Research Books

This book meets its promise of deflating the academic presentations contained in more theoretical marketing books. Too often, those books sub-divide and label marketing approaches and customer acquisition strategies into acronym-ridden codes that only confuse readers. Many of these books assume that the customer is the center of the marketing universe. Author Stephen Brown contends just the opposite. Customers are not the core of the cosmos. At best, constantly catering to their whims and changing tastes often ties marketers into unproductive knots. Using powerful - if sometimes questionable - examples, Brown shows that customers readily follow good marketing campaigns. Yet, the book relies so heavily on alliteration, puns and perky jokes that it often becomes just too cute, which impedes its solid marketing message. We recommend it as useful reading for marketing professionals who seek fresh ideas and a break from the old jargon. Alas, despite its title, no free gift comes with it, other than some razzle-dazzle marketing war stories.

Stephen Brown has a way of making marketing so much fun, why should it be serious?
From the start it becomes totally clear the Author is totally up on his content, and knowledge, this is NOT simply a license to rant and rave to people who pay $20 and want to get their moneys worth.
The examples are current, or if are not current, are totally relevent to the topic at hand, though his explanation of what is basically 'exclusive' marketing, or the idea that by not giving people what they want, they will only want what you offer even more.
I cannot reccomend this book more highly, as a marketing student it really should be required reading as its not only interesting and relevent, but makes the topic so much damn fun!.

Wow! I didn't see this one coming. Brown's writing style is literary electricity. His method of teaching brands his lessons on your brain. He case studies and research would make the New York Library look like kindergardners with crayons. I LOVE this book. Haven't read anything this good since, well, re-reading one of my own books. I say get this one. You'll love it. -- Joe Vitale www.mrfire.com

The author states in the preface "I here baldly and unapologetically state that I recognize the scientific method to be a valid technique for approaching what I am pleased to term an objective understanding of the physical and natural world. 'This belief, however, offers no apriory comfort to anyone who would try to answer such questions as What types of scientific knowledge should society choose to pursue? How should such choices be made and by whom? How should society apply this knowledge, once gained? How can "progress" in science and technology be defined and measured in the context of broader social and political goals? And indeed, it is precisely these sorts of question that underlie and motivate this book".

Although I do not agree that there is such a thing as THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD (but a variety of scientific methods) and although I do not agree that specific kinds of methods garantees truth and objectivity, I understand the author's need to distinguish such narrow methodological issues from the broader issues concerning the relations between science and society. These last questions are important in democratic societies, why libraries, masse communication and other institutions, which are supposted to support democracy should make an effort to dissiminate this kind of literature.

This is the best starting points for skeptics who wonder if science is all it is cracked up to be, or for cheerleaders of science too prone to claim science will solve all our problems.

It does not, however, provide a complete picture. Three other books are helpful:

Science, Money, and Politics: Political Triumph and Ethical Erosion by Daniel Greenberg is the best over-all review, has a strong ethical component, and shows how the competition for money, rather than scientific progress, is diverting scarce resources and frustrating needed advances.

The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney is the book that is the most compelling on the perversions of the extremist Republicans (I am a moderate Republican). Read this first or last, depending on your disposition.

Finally, Investing in Innovation: Creating a Research and Innovation Policy That Works, edited by Lewis Bramscomb and James Keller, brings together a range of views crossing the environment within which scientific research takes place, evaluationg specific programs and policy tools, and making recommendations (all of which have been ignored by the current Bush Administration).

I take three bottom lines from these four books together:

1) We are spending too much on military science & research.

2) Neither Congress nor the Executive have a serious strategy for prioritizing problems, finding private sector partners, and providing seed money for innovative solutions.

3) Both Congress and the Executive, as well as the public and the media, are incredibly ignorant about what science can and cannot do, and where all the money is going to generally poor effect.

4) This is all so important that Science, like Intelligence, needs its own Supreme Court. I am persuaded we need a new form of hybid public agency that is fully independent of the Executive, receiving a percentage of the total disposable budget (say 3%) and hence not subject to Congression pressures.

I want to stress that this book is an off-set, but should not be read alone. It raises some very important ethical and common sense political prioritization issues, but viewed alone, is too negative. If you buy only one book, buy Greenberg's.

Not for the thin-skinned! This is a thoughtful and convincing set of arguments as to how and why the U.S. scientific research system often fails to serve the public interest. We'd all be better off if researchers and policy-makers absorbed the lessons in this work.

You cannot go wrong with any book by Drs. Nadeau and Quinn, including this one. It is primarily an in-depth guide for clinicians who treat women with ADHD. But, in my experience, clinicians' guides often provide the most helpful books to read before you begin the search for an ADHD specialist. Once you know the recommended protocols, such guides provide a benchmark by which to judge a potential therapist's or doctor's expertise.

Quinn and Nadeau are highly respected pioneers in the detection and treatment of ADHD in women and girls. And if you've found that most healthcare professionals are undereducated on ADHD in general, wait until you learn how little they know about the unique angle gender takes. ADHD not only might manifest differently in females, but there are also other psychological and physical issues, such as hormonal cycles and pregnancy, to consider. And this information is found literally nowhere else.

I also recommend their other books on this subject, including "Understanding Women with ADHD," "Understanding Girls with ADHD," and "When Moms and Kids have ADD."

That said, their expert knowledge extends well beyond female ADHD into all aspects in both genders and throughout the lifespan. Together or individually, they have contributed many helpful standouts to the ADHD library and are popular speakers at national conferences.

This is a MUST READ for anyone searching for more information on how AD/HD manifests itself in girls and women. This would be an excellent resource for medical doctors to help make them aware that AD/HD in girls and women IS real and not just "in their heads."

This is a great resource for professionals who treat and work with females with AD/HD, females with AD/HD, and parents of females with AD/HD. Though the book may be intended for professionals, the setup of the book is very ADD Friendly and the language is easy to understand.

I think reading this book will be very benefical to women with AD/HD and family members of females with AD/HD. It may put females ahead of the game when they seek treatment for AD/HD. It may give them a better idea of whether the professional who is treating them acutally understands AD/HD.

Females who are currently in treatment for AD/HD should consider asking the professional treating her if he or she has read this book. If the answer if no it may be in her best interest to suggest that he or she does.

A medical doctor recommended that I (a statistician) use generalized additive models on a project that he was involved with. We were pleased with the results of the modelling as they gave us some new insights on his topic and it was very rewarding

Because we were so impressed with the results, we both took the above book out of the library to read. I started the book with some trepidation as I feared it was going to be a complex topic and in some respects I was right. However, right from the encouraging quotes in the preface and into the text itself, I felt the authors were making a great effort to make the book readable.

The medico found that the explanations and examples were well written. His comment was that even a non-statistician could grasp what was going on but that there was enough theory that a statistician would be happy too!

Believe it or not this important topic in applied statistics was developed by Hastie and Tibshirani when they were graduate students, a sure sign of greatness to come. After their graduation this highly acclaimed book came out explaining both the theory and pratice of generalized additive models in a clear and concise way. Generalized additive models are similar to generalized linear models in their additive structure but the form of the additive functions is much more general.
Both Hastie and Tibshirani are now Stanford professors in the Statistics Department and both have written other excellent books including their joint publication with Jerry Friedman "The Elements of Statistical Learning" and Tibshirani along with Efron wrote an excellent monograph on bootstrap.

Believe it or not this important topic in applied statistics was developed by Hastie and Tibshirani when they were graduate students, a sure sign of greatness to come. After their graduation this highly acclaimed book came out explaining both the theory and pratice of generalized additive models in a clear and concise way. Generalized additive models are similar to generalized linear models in their additive structure but the form of the additive functions is much more general.

Both Hastie and Tibshirani are now Stanford professors in the Statistics Department and both have written other excellent books including their joint publication with Jerry Friedman "The Elements of Statistical Learning" and Tibshirani along with Efron wrote an excellent monograph on bootstrap.

This is the only text I have used in teaching intro GIS courses for the last four years. It's getting a little long in the tooth--it was written over ten years ago and the hardware illustrations in particular are quite out of date--but the presentation of the fundamentals is still uniformly solid. Newer developments, like LIDAR, GPS, and 3D visualization, are not in this book at all, but are readily learned on the Web, which tends to focus on new stuff and go light on presentations of fundamentals: Web-based GIS materials and this book complement each other well. The focus is on using a GIS for decision making and support, which leads to a good balance between management and technical issues. And unlike many other (popular) GIS texts, this one is not riddled with typographical and technical errors.

Any prof teaching "Introductory GIS" can't go wrong using this as THE standard text in their course. Excellent in all facets. Solid in remote sensing and subsequent raster GIS applications. Good grounding in vector GIS. And a very easy read. Will give you many "jumping off" points for either academic or real-world directions. Good case-studies sprinkled liberally throughout - Aranoff definitely ranks with Thrall as one of today's GIS gurus!

Aronoff text is a must for anyone interested in the subject of GIS. It is a well written text that provides the reader with a solid foundation of GIS concepts, Remote Sensing, data input and output, data management, and GIS analysis functions. It is a concise and practical introduction to the use and function of GIS technology. The text presents concepts using examples from a wide range of disciplines including land planning, agriculture, and mineral exploration. The author also examines the process of GIS implementation including organizational needs, costs-benefits, justification, and legal and political issues.

Got this for a GIS class. Great reference book for both a student and professional wanting to know about geo-statistics and kridging.

I strongly recommend this book for reference and self study. It contains tons of useful definitions, theorems,lemmas, etc.., all with proofs. The algorithms are presented in a very clear and detailed way. The assumptions are stated clearly. It helps a lot with the math and derivations.

One could wonder how a new textbook in geostatistics would have a chance to offer something new and fresh to the reader, when there are so many of them already available on the market. The answer is contained in a sentence that could not be better and more clearly summarized than by the author himself, in the introductory chapter: "Derivations in mathematical books are unnecessarily general, resulting in a complexity that tends to intimidate the uninitiated, while explanations in geostatistical books are cryptically short--to the point that most readers end up taking the derivations for granted."

This single sentence is also the philosophy of this book. By keeping a constant link and perfect balance between theoretical and methodological concerns, the book allows the novice reader to discover step by step the exciting realm of geostatistics and its applications. As explained by the author, this textbook is the result of a long teaching experience to engineering students at the graduate level. After reading this book, I have to say that I wish I could have had the chance to be one of his students when I was struggling myself with theory as a Ph.D. student a few years ago.

A requirement for reading the book is a college-level knowledge in matrix algebra, probability, and statistics. I have found that in spite of its obviousness, this clarification is sometimes lacking in other introductory books, which tend to present the material in such a way the reader could wrongly believe that he or she will be able to grasp the basics and even the more advanced results without the necessity of having a basic command of the disciplines (probability and statistics) that underlie geostatistics. The author also emphasizes that "many of the suggestions of my colleagues were incorporated into the final text, but I reserve the right, and assume the blame, for disagreeing in a few instances." This sentence shows us that beyond the various streams that exist in the field, the author had in mind the concern of presenting a view of the field as objective as possible to the newcomer, which is a very responsible attitude.

The book includes 14 chapters. Each chapter is organized in a very clear fashion, by making distinctions between what is a definition, lemma, theorem, corollary, assumption, or algorithm. This helps the reader avoid confusion about a pure theoretical property and widely accepted methodological ways of having the job done. A proof for each lemma, theorem, and corollary, as direct as possible, is provided each time and allows the curious reader to discover why things are the way they are. This theoretical presentation is accompanied in many places by practical guidelines and discussions that help the reader to make the step from theory to practice. Numerous, very practical, exercises are proposed, as well as commented and illustrated solutions. Only the most classical techniques are presented, allowing the reader to focus on the essentials, rather than being overwhelmed by numerous variations on the same topic and the unavoidable and often confusing discussion about advantages and disadvantages of each of them. Adequate additional references are provided for the reader who wants to go further herself or himself.

I would conclude by saying that this book, in my opinion, is one of the best introductions to geostatistics that I have ever read. It is a perfect balance between theory and methodological considerations. The presentation of the various techniques is made with a permanent concern for the comprehension of the underlying theory, without neglecting the illustrative part that helps the reader to fully understand the implications of the developments. It is concise and yet complete enough for helping the newcomer to find his or her way in the meanders of this rapidly evolving discipline. I am sure that even the more experienced geostatisticians will read it with great pleasure and will find for it a very special place on their bookshelf. It is the kind of book that you enjoy recommending to anyone who wants a good starting point in a field. I will personally use it as reference book for my students. In summary, I very strongly recommend this book to anyone who wants to have an introductory, consistent, and unbiased view of geostatistics.

One imagines John G. Morris as the sort of grandfather with a thousand amazing stories, whom everyone in the family has asked to write a book for years and who finally sets about the task.

As a sequence of compelling snapshots, Morris selects and arranges his tales into a layout that explores unresolved questions, ambivalences, regrets, hopes, thrills, and humor.

For anyone interested in photojournalism, as a profession, its personalities - the lives, loves, and losses of those standing on the other side of the camera while celebrities splash across the pages - this book is an excellent starting place. His 'editor's eye' view of the profession turns the camera back upon the photographers, telling tales behind pictures generally left untold. By disclosing the various photographic negatives, he discloses a positively fascinating image of the origins of modern imagemaking.

I just finished reading this novel and I must admitt it is one of the best novels I have read this year. It really is an exciting travel through the 20th century, through the eyes of a man who's carreer made him involved with major political and social events. I would say this is a must to anyone interested in photography and journalism, and a recommended for anyone with a heartbeat. I really loved this book.

This is a well-written rolicking ride through the last century and the history of photojournalism in the American media. It has an index that reads like the Who's Who of the century with anecdotes and insights galore on the movers and shakers of photojournalism and history. I enjoyed every word and I recommend it highly.

I picked "Going Critical" because of our current state of affairs and our own internal debate as tto how to effectively deal with North Korea. Their are many issues and items the book highlights, most importantly being how enigmatic, unpredictable and paranoid North Korea was during the 1990's. I suspect that the level of paranoia has only increased in light of the current US position toward the regime of Kim Jong Il.

It is striking how many nations, in particular Japan and s. Korea, most European nations, and to a lesser extent China and Russia are inclined to keep North Korea in a box, without Nuclear Weapons. The issue is the delicate balance of preventing Pyongyang from going nuclear without making them move their million man army across the 38th.

If you are into the inside baseball of diplomatic neotiations, this is certainly a book for you.

The three authors of Going Critical were important members of the U.S. team that negotiated the Agreed Framework with North Korea in 1993-94. Rather than considering the accord a failure because the DPRK ultimately undertook a secret uranium enrichment project, the authors argue persuasively that their handiwork postponed North Korean production of plutonium for eight years - from 1994 to 2002 - at relatively low cost to the U.S. and the international community.
The most important aspect of the book is not argument, however, but information. The authors give us a detailed, play-by-play account of U.S. decisions and actions in the negotiations with North Korea, going well beyond anything previously available. I wrote my own account of the DPRK nuclear program and the Agreed Framework negotiations in 63 pages in my book, The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History. Authors Wit, Poneman and Gallucci devote 408 pages to these developments, including a good deal of inside information that was previously unavailable. Outsiders, including historians, can continue to debate whether the U.S. negotiating team should have made the compromises it did in order to reach an agreement with North Korea. Now, at least, they can have some solid facts to undergird their opinions.
This is a major contribution to contemporary history. Beyond this, the final chapter includes lessons learned, as the authors apply them, for present and future dealings with North Korea regarding its dangerous and destabilizing nuclear weapons programs.

Is a second Korean War looming on the horizon? Most likely, unless North Korea can be deterred from its ongoing campaigns, say Joel S. Wit, Daniel Poneman and Robert Gallucci in Going Critical. Their hard-hitting analysis of the current crisis in Korea includes a studied history of diplomatic and political events of the past, exploring the challenges of hard negotiations with North Korea to date. From cabinet meetings in Washington to Geneva talks and North Korean associations with China, Going Critical is a 'must' for any who would understand the latest issues and their ongoing implications for a nuclear crisis.

I have read and widely used Dick B.'s book, The Good Book and The Big Book: A.A.'s Roots in the Bible. I understand it is the most frequently ordered and re-ordered of the Dick B. A.A. History books. And it succinctly lays out the material that is foundational to A.A. and the Twelve Steps and yet is neither known nor used among the secularized meeting fellowships today. True, A.A.'s basic ideas came from the Bible. True, Christians need to know that so that they can feel comfortable with their Bibles and believing within their recovery fellowships today. But how about those--and they are increasing in number--who want to have study groups in A.A., in recovery groups, in treatment programs, and among their Christian, clergy, and church friends? This Good Book-Big Book Guidebook fits the bill. It shows how to study the Bible and incorporate early A.A.'s Christian roots in your study groups today. It is a valuable companion book for the original Good Book title. I would recommend them highly for those who are conducting, starting, or thinking about a Good Book study group for newcomers and others who want to grow.

I like having a guidebook that I can use for my own study and which can also be used by study groups and fellowships that want to dig in together. There have been lots of attempts to provide guides to the Scriptures and the Twelve Steps. But most have been written by Bible companies, treatment facilities, and professionals. This book, however, is written by a veteran A.A. who is a long-time Bible student and also a long-time active A.A. member who has attended thousands of meetings and sponsored over 100 men. This book will be used for a long time. It will be used by AAs and Twelve Step people who are waking up to the importance of the Bible in the cures and high success rates of early A.A. This book tells how it was used. The book will be used by Christians and churches who are waking up to the fact that A.A. is not some self-made cult but actually had a Christian beginning, Christian Fellowship, and intense reliance on the Bible and the Creator in the early years. I find it uniquely helpful for its variety of segments: (1) How early AAs approached and included the newcomer in their program. (2)The frank statements by the pioneers that they had been healed; and Dick turns the reader to the Bible verses and history that show recovery and cure by religious means in early A.A. and through the ages. (3) There's a segment on A.A.'s own spiritual roots, a segment on the details of the early Christian Fellowship principles and practices,and a segment on the specific parts of the Bible considered absolutely essential. (4) There is more on how pioneers approached alcoholism, sin, overcoming, and victory. (5) There's a vital concluding chapter that tells me and me group exactly how to study this picture and use it today and spread the word by witness. There's an excellent bibliogrpahy. There's also material in two appendices which will inspire action and which will tell anyone exactly how he can study and conduct a study group today. It's a tool for Twelve Step work and Bible study.

Review of The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook

By Terry Dunford

The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook by Dick B. is a marvelous piece of work. I was very excited to hear that an author has finally written a book that explains how individuals, treatment centers, recovery groups, churches, counselors, etc... can apply the spiritual origins of A.A. into their own recovery. This particular Guidebook is truly priceless because once treatment centers, recovery groups, and individuals start applying the principles and concepts that Dick B. explains, alcoholics and all sinners can finally learn a program of recovery that truly produces awesome results.

Anyone in the recovery arena can utilize this Guidebook. This Guidebook is suitable for individuals in recovery, Christians, treatment centers, counselors, clinicians, church leaders, and anyone else that have a desire to learn the true spiritual origins of A.A. Furthermore, this Guidebook explains HOW we can incorporate the spiritual principles and biblical roots of A.A. into recovery today. This Guidebook is a must-have for all Christians. Dick B. uncovers the truth for us all to understand and utilize.

First, The Good Book-Big Book Guidebook explains how we can incorporate A.A.'s Biblical origins and Christian Fellowship into recovery today. This information is extremely important because early A.A.'s success rate was unbelievably high as they were utilizing the spiritual principles of the early program. Dick B. explains that the Founders of A.A. believed in Almighty God. He then goes on to mention the Founder's belief in a cure of alcoholism. This cure that early AAs believed in has been meticulously uncovered by the 16 plus years of research conducted by Dick B.

Dick B. continues on to explain the spiritual beginnings of A.A. The two distinctly different spiritual origins of A.A. are laid out for us all to understand. Many important factors on the early program are explained. For example, Dick B. talks about the materials from the Bible that Dr. Bob considered "Absolutely Essential." Other important information is explained like the verses that received special attention and use in early A.A. Dick B. then continues on to explain the important role of the Book of Matthew, the Book of James, and 1 Corinthians 13.

The information I listed above is just as short preview of all the great information provided by this tremendous Guidebook. One of the most important aspects of this Guidebook is the mention of how to use and apply the Guidebook in recovery today. Not only is the information about early AA explained, but Dick B. has explained how we can utilize the important spiritual principles in recovery today. This is very important because AA today is focusing on a "Higher Power" and the real biblical origins of AA are not talked about. Because of this, the success rate of today is extremely low. Now, with this new Guidebook, we can finally start utilizing the spiritual principles of early AA in recovery today. This book is a must-have for everyone in recovery. God Bless!

AAs seem to crave "meditation" books, "reflection" books, devotional "guide books," and the like. Consequently, there are hundreds of books, pamphlets, and guides published in the last couple of decades. Yet there has been none suited to the AAs' taste for what the founders did. Dick set about gathering the precise books--like the Upper Room, The Runner's Bible, The Greatest Thing in The World, As a Man Thinketh, The Soul's Sincere Desire, My Utmost for His Highest, and many others--that were used by the pioneers. In fact, their quiet times were a must. They were required. And Bill Wilson remarked that he always felt something was lost in the program when the quiet time periods were abandoned. Well, they are not abandoned now. This book has been used by many of my friends as a real assist in their fellowship with God. It describes what a real quiet time was. It tells who did what, how, and why. And it provides an excellent resource for those who set aside time each day to read their Bibles, pray to God, ask the Creator's guidance, and study further.

A Key Work on Morning Meditation and Prayer
Early on, Dick B. discovered that there were plenty of meditation and prayer books, but practically none that showed what early AAs were doing with their Quiet Times. This is an excellent help to me in following the sequence of 'meditation' events: a new birth, Bible study, prayer, seeking God's guidance, studying a devotional like The Upper Room, The Runner's Bible, and My Utmost for His Highest. It's actually a guide in my own daily prayer life, and can be for anyone who wants to be in touch with God each day - just as AA pioneers were

Also recommended: The Akron Genesis of Alcoholics Anonymous by Dick B. New Light on Alcoholism by Dick B. That Amazing Grace by Dick B.

Those of us who observe a morning quiet time (that means Bible study, prayer, thanks to God, asking for His guidance, and sometimes the use of collateral materials)welcome this nifty review of quiet time and the morning watch through the ages. It shows the real biblical roots of morning prayer and "meditation" and provides an excellent guide, not only as to what early AAs did, but what we can do today. It is a guide for morning watch and also for seeking God's help throughout the day, followed by a hefty vote of thanks to Him at night.