapsulation in Chapter 2, he discusses why programmers hide the data properties of an object inside the object. He states: "You hide them for the same reason that kings used to hide their daughters in the castle tower...to keep other people from messing around with them." Later on, when discussing the difference between public and private access specifiers, he points out that using the public access specifier is like locking the princess in the castle tower and then passing out her room key to all the knights of the realm. I don't know about you, but this is easier for me to remember this than some dry explanation that one often reads on encapsulation.

Another strength is the way he anticipates rough spots for the student. One of the most difficult concepts for beginning programmers is the difference between value types and reference types. Dr. Purdum uses a simple explanation of what a symbol table is to discuss l-values and r-values. He then introduces a concept he developed called Bucket Analogy which uses the symbol table concepts to explain the difference between the two classes of data. Even experienced programmers will appreciate this example and how it truly makes the differences clear. He uses a job interview to explain what objects are as well as cookie cutters to explain instantiation. The book does reflect his 25 years of teaching experience.

The material covered is what you'd expect for an introductory text. He also covers relatively new topics like Generics and LINQ. The database chapter even has a fairly complete DBMS. However, the entire theme is to teach OOP and good coding techniques. For example, he'll write a code example that works but then calls it an example of RDC (Really Dumb Code). He then rewrites the code and explains why it is a better solution, especially when writing for a commercial environment. His objective is to teach you good OOP techniques using C# as the vehicle to learn those techniques. His experience owning a software company for 17 years shows through while doing this.

If you want to get a solid introduction to OOP and C#, choosing this book is one of the best choices you can make.