Scott Books

The first edition of this book was a major success as for the first time advanced methods for the use of longitudinal data were introduced. Longitudinal data (sometimes also referred to as repeated measures data) is very important in the analysis of clinical trial data. This is because many important trial endpoints are collected for each patient at several visits over the course of the trial and the study sponsor (usually the manufacturer of a drug or a device)will want to see how the measures change over time with usually the baseline measurement and the last measurement being the most important. Often they want to see in a randomized trial whether the treatment over inerest tends to perform better for the subjects taking the test treatment versus those who take the active control and/or placebo. An issue is the presence of correlation between measurements from one time point to another.

So this type of analysis is similar to time series analysis. The difference is that time series are usually studied in the situation where a single series is observed for a long time and the analyst wants to determine future behavior based on an model constructed to fit this one observed series very well. The model is intended in the time series setting to describe a stochastic process (usually a stationary process or one transformed to stationarity by removal of trends). On the other hand in longitudinal analysis each patients profile over time is usually a very short series and the collection of these series over several patients in a particular treatment group are view to come from the same stochastic process. So the data represent several short partial realizations of the stochastic process while a time series is a long, single partial realization.

Since the data differ the methods of analyses differ also. For time seies analysis the autoregressive integrated moving average models of Box and Jenkins are often employed while for longitudinal data the mixed effect linear models are often the class of models chosen. The common theme is the structure of the covariance matrix for the observations in time series and the model noise terms in the case of the linear mixed models.

Zeger and Liang were among the leaders in developing successful modelling for these data. In a series of articles they develop a restricted maximum likelihood approach to the problem of estimating the model parameters and introduce a method called GEE an acronym for generalized estimating equations. The first edition of this book was very popular in the statistical community, particularly for statisticians working in the pharmaceutical industry. Along with Peter Diggle these three authors presented in the first edition this research organized into a single book for the first time. Now there is a plethora of books some prinarily theoretical and others primarily applied. The issue of missing data is very common to this type of data particularly when the data come from a clinical trial. The research of Molenberghs and Verbeke, covered by them in some repeated measures books, has shown these models to be among the most useful for handling missing data in realistic ways.

This second edition of this book has even greater coverage of topics and includes a fourth author Patrick Heagerty. Each of the four authors are skill research statisticians who specialize in biostatistics and particularly longitudinal data. While today there are many books to choose, this text continues ot be among the best.

The second edition is much like the first and is at least a year behind the original schedule. See my review of the first edition to understand why this is a classical. The promised advances in missing data are included and a new author Haegerty has been added. The missing data chapter is three times longer than in the first edition. They cover what they promised. They also mention some of the econometrics literature including the work of Nobel Laureate James Heckman but admit in the preface that they do not know that literature very well and hence do not cover it in depth.

In the past two years Verbeke and Molenberghs have produced a highly competitive book that deals in detail with pattern mixture models and other missing data methodology but curiously Diggle et al. do not reference it even though they do cite some of Molenberghs work.

When this book came out in 1994 there was a great need to look differently at clinical data on subjects. Typically such data would have repeated measurements over time for many subjects but for only a few time points (say three to five). Standard analysis of variance methods do not properly account for within patient correlation between measurements. Time series analysis generally is good for treating long series (but usually only one or a few). In the clinical setting we often are considering hundreds of patients over short time intervals. This book is clearly written for intermediate level statistics students.

The field is important and rapidly developing. Though slightly dated the book is still an excellent introduction to the subject and a very good reference. However, a second edition is in the works and should be out in about one year. I recently took a short course from the authors and I know that the second edition will have some nice features including the latest advances for dealing with missing data and ways to combined the information from time to event data with the repeated measures data. It may be that if longitudinal data analysis is important to you, read the first edition at your favorite university library and save your money for the second edition.

The book includes some nice treatment of the important but often neglected topic of sample size determination.

This book was written by three very prestigious authors, two of which work at The Johns Hopkins University(Dr. Liang and Dr. Zeger), and Dr. Diggle, who is working in England. These three are very well known and respected characters in their field of work, and this book is an excellent reflection upon the research and work they have done over the years. Watch out! the key word is: GEE

The definitely guide to Derby. This offers much more explanation and information than the online documentation provided by Apache. But what do you expect... it comes from the minds at IBM themselves.

However, unlike most of IBM's publications and documentation, this is actually readable and informative. You don't have to wade through a series of unknowns and missing pieces of the puzzle in order to figure out what IBM was trying to actually get at.

This will not only help you define and work with Apache Derby, but also make your applications lighter, faster and easier to deploy.

Apache Derby is a very promising package that is being freely offered, as both source code and binaries. This book is an aggressive promotion of its virtues. The authors stress many things about Derby, or its IBM sidekick, Cloudscape.

Derby addresses a persistent need amongst many Java programmers for an easy to use SQL database. Often, a Java programmer has only cursory expertise in coding for a full database like IBM's DB2 or Oracle. Best usage of these often requires you to be a DBA.

By contrast, Derby comes as a Java JAR file, and can be plonked into your programming environment just as any other JAR file. The book explains in depth how to then interact with Derby, at the level of your Java source code. You can see that you get a pretty powerful engine. Including features like stored procedures and user defined functions, that let you optimise for speed.

Speaking of speed, that is perhaps the biggest possible drawback of Derby. It is run as Java bytecode in a jvm, which is not quite as fast as a package compiled into native binaries. The book seems to deprecate this aspect, but you should be aware of it.

You might find Derby useful enough that you don't have to migrate to a full database like DB2. The book stresses that the code you write to interface with Derby will also do for DB2. There is a potential problem here for IBM, if it loses DB2 business to Derby. But maybe it feels that if it never promoted Derby, then sooner or later, an equivalent product would come along.

Obviously, to use Derby, you still need to know basic SQL statements. And some understanding of how to develop related tables to hold your data. The text is not meant to teach you these skills.

The first chapter also makes various cogent points about the advantages of using Derby. With sometimes unintentional hilarity. A passage says the intent is not to besmirch Microsoft. But despite this pious protestation, it proceeds immediately to do just that. By opining that Microsoft's SQL Server has a 5 year lag between upgrades - Server 2000 and Server 2005. While Derby has source code available, and a much faster cycle for introducing new capabilities.

Apache Derby is the only open source, pure Java RDBMS database and APACHE DERBY-OFF TO THE RACES comes from IBM's own database experts and tells how to make the most of Derby and its commercial counterpart IBM Cloudscape. Learn how to support development efforts, install Derby on both Windows and Linux systems, how to understand how programming languages interact with them, and build sample applications step-by-step: everything is here to learn the fundamentals and troubleshoot virtually any problem.

If you've ever been curious about using or integrating Apache Derby (or IBM Cloudscape) into your project, here's the book you'll need... Apache Derby - Off to the Races by Paul C. Zikopoulos, Dan Scott, and George Baklarz. Very well done...

Contents: On Your Marks... Get Set... Go!!! - An Introduction to the Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape Community; Deployment Options for Apache Derby Databases; Apache Derby Databases; Installing Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape on Windows; Installing Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape on Linux; Managing an Apache Derby Database; Security; SQL; Developing Apache Derby Applications with JDBC; Developing Apache Derby Applications with Perl, PHP, Python, and ODBC; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in JDBC; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in Windows; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in PHP; "Your Momma Loves Drama" in Perl; "Your Momma Loves Drama" In Python; Web Site Contents; Apache Derby and IBM Cloudscape Resources; Troubleshooting Hints and Tips; Index

Derby is one of those technologies that has remained "under the radar" for awhile. The Cloudscape database from IBM was released to the open source community under the name Derby, and basically those two packages are the same core code. Cloudscape has a few more add-ons and support from IBM, but if you learn one you learn them both. The authors do a very good job here in helping the reader to understand the architecture and benefits of having a small-footprint embedded relational database system in your application. The start of the book lays the groundwork very well, and establishes the "why" of Derby. But rather than remaining a high-level overview, they dive into the core of the software, showing how to install it, work with it, and how to secure your data. The real value comes when they take a sample ticket application ("Your Momma Loves Drama") and shows how Derby can be integrated the application in a number of different languages. Even if you don't necessarily know Perl, PHP, or Python, you should be able to follow along enough to extrapolate how the concepts can be applied to your platform of choice. After reviewing this book, I've got some ideas on how I'd like to play around with this...

A very solid addition to your programming bookshelf. Between this book and the online resources, you should have everything you need to master the Derby/Cloudscape software.

My mother had bought all nine volumns of The Saga for a person we knew who was struggling with peer pressure and drugs. She used these Christian comics as a tool to reach him and save him. The day she brought them home I sat down to read volumn 1. After that I couldn't stop until I read them all. I spend the entire evening reading them to my daughter as well. Soon I was at the book store buying all nine volumns for myself to keep as a collection. Some of the pictures are graphic and scary but the reality is that it's TRUE, not only are we at war in the Middle East but there is a closer war right here among us all. It's a spiritual WarFare. These comics explain in scripture and how we have a choice not to be victimized by evil. These comics are an excellent tool to express how much you care about someone by sharing this colorful illustrations and true to life story line with them. Highly recommended.

really enjoyed these comic books. Would love to see more!!!! Great for teenagers and adults alike. Hurry with the next issues!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I think archangels is great. It show the lives of many teenagers who have difficult times in their lives and they usually turn away from everything even God! Then angels come in from god to help them. I recommend this book to teenagers.

These comic books have good Messages and morals for teenagers,and adults alike.A great comic series!

Well, to be honest, I'm not sure what I expected when I checked this out from the library, but it sounded interesting, so I thought I'd take a look. The story was fairly slow-going at first. In fact, I would say that it wasn't until about 1/2-way through the book that the plot actually got 'moving' so-to-speak. That's not to say that it wasn't interesting, it just seemed like there was lots of information that wasn't really connected to the plot. There were also times where I felt that certain scenes were written just to display the authors' historical knowledge, which isn't something I find particularly appealing in novels.

Also, although touted as a historical fantasy, this book is probably about 80% historical, 15% fantasy and 5% alternate reality. Honestly, if I had known nothing about Elizabethan England when I read this I would have been completely lost and, while reading, I still felt out of the loop occasionally. There were a lot of historical names and places, and it was difficult keeping them straight in my head, especially at the beginning. I can't really recommend this book to anyone who doesn't have at least a little previous knowledge of this time period, but I can say that it would be worth it to do some research for the sole purpose or reading it.

If you don't want to read about the time period, take a look at these two movies: Elizabeth w/ Cate Blanchett and Shakespeare in Love w/ Gwyneth Paltrow. They will give you a historical basis to work off of and both will give you most, if not all, of the names you need to know.

This is the best work of historical fantasy, and one of the best works of historical fiction, which I have ever read. Although the universe (an alternate history Elizabethan England where magic works and where Sydney and Marlow survived the events which killed them in our time line) is fantasy, the approach is basic science fiction "what if", extrapolated on a magical rather than physcial technology. Rather than overlaying modern concepts of magic onto their characters and history, the authors present magic as it was understood by the various classes of Tudor England, and in so doing create a world that feels like reality and avoid the one-dimensionality common to much contemporary fantasy. All this, and a great read, too.

This is a very well-structured, well-written book set in an alternate version of Queen Elizabeth I's reign. The settings are finely drawn, the characters are engaging, and the plot is gripping. I reread this book about once a year just for the pleasure of it, and I snapped up this hardcover when it came out. If you like alternate history and fantasy, and don't mind them mixed together, read this book. If you just want to read about people living in Elizabethan England, read this book. And if you just have to have any book with Shakespeare as a character... you, too, have some reading ahead of you.

I'm the cover illustrator, and I don't always like everything I read. Often, even if I liked a story the first time, I don't like it when I have to read it about the fifth time to check on the color of someone's shirt. Or I start noticing the lapses in historical detail or logic or characterization.

This book I still read for pleasure, even after I finished the cover. I read a lot of alternate history, and this surely ranks among the best.

My husband is Norwegian and I am Irish and Italian. We were at Epcot Center and stopped in Norway and had some lunch. Well, we enjoyed it so much that we purchaed the cookbook. The food in this cookbook brings back memories of his childhood. I would recommend this to anyone.

It's one of my favorite cookbooks. Being a norwegian descendent I love norwegian food. Astrid Karlsen Scott's "Authentic Norwegian Cookbook" made finding good food easy. The book contains lots of pictures so you can compare yours with hers. Her cookbook offers easy to follow recipes so anyone with cooking skills can follow. I thought this was the greatest cookbook for norwegian food I've come across so far!

Dedicated to promoting and preserving Norwegian tradition and cultural heritage, Astrid Karlsen Scott is an emigrant from Oslo, Norway, and president of Nordic Adventures. In Authentic Norwegian Cooking, Astrid has compiled more than three hundred wonderful recipes showcasing Norway's culinary history. Enahanced with 16 pages of color photography, Authentic Norwegian Cooking also features a "Norwegian Table Prayer"; party suggestions, "Special Helps", and a "user friendly" recipe index. From Dyrestek med viltsaus (Reindeer Roast with Game Sauce); Norvegiafylte poteter (Norvegia Filled Potatoes); and Eggedosis (Traditional 17th of May Dessert); to Seterjentas rommebrod (The Dairymaid's Wafers); Gjetost dessertsaus (Goat Cheese Dessert Sauce); and Stekt gds (Roast Goose), Authentic Norwegian Cooking truly lives up to its title and would make a welcome addition to any kitchen multicultural and ethnic cookbook collection!

This is a great book. My grandmother, who came from Norway says it is the best she's seen for authenticity!! Great Great.

Written in a very own Allen's style, this item offers great tips on common topics that not always, and not necesarily, are mastered by intermediate users. Onstott's work is very useful also. Very good purchase for new users who wish to push a little more. And for the Professionals? Not bad. A very good reminder about seemed-to-be-easy daily matters at office.
Paper and Printing quality of the product are simply excellent.

It is not surprising, considering the fact that Lynn Allen is the Technical Evangelist for Autodesk and that she meets with thousands of AutoCAD users every year, that once again her book is packed to the ceiling with fantastic tips, insights, tricks and strategies for putting AutoCAD in high gear. The book offers invaluable information in bite-sized morsels which can easily and gradually be implemented into any AutoCAD-based process to simplify and streamline it. Lynn also maintains an equally beneficial blog at [..] if you want a sampling of the kind of material conveniently compiled in this book. Highly recommended for anyone seeking "AutoCAD PowerUser" proficiency.

I have been using AutoCAD since 1992, after the first couple years of using AutoCAD, I stopped learning new tricks and learning better ways of using AutoCAD because I was able to do my job with the set of AutoCAD skills I have. This book helps me brush up my CAD skills and taught me many new tricks to be more efficient. It was never too late to teach an old dog new tricks!

This book is fantastic!! It really allows a power user more options and tips and tricks. Every tip ends up saving time and makes CAD more fun to use. Lynn keep up the great work.

This book is must for the new Ballet student.Very clear instructions.Easy to understand.You won't be sorry you bought it..

I have just recently started to watch ballet, so I thought I would pick up a book so I understand it better. This book does that with vigour and great explanation. From the moves to the history and everything else you would need to get started in ballet or just appreciate it more like me.

I like this book.This book is what I was looking for.It covers all basics with a very simple description and you don`t have to dig for the further explanation somwhere else.Author do not assume that every person in the world knows at least 1% of ballet terminology.
Thanks a lot for this book!This is what I was looking for

This is absolutely the perfect book for someone wanting to learn (or learn about) ballet. I have seen the other ballet books out there. Most of them are either too simplistic (showing pictures of various pretty moves without telling you how to do them) or too abstract. This book strikes the ideal balance. It is practical and thorough. It doesn't assume any prior experience in ballet, but goes from square 1 to a quite advanced level. It takes you through the same logical sequence of moves that all dancers learn. It offers tons of tips and inside information that only ballet dancers know. It's very well written and easy to read. The expert authors are knowledgeable, patient, and VERY FUNNY. (A laugh on every page -- I didn't expect that added bonus.). And it has what seems like about a million beautiful photographs illustrating each move in great detail. I can't say enough great things about this book. It's the book I've been waiting for. Buy it!

It was really easy to read and get the main idea the first time around. The low price was cool too.

Having had Mr. McLean as a teacher, I was able to enjoy his book even more than if I had just read it. While his book is easy to read and has real life examples of everyday communication, it was great to actually talk to him about what he had written. College books are usually pretty expensive and he made sure his was reasonably priced so all college students will have a chance to take a communication class and learn about what we all do everyday - communicate!

This is the first textbook I've ever enjoyed reading. I didn't have to read it 100 times to understand it! I'm amazed at how communication is everywhere and the impact it has on my life. I learned a lot and look at things differently now.

I have already begun to apply the ideas I have learned in communication to solve problems. The ideas, discussions and diagrams found in The Basics of Speech Communication will remain with me forever. In the beginning I was intimidated by the people who I thought were smarter than me. Now I understand that with effective communication skills those barriers won't stand in my way.

Richard Buller's knowledge seems to have no bounds. With clarity and confidence, the author presents key moments in the life of Lois Moran. He also spends a third of the book exploring her relationship with F. Scott Fitzgerald. Buller had a vast amount of information at his disposal: Moran's journal and autobiographical notes, her son Tim, and Moran herself. Plus, he researched numerous books and contemporary newspaper articles. Intimidated? Don't be. Buller pulls all the pieces of the puzzle together for us, in a seemingly effortless flow of historical events. Don't know the works of Moran or Fitzgerald? Buller provides clear summaries. Then, he takes us to the next level by analyzing how Moran influenced Fitzgerald. In addition, the book provides many pictures with helpful captions. Even if you've never heard of Lois Moran, this is a "must have" for anyone interested in F. Scott Fitzgerald, movies, or the Jazz age.

I suppose I first encountered Lois Moran as most people did, via Scott Fitzgerald's portrayal of her as Rosemary Hoyt, the ingenue in his tragic 1934 romance TENDER IS THE NIGHT. Since Arthur Mizener identified Lois Moran as Rosemary's "original" in his 1950s biography of Fitzgerald THE FAR SIDE OF PARADISE, her name once again became recognizable, and we began to think of her as a silent film star who must have beeen cute, but surely without talent otherwise wouldn't her performances have survived? Now Richard Buller steps forward with this biography of the actress herself, both in and out of her relationship with the great novelist, and his book shows us that she's perhaps even more interesting when considered as an actress alone, and not just a Lolita-like playtoy.

Buller explores the bond between Gladys (Lois Moran's mother) and her daughter, and rebuts the myth that Gladys was a conventional stage mother who disliked her daughter's interest in married men. Gladys is worthy of a book all of her own! She took Lois from their settled life in Pittsburgh and brought her to Paris as a teen to escape the repressive US climate of the day, and to show her daughter life in big beautiful capital letters.

Stardom in the movies was only a sort of lagniappe to Lois, who abandoned Hollywood when she married in 1935. And she was signally a free-lance player, one who evaded the contractual obligations of any one studio (except for a brief and not too happy contract with Fox). That may have precipitated her withdrawal from cultural memory, however, for I think in the classical cinemaa the studio really built their stars up, and the ones who played it free-lance aren't as well remembered today. (We know Clark Gable, for example, better than we know, say, Irene Dunne.)

Buller has uncovered three short stories that Lois Moran wrote about Scott Fitzgerald, it's a shame that his publishers couldn't have authorized their publication in an appendix, for the excerpts he quotes are fascinating. Just as tantalizing are his descriptions of some of Moran's movies. I for one am going to go on a hunger strike until Turner Classic Movies schedules a showing of WEST OF BROADWAY with John Gilbert--the ultimate "bad luck" movie from Buller's description.

Lois Moran went to Broadway and starred in two Gershwin musicals (OF THEE I SING and LET 'EM EAT CAKE), then married an industrialist who ran Pan Am, Clarence Young. In the Youngs' luxury apartment here in SF's North Beach, on Vallejo Street, they hosted a secret wartime conference with FDR, Lindbergh, and other luminaries. I'm going to go there later today and try to talk my way into the graces of the current owners of the building and photograph the room where it all took place. After Clarence and Gladys died, Moran's later struggles with alcohol make for sad reading. What a story! And what a woman!

Lois Moran's life and body of work, so carefully portrayed by Richard Buller, are a living tribute to the wonderment of Lois Moran, the person. Here is a portrait of some eighty years of giving without reservation to the people of this planet.

The author's insightful and diligent research, coupled with some memorable findings in her journals, papers and photographs, have made this book a true and masterfully constructed literary achievement.

I had never heard of Lois Moran - now I am a fan! Richard Buller's fascinating account of this remarkable woman is brilliantly researched and beautifully written. Why more has not been made of this shining Hollywood star is a curious mystery. Happily, Mr. Buller fills us in with style. He describes the era adroitly and offers surprisingly intimate historical nuggets, sly humor, and a deep poignancy that moved this reader to tears. I felt as if I were walking with Lois every step of the way. Like meeting an old friend for the first time. Her gleeful, almost childlike kinship with life attracted sparkling people and events; yet her "grown-up" values guided her to always hone her gifts and to help others. A unique example that despite our heartaches, we can indeed create a "beautiful fairy tale" of our lives. A delightful, revelatory read. Inspiring.

My daughter loves anything "Cinderella" and this book is her favorite one plus the fact that the cover and illustration is really pretty.

You really can't go wrong with SS! All the books and movies are wholesome and entertaining. I love reading them to my daughter and watching the movies with her. Actually, my son loves them too but would never admit it to his friends (he's 9). Good thing he has a little sister ;)

We had this book in soft cover and lost it. We purchased this hard cover book and we found the book we had lost the next day. My daughter was happy so it made us happy.

Thanks!

Okay, I admit it. My daughter received this book as a present and I rolled my eyes. I expected this book to be way too saccharin to stand reading it... BUT it is really cute and my daughter and I both enjoy it.

[Btw- don't know what is wrong with the front cover shown above. It is, in fact, in full color and not a line drawing.]

In this book the premise is that Strawberry Shortcake and her friends are going to play dress up and act out the story of `Cinderella'.

Most of the storyline is kept. The stepmother and sisters are mean. They keep Cinderella too busy to get ready for the ball; and they try to keep the prince at the end of the story from meeting Cinderella and fitting her with the shoe, etc.

Where the story deviates is that the girls are vying NOT for the princes hand in marriage, but for the chance to live at the palace and care for the `royal berry crop'. Decidedly better, in my opinion, than all the emphasis being on marrying someone one hasn't met yet.

Four Stars. [B+]. Very Good Read-aloud. Drawings are what you would expect; large and colorful, simple and sweet.