Unforgettable Books
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Advances in Robotics Research: Theory, Implementation, Application (2009)
The German Workshop on Robotics is a convention of roboticists from academia and industry working on mathematical and algorithmic foundations of robotics, on the design and analysis of robotic systems as well as on robotic applications. Selected contributions from researchers in German-speaking countries as well as from the international robotics community compose this volume. The papers are organized in ten scientific tracks: Kinematic and Dynamic Modeling, Motion Generation, Sensor Integration, Robot Vision, Robot Programming, Humanoid Robots, Grasping, Medical Robotics, Autonomous Helicopters, and Robot Applications. Due to an extensive review and discussion process, this collection of scientific contributions is of very high caliber and promises to strongly influence future robotic research activities.
$174.99 $169.99
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Drm, a Design Research Methodology (2009)
The initial motivator for the development of DRM, a Design Research Methodology, and the subsequent writing of this book was our frustration about the lack of a common terminology, benchmarked research methods, and above all, a common research methodology in design. A shared view of the goals and framework for doing design research was missing. Design is a multidisciplinary activity occurring in multiple application areas and involving multiple stakeholders. As a consequence, design research emerges in a variety of disciplines for a variety of applications with a variety of subjects. This makes it particularly difficult to review its literature, relate various pieces of work, find common ground, and validate and share results that are so essential for sustained progress in a research community. Above all, design research needs to be successful not only in an academic sense, but also in a practical sense. How could we help the community develop knowledge that is both academically and practically worthwhile? Each of us had our individual ideas of how this situation could be improved. Lucienne Blessing, while finishing her thesis that involved studying and improving the design process, developed valuable insights about the importance and relationship of empirical studies in developing and evaluating these improvements. Amaresh Chakrabarti, while finishing his thesis on developing and evaluating computational tools for improving products, had developed valuable insights about integrating and improving the processes of building and evaluating tools.
$244.00 $239.00
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Technology and Regulation: How Are They Driving Our Markets? (2009)
This book is an augmented account of Technology and Regulation: How Are They Driving Our Markets?, a conference hosted by the Zicklin School of Business at Baruch College on May 1, 2007. The text includes the edited transcript of the full conference: four panels and the major presentations of three distinguished industry leaders - Ian Domowitz, Managing Director, ITG, Inc.; Erik Sirri, Director of the Division of Market Regulation, US Securities and Exchange Commission; and John Thain, who was CEO of NYSE Euronext at the time of the conference. The book also includes a related paper by Paul Davis, Mike Pagano, and myself: "Divergent Expectations," Journal of Portfolio Management, Fall 2007. My co-editors and I have worked diligently to make this book, like all the other popular books in the series, more than an historical record. John Byrne, Antoinette Colaninno and I have edited the manuscript heavily for clarity and unity of ideas.
$174.99 $169.99
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New Understanding of Terrorism: Case Studies, Trajectories and Lessons Learned (2009)
Terrorism is a complex phenomenon that cannot be understood through reading of a number of unrelated academic articles or a dry overview of the history of terrorism or the investigative techniques. For A New Understanding of Terrorism, the Editors have chosen a different paradigm. They have selected numerous case studies from actual events that illustrate various typologies of terrorist actions, be it from a separatist, nationalist, lone-wolf individual terrorist, religious fanatics or environmentalist orientation, and they present these cases within the context of following the trajectories of the terrorist activity, the terrorist act itself and, the response to the event from the relevant authorities. Some chapters concentrate on terrorist attacks that actually took place, others speculate about the possibilities of an attack occurring sometime in the future, such as the chapters on the Olympic Games, Aviation or Rail Security. When possibilities rather than a specific event are discussed, the authors of these chapters draw the attention of the reader towards the same direction--the reasoning, the actual event and the response that followed. The thorough analysis of the presented case studies and the applied counter-measures will, hopefully, if not curtail then possibly at least mitigate the operational and ideological strength of terrorist groups or individual actors. A New Understanding of Terrorism will enable the reader to make the connection between the emotional charge inherent in any terrorist activity, the cold-blooded tactics that lead to the terrorist event itself and the pragmatic and very straightforward, but at the same time very simplistically designed, strategic response that has to come from a synergy between academics, military and law enforcement brainstorming design in order to be more effective in the future. ABOUT THE EDITORS: M.R. (Maki) Haberfeld is a Professor ofPolice Science at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. She has worked for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, in the New York Field Office, as a special consultant. Prior to that she has served in a counter-terrorist unit in the Israeli Defense Forces and she left the army at the rank of Sergeant. She was also a lieutenant in the Israel National Police. For the past eight years, Dr. Haberfeld has been involved in developing, coordinating and teaching in a special training program for the New York City Police Department, where she teaches courses in police ethics, leadership and counter-terrorism. She was also an Academic Coordinator of the Law Enforcement Executive Police Institute for the State of New York, where she taught modules on counter-terrorism response. Agostino von Hassell is the president of The Repton Group LLC, a New York City based consulting group that deals mostly with national security issues. He has written numerous political and historical articles and is the author of two major military histories, Warriors: The United States Marine Corps and Strike Force: Marine Corps Special Operations. In 2003, he published a pictorial portrait of the United States--In Honor of America. He has taught as an adjunct professor in the graduate program of John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, teaching members of the New York City Police Department in subjects such as counter-terrorism and leadership. He is a life member of the United States Marine Corps Combat Correspondents, the National Defense Industry Association, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers and the Authors' Guild.
$254.99 $249.99
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Uncertainties in Environmental Modelling and Consequences for Policy Making (2009)
Mathematical modelling has become in recent years an essential tool for the prediction of environmental change and for the development of sustainable policies. Yet, many of the uncertainties associated with modelling efforts appear poorly understood by many, especially by policy makers. This book attempts for the first time to cover the full range of issues related to model uncertainties, from the subjectivity of setting up a conceptual model of a given system, all the way to communicating the nature of model uncertainties to non-scientists and accounting for model uncertainties in policy decisions. Theoretical chapters, providing background information on specific steps in the modelling process and in the adoption of models by end-users, are complemented by illustrative case studies dealing with soils and global climate change. All the chapters are authored by recognized experts in their respective disciplines, and provide a timely and uniquely comprehensive coverage of an important field.
$224.99 $219.99
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Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe Is Safe Enough? (2009)
Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? provides a foundation and a theoretical basis for managing risk to an acceptable level under the real-world constraint of limited resources. The focus is not on risks as such, but on what can be done to maximize the positive outcomes of risk in terms of improvements to the quality of life. The principal focus of Engineering Decisions for Life Quality: How Safe is Safe Enough? is on the development of guidance for establishing rational standards of practice. Standards should meet the requirement of utilizing resources to achieve the maximum net overall benefit to society within society's capacity to commit such resources. The ideas discussed within this book will be of interest to engineers; advanced undergraduate and graduate students; public health officials; and risk specialists.
$174.99 $169.99
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Business of Bioscience: What Goes Into Making a Biotechnology Product (2009)
My journey into this fascinating field of biotechnology started about 26 years ago at a small biotechnology company in South San Francisco called Genentech. I was very fortunate to work for the company that begat the biotech industry during its formative years. This experience established a solid foundation from which I could grow in both the science and business of biotechnology. After my fourth year of working on Oyster Point Boulevard, a close friend and colleague left Genentech to join a start-up biotechnology company. Later, he approached me to leave and join him in of all places - Oklahoma. He persisted for at least a year before I seriously considered his proposal. After listening to their plans, the opportunity suddenly became more and more intriguing. Finally, I took the plunge and joined this ent- preneurial team in cofounding and growing a start-up biotechnology company. Making that fateful decision to leave the security of a larger company was extremely difficult, but it turned out to be the beginning of an entrepreneurial career that forever changed how I viewed the biotechnology industry. Since that time, I have been fortunate to have cofounded two other biotechnology com- nies and even participated in taking one of them public. During my career in these start-ups, I held a variety of positions, from directing the science, operations, regulatory, and marketing components, to subsequently becoming CEO.
$204.99 $199.99
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Substantive Perspectivism: An Essay on Philosophical Concern with Truth (2009)
I have been thinking about the philosophical issue of truth for more than two decades. It is one of several fascinating philosophical issues that motivated me to change my primary re ective interest to philosophy after receiving BS in mathem- ics in 1982. Some serious academic work in this connection started around the late eighties when I translated into Chinese a dozen of Donald Davidson's representative essays on truth and meaning and when I assumed translator for Adam Morton who gave a series of lectures on the issue in Beijing (1988), which was co-sponsored by my then institution (Institute of Philosophy, Chinese Academy of Social Science). I have loved the issue both for its own sake (as one speci c major issue in the phil- ophy of language and metaphysics) and for the sake of its signi cant involvement in many philosophical issues in different subjects of philosophy. Having been attracted to the analytic approach, I was then interested in looking at the issue both from the points of view of classical Chinese philosophy and Marxist philosophy, two major styles or frameworks of doing philosophy during that time in China, and from the point of view of contemporary analytic philosophy, which was then less recognized in the Chinese philosophical circle.
$114.99 $109.99
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Targeted Cancer Immune Therapy (2009)
Stimulation of the immune system's ability to control and destroy tumors cont- ues to be the goal of cancer immune therapy; but the scope has rapidly expanded; approaches are constantly updated; new molecules are continually introduced; and immune mechanisms are becoming better understood. This book has no intention of covering every aspect of immune therapy but rather focuses on the novelty of cancer immune therapy in an attempt to give readers an opportunity to absorb the new aspects of immune therapy from a single source. In this regard, three areas were selected: cytokine immune therapy, cell-based immune therapy, and targeted immune therapy. In each of these three sections, only the novel aspects of immune therapy were described instead of attempting to cover any historical achievement. In the first section, Cytokine Immune Therapy, the IL12 family, IL18, IL21, IL24, IL28, and IL29 were emphasized in regard to the an- tumor function and application in treating tumors. Most of these selected cyt- ines were discovered in last 10 years. In the second section, Cell-based Immune Therapy, the focus was engineering potent immune regulatory or effector cells such as dendritic cells, T cells, and stem cells. Cell engineering design is primarily based on the increased understanding of the interaction of tumor antigen-presenting cells, antigen- specific effector cells, and the tumor microenvironment.
$224.99 $219.99
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Not Invited to the Party: How the Demopublicans Have Rigged the System and Left Independents Out in the Cold (2010)
Not Invited to the Party demonstrates how the dominant political parties--the Democrats and Republicans--have co-opted the system to their advantage. James Bennett examines the history and array of laws, regulations, subsidies and programs that benefit the two major parties and discourage even the possibility of a serious challenge to the Democrat-Republican duopoly. The American Founders, as it has been generally forgotten, distrusted political parties. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution are parties mentioned, much less given legal protection or privilege. This provocative book traces how by the end of the Civil War the Republicans and Democrats had guaranteed their dominance and subsequently influenced a range of policies developed to protect the duopoly. For example, Bennett examines how the Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (as amended in 1974 and 1976), which was sold to the public as a nonpartisan act of good government reformism actually reinforced the dominance of the two parties. While focused primarily on the American experience, the book also considers the prevalence of two-party systems around the world (especially in emerging democracies) and the widespread contempt with which they are often viewed. Featuring incisive commentary on the 2008 election, and a foreword by third-party iconoclast, Ralph Nader, the book considers the potential of truly radical reform toward opening the field to vigorous, lively, contentious independent candidacies that might finally offer alienated voters a choice, not an echo.
$29.50 $24.50
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Computational Methods for Counterterrorism (2009)
Modern terrorist networks pose an unprecedented threat to international security. The question of how to neutralize that threat is complicated radically by their fluid, non-hierarchical structures, religious and ideological motivations, and predominantly non-territorial objectives. Governments and militaries are crafting new policies and doctrines to combat terror, but they desperately need new technologies to make these efforts effective. This book collects a wide range of the most current computational research that addresses critical issues for countering terrorism, including: Finding, summarizing, and evaluating relevant information from large and changing data stores; Simulating and predicting enemy acts and outcomes; and Producing actionable intelligence by finding meaningful patterns hidden in huge amounts of noisy data. The book's four sections describe current research on discovering relevant information buried in vast amounts of unstructured data; extracting meaningful information from digitized documents in multiple languages; analyzing graphs and networks to shed light on adversaries' goals and intentions; and developing software systems that enable analysts to model, simulate, and predict the effects of real-world conflicts. The research described in this book is invaluable reading for governmental decision-makers designing new policies to counter terrorist threats, for members of the military, intelligence, and law enforcement communities devising counterterrorism strategies, and for researchers developing more effective methods for knowledge discovery in complicated and diverse datasets.
$114.99 $109.99
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Pre-Columbian Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, and Markets in Ancient Mesoamerica (2010)
The significance of food and feasting to Pre-Columbian Mesoamerican cultures has been extensively studied by archaeologists, anthropologists and art historians. Foodways studies have been critical to our understanding of early agriculture, political economies, and the domestication and management of plants and animals. Scholars from diverse fields have explored the symbolic complexity of food and its preparation, as well as the social importance of feasting in contemporary and historical societies. This book unites these disciplinary perspectives -- from the social and biological sciences to art history and epigraphy -- creating a work comprehensive in scope, which reveals our increasing understanding of the various roles of foods and cuisines in Mesoamerican cultures. The volume is organized thematically into three sections. Part 1 gives an overview of food and feasting practices as well as ancient economies in Mesoamerica. Part 2 details ethnographic, epigraphic and isotopic evidence of these practices. Finally, Part 3 presents the metaphoric value of food in Mesoamerican symbolism, ritual, and mythology. The resulting volume provides a thorough, interdisciplinary resource for understanding, food, feasting, and cultural practices in Mesoamerica.
$334.00 $329.00
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