Short Book Reviews (notes) On-Line 2004

HISTORY OF PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS BEFORE 1750.	A. Hald.
KEPLER'S CONJECTURE: How Some of the Greatest Minds in History Solved One of the Oldest Math Problems in the World.	G.G. Szpiro.
LESLIE KISH: SELECTED PAPERS.	G. Kalton and S. Heeringa (Eds.).
HANDBOOK OF PARAMETRIC AND NONPARAMETRIC STATISTICAL PROCEDURES, 3rd edition.	D.J. Sheskin.
BIGGER THAN CHAOS. Understanding Complexity Through Probability.	M. Strevens.
STATISTICAL TOOLS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY MEASUREMENT.	M.E. Ginevan and D.E. Splitstone.
SUSTAINABLE ENVIRONMENTS. A Statistical Analysis.	A.K. Ghosh, J.K. Ghosh and B. Mukhopadhyay (Eds.).
MATHEMATICS AND WAR.	B. Boob-Bavnbek and J. Hoyrup (Eds.).
PUTTING SCIENCE IN ITS PLACE. Geographies of Scientific Knowledge.	D.N. Livingstone.
DECISIONS, UNCERTAINTY, AND THE BRAIN. The Science of Neuroeconomics.	P.W. Glimcher.
HABITS OF MIND. Fostering Access and Excellence in Higher Education.	W.B. Allen and C.M. Allen.
THE MEANING OF EVERYTHING: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.	S. Winchester.
ISAAC NEWTON.	J. Gleick.
NO TIME TO BE BRIEF: A Scientific Biography of Wolfgang Pauli.	C.P. Enz.
THE TANGLED FIELD. Barbara McClintock's Search for the Patterns of Genetic ControI.	N.C. Comfort.
ORIGAMI DESIGN SECRETS. Mathematical Methods for an Ancient Art.	R.J. Lang.
CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS. TITAN OF SCIENCE.	G.W. Dunnington. Additional Material by J. Gray and F.-E. Dohse.
HOW TO WIN THE NOBEL PRIZE. AN UNEXPECTED LIFE IN SCIENCE.	J.M. Bishop.
MEDICAL STATISTICS FROM A TO Z. A GUIDE FOR CLINICIANS AND MEDICAL STUDENTS.	B.S. Everitt.
WHO SHOULD PAY FOR MEDICARE?	D. Shaviro.
UNIVERSITIES IN THE MARKET PLACE: THE COMMERCIALIZATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION.	D. Bok.
LIFE'S SOLUTION: INEVITABLE HUMANS IN A LONELY UNIVERSE.	S. Conway Morris.
UNCERTAIN SCIENCE… UNCERTAIN WORLD.	H.N. Pollack.
TAKING FLIGHT: INVENTING THE AERIAL AGE FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE FIRST WORLD WAR.	R.P. Hallion.
AUDIO ANECDOTES. Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Digital Audio.	K. Greenebaum and R. Barzel (Eds.).
FRACTALS AND CHAOS. The Mandelbrot Set and Beyond. Selected. Volume C.	B.B. Mandelbrot. Foreword by P.W. Jones.
STATISTICS, ECONOMETRICS AND FORECASTING.	A. Zellner.
INFORMATION THEORY, INFERENCE AND LEARNING ALGORITHMS.	D.J.C. Mackay.
STATISTICS, SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY VIII. Science, Ethics and the Law.	A.M. Herzberg and R.W. Oldford (Eds.).
STATISTICS, SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY.	J.C. Bailar III, H.B. Dinsdale, B.A. Farbey, A.M. Herzberg, K.W. James and R.W. Oldford.
FERMI REMEMBERED.	J.W. Cronin (Ed.).
HANDBOOK OF MATHEMATICS, 4th edition.	I.N. Bronshtein, K.A. Semendyayev, G. Musiol and H. Muehlig.
HANDBOOK OF BETA DISTRIBUTION AND ITS APPLICATIONS.	A.K. Gupta and S. Nadarajah (Eds.).
HANDBOOK OF SCHEDULING. Algorithms, Models, and Performance Analysis.	J.Y-T. Leung (Ed.).
CONSUMER PRICE INDEX MANUAL. THEORY AND PRACTICE.	U.N. International Labour Office.
METHODS FOR TESTING AND EVALUATING SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRES.	S. Presser, J.M. Rothgeb, M.P. Comper, J.T. Lessler, E. Martin, J. Martin and E. Singer.
THE DUTCH VIRTUAL CENSUS OF 2001: ANALYSIS AND METHODOLOGY.	E.S. Nordholt, M. Hartgers and R. Gircour (Eds.).
FOREST PRODUCTS: STATISTICAL INFORMATION SYSTEMS OF EU AND EFTA.	P. Wardle, J. van Brusselen, B. Micke and A. Sohnet.
PROBABILITY, FINANCE AND INSURANCE: PROCEEDINGS OF A WORKSHOP AT THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG.	T.L. Lai, H. Yang and S.P. Yung (Eds.).
THE THEORY OF INFORMATION AND CODING: STUDENT EDITION.	R. McEliece.
THE PARADOX OF CHOICE.	B. Schwartz.
THE SKEPTIC'S DICTIONARY: A COLLECTION OF STRANGE BELIEFS, AMUSING DECEPTIONS AND DANGEROUS DELUSIONS.	R.T. Carroll.
WORLD CATALOGUE OF MAXIMUM OBSERVED FLOODS/RÉPERTOIRE MONDIAL DES CRUES MAXIMALES OBSERVÉES.	Compiled by R. Herschy.
TOWARDS COHERENCE BETWEEN CLASSROOM ASSESSMENT AND ACCOUNTABILITY.	M. Wilson (Ed.).

This is a reprinting of Professor Hald's classic book "History of Probability and Statistics and Their Applications before 1750". It was first published in 1990. Because of the historical interests it seems perhaps appropriate to repeat the review by Professor M. Stone after these thirteen years.
Reprint from Vol. 10. p. 21: "The author wanted to write a different book on nineteenth century statistics. He found it necessary to write this "introduction" instead, to rectify the incompleteness of Todhunter's history and to strike a better balance between the contributions of the earlier period than had been achieved previously. As the contents list suggests, the account goes into great detail, more than enough to assure the reader that the promise of greater completeness and balance has been largely fulfilled. The original sources are described in modern notation, making the account very accessible. The reader is challenged to solve problems suggested by the source material, which was itself largely the result of problem posing and solving. The book should be useful for teachers willing to risk putting some slices of history into their lecture courses."
A review of Professor Hald's A History of Mathematical Statistics from 1750 to 1930 appears in Short Book Reviews, Vol. 18, p. 41.

From the book jacket: "For 400 years, some of the best and brightest minds set out to prove Kepler's conjecture – like Fermat's ceIebrated last theorem, one of the oldest unproven mathematical conjectures – which raised one perplexing question: What is the best way to pack balls as densely as possible? Kepler's Conjecture traces the fascinating history and progression of this geometric puzzle, illustrating how thoroughly this one simple question stymied the mathematical world.
"Sometime toward the end of the 1590s, English nobleman and seafarer Sir Walter Raleigh set this great mathematical investigation in motion. While stocking his ship for yet another expedition, Raleigh asked his assistant, Thomas Harriot, to develop a formula that would allow him to know how many cannonballs were in a given stack simply by looking at the shape of the pile. Harriot solved the problem and took it one step further by attempting to discover how to maximize the number of cannonballs that would fit in the hold of a ship. And thus a problem was born.
"After contemplating the question for a while, Harriot turned to one of the foremost mathematicians, physicists, and astronomers of the time, Johannes Kepler. Kepler did not reflect long, and came to the conclusion that the densest way to pack three dimensional spheres was to stack them in the same manner that market vendors stack their apples, oranges and melons.
"Although this was fine for fruit vendors, until the conjecture could be proven, the mathematical world could not accept it. The first and only popular account of one of the greatest math problems of all time, Kepler's Conjecture examines the attempts of many mathematical geniuses to prove this problem once and for all - from Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe to math greats Sir Isaac Newton and Carl Friedrich Gauss, from modern titans David Hilbert and Buckminster Fuller to Thomas Hales of the University of Michigan, who in 1998 submitted what seems to be definitive proof."

Leslie Kish (1910-2000) was one of the founding fathers of survey sampling.
From the back cover: "This volume collects, for the first time, Kish's most important papers. The seventeen articles cover wide-ranging topics – theoretical, practical, and philosophical – from the role of probability sampling in scientific research to his ideas on professional leadership and training of statisticians. Bringing together a lifetime of research and practice, Leslie Kish: Selected Papers is both a fitting tribute to the genius of the man and a highly useful, one-volume compilation of insight into the art and science of survey statistics."

From the back cover: [New in the third edition are: "Detailed discussions on the Gart test for order effects, the Stuart-Maxwell test of marginal homogeneity, the JonckheereTerpstra and Page tests for ordered alternatives, the coupon collector's test for randomness, Cohen's kappa, the intraclass correlation coefficient, the binomial effect size display, procedures for dealing with missing data, and the randomized-blocks design;
"ln-depth discussion of the basic principles of probability, including rules accompanied by examples for computing probabilities;
"Detailed treatment of alternative hypothesis testing models, including a full discussion of Bayes' theorem and Bayesian hypothesis testing;
"A comprehensive section on experimental design that includes pre-experimental designs, quasi-expe-rimental designs, true experimental designs, and single-subject designs;
"An extensive amount of new material, including 22 figures, added to the Introduction to make the book even more accessible to those without a background in statistics."

From the book jacket: "Many complex systems – from immensely complicated ecosystems to minute assemblages of molecules – surprise us with their simple behavior. Consider, for instance, the snowflake, in which a
great number of water molecules arrange themselves in patterns with six-way symmetry. How is it that molecules moving seemingly at random become organized according to the simple, sixfold rule? How do the comings, goings, meetings, and eatings of individual animals add up to the simple dynamics of ecosystem populations? More generally, how does complex and seemingly capricious microbehavior generate stable, predictable macrobehavior?
"In this book, Michael Strevens aims to explain how simplicity can coexist with, indeed be caused by, the tangled interconnections among a complex system's many parts. At the center of Strevens's explanation is the notice of probability and, more particularly, probabilistic independence. By examining the foundations of statistical reasoning about complex systems such as gases, ecosystems, and certain social systems, Strevens provides an understanding of how simplicity emerges from complexity. Along the way, he draws lessons concerning the low-level explanation of high-level phenomena and the basis for introducing probabilistic concepts into physical theory."

From the back of the book: "Statistical Tools for Environmental Quality Measurement provides a detailed review of statistical tools used in analyzing and addressing environmental issues. This book examines commonly used techniques found in USEPA guidelines and discusses their potential impact on decision-making. The authors are not constrained by statistical formalism; they advise when to go outside of standard statistical models when making difficult decisions. The content is presented in a practical style that prioritizes methods that work, based upon the authors' extensive experience.
"The text points out that simplicity facilitates effective communication of an analysis and decision to a "consumer" of statistics. The book emphasizes the exact question that each procedure addresses, so that environmental scientists and engineers can clearly identify the question they want to ask, and correctly interpret the results."

From the book jacket: "This collection on the application of statistical sciences to environmental problems presents cutting edge statistical techniques for describing, modelling, and monitoring processes or events associated with environmental degradation. ...
"One of the first of its kind to present numerous case studies in the context of environmental policy, the volume will be of relevance to both environmental specialists as well as policy-makers."

From the back cover: "This book gives a broad picture of the increasingly intimate intercourse of the world of weapons with that of theorems. It shows to what extent the military has played an active part in the shaping of modern mathematics and the careers of mathematicians, in particular since World War II. It investigates how mathematical thinking, mathematical methods, and mathematically supported technology are now about to change the character and performance of modern warfare, and how this influences the public as well as the military. It describes the ethical choices of outstanding individuals like the physicist Niels Bohr and the mathematician Alan Turing in times of war and addresses the question to what extent general ethical discussions can provide guidance for working mathematicians. Finally, it analyzes the role of mathematical thinking in shaping the modern international law of war and peace and the role of mathematical arguments in support for actual conflict resolution."

From the book jacket: "Putting Science in Its Place establishes the fundamental importance of geography in both the generation and the consumption of scientific knowledge, using historical examples of the many places where science has been practiced. Livingstone first turns his attention to some of the specific sites where science has been made – the laboratory, museum, and botanical garden, to name some of the more conventional locales, but also places like the coffeehouse and cathedral, ship's deck and asylum, even the human body itself. In each case, he reveals just how the space of inquiry has conditioned the investigations carried out there. He then describes how, on a regional scale, provincial cultures have shaped scientific endeavor and how, in turn, scientific practices have been instrumental in forming local identities. ...
"From the reception of Darwin in the land of the Maori to the giraffe that walked from Marseilles to Paris, Livingstone shows that place does matter, even in the world of science."

The author proposes that economic theory may provide an alternative to the classical Carterian model of the brain.

From the book jacket: "Habits of Mind maintains that the fact that almost everyone now goes to college need not be seen as an obstacle to excellence in education. Some critics have insisted that college is not for everyone, but William B. Allen and Carol Allen assert that the college diploma has rightly become as much the norm in this century as the high school diploma was during the twentieth century. Accordingly, it is essential that higher education remains true to its deepest purpose: the cultivation of proficient humanity. The authors see the key to this goal as the development of judgment, or "habits of mind." Habits of mind are far and away the most influential determinants of human conduct, and nowhere are they more profoundly shaped than in institutions of higher education. Furthermore, liberal education has proven most effective in this undertaking.
"The authors elaborate on the purpose of higher education and identify the chief obstacles to achieving its aim. They demonstrate the critical role of academic leaders in achieving the aim of higher education and posit that excellence in judgment is the primary characteristic of the academic leaders who fulfill this role. They examine three aspects of access to higher education: academic readiness, the cost and funding of higher education, and the capacity of the physical plant. Finally, they use policies developed in Virginia to demonstrate realistic approaches to achieving the aims of access and quality discussed throughout the book.
"The authors draw on their years of experience as practitioners in both private and public institutions, liberal arts colleges, and research universities to develop their material. This volume will be of interest to faculty and students in higher education programs, nation and state public policymakers, legislative and academic leaders, and a general public concerned about the cost and value of a college education."

From the book jacket: "'The greatest enterprise of its kind in history' declared British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin in June 1928 about the publication of the monumental book that was to crown the English language the undisputed monarch of the linguistic world: the Oxford English Dictionary.
"The making of the Dictionary was a remarkable achievement by hundreds of ordinary and extraordinary men and women, whose stories have until now remained untold. Simon Winchester illuminates this diverse cast of characters for the first time, uniting original research and evidence from the Oxford University Press archives with gripping narrative flair."

From the book jacket: "In 1659, when Isaac Newton was sixteen years old, he was fined for allowing his swine to trespass and his fences to lie in disrepair. Born in a remote country village, it seemed his destiny was to follow the plough and the dung cart. By the end of his life, he had discovered a new universe, with immutable laws; revolutionised human knowledge and become chief architect of the modern world.
"He explained how the moon and the sun tug at the seas to create tides. He salvaged the terms 'time', 'space', 'motion' from the haze of everyday language. We are now all Newtonians when we speak of forces and masses, of action and reaction; when we say that a sports team or political candidate has momentum; when we note the inertia of bureaucracy, and when we stretch out an arm and feel the force of gravity all around us.
"He scribbled millions of words in spidery handwriting, covering every inch in his notebooks.
"He shunned company and friendship and neglected to feed himself properly. He quarrelled bitterly with the great men of his age who professed to understand the sun, the planets and the stars, and he veered at least once to the brink of madness. What he wrote, he wrote for himself alone.
"James Gleick brings us a moving account of the conflicting impulses that pulled at this man's heart; his quiet longings, his rage, his secrecy. More than science, more than biography, more than history, this book tells us how, through one man, we have come to know our own place in the cosmos."

Wolfgang Pauli (1900-1958) was a well-known physicist. This book by Pauli's assistant at the time of his death looks at his life and scientific work and describes the evolution of his thinking. It shows Pauli's sarcastic wit and his dreams, his association with C.G. Jung and his school of psychology.

From the back cover: "This biographical study illuminates one of the most important yet misunderstood figures in the history of science. Barbara McClintock (1902-1992), a geneticist who integrated classical genetics with microscopic observations of the behavior of chromosomes, was regarded as a genius and as an unorthodox thinker. In 1946, she discovered mobile genetic elements, which she called "controlling elements." Thirty-seven years later, she won a Nobel Prize for this work. Since then, McClintock has become an emblem of feminine scientific thinking and the tragedy of narrow-mindedness and bias in science. Comfort replaces this view with a new story, rich with implications for our understanding of women in science and scientific creativity."

From the back cover: "Robert J. Lang, one of the world's foremost origami artists and scientist presents the never-before-described mathematical and geometric principles that allow the interested folder to design original origami, an ability once restricted to an elite few."

From the back of the book: "This biography of Gauss, by far the most comprehensive in English, is the work of a professor of German, G. Waldo Dunnington, who devoted most of his scholarly career to studying the life of Germany's greatest mathematician. The author was inspired to pursue this project at the age of twelve when he learned from his teacher in Missouri that no full biography of Gauss existed at the time. His teacher was Gauss's great granddaughter, Minna Waldeck Gauss.
"Long out-of-print and almost impossible to find on the used book market, this valuable piece of scholarship is being reissued in an augmented form with introductory remarks, an expanded and updated bibliography and a commentary on Gauss's mathematical diary, by the eminent British mathematical historian, Jeremy Gray. Also included are personal reminiscences about Dunnington himself, by Fritz-Egbert Dohse, who not only knew Dunnington but also had an interesting connection to Gauss: his great-grandfather, Christian Heinrich Hesemann, was the sculptor whose bust of Gauss is widely known and is pictured in the book."

From the book jacket: "In 1989 Michael Bishop and Harold Varmus were awarded the Nobel Prize for their discovery that normal genes under certain conditions can cause cancer. In this book, Bishop tells us how he and Varmus made their momentous discovery. More than a lively account of the making of a brilliant scientist, How to Win the Nobel Prize is also a broader narrative combining two major and intertwined strands of medical history: the long and ongoing struggles to control infectious diseases and to find and attack the causes of cancer.
"Alongside his own story, that of a youthful humanist evolving into an ambivalent medical student, an accidental microbiologist, and finally a world-class researcher, Bishop gives us a fast-paced and engrossing tale of the microbe hunters. It is a narrative enlivened by vivid anecdotes about our deadliest microbial enemies - the Black Death, cholera, syphilis, tuberculosis, malaria, smallpox, HIV - and by biographical sketches of the scientists, who led the fight against these scourges.
"Bishop then provides an introduction for nonscientists to the molecular underpinnings of cancer and concludes with an analysis of many of today's most important science-related controversies - ranging from stem cell research to the attack on evolution to scientific misconduct. How to Win the Nobel Prize affords us the pleasure of hearing about science from a brilliant practitioner who is a humanist at heart. Bishop's perspective will be valued by anyone interested in biomedical research and in the past, present, and future of the battle against cancer."

From the back cover: "From 'absolute risk' to 'zero-sum game', this accessible introduction to the terminology of medical statistics encompasses more than 1500 terms all clearly explained, illustrated and defined in non-technical language, and without any mathematical formulae. This user-friendly approach will enable doctors and medical students to grasp quickly the meaning of any of the statistical terms they encounter when reading the medical literature. Furthermore, annotated comments are used judiciously to warn the unwary of some of the common pitfalls that accompany some cherished biomedical statistical techniques. Wherever possible, the definitions are supplemented with a reference to further reading where the reader may gain a deeper insight, so whilst the definitions are easily digestible, they also provide a stepping stone to a more sophisticated comprehension. The statistical terminology encountered in today's medical literature can be quite bewildering for clinicians: this guide will be a lifesaver for doctors and students alike."

From the book jacket: "Who Should Pay for Medicare? offers an accessible overview of how Medicare operates as a fiscal system. Discussions of Medicare reform often focus on the expansion of program treatment choices but not on the question of who should pay for Medicare's services. Shaviro's book addresses this critical issue examining the underanalyzed dynamics of the significant funding gap threatening Medicare. He gives a balanced, nonpartisan evaluation of reform alternatives and attendant issues - ranging from the creation of new benefits and the use of tax cuts to the consequences of demographic pressures on future generations to pay for the care of today's seniors."

From the book jacket: "Is everything in a university for sale if the price is right? In this book, one of America's leading educators cautions that the answer is all too often "yes." Taking the first comprehensive look at the growing commercialization of our academic institutions, Derek Bok probes the efforts on campus to profit financially not only from athletics but, increasingly, from education and research as well. He shows how such ventures are undermining core academic values and what universities can do to limit the damage.
"Commercialization has many causes, but it could never have grown to its present state had it not been for the recent, rapid growth of money-making opportunities in a more technologically complex, knowledge-based economy. A brave new world has now emerged in which university presidents, enterprising professors, and even administrative staff can all find seductive opportunities to tum specialized knowledge into profit.
"Bok argues that universities, faced with these temptations, are jeopardizing their fundamental mission in their eagerness to make money by agreeing to more and more compromises with basic academic values. He discusses the dangers posed by increased secrecy in corporate-funded research, for-profit Internet companies funded by venture capitalists, industry-subsidized educational programs for physicians, conflicts of interest in research on human subjects, and other questionable activities.
"While entrepreneurial universities may occasionally succeed in the short term, reasons Bok, only those institutions that vigorously uphold academic values, even at the cost of a few lucrative ventures, will win public trust and retain the respect of faculty and students. Candid, evenhanded, and eminently readable, "Universities in the Marketplace" will be widely debated by all those concerned with the future of higher education in America and beyond."

From the book jacket: "Does evolution have a structure, an overall design, perhaps even a purpose? Orthodox opinion recoils from this prospect. Evolution, it is widely believed, is an effectively random process where almost any outcome is possible. Freeze the tape of life, and now we see dolphins and tulips, ants and mushrooms, even humans. Rerun the tape and, it is claimed, evolution would follow completely different pathways; no tulips or ants, and certainly no humans. We, like all other life, are an evolutionary accident. But is this correct? In fact the evidence points in exactly the opposite direction. Not only does life have an uncanny knack of navigating to precise solutions, but it also repeatedly returns to the same solution. By no means all is possible in evolution. We know this because of the ubiquity of evolutionary convergence, which unexpectedly reveals a deeper structure to life.
"In this extraordinary wide-ranging book Simon Conway Morris takes us on a tour of life that encompasses both classic examples of convergence, such as the camera-eyes of octopus and human, and remarkable new work that shows, for example, how ants have developed agriculture independently of us. Embedded in the evolutionary process are both latent inevitabilities and pathways that will be repeatedly explored. Underpinned by DNA, the weirdest molecule in the Universe, guided by a genetic code of staggering effectiveness, the tape of life will in time navigate to such biological properties as advanced sensory systems, intelligence, complex societies, tool-making and culture. So if these are all evolutionary inevitabilities, where are our counterparts across the Galaxy? The tape of life can run only on a suitable planet, and here it turns out that such Earth-like planets may be much rarer than is hoped. Inevitable humans, yes, but in a lonely Universe."

From the back cover: "Why can't science answer, once and for all, the major questions that make up our headlines:
"Is the world warming because of the Greenhouse Effect?
"What would be the dangers associated with a terrorist release of anthrax spores?
"What action should be taken against an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease or BSE?
"Why can't we predict the occurrences of earthquakes?
"Scientific uncertainty puzzles many people. The puzzlement arises when scientists have more than one answer, and disagree among themselves. Uncertain Science… Uncertain World will help people find their way through a maze of contradiction and uncertainty. By acquainting them with the ways that uncertainty arises in science, how scientists accommodate and make use of uncertainty, and how they reach conclusions in the face of uncertainty, the book will enable the reader to evaluate uncertainty confidently from their own perspectives, in terms of their own everyday experiences."

From the book jacket: "The human desire to fly has fuelled centuries of international scientific thought, culminating in the invention of the aeroplane. From Leonardo da Vinci's fantastical designs, balloons and steerable airships, to the Wright Brothers' historic flight on December 17, 1903, the race to take to the skies progressed at an extraordinary pace. This has had an immense impact on the making of the modern world. A unique insight into the pioneers' ambitions and discoveries is offered through a fascinating selection of extracts from journals, diaries, rare photographs, and drawings. The laboratories and airfields where aircrafts were conceived and tested are also explored in full detail."

From the back cover: "Audio Anecdotes tells the story of digital sound and music: analyzing, processing, creating, and recording. It is packed with articles focusing on the opportunities created by digital media, now possible because of inexpensive and readily available equipment."

From the foreword: "It is only twenty-three years since Benoit Mandelbrot published his famous picture of what is now called the Mandelbrot set. The graphics available at that time seem primitive today, and Mandelbrot's working drafts were even harder to interpret. But how that picture has changed our views of the mathematical and physical universe! Fractals, a term coined by Mandelbrot, are now so ubiquitous in the scientific consciousness that it is difficult to remember the psychological shock of their arrival. A twenty-first-century researcher does not think twice about using a computer simulation to begin the investigation of a problem; indeed, it is now routine to use a desktop computer to search for new phenomena or seek hints about research problems. In 1980 this was very far from the case.
"When a paradigm shift hits, it is rarely the old guard who ushers it in. New methods are required, and accepted orthodoxy is often turned on its head.
"Thirty years ago, despite the appearance of an avant garde, there was a general feeling in the mathematics community that one should distrust pictures and any information they might carry. Computer experiments had already appeared in the undergraduate physics curriculum, but were almost nonexistent in mathematics. Perhaps this was due in part to the relatively weak computers then available, but there were other aspects of this attitude. Abstraction and generality were seen by many mathematicians as the guiding principles. There were cracks in this intellectual foundation, and the next twenty years were to see many of these prejudices disappear.
…
"What we see in this book is a glimpse of how Mandelbrot helped change our way of looking at the world. It is not just a book about a particular class of problems, but contains a view on how to approach the mathematical and physical universe. This view is certain not to fade, but to be part of the working philosophy of the next mathematical revolution, wherever it may take us. So read the book, look at the beautiful pictures that continue to amaze, and enjoy!"
From the back cover: "This heavily illustrated book combines hard-to-find early papers by the author with additional chapters that describe the historical background and context. Key topics are quadratic dynamics and its Julia and Mandelbrot sets, nonquadratic dynamics, Kleinian limit sets, and the Minkowski measure."

From the back cover: "Based on two lectures presented as part of the Stone Lectures in Economics series, Arnold Zellner describes the structural econometric time series analysis (SEMTSA) approach to statistical and econometric modeling. Developed by Zellner and Franz Palm, the SEMTSA approach produces an understanding of the relationship of univariate and multivariate time series forecasting models and dynamic time series structural econometric models. As scientists and decision-makers in industry and government worldwide adopt the Bayesian approach to scientific inference, decision-making, and forecasting, Zellner offers an in-depth analysis and appreciation of this important paradigm shift. Finally, Zellner discusses the alternative approaches to model building and looks at how the use and development of the SEMTSA approach has led to the production of a Marshallian macroeconomic model that will prove valuable to many.
Written by one of the foremost practitioners of econometrics, this book will have wide academic and professional appeal."

From the back cover: "lnformation theory and inference, often taught separately, are here united in one entertaining textbook. These topics lie at the heart of many exciting areas of contemporary science and engineering - communication, signal processing, data mining, machine learning, pattern recognition, computational neuroscience, bioinformatics, and cryptography.
"This textbook introduces theory in tandem with applications. Information theory is taught alongside practical communication systems, such as arithmetic coding for data compression and sparse-graph codes for error-correction. A toolbox of inference techniques, including message-passing algorithms, Monte Carlo methods, and variational approximations, are developed alongside applications of these tools to clustering, convolutional codes, independent component analysis, and neural networks.
"The final part of the book describes the state of the art in error-correcting codes, including low-density parity-check codes, turbo codes, and digital fountain codes - the twenty-first century standards for satellite communications, disk drives, and data broadcast."

Approximately forty leading scientists, politicians, senior public servants and journalists from several countries met at Herstmonceux Castle in the United Kingdom to consider how to promote better understanding between scientists and policy-makers by focusing on the issue of science, ethics and the law. This volume consists of the edited version of the proceedings of the conference.

This is a summary of the recommendations to governments and other public institutions of the conferences on Statistics, Science and Public Policy held since 1996 at Herstmonceux Castle in the United Kingdom.

From the paper cover: "Nobel laureate and scientific luminary Enrico Fermi (1901-1954) was a pioneering nuclear physicist whose contributions to the field were numerous, profound, and lasting. Best known for his involvement with the Manhattan Project and his work at Los Alamos that led to the first self-sustained nuclear reaction and ultimately to the production of electric power and plutonium for atomic weapons, Fermi and his legacy continue to color the character of the sciences at the University of Chicago. During his tenure as professor of physics at the Institute for Nuclear Studies, Fermi attracted an extraordinary scientific faculty and many talented students - ten Nobel Prizes were awarded to faculty or students under Fermi's tutelage."

From the back cover: "This guide book to mathematics contains in handbook form the fundamental working knowledge of mathematics which is needed as an everyday guide for working scientists and engineers, as well as for students. Easy to understand, and convenient to use, this guide book gives concisely the information necessary to evaluate most problems which occur in concrete applications. For the 4th edition, the concept of the book has been completely re-arranged. The new emphasis is on those fields of mathematics that became more important for the formulation and modelling of technical and natural processes, namely Numerical Mathematics, Probability Theory and Statistics, as well as Information Processing."

From the back cover: "A milestone in the published literature on the subject, this first-ever Handbook of Beta Distribution and Its Applications clearly enumerates the properties of beta distributions and related mathematical notions, summarizes modern applications in a variety of fields, and reviews up-and-coming progress from the frontlines of statistical research and practice.
"Demonstrates the applicability of beta distributions in such fields as economics, quality control, soil science, and biomedicine.
"Tapping the acumen of 25 distinguished contributors, the Handbook considers the centrality of beta distributions in Bayesian inference … applications for beta distributions in stochastic processes … the beta-binomial model and applications of the beta-binomial distribution … the utility of beta distributions in bioassay … applications of Dirichlet integrals … and surveys generalizations of the beta distribution … approximations and tables of beta distributions … distributions with beta conditionals … and limited-range distributions with informative dropout."

From the back cover: "Handbook of Scheduling: Algorithms, Models, and Performance Analysis: Provides full coverage of the most recent advances in scheduling, gathering authors and topics from across the fields of management, industrial engineering, operations research, and computer science; Includes many applications, addressing scheduling problems in transportation and process industries, as well as in hospitals and educational institutions; Examines job shop, flow shop, open shop, and cycle shop problems; Covers five major objective functions in classical scheduling theory: makespan, maximum lateness, total weighted completion time, total weighted number of late jobs, and total weighted tardiness; Introduces constraint programming (CP) and a new vehicle routing heuristic known as Very Large Scale Neighborhood Search; Covers extensively real-time scheduling and stochastic scheduling; Introduces new scheduling models that are different from the classical model."

From the back cover: "The consumer price index (CPI) measures the rate at which the prices of consumer goods and services are changing over time. It is a key statistic for purposes of economic and social policy making, especially monetary policy and social policy, and has substantial and wide-ranging implications for governments, business and workers, as well as households.
"This important and comprehensive manual provides guidelines for statistical offices and other agencies responsible for constructing CPIs and explains in depth the methods that are used to calculate a CPI. it also examines the underlying economic and statistical concepts and principles needed for making choices in efficient and cost-effective ways and for appreciating the full implications of those choices.
"The following international organizations, concerned both with the measurement of inflation and with policies designed to control it, have collaborated on the preparation of this manual: the International Labour Office; the International Monetary Fund; the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development; the Statistical Office of the European Communities (EUROSTAT); the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe; and the World Bank."

From the book cover: "Over the past two decades, methods for the development, evaluation, and testing of survey questionnaires have undergone radical change. Research has now begun to identify the strengths and weaknesses of various testing and evaluation methods, as well as to estimate the methods' reliability and validity. Expanding and adding to the research presented at the International Conference on Questionnaire Development, Evaluation and Testing Methods, this title presents the most up-to-date knowledge in this burgeoning field.
"The only book dedicated to the evaluation and testing of survey questionnaires, this practical reference work brings together the expertise of over fifty leading, international researchers from a broad range of fields. The volume is divided into seven sections: cognitive interviews, mode of administration, supplements to conventional pretests, special populations, experiments, multi-method applications, and statistical modeling."

From the back cover: "Data from many different sources were combined to produce the Dutch Census Tables of 2001. Since the last census based on a complete enumeration was held in 1971, the willingness of the population to participate has fallen sharply. Statistics Netherlands found an alternative in the Virtual Census, using available registers and surveys. The Virtual Census is cheaper, comparable to earlier Dutch censuses, and more socially acceptable. The Netherlands takes up a unique position in the European Census Round. The table results are not only comparable with the earlier Dutch censuses but also with those of the other countries in the 2001 Census Round.
"The part on analysis in this book deals with the following topics: key figures, population by household characteristics, working people, young people, seniors, foreign people, and commuting. A historical comparison with earlier Dutch censuses is made and regional distributions are discussed with special attention to ten major cities in the Netherlands. Finally, the results of the 2001 Census in the Netherlands are compared with the results in other European countries.
"The part on methodology deals with the input, throughput and output phases placing special emphasis on how the new methodology of repeated weighting was applied in producing the set of census tables."

From the book description: "This book is the only one of its kind to review the commodity coding, definitions and methodology applying to the collection of forest products production and trade statistics. The analysis ? both qualitative as quantitative ? contains valuable information for anybody who wants to gain more insight in the methodology behind the figures. Recommendations are made for improving the data collection framework."

From the back cover: "This workshop was the first its kind in bringing together researchers in probability theory, stochastic processes, insurance and finance from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and the United States. In particular, as China has joined the WTO, there is a growing demand for expertise in actuarial sciences and quantitative finance. The strong probabillity research and graduate education programs in many of China's universities can be enriched by their outreach in fields that are of growing importance to the country's expanding economy, and the workshop and its proceedings can be regarded as the first step in this direction.
"This book presents the most recent developments in probability, finance and actuarial sciences, especially in Chinese probability research. It focusses on the integration of probability theory with applications in finance and insurance. It also brings together academic researchers and those in industry and government. With contributions by leading authorities on probability theory ? particularly limit theory and large derivations, valuation of credit derivatives, portfolio selection, dynamic protection and ruin theory ? it is an essential source of ideas and information for graduate students and researchers in probability theory, mathematical finance and actuarial sciences, and thus every university should acquire a copy."

From the back cover: "This is a revised edition of McEliece's classic, published with students in mind. It is a self-contained introduction to all basic results in the theory of information and coding. This theory was developed to deal with the fundamental problem of communication, that of reproducing at one point, either exactly or approximately, a message selected at another point. There is a short and elementary overview introducing the reader to the concept of coding. Then, following the main results, the channel and source coding theorems, there is a study of specific coding schemes which can be used for channel and source coding. This volume can be used either for self-study, or for a graduate/undergraduate-level course at university. It includes dozens of worked examples and several hundred problems for solution. The exposition will be easily comprehensible to readers with some prior knowledge of probability and linear algebra."

From the book jacket: "In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz explains at what point choice ? the hallmark of individual freedom and self-determination that we so cherish ? becomes detrimental to our psychological and emotional well-being. In accessible, engaging, and anecdotal prose, Schwartz shows how the dramatic explosion in choice ? from the mundane to the profound challenges of balancing career, family, and individual needs ? has paradoxically become a problem instead of a solution. Schwartz also shows how our obsession with choice encourages us to seek that which makes us feel worse.
"By synthesizing current research in the social sciences, Schwartz makes the counterintuitive case that eliminating choices can greatly reduce the stress, anxiety, and busyness of our lives. He offers eleven practical steps on how to limit choices to a manageable number, have the discipline to focus on those that are important and ignore the rest, and ultimately derive greater satisfaction from the choices you have to make."

From the back cover: "Featuring close to 400 definitions, arguments, and essays on topics ranging from acupuncture to zombies, The Skeptic's Dictionary is a lively, commonsense trove of detailed information on all things supernatural, occult, paranormal, and pseudoscientific. It covers such categories as alternative medicine; cryptozoology; extraterrestrials and UFOs; frauds and hoaxes; junk science; logic and perception; New Age energy; and the psychic. For the open-minded seeker, the soft or hardened skeptic, and the believing doubter, this book offers a remarkable range of information that puts to the test the best arguments of true believers."

This is a new edition of the 1989 Catalogue (prepared by J.A. Lodier and M. Roche) with revisions and updates.
Data on floods are listed for one hundred and twenty countries, including newly provided data for 48 countries. The data for each country includes the location of observation sites and background information about the drainage basins, the maximum instantaneous discharge observed.

From the book jacket: "There has been insufficient attention paid to the central place of the classroom in thinking about the role of assessment in educational accountability. Towards Coherence Between Classroom Assessment and Accountability contributes to the discourse among educational policymakers, professionals, and researchers in this important area by encouraging reflection and scholarly exchange on the topic, and is designed with a structure meant to promote discussion and debate."

Title	HISTORY OF PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS AND THEIR APPLICATIONS BEFORE 1750.
Author	A. Hald.
Publisher	Chichester, U.K.: Wiley, 2003, pp. xiii + 586, US$54.95 Paper. [Original 1990, Vol. 10, p. 21]

Title	KEPLER'S CONJECTURE: How Some of the Greatest Minds in History Solved One of the Oldest Math Problems in the World.
Author	G.G. Szpiro.
Publisher	Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2003, pp. viii + 296, £18.50/US$24.95.

Title	LESLIE KISH: SELECTED PAPERS.
Author	G. Kalton and S. Heeringa (Eds.).
Publisher	Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2003, pp. xii + 356, £51.95.

Title	HANDBOOK OF PARAMETRIC AND NONPARAMETRIC STATISTICAL PROCEDURES, 3rd edition.
Author	D.J. Sheskin.
Publisher	Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2004, pp. xxxiii + 1193, US$139.95/£93.00.

Title	BIGGER THAN CHAOS. Understanding Complexity Through Probability.
Author	M. Strevens.
Publisher	Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2003, pp. xii + 413.