Computer Science Books

As an ex Chief Information Officer for a fortune 500 company, I've spent many years communicating to government and industry alike, what impact we could reasonably expect from the Year 2000 Computer Date Change Problem. This is the best book I have read to date, which provides reasonable and definitive answers to one the questions I am most frequently asked regarding Y2K, "What should I do about my investments?"

Today, as a consultant and author of THE REASONABLE PERSON'S GUIDE TO Y2K, I spend my time communicating about what moderate, down-to-earth, level-headed governments and individuals can do to prepare. In that regard, I consider L. Jay Kuo's and Edward Dua's book the reasonably person's guide to investing for the Year 2000 transition. I highly recommend this book for those who believe Y2K will not be a disaster, nor will it be "business-as-usual", and that reasonable preparedness for something "in between" is warranted.

If you believe Dr. Ed Yardeni, Chief Global Economist and Global Investment Strategist for Duetsche Bank Securities, when he predicts a 70% probability that Y2K will create a global recession which could last 12 to 24 months, then this book is must reading.

What I particularly liked about this book, is that the information is usable and it is not the "don't worry, be happy" message most brokerage houses are espousing. Not only do the authors provide powerful insight into how and why you should defensively posture current investments against a Y2K induced recession, they also venture forth suggestions on how to profit from it as well. Something I have been trying to get my broker to tell me for months. Come to think of it, I highly recommend this book for stockbrokers and fund managers too.

I read an advance copy of this book. A very timely look at a problem (opportunity) that will soon be upon us. Dua hits the nail on the head when he says, "With Y2K there will be winners and losers in the investing world. Try to be one of them." Excellently written. Highly recommended for the casual or professional investor.

This book was a refreshing change from some other books that have been published on the subject of Y2K investing. Specifically, it is an extraordinarily well-researched book. It provides indepth details of possible y2k strategies and names specific stocks. Truly an outstanding effort!

Not being someone who typically reads a lot of investment guides, I was very happily astonished at how easily this book reads. L. Jay Kuo is an excellent writer, describing the background of the Y2K problem without getting too technical and obscure, and depicts the issue with extreme clarity and (dare I suggest it?) engaging wit. People from all backgrounds, from the investment-astute to the "digerati" (as Mr. Kuo puts it), to the neophytes, hesitant about investing in general but looking for some simple but straightforward insightful commentary and/or advice, will be able to get a lot out of this book. Oddly enough, it's even entertaining (!) -- Mr. Kuo is clever with his subheadings and his turn of phrase. While it is definitely not written to be "over people's heads" (as many investment guides seem to be), Mr. Kuo still manages to deliver deceptively clear prose with many witty allusions and insights, such that the book does not fall into the "pedantic trap" (as many investment guides ALSO seem to do). He explains the areas most likely to be adversely (and positively) affected by the upcoming confusion surrounding Y2K, presents really quite sound reasons for these views, and then suggests some viable approaches and at-least short term solutions so as to best protect oneself (and one's portfolio) from the inevitable chaos Y2K will present to the financial markets. Even if you never read another investment guide in your life, I recommend this one. Highly.

This book provides a very thorough, yet practical explanation of social security in an easy to read format. This is a great guide for almost anyone wanting a better understanding of not only how the program works, but how it will work for them as an individual participant.
However--as the author mentions--it should not be viewed as a technical reference for financial professionals.

OK, I'm the author and I'm biased. But the other Social Security books out there still seem to be either very poor-quality consumer guides (out of date, inaccurate, or jargon), or the "Social Security is a rip-off and it will crash in a few years" type. My guiding principles in creating this book: --accuracy (gained from many years working at SSA), --plain English, and --lots of concrete examples. There are a few areas where the book has become obsolete: --All the payment figures have increased with inflation. --The 1.45% payroll tax on Medicare no longer has an an earnings cap--it applies to all earnings, no matter how high. --The amount of Social Security benefits included in your taxable income has increased from 50% to 85% for high- income retirees. Otherwise the book is still current. (OK, it's time for a new edition, which I'll complete one of these days!) I invite readers to contact me with individual questions or comments. Happy reading!

I'm a retired Soc. Sec. claims rep and I rate this book as the best explanation of Social Security benefits I've ever seen. The writer's style is great and he has a nice, friendly approach. It's not an easy subject, but he explains things in a simple, understandable fashion.

Mr. Landis has succeeded in making a very complicated subject comprehensible to the average reader. All my questions about how the system works were answered. I appreciated the fact that Mr. Landis was employed by the Social Security Administration for many years and was able to give an insider's account of procedures and benefits. Many thanks for this very helpful book!

This book discusses some of the techniques used
in Data Mining.
It goes into Data Exploration as well as Evaluating
Classification and Predictive Performance.

Some of the more advanced techniques such as
Neural Nets and Cluster Analysis are
also discussed.

To learn more about database design and relational data modeling visit
[...]

I've used this as textbook for three years (even before it was in print) for my "Business Intelligence Using Data Mining" elective MBA course at the Indian School of Business. Till last Fall, I used to structure my class around the four major data-mining techniques explained well in this book; classification, prediction, clustering and association rules (what goes with what). The last time I switched completely to driving the class using the six or seven excellent cases at the back of the book, and the Business students loved that.

The cases and the associated data are rich; providing a business context to anchor the learning for students in the B-School. They allow the instructor to naturally cover important practical issues, such as over-sampling (when events that one is interested in -- say load defaults -- are rare), and asymmetric classification costs.

My class typically has a group project, where students have to pull everything together, from identifying a data mining opportunity, to collecting the data (beg, borrow or crawl:-), to performing exploratory data analysis (a key chapter in the book), to analyzing and presenting the results. Its usually more work than the students expect, but also typically much more learning than they expect.

In summary, a great resource for teaching the principles of data mining to anyone, and particularly useful for those in a Business School setting.

This book got its start as notes for a data mining class that one of us (Nitin Patel) was teaching at MIT, and was completed while another of us (Galit Shmueli) was teaching a similar course at Maryland. Both courses were part of an MBA program. We found that, while there are a lot of books on data mining, there were none that actually gave business students the skills and tools to implement data mining algorithms. So we set ourselves the task of writing a book that (1) provides real data sets with a business decision-making context and a hands-on orientation , (2) provides a theoretical and practical understanding of the key data mining methods of classification, prediction, data reduction and exploration at a level that is appropriate and useful for MBA's, and (3) bundles a powerful version of a commercial data mining tool that works in Excel (XLMiner). For this reason, we think our book will be appropriate not just for students, but also for business analysts with a quantitative orientation, on, indeed, anyone who wants to learn data mining via self-study. Have we succeeded? You be the judge! - P. Bruce (for G. Shmueli and N. Patel)

Data mining is the extraction of useful information from large amounts of data. Perhaps the best example of this is Amazon. If you go to Amazon to look at a book, you'll find such tidbits of information as a section on the page headlined 'Customers who bought this item also bought' and another 'What do customers ultimately buy after viewing this item?'

That's datamining, dozens or hundreds, or thousands of people looked at the page about this item. Then they went on to take these other actions. Among all the data that Amazon has collected they mine their database and pull out information to fill in these blocks.

This book, intended for MBA level students gives an excellent introduction to data mining. It further includes access to an Excel add-in called XLMiner that is specifically set up to allow the student to use Excel to learn how data mining is done.

The one thing I would ask the authors to do in their next edition is to provide a brief review of the commercially available data mining software products that are available. If not all of the software, perhaps just the top half dozen or so. In real life we aren't going to use Excel for data mining, our data resides in a database somewhere.

For some of us learning programming has been less of a structured approach and more of a journey, picking up what we could as we went along. This book is a significant aid in that it takes us back to the basics of how to write problem solving code and at the same time giving us an extended toolbox to apply to how we perform it. It has been a real help to me by reinforcing things to me that I thought I understood, and teaching me new ways to do things that I had no idea on how to approach.
Al Edlund

Michael McMillan's "Data Structures and Algorithms Using Visual Basic.Net" is an excellent resource for the serious programmer using Visual Basic.Net. With the advent of the .Net technology there have been some major changes to Visual Basic, one of them being the collection classes. Most vb reference books provide a weak introduction to the collections and how to use them; this is the focus of the book and really allows the reader to gain enough confidence to start using them effectively in their own programs.



I look forward to more books from this author.

McMillan does for Visual Basic in .NET what other languages like Java, C and C++ have long had. Fundamental data structures like hash tables or hash sets, arrays, linked lists. He shows how to use these in the VB context. They greatly simplify your programming tasks. These constructs are so widely used in any practical programming language.

Without them, you find yourself having to tediously reinvent basic functionality. Adding little value. And with the risk that your implementations might be buggy.

McMillan shows how to use the structures in several algorithms. Having said that, this book will not be of any surprise to someone already familiar with algorithms. It does not go into these to the depth of Knuth's 'Art of Computer Programming', or Sedgewick's texts.

I have selected this book to be the textbook of an introductory course in data structures and algorithms for my second year programming students. There were three major reasons behind this choice:

1- The book doesn't go into the mathematics found in other books. Of course, mathematics are essential for those who want to create algorithms, but it's not the case for the majority of programmers, at least in the business computing field, who just want to implement them. On the contrary, I think that teaching the mathematics underlying the construction of algorithms makes the learning process unnecessarily hard.

2- On the data structures field, the book takes advantage of structures already implemented in the major development platforms. As the author says it: "students of data structures and algorithms can now see how to use a data structure before learning how to implement it" (Preface, p. vii). From an educational standpoint, this is a far better approach than starting to discuss a concept abstractly.

3- The examples are in VB .NET, which I consider a good starting programming language. For those who rather prefer another language, the author has recently published the same book for C#: "Data Structures and Algorithms Using C#".

In a word, I consider this book an excellent practical approach to learn common data structures and algorithms without going into the complexity of mathematics.

This book is designed and written for higher education institutions which are considering or are engaged in distance education as a new education communications channel. The book's greatest strength is that it contains perspectives from many different individuals who are actively involved in distance education. The topics cover many different areas such as: defining distance education, implications for higher education, attraction of online distance education, future of distance education, faculty perceptions of distance education, teaching effectiveness, strategies for success, service providers for distance education, quality assurance issues, success factors, and many others.

Those in higher education will often adopt a new technology without fully investigating the potential and cost of the technology. This book has an excellent section on the benefits and disadvantages of using distance education. It is noted that distance education is not a panacea but it is another useful technology that can be used to enhance learning and meet needs of students who are not able to attend a traditional class-learning environment.

The reader was very impressed by the excellent end of chapter references. This will allow anyone who desires to investigate more fully the issues raised in the book to do so. The chapters dealing with various distance education delivery models and implementation will be useful to those who wish to move forward with this technology in their organization.

The reader highly recommends that those interested in distant education take the time to read this book before they embark on distance education. The book will help to minimize "re-inventing the wheel" and thus save time, money and effort.

This book provides an outstanding range of ideas, research, and insights into distance learning programs. The book is enlightening about how to improve distance teaching and learning, the design of these programs, their successes and failures, and how they are impacting institutions of higher education,

This is a great book for anyone considering setting up a distance learning program. The authors are even-handed in their treatment of issues that must be dealt with and provide practical advice for implementing a distance learning program.

The eyes of University Presidents and Vice-Chancellors all around the world light up as they think of those hundreds of millions of potential students out there, just waiting to pay money to study at their Universities - "If just 1% of them came here.... $$$$!!! Information Technology via the Internet and on-line delivery of our courses - will that provide the answer?" As Universities (and other educational institutions) rush to establish a presence in the "virtual" education market, often building Internet classrooms that in many cases resemble the "Field of Dreams" model - "build it and they will come" (they don't, and won't, of course) this book is a welcome steadying contribution.

Let me declare an interest before going any further - I am the author of a chapter in this book. That said, the book provides a serious collection of research articles aimed at making some early sense out of this fast-growing area. It is important to remember it is early days yet and much of the research conducted to date, and the practice, is preliminary - a problem compounded by the rapidly changing technology.

While most of the chapters in the book paint a generally optimistic picture, there are many problems, pitfalls and dilemmas identified. These range from restrictions and difficulties involved in state financing of education, through the difficulty of authenticating student work and testing of students, technological limitations, special dedication and skill attributes required in students, the suitability of some courses to remote delivery, to library strategies. This suggests that at least in the eyes of these practitioners (and most of them are) it will be far from plain sailing. Somebody needs to tell those Presidents!

There are several chapters that provide guidance in (very early) "best practice" and these present a useful if somewhat disjointed guide for those considering running such courses. Perhaps a future work could attempt to establish a "best practice" manual, although as the courses come to conform to a standard blueprint the competitive edge will blur.

For academics the book identifies many areas for additional research. These include further work in the potential take up of on-line education by both students and Universities, the influence of the isolation effect, measurement of learning achievements, and interaction of students with the technology.

Overall the book offers a very good collection of experience and research. There is much more work to be done and many more experiences to be had. Uninversity management (and many academics ) will push to move ahead - there could be a lot of fallout, but in the end is it just possible this could be the University of the future? For a small percentage of students - maybe.

Clear, non-technical descriptions of telecommunication terminology and concepts are what the reader can expect from this title. It covers LANS, WANS, voice, data, and standards.

There are so many Telcomm terms and there are more every year. It's always good to have a easy-to-read technical reference book like this one. It's easy to read even for a Taiwanese! :-)

Btw, I hope there will be revised version of this book every two or three year. Thank you Mr. Muller, the author of the book, for providing the nice book.

This is a remarkably good reference work, especially considering (or because?) it is the work of one person (and no doubt a good editor). The articles are long enough to cover complex topics yet focused enough to provide a handle on the subject. Muller has an excellent sense of proportion. He offers succinct synopses of technical matters without getting bogged down in stuff only an engineer would understand. You can get a quick overview of "distance learning" and "outsourcing," on the one hand, or PCS 1900 and CDMA on the other. And all of it is very well and clearly written. Useful for anyone in the industry, or just for the curious.

This book it's has to be in every engeener desktop and also it's a great dictionary for universities stands and for students tools.

Dr. Clark's book is an easy-to-read guide on how to design training according to the five types of content: procedures, factual information, concepts, processes and principles. She clearly defines each type and then explains to the reader how to design learning based on the "remember level" (memorization by learner) and the "apply level" (application by learner). Dr. Clark gives examples on how to assess each type of content and guides the reader through each chapter with a "visual" - a chart which she fills in as the reader progresses through the book.

One of the instructional designers at our college is leaving to head the implementation of an online program at another college. I bought her this book as a going-away gift because it is an essential tool for every one who designs learning. This resource should be in every college's, instructional designer's and instructor's library. It is well worth the price.

Dr. Clark's instructional methods in this book describe five different areas: facts, concepts, processes, procedures and principles of technical training. It summarizes and applies current research that illustrates instructional strategies allowing instructional designers to better grasp these training processes. I liked the way she applied these instructional methods in a clear-cut, uncomplicated way throughout the book.

I've been using Dr. Clark's method of instructional design since 1992 to develop training materials targeted at highly-skilled software engineers. Again and again, students have commented on the way these course materials are not only helpful during class, but also later as reference materials when they're trying to apply what they've learned.

Be warned: Developing these kinds of "information mapped" training materials requires more effort than simply throwing together some PowerPoint slides with a few bullet items. But trust me, your students will thank you.

This book provides all the instructional design details for the five content types. It describes the what and why of instructional design and describes how to display it on paper and a computer screen. There is a full chapter dedicated to CBT design. I am recommending this book as required reading for all our trainers.

I am second year student in Electrical Engineering. I used the book to prepare for my Digital Design exam last semester. Passed with almost 100% :)
Now I read the book for a second time, expecially the last chapters. I think this is a great book if you want to understand the basics of the Digital D&A.
You will find almost everything, from basic boolean algreba to CPLD and FPGA structure and functions. The explanations are very clear with a lot of graphics.

In conclusion: This is a TOP 1 Book for everyone who enters (and not only) the amazing world of Digital D&A. I can only recommend it.

Provides a superb one semester introduction course into the field of digital logic design. Enough material to provide a good reference for use in later practice.

number system, boolean algreba,karnaugh map , flip flop, system design,

Excellent book for entry level to digital design. Serves very well as reference guide for the basics on digital design. Lots of solved problems and problems to do. Some math that you can go into or skip.

i have over 10 books in DSP all are the most famous ones, but this book is really really special, in the way it explains the subject.
i do not normally write reviews but i feel obligated to praise this book and its authors, very well done.
it is just the talent of teaching which makes all the difference between books.
this book delivers very well, crystal clear and insightful.
thanks for the authors.
digital signal processing by Steven Smith is also a great book.
both books are for beginers who seeks true understanding.

This book is an excellent book to learn the basics of DSP. The book covers all the necessary content (sampling, aliening, FIR/IIR filters, Analog filters, continuous and discrete signals in systems, and more) required to understand the basics of DSP. The authors have included material on often not covered topics such as undersamping and practical uses that make this well rounded reading. The content is not "stuffy" (e.g. "clearly", "therefore", etc.) that is on light-hearted side of humorous. A good coverage of practical DSP implementation on microcontrollers is included (notably the Motorola 68HC16 16-bit microcontroller). All first time students of DSP and aspiring DSP professionals should have this book along with Rick Lyons, "Understanding Digital Signal Processing" in their library!

It's readable, enjoyable, humorous, solid. Along with "DSP First" and Ken Steiglitz' book, this is as good as it gets. And the "DSP Guru" cartoons - what a crackup, excellent. Never mind the "microcontroller" part of the title - this is a book for anyone, on any platform, needing a good, fun intro to DSP.

I've owned this book for 5 years now. With that perspective, I think it's greatest strength is its "readability"- not something you normally associate with DSP books! Deller and Grove do a terrific job of explaining BASIC dsp concepts from the ground-up while avoiding high-level math (for the most part).

I rank it above Steven Smith's DSP book since it has more clarity and detail. Richard Lyon's "Understanding DSP" has more mathematical details, but it's not as user-friendly as this book-so I'd recommend this book first for newbies to DSP and then, Lyon's book.

Oh yeah, the cartoons are great too!

This book is a great reference book for basic science information. We also use it as a science text book for the kids when they're kindergarten through about third grade. It is well organized, has great pictures, and is easy for the kids to understand. There are many times when I ask the kids to pick out a book to read. They'll pull this book off the shelf and pick a subject that they want to read about. It's a great book for all ages. The pictures help keep the little ones interested, the information on each page is easy to understand, and they give just enough information on each subject to answer the questions my kids have.

I love this book almost as much as the original E.Encyclopedia.
It's highly educational, in my opinon. Parents and Kids will love it. I could spend hours reading this, and you may too.

This is the second joint project after the reference book e.encyclopedia was published in October 2003. Both books feature websites enhanced by Google. Keywords in this book direct children to exclusive DK/Google websites where they connect to pre-selected relevant and authoritative websites.

The DK/Google e.encyclopedia science website is free and children can access information once they have this book. Once they get to the sites they can watch videos, listen to sounds through sound buttons, take virtual tours, read real-time reports, access databases and take interactive quizzes.

There are 8 core sections to explain and explore over 220 science topics.

Matter and Materials
Forces and Energy
Electricity and Magnetism
Space
Earth
Plants
Animals
Human Body

This has to be one of the most beautiful books DK has ever created. The colors are vibrant and the section on Space is bursting with spiral galaxies and pictures of space exploration. If you are interested in Volcanoes, you can turn to the Earth section. You can read about the eruption on Mount St. Helens and see pictures before and after volcanic eruptions.

In the Health Section, children can learn about exercise, hygiene and diet. I found the information on the futuristic nanorobots in the bloodstream fascinating.

Every section has a bold heading and interesting definition. Then, there are pages and pages of full-color pictures that can keep your attention for hours at a time. I wish we had owned a book like this when I was a child because it would have given me an information base to build on in future years. Although I must say, I think adults will find this equally fascinating. Children are always asking questions and now you can find all the answers, complete with pictures.

Fascinating Pictures:

Mangrove Roots growing upwards in coastal swamps
Tigers
Monarch Butterflies
Cross-section of a Tide Pool
High-Tech Imaging
Eye of the Storm - Hurricanes
Limestone Caves

This book also answers the following questions:

Why can an opera singer shatter glass with a single note?
How do sea organisms make their own light?
How can we reduce pollution by using Renewable Energy?
What is the lightest substance on earth and why can it float on air?

I can highly recommend this beyond amazing book to parents, teachers and librarians. E-encyclopedia is a learning resource that is not limited to just the book. While the book provides a solid grounding and interesting facts, it is actually a springboard to the Internet Universe.

~The Rebecca Review

I bought this Science Encyclopedia along with their basic Encyclopedia and I truly love it. My kids are always reading it whenever they get the chance. I have a 5 minute session after lunch before my class leaves to go to "specials." During that 5 minute teaching period I have been letting them pick out one subject area from one of the encyclopedias and then we review how to read nonfiction while looking over that subject briefly. I am amazed to see the sparks that start flying and how interested in all of the subjects the students have been. The pictures are wonderful and help students to connect with the information they are reading. I will buy more sets for my classroom because they are always in use!!!!