ISI - INTERNATIONAL STATISTICAL INSTITUTE
Back to SBR-index
Short Book Reviews
Short notes 2006
Title OXFORD USERS' GUIDE TO MATHEMATICS. Author E. Zeidler. (Ed.). Translated and Typeset by B. Hunt. Publisher Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. xxii + 1284. From the back cover: "A complete practical reference of all your mathematical needs: conveys a lively and modern picture of mathematics; emphasises the close links between different branches of mathematics; responds to the enormous advances in mathematics due to the ever-growing influence of computer science and the role of modern PCs; contains a wealth of material ranging from elementary facts to modern and highly-sophisticated results and methods; includes a comprehensive bibliography of all contemporary literature in the main fields of mathematics."
Title A HISTORY OF MATHEMATICS: FROM MESOPOTAMIA TO MODERNITY. Author L. Hodgkin. Publisher Oxford University Press, 2005, pp. xiii + 281. From the back cover: "A History of Mathematics: From Mesopotamia to Modernity covers the evolution of mathematics through time and across the major Eastern and Western civilizations. It begins in Babylon, then describes the trials and tribulations of the Greek mathematicians.The important, and often neglected, influence of both Chinese and Islamic mathematics is covered in detail, placing the description of early Western mathematics in a global context. The book concludes with modern mathematics, covering recent developments such as the advent of the computer, chaos theory, topology, mathematical physics, and the solution of Fermat's Last Theorem."
Title MATHEMATICAL APOCRYPHA REDUX. More Stories and Anecdotes of Mathematicians and the Mathematical. Author S.G. Krantz. Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 2005, pp. ix + 294, US$39.95. From the back cover: "A companion to Mathematical Apocrypha, this second volume of anecdotes, stories, quips, and ruminations about mathematics and mathematicians is sure to please. It differs from other books of its type in that many of the stories are from the twentieth century and many about currently living mathematicians. A number of the best stories come from the author's first-hand experience."
Title ARTHUR CAYLEY. Mathematician Laureate of the Victorian Age. Author T. Crilly. Publisher Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006, pp. xxi + 609, US$69.95. From the book jacket: "Arthur Cayley (1821-1895) was one of the most prolific and important mathematicians of the Victorian era. His influence still pervades modern mathematics, in group theory (Cayley's theorem), matrix algebra (the Cayley-Hamilton theorem), and invariant theory, where he made his most significant contributions. Yet Cayley's life has been overlooked by historians, who have lavished far more attention on lesser figures. Mathematician and biographer Tony Crilly, the world's leading authority on Cayley, rectifies this oversight with the first definitive account of his life.
"Born in England, Cayley spent his childhood in St. Petersburg, where his father was a commercial agent. After returning to England in 1828, Cayley received a first- rate education. As an undergraduate at Trinity College in Cambridge, he was named "Senior Wrangler," the top mathematics student of his year. After graduating, he found himself at the vanguard of the revolution in British mathematics which included William Rowan Hamilton, George Boole, and James Joseph Sylvester. At the same time, needing a reliable income, he trained for the bar and became a barrister at Lincoln's Inn in 1849. Though a successful lawyer, Cayley devoted all his free time to mathematics and confirmed his reputation as one of the era's leading minds with a procession of brilliant articles on key aspects in pure mathematics. Only after 1863, when he was appointed to the Sadleirian Chair at Cambridge, could he fully pursue mathematical investigations, and he continued to publish influential papers until his death.
"Comprehensive and elegantly composed, this biography makes clear the scope of Arthur Cayley's prodigious achievements, firmly enshrining him as the 'Mathematician Laureate of the Victorian Age'."
Title REPRESENTING ELECTRONS. A Biographical Approach to Theoretical Entities. Author A. Arabatzis. Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2006, pp. xiv + 295, US$70.00/£44.50 Cloth; US$28.00/£18.00 Paper. From the back cover: "Both a history and a metahistory, Representing Electrons focuses on the development of various theoretical representations of electrons from the late 1890s to 1925 and the methodological problems associated with writing about unobservable scientific entities. Using the electron - or rather its representation - as a historical actor, Theodore Arabatzis illustrates the emergence and gradual consolidation of its representation in physics, its career throughout old quantum theory, and its appropriation and reinterpretation by chemists. As Arabatzis develops this novel biographical approach, he portrays scientific representations as partly autonomous agents with lives of their own. Furthermore, he argues that the considerable variance in the representation of the electron does not undermine its stable identity or existence."
Title STATISTICAL DEMOGRAPHY AND FORECASTING. Author J.M. Alho and B.D. Spencer. Publisher New York: Springer-Verlag, 2005, pp. xxvii + 410. From the back cover: "Sustainability of pension systems, intergeneration fiscal equity under population aging, and accounting for health care benefits for future retirees are examples of problems that cannot be solved without understanding the nature of population forecasts and their uncertainty. Similarly, the accuracy of population estimates directly affects both the distributions of formula-based government allocations to sub-national units and the apportionment of political representation. The book develops the statistical foundation for addressing such issues. Areas covered include classical mathematical demography, event history methods, multi-state methods, stochastic population forecasting, sampling and census coverage, and decision theory. The methods are illustrated with empirical applications from Europe and the United States.
"For statisticians the book provides a unique introduction to demographic problems in a familiar language. For demographers, actuaries, epidemiologists, and professionals in related fields, the book presents a unified statistical outlook on both classical methods of demography and recent developments. To facilitate its classroom use, exercises are included. Over half of the book is readily accessible to undergraduates, but more maturity may be required to benefit fully from the complete text. Knowledge of differential and integral calculus, matrix algebra, basic probability theory, and regression analysis is assumed."
Title AIR, THE ENVIRONMENT AND PUBLIC HEALTH. Author A. Kessel. Foreword by D. Greaves and A.J. McMichael. Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. xiv +243, £50.00/US$90.00. From the back cover: "Air, the Environment and Public Health traces the theme of air and health from ancient civilizations to the present day. The author explores the changing conceptions of air and health alongside historical developments in public health, and critically examines contemporary problems - conceptual, scientific, philosophical and ethical - in public health theory and practice. The first part surveys air and health in early civilisations, as well as considering the nineteenth-century debates around miasma and evolution. The second part explores the history of smoke pollution and health. Part III examines philosophical issues around modern air pollution epidemiology, and Part IV looks at climate change and ethical frameworks in public health. The book is a unique blend of public health science, history of medicine, ethics and philosophy. It will be of interest to those working or studying in public health, environmental health, medicine, history of medicine, environmental philosophy and medical ethics."
Title DNA MICROARRAYS AND RELATED GENOMICS TECHNIQUES. Design, Analysis, and Interpretation of Experiments. Author D.B. Allison, G.P. Page, T.M. Beasley and J.W. Edwards (Eds.). Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. 371. From the back cover: "Considered highly exotic tools as recently as the late 1990s, microarrays are now ubiquitous in biological research. Traditional statistical approaches to design and analysis were not developed to handle the high-dimensional, small sample problems posed by microarrays. In just a few short years the number of statistical papers providing approaches to analyzing microarray data has gone from almost none to hundreds if not thousands. This overwhelming deluge is quite daunting to either the applied investigator looking for methodologies or the methodologist trying to keep up with the field. DNA Microarrays and Related Genomics Techniques: Design, Analysis, and Interpretation of Experiments consolidates discussions of methodological advances into a single volume."
Title APPLIED MATHEMATICAL DEMOGRAPHY, 3rd edition. Author N. Keyfitz and H. Caswell. Publisher New York: Springer-Verlag, 2005, pp. xxiii + 555, US$84.95. riginal 1977, 2nd edition 1985, Short Book Reviews, Vol. 6, p. 20]
From the back cover: "The third edition of this classic text maintains its focus on applications of demographic models, while extending its scope to matrix models for stage-classified populations. The authors first introduce the life table to describe age-specific mortality, and then use it to develop theory for stable populations and the rate of population increase. This theory is then revisited in the context of matrix models, for stage-classified as well as age-classified populations. Reproductive value and the stable equivalent population are introduced in both contexts, and Markov chain methods are presented to describe the movement of individuals through the life cycle. Applications of mathematical demography to population projection and forecasting, kinship, microdemography, heterogeneity, and multi-state models are considered.
"The new edition maintains and extends the book's focus on the consequences of changes in the vital rates. Methods are presented for calculating the sensitivity and elasticity of the population growth rate, life expectancy, the stable stage distribution, and reproductive value, and for applying those results in comparative studies.
"Stage-classified models are important in both human demography and population ecology, and this edition features examples from both human and non-human populations. In short, this third edition enlarges considerably the scope and power of demography. It will be an essential resource for students and researchers in demography and in animal and plant population ecology."
Title FROM ZERO TO INFINITY. What Makes Numbers Interesting. 50th Anniversary Edition. Author C. Reid. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, pp. xvii + 188, US$19.95. From the back cover: "From Zero to Infinity, a combination of number lore, number history, and sparkling descriptions of the simply stated but exceedingly difficult problems posed by the most ordinary numbers, first appeared in 1955 and has been kept in print continuously since then. With the fifth edition this classic has been updated to report on advances in number theory over the last 50 years, including the proof of Fermat's Last Theorem, Deceptively simple in style and structure, it is a book to which the reader will return again and again, gaining greater understanding and satisfaction with each reading.
"Although not trained as a mathematician, Constance Reid is well known for her books on mathematicians and mathematics. The first edition of From Zero to Infinity, published in 1955, was her first book. After its success, she went on to write A Long Way from Euclid; Hilbert; Courant in Gottingen and New York; Neyman; The Search for E.T. Bell; Julia-a Life in Mathematics, among others."
Title SUPPORTING ASSESSMENT IN UNDERGRADUATE MATHEMATICS. Author L.A. Steen (Ed.). Case study editors: B. Gold, L. Hopkins, D. Jardine, W.A. Marion. Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 2006, pp. v + 239, US$49.50. From the back cover: "Supporting Assessment in Undergraduate Mathematics contains 26 Case studies offering lessons learned during a four year NSF-supported MAA project designed to support mathematicians and mathematics departments in the increasingly important challenge of assessing student learning. Three introductory essays set assessment in broader academic and national contexts; an appendix contains the 2005 revision of the CUPM Guidelines for Assessment of Student Learning.
"Case studies deal primarily with coherent blocks of courses designed for particular purposes, e.g. general education, math-intensive majors, development education, quantitive literacy, teacher preparation, and mathematics majors. Institutions represented in the volume vary considerably in size, location, and mission."
Title THEORY OF RANDOM SETS. Author I. Molchanov. Publisher New York: Springer-Verlag, 2005, pp. xvi + 488, US$89.95. From the back cover: "Stochastic geometry is a relatively new branch of mathematics. Although its predecessors such as geometric probability date back to the 18th century, the formal concept of a random set was developed in the beginning of the 1970s. Theory of Random Sets presents a state-of-the-art treatment of the modern theory, but it does not neglect to recall and build on the foundations laid by Matheron and others, including the vast advances in stochastic geometry, probability theory, set-valued analysis, and statistical inference of the 1990s.
"The book is entirely self-contained, systematic and exhaustive, with the full proofs that are necessary to gain insight. It shows the various interdisciplinary relationships of random set theory within other parts of mathematics, and at the same time, fixes terminology and notation that are often varying in the current literature to establish it as a natural part of modern probability theory, and to provide a platform for future development. An extensive, searchable bibliography to accompany the book is freely available via the Web.
"The book will be an invaluable reference for probabilists, mathematicians in convex and integral geometry, set-valued analysis, capacity and potential theory, mathematical statisticians in spatial statistics and image analysis, specialists in mathematical economics, and electronic and electrical engineers interested in image analysis."
Title GAUSSIAN MARKOV RANDOM FIELDS. Theory and Applications. Author H. Rue and L. Held. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2005, pp. 263, US$79.95/£44.99. From the back cover: "Researchers in spatial statistics and image analysis are familiar with Gaussian Markov Random Fields (GMRFs), and they are traditionally among the few who use them. There is, however, a wide range of applications for this methodology, from structural time-series analysis to the analysis of longitudinal and survival data, spatio-temporal models, graphical models, and semi-parametric statistics. With so many applications and with such widespread use in the field of spatial statistics, it is surprising that until now there has been no comprehensive reference on the subject.
"Gaussian Markov Random Fields: Theory and Applications provides such a reference, using a unified framework for representing and understanding GMRFs. Various case studies illustrate the use of GMRFs in complex hierarchical models, in which statistical inference is only possible using Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques. The authors … emphasize the computational aspects, construct fast and reliable algorithms for MCMC inference, and provide an online C-library for fast and exact simulation."
Title HANDBOOK OF EXPONENTIAL AND RELATED DISTRIBUTIONS FOR ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS. Author N. Pal, C. Jin and W.K. Lim. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. xxx + 339. From the back cover: "The book begins with all the basic mathematical and statistical background necessary to select the correct distribution to model real-world data sets. This includes inference, decision theory, and computational aspects including the popular Bootstrap method. The authors then examine four skewed distributions in detail: exponential, gamma, Weibull, and extreme value. For each one, they discuss general properties and applicability to example data sets, theoretical characterization, estimation of parameters and related inferences, and goodness of fit tests. The final chapter deals with system reliability for series and parallel systems.
"Collecting the tools necessary for immediate application, this book provides a complete, concise guide to exponential, gamma, Weibull, and extreme value distributions for immediate application; builds a foundation in basic mathematics and statistics before discussing the particulars of the distributions; uses many simulations and approximately 100 figures and graphs to illustrate the concepts; provides algorithmic steps that can be used to perform many of the simulations in the book; includes real data sets and many recent research results."
Title CONDITIONAL MEASURES AND APPLICATIONS, 2nd edition. Author M.M. Rao. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2005, pp. xxiv + 483, US$99.95/£56.99. riginal 1993, Short Book Reviews, Vol. 14, p. 8]
The new points in the second edition include: greater detail in the approach to the computational/algorithmic point of view; integral representations of conditional expectations as operators in vector spaces and illustrated for special cases; existence of projective limits of regular conditional measures; novel application of Weil-Mackey-Bruhat formula; dichotomy of absolute continuity and singularity of probability measures; conditioning in a W*-alge-bra context and a related Kolmogorov existence theorem; "free independence," Gleason measure, and quantum probability; martingale convergence and sufficiency in the W*-algebra context.
Title HANDBOOK OF PARALLEL COMPUTING AND STATISTICS. Author E.J. Kontoghiorghes (Ed.). Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. 530. From the back cover: "The Handbook of Parallel Computing and Statistics weaves together the principles and theoretical models of parallel computing with the design, analysis, and application of algorithms for solving statistical problems. After a brief introduction to parallel computing, the book explores the architecture, programming, and computational aspects of parallel processing. Focus then turns to optimization methods followed by statistical applications. These applications include algorithms for predictive modeling, adaptive design, real-time estimation of higher-order moments and cumulants, data mining, econometrics, and Bayesian computation."
Title HANDBOOK OF STATISTICS IN CLINICAL ONCOLOGY, 2nd edition. Author J. Crowley and D. Pauler Ankerst (Eds.). Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. 617. From the back cover: "A compendium of cutting-edge statistical approaches to solving problems in clinical oncology, Handbook of Statistics in Clinical Oncology, Second Edition focuses on clinical trials in phases I, II, and III, proteomic and genomic studies, complementary outcomes and exploratory methods. Cancer Forum called the first edition a "... good reference book for statisticians who will be designing and analyzing cancer trials." The second edition includes over 1000 references, more than forty world-renowned contributors, and 300 equations, tables, and drawings.
"During the five years since publication of the first edition, there has been an explosion in the technological capabilities supporting genomic and proteomic research, which are now firmly implanted in clinical oncology. Reflecting these developments, the second edition contains a new section devoted to analyses of high-throughput data and bioinformatics. Previous chapters of the first edition have been revised to reflect current state of the art in their respective domains. The intended audience is primarily statisticians working in cancer and more generally, in any discipline of medicine. But oncologists too will find the material accessible and will benefit from a rudimentary understanding of the fundamental concepts laid forth in each chapter.
"Completely revised while keeping the features that made the first edition a bestseller, this is the best single source for up-to-date statistical approaches to research in clinical medicine. More than just an update of the handbook that became the gold standard, this second edition brings you fully into the genomic era of medicine."
Title AN INTRODUCTION TO COPULAS, 2nd edition. Author R.B. Nelsen. Publisher New York: Springer-Verlag, 2006, pp. xiii + 269, US$74.95. riginal 1999, Short Book Reviews, Vol. 19, p. 10]
The major changes to the second edition are added sections on: "a copula transformation method, extreme value copulas, copulas with certain analytic or functional properties, tail dependence, and quasi-copulas."
Title A KALMAN FILTER PRIMER. Author R.L. Eubank. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. 186. From the back cover: "With its mathematically rigorous, "no frills" approach to the basic discrete-time Kalman filter, A Kalman Filter Primer builds a thorough understanding of the inner workings and basic concepts of Kalman filter recursions from first principles. Instead of the typical Bayesian perspective, the author develops the topic via least-squares and classical matrix methods using the Cholesky decomposition to distill the essence of the Kalman filter and reveal the motivations behind the choice of the initializing state vector. He supplies pseudo-code algorithms for the various recursions, enabling code development to implement the filter in practice."
Title PROCESS IMAGING FOR AUTOMATIC CONTROL. Author D.M. Scott and H. McCann. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Taylor and Francis, 2005, pp. 439, US$139.95/£79.99. From the back cover: "As industrial processes and their corresponding control models increase in complexity, the data provided by traditional point sensors is no longer adequate to ensure product quality and cost-effective operation. Process Imaging for Automatic Control demonstrates how in-process imaging technologies surpass the limitations off traditional monitoring systems by providing real-time multidimensional measurement and control data. Combined with suitable data analysis and control schemes, such systems can optimize the performance of a wide variety of industrial processes."
Title INTRODUCTION TO PROCESS CONTROL. Author J.A. Romagnoli and A. Palazoglu. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Taylor and Francis, 2006, pp. 528, US$129.95/£39.99. From the back cover: "Improvements in software, instrumentation, and feedback control as well as deepening linkages between fundamental aspects of process technology have vastly changed the practice of industrial process control. Newcomers to the field must have a strong understanding of the new demands and capabilities of modern process control operations. Reflecting these changes, Introduction to Process Control infuses traditional topics with modern industry-based practices that provide more integrated process operation, control, and information systems."
Title COMBINATORIAL AUCTIONS. Author P. Cramton, Y. Shoham and R. Steinberg (Eds.). Foreword by V.L. Smith. Publisher Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2006, pp. xv + 649, US$50.00/£32.95. From the back cover: "The study of combinatorial auctions - auctions in which bidders can bid on combinations of items or packages - draws on the disciplines of economics, operations research, and computer science. This landmark collection integrates these three perspectives, offering a state-of-the art survey of developments in combinatorial auction theory and practice by leaders in the field.
"Combinatorial auctions (CAs), by allowing bidders to express their preferences more fully, can lead to improved economic efficiency and greater auction revenues. However, challenges arise in both design and implementation. Combinatorial Auctions addresses each of these challenges. After describing and analyzing various CA mechanisms, the book addresses bidding languages and questions of efficiency. Possible strategies for solving the computationally intractable problem of how to compute the objective-maximizing allocation (known as the winner determination problem) are considered, as are questions of how to test alternative algorithms. The book discusses five important applications of CAs: spectrum auctions, airport takeoff and landing slots, procurement of freight transportation services, the London bus routes market, and industrial procurement. This unique collection makes recent work in CAs available to a broad audience of researchers and practitioners. The integration of work from the three disciplines underlying CAs, using a common language throughout, serves to advance the field in theory and practice."
Title CASE STUDIES IN SPATIAL POINT PROCESS MODELING. Author A. Baddeley, P. Gregori, J. Mateu, R. Stoica and D. Stoyan (Eds.). Publisher New York: Springer-Verlag, 2006, pp. xvii + 306, US$74.95. From the back cover: "Point process statistics is successfully used in fields such as material science, human epidemiology, social sciences, animal epidemiology, biology, and seismology. Its further application depends greatly on good software and instructive case studies that show the way to successful work. This book satisfies this need by a presentation of the spatstat package and many statistical examples.
''Researchers, spatial statisticians and scientists from biology, geosciences, materials sciences and other fields will use this book as a helpful guide to the application of point process statistics. No other book presents so many well-founded point process case studies."
Title THE PRINCE OF MATHEMATICS. CARL FRIEDRICH GAUSS. Author M.B.W. Tent. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, p. xviii + 245, US$27.95. From the book jacket: "This narrative of Gauss' life is based on the stories Gauss told about himself and letters and descriptions that have come down to us. The vignettes and conversations are based as closely as possible on reports of what actually happened. The stories of three-year-old Gauss correcting his father's arithmetic and later falling into the canal and of ten-year-old Gauss figuring the sum of the first 100 counting numbers in school are all classics that have been told about Gauss many times over the years."
From the preface: "The author tells the engaging life story of Carl Friedrich Gauss, the 18th-century mathematician, from his prodigious childhood to his extraordinary achievements that earned him the title 'Prince of Mathematics'."
Title ONCE UPON EINSTEIN. Author T. Damour. Translated by E. Novak. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, pp. xiii + 185, US$24.95. From the back cover: "It is well known that Einstein founded twentieth-century physics with his work on relativity and quanta. But what is really known of the essential ideas contributed by Einstein? How were they discovered? What should we retain today from the conceptual upheavals he initiated? Through a selection of concrete scenes taken from Einstein's life, this book offers a view into the formation of his theories, as well as reminders of the day-to-day applications of his ideas.
"The author also leads us through a reflection on their philosophical impact. How should we think of time according to the theory of relativity, which removes any meaningful "now" and shows that twins can have different ages? How should we think of reality when quantum theory predicts that spatially separated objects nevertheless remain connected through the "entanglement" indicated by Einstein, the observable consequences of which have recently been verified?"
Title THEORIES ON THE SCRAP HEAP. SCIENTISTS AND PHILOSOPHERS ON THE FALSIFICATION, REJECTION, AND REPLACEMENT OF THEORIES. Author J. Losee. Publisher Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005, pp. viii + 206, US$24.95. From the back cover: "Theories on the Scrap Heap examines the subject of rejected scientific theories through an analysis of case studies from more than two centuries of science. Using excerpts from the work of prominent scientists and philosophers of science, John Losee discusses a sequence of questions about the falsification, rejection, and replacement of theories: When observational evidence conflicts with the assumptions of a theory, does this signify the death of the theory? If rival theories are available to account for an experience, how is the choice between them to be made? Are there generally accepted criteria by which competing theories may be evaluated? When is the replacement of one theory by another justified?
"At a time when increasingly complex scientific questions are considered and addressed in a variety of public forums, Theories on the Scrap Heap offers guidance for understanding how the scientific method works in theory formation and rejection."
Title PLOWS, PLAGUES, AND PETROLEUM. HOW HUMANS TOOK CONTROL OF CLIMATE. Author W.F. Ruddiman. Publisher Princeton University Press, 2005, p. xiv + 202, US$24.95. From the book jacket: "The impact on climate from 200 years of industrial development is an everyday fact of life, but did humankind's active involvement in climate change really begin with the industrial revolution, as commonly believed? William Ruddiman's provocative new book argues that humans have actually been changing the climate for some 8,000 years-as a result of the earlier discovery of agriculture.
"The "Ruddiman Hypothesis" will spark intense debate. We learn that the impact of farming on greenhouse gas levels, thousands of years before the industrial revolution, kept our planet notably warmer than if natural climate cycles had prevailed-quite possibly forestalling a new ice age.
"Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum is the first book to trace the full historical sweep of human interaction with Earth's climate. Ruddiman takes us through three broad stages of human history: when nature was in control; when humans began to take control, discovering agriculture and affecting climate through CO2 and methane emissions; and, finally, the more recent human impact on climate change. Along the way he raises the fascinating possibility that plagues, by depleting human populations, also affected reforestation and thus climate-as suggested by dips in greenhouse gases when major pandemics occurred. The book concludes by looking to the future and critiquing the impact of special interest money on the global warming debate.
"Eminently readable and far-reaching in argument, Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum shows us that even as civilization developed, we were already changing the climate in which we lived."
Title MATH MADE VISUAL. CREATING IMAGES FOR UNDERSTANDING MATHEMATICS. Author C. Alsina and R.B. Nelsen. Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 2006, p. xv + 173, US$49.95. From the back cover: "Is it possible to make mathematical drawings that help to understand mathematical ideas, proofs and arguments? The authors of this book are convinced that the answer is yes and the objective of this book is to show how some visualization techniques may be employed to produce pictures that have both mathematical and pedagogical interest.
"Mathematical drawings related to proofs have been produced since antiquity in China, Arabia, Greece and India, but only in the last thirty years has there been a growing interest in so-called "proofs without words." Hundreds of these have been published in Mathematics Magazine and The College Mathematics Journal, as well as in other journals, books and on the World Wide Web.
"Oftentimes, a person encountering a "proof without words" may have the feeling that the pictures involved are the result of a serendipitous discovery or the consequence of exceptional ingenuity on the part of the picture's creator. In this book the authors show that behind most of the pictures "proving" mathematical relations are some well-understood methods. As the reader shall see, a given mathematical idea or relation may have many different images that justify it, so that depending on the teaching level or the objectives for producing the pictures, one can choose the best alternative."
Title YEARNING FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE. The Surprising Truths of Mathematics. Author J. Sitwell. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, pp. vii + 230, US$29.95. From the book jacket: "Our history is full of great accomplishments that arose from confronting a challenge that was generally considered impossible: circumnavigating the globe, scaling Mount Everest, even landing on the moon. The same is true of the history of mathematics.
"This book explores that history through a lens focused on the creative tension between common sense and the "impossible" as the author follows the discovery and invention of new concepts that have marked mathematical progress, including irrational and imaginary numbers, the fourth dimension, curved space, infinity, and more.
"Drawing connections to art, literature, philosophy, and physics, this book examines the place of mathematics in our intellectual landscape."
Title GEOMETRIC DATA STRUCTURES FOR COMPUTER GRAPHICS. Author E. Langetepe and G. Zachmann. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, pp. xiii + 339, US$59.00. From the back cover: "Geometric Data Structures for Computer Graphics presents many ways in which data structures and algorithms from computational geometry help to solve problems in computer graphics in an elegant and efficient manner. Readers of this book will be able to recognize geometric problems and select the most suitable data structure when developing computer graphics algorithms."
Title THE GAME PROGRAMMER'S GUIDE TO TORQUE. Author E.F. Maurina, III. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, pp. ix + 608 + disk, US$59.00. From the back cover: "The Game Programmer's Guide to Torque walks aspiring game makers and industry veterans alike through the well-known and professional proven Torque game-development technology. With clear explanations and detailed discussions of the engine's inner workings, this book is a must-read for any programmer interested in making games ? for fun or profit."
Title 99 POINTS OF INTERSECTION. EXAMPLES --PICTURES -- PROOFS. Author H. Walser. Translated by V. Hilton and J. Pedersen. Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 2006, pp. vii + 153, US$48.50. From the back cover: "The 99 points of intersection presented here were collected during a year-long search for surprising concurrence of lines. For each example we find compelling evidence for the sometimes startling fact that in a geometric figure three straight lines or sometimes circles, pass through one and the same point. Of course, we are familiar with some examples of this from basic elementary geometry ? the intersection of medians, altitudes, angle bisectors, and perpendicular bisectors of sides of a triangle. Here there are many more examples ? for figures other than triangles, some where even more than three straight lines pass through a common point.
"The main part of the book presents 99 points of intersection purely visually. They are developed in a sequence of figures, many without caption or verbal commentary. In addition the book contains general thoughts on and examples of the points of intersection, as well as some typical methods for proving their existence. Many of the examples shown in the book were inspired by questions and suggestions made by students and high-school teachers. Several of those examples have not only a geometrical but also an intriguing aesthetic aspect.
"The book addresses high-school students and students at the undergraduate level as well as their teachers, but will appeal to any interested in geometry."
Title PROJECT ORIGAMI. ACTIVITIES FOR EXPLORING MATHEMATICS. Author T. Hull. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, p. xx + 245, US$30.00. From the back cover: "When it comes to mathematics, paper is not just for pen and pencil anymore! Origami, the art and science of paper folding, can be used to explain concepts and solve problems in mathematics beyond traditional geometry. The origami activities collected here also relate to topics in calculus, abstract algebra, discrete mathematics, topology, and more. "Using origami, learn about: solving cubic equations; buckyballs, triangle-faced polyhedra, and tori; matrix models for folds; Gaussian curvature, and more.
"These activities, which can enhance the classroom experience, also make great independent student projects and are perfect for math clubs or math circles."
Title USA AND INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIADS 2005. Author Z. Feng, C. Rousseau and M. Matchett Wood (Eds.). Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 2006, pp. xvi + 80, US$31.95. From the back cover: "The Mathematical Olympiad books, covering the USA Mathematical Olympiad and the International Mathematical Olympiad, have been published annually by the MAA American Mathematics Competitions since 1976. This is the sixth volume in that series published by the MAA in its Problem Book series."
Title COMMON ERRORS IN STATISTICS (AND HOW TO AVOID THEM), 2nd edition. Author P.I. Good and J.W. Hardin. Publisher Hoboken, New Jersey: Wiley, 2006, p. xi + 254, £26.50. [Original, 2003] From the back cover: "Now in a second edition, the highly readable Common Errors in Statistics (and How to Avoid Them) lays a mathematically rigorous and readily accessible foundation for understanding statistical procedures, problems, and solutions. This handy field guide analyzes common mistakes, debunks popular myths, and helps readers to choose the best and most effective statistical technique for each of their tasks.
"Written for both the newly minted academic and the professional who uses statistics in their work, the book covers creating a research plan, formulating a hypothesis, specifying sample size, checking assumptions, interpreting p-values and confidence intervals, building a model, data mining, Bayes' Theorem, the bootstrap, and many other topics. The Second Edition has been extensively revised to include: additional charts and graphs, two new chapters, Interpreting Reports and Which Regression Method?, new sections on practical versus statistical significance and nonuniqueness in multivariate regression, added material from the authors' online courses at statistics.com, new material on unbalanced designs, report interpretation, and alternative modeling methods.
"With a final emphasis on both finding solutions and the great value of statistics when applied in the proper context, this book is eminently useful to students and professionals in the fields of research, industry, medicine, and government."
Title ADVANCES ON MODELS, CHARACTERIZATIONS AND APPLICATIONS. Author N. Balakrishnan, I.G. Bairamov and O.L. Gebizlioglu. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2005, pp. xvii + 234, US$99.95; £56.99. From the back cover: "Statistical distributions are one of the most important applied mathematical tools across a wide spectrum of disciplines, including engineering, biological sciences, and health and social sciences. Because they are used to model observed data and ultimately to develop inferential procedures, understanding the properties of statistical distributions is critical to developing optimal inferential methods and validating the resulting model assumptions. Advances on Models, Characterizations and Applications offers up-to-date information on many recent developments in the field.
"Comprising fourteen self-contained chapters contributed by internationally renowned experts, this book delineates recent developments on characterizations and other important properties of several distributions, inferential issues related to these models, and several applications of the models to real-world problems. Each chapter is rich with references for further study or more in depth information on each topic and reflects work presented at the International Conference on Advances on Characterizations, Models, and Applications held in Antalya, Turkey, in December 2001.
"Advances on Models, Characterizations and Applications provides an updated account of important properties of statistical distributions that reflects their deep importance and broad application and is a welcome addition to the literature."
Title CLINICAL TRIALS RISK MANAGEMENT. Author M. Robinson and S. Cook. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, 2006, pp. xv + 211, US$179.95/£99.00. From the back cover: "Drug development is risky business. It is against the backdrop of huge financial, scientific, technical and medical risks that a clinical trials manager is expected to function, effectively identifying and managing all project risks, to deliver a successful outcome. Focusing on the day-to-day needs of a clinical trials manager, Clinical Trials Risk Management explains the key concepts and principles of risk management, and how to apply them directly to 'real life' clinical trial situations."
Title DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS FOR AGRICULTURE AND THE NATURAL SCIENCES, 2nd edition. Author A.R. Hoshmand. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. 437, US$79.95; £29.99. [Original 1994, Short Book Reviews, Vol. 14, p. 44] The additions in the second edition are in the main an added chapter on covariance analysis and some expanded material on multiple regression and variance analysis.
Title EXACT AND APPROXIMATE MODELING OF LINEAR SYSTEMS. A BEHAVIORAL APPROACH. Author I. Markovsky, J.C. Willems, S. Van Huffel and B. De Moor. Publisher Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2006, pp. x + 206, US$64.00. "Exact and Approximate Modeling of Linear Systems: A Behavioral Approach elegantly introduces the behavioral approach to mathematical modeling, an approach that requires models to be viewed as sets of possible outcomes rather than to be a priori bound to particular representations. The authors discuss exact and approximate fitting of data by linear, bilinear, and quadratic static models and linear dynamic models, a formulation that enables readers to select the most suitable representation for a particular purpose.
"This book presents exact subspace-type and approximate optimization-based identification methods, as well as representation-free problem formulations, an overview of solution approaches, and software implementation. Readers will find an exposition of a wide variety of modeling problems starting from observed data. The presented theory leads to algorithms that are implemented in C language and in MATLAB."
Title MODERN ACTUARIAL THEORY AND PRACTICE, 2nd edition. Author P. Booth, R. Chadburn, S. Haberman, D. James, Z. Khorasanee, R.H. Plumb and B. Rickayzen. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2005, pp. xxxiii + 799, US$99.95; £44.99. From the back cover: "In the years since the publication of the first edition of this best-selling text, the incorporation of ideas and theories from the rapidly growing field of financial economics has precipitated considerable development of thinking in the actuarial profession. The second edition integrates those changes and presents an up-to-date, comprehensive overview of UK and international actuarial theory, practice and modeling. It describes all of the traditional areas of actuarial activity, but in a manner that highlights the fundamental principles of actuarial theory and practice as well as their economic, financial, and statistical foundations."
Title CHAOS IN AUTOMATIC CONTROL. Author W. Perruquetti and J.-P. Barbot (Eds.). Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: CRC Press/Taylor and Francis, 2006, pp. 564, US$139.95; £79.99. From the back cover: "Chaotic behavior arises in a variety of control settings. In some cases, it is beneficial to remove this behavior; in others, introducing or taking advantage of the existing chaotic components can be useful for example in cryptography. Chaos in Automatic Control surveys the latest methods for inserting, taking advantage of, or removing chaos in a variety of applications. This book supplies the theoretical and pedagogical basis of chaos in control systems along with new concepts and recent developments in the field.
"Presented in three parts, the book examines open-loop analysis, closed-loop control, and applications of chaos in control systems. The first section builds a background in the mathematics of ordinary differential and difference equations on which the remainder of the book is based. It includes an introductory chapter by Christian Mira, a pioneer in chaos research. The next section explores solutions to problems arising in observation and control of closed-loop chaotic control systems. These include model-independent control methods, strategies such as H-infinity and sliding modes, polytopic observers, normal forms using homogeneous transformations, and observability normal forms. The final section explores applications in wireless transmission, optics, power electronics, and cryptography."
Title COMPUTATIONAL METHODS FOR MULTIPHASE FLOWS IN POROUS MEDIA. Author Z. Chen, G. Huan and Y. Ma. Publisher Philadelphia, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2006, p. xxix + 531. From the back cover: "This book offers a practical introduction to the use of computational methods, particularly finite element methods, in the simulation of fluid flows in porous media. It is the first book to cover a wide variety of flows, including single-phase, two-phase, black oil, volatile, compositional, nonisothermal, and chemical compositional flows in both ordinary porous and fractured porous media. In addition, a range of computational methods are used, and benchmark problems of solution projects from the Society of Petroleum Engineers are presented for the first time in book form.
"The authors review multiphase flow equations and computational methods to introduce basic terminologies and notation. A thorough discussion of practical aspects of the subject is presented, and the level of treatment is rigorous without being unnecessarily abstract. Each chapter ends with bibliographic information and exercises.
"This book can be used as a textbook for graduate or advanced undergraduate students in geology, petroleum engineering, and applied mathematics, and as a reference book for professionals in these fields, and scientists working in the area of petroleum reservoir simulation. It can also be used as a handbook for employees in the oil industry who need to understand modeling and computational methods and by researchers in hydrology, environmental remediation, and some areas of biological tissue modeling. Calculus, physics, and acquaintance with partial differential equations and simple matrix algebra are necessary prerequisites."
Title DEPENDENCE IN PROBABILITY AND STATISTICS. Author P. Bertail, P. Doukhan and P. Soulier (Eds.). Publisher New York: Springer-Verlag, 2006, p. viii + 492, US$69.95. From the back cover: "This book gives a detailed account of some recent developments in the field of probability and statistics for dependent data. The book covers a wide range of topics from Markov chain theory and weak dependence, with an emphasis on some recent developments on dynamical systems, to strong dependence in time series and random fields. A special section is devoted to statistical estimation problems and specific applications. This book is written as a succession of papers by some specialists of the field, alternating general surveys, mostly at a level accessible to graduate students in probability and statistics, and more general research papers mainly suitable to researchers in the field.
"The first part of the book considers some recent developments on weak dependent time series, including some new results for Markov chains as well as some development on new notions of weak dependence. This part also intends to fill a gap between the probability and statistical literature and the dynamical system literature. The second part presents some new results on strong dependence, with a special emphasis on non-linear processes and random fields currently encountered in applications. Finally, in the last part some general estimation problems are investigated, ranging from rate of convergence of maximum likelihood estimators to efficient estimation in parametric or non-parametric timeseries models, with an emphasis on applications with non-stationary data."
Title STUDY DESIGN AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS: A PRACTICAL GUIDE FOR CLINICIANS. Author M.H. Katz. Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. xii + 188, £55.00/US$88.00 Cloth; £26.99/US$39.49 Paper. From the back cover: "This book takes the reader through the entire research process: choosing a question, designing a study, collecting the data, using univariate, bivariate and multivariable analysis, and publishing the results. It does so by using plain language rather than complex derivations and mathematical formulae. It focuses on the nuts and bolts of performing research by asking and answering the most basic questions about doing research studies. It has numerous tables, graphs and tips to help demystify the process. It is filled with up-to-date examples from the clinical literature on how to use statistical analyses to answer important questions."
Title GRANITE LANDSCAPES OF THE WORLD: GEOMORPHOLOGICAL LANDSCAPES OF THE WORLD. Author P. Migon. Publisher Oxford University Press, 2006, p. xxviii + 384, £45.00. From the back cover: "Granite is one of the most common rocks on Earth. By using examples from all around the world, from the tropics to the polar regions, Piotr Migo? shows how the specific characteristics of the rock itself influence natural landscapes and why natural processes shaping the Earth's surface act so distinctively on granite. Typical granite landforms such as boulders, tors, and inselbergs are examined, as are certain specific environments such as deeply weathered tropical terrains, coasts, and cold-climate uplands. Interactions between natural landscapes and human activity are addressed and specific ways of human transformation of granite landscapes are presented."
Title TOMORROW'S CITIES, TOMORROW'S SUBURBS. Author W.H. Lucy and D.L. Phillips. Publisher Chicago, Illinois: American Planning Association, pp. xxi + 354, US$55.95; £35.50. From the back cover: "Cities ruled the first half of the 20th century. The second half belonged to the suburbs. Will cities become dominant again? Can the recent decline of many suburbs be slowed? Are there ways to restore vibrant life to both?
"Tomorrow's Cities, Tomorrow's Suburbs predicts a surprising outcome in the decades-long tug-of-war between urban hubs and suburban outposts. Planning scholars William H. Lucy and David L. Phillips document signs of resurgence in cities and interpret omens of decline in many suburbs. They offer an extensive analysis of the 2000 census, with insights into the influence of income disparities, housing age and size, racial segregation, immigration, and poverty. They also examine popular perceptions ? and misperceptions ? about safety and danger in cities, suburbs, and exurbs that affect settlement patterns.
"Tomorrow's Cities, Tomorrow's Suburbs offers hope that the decline of cities can be halted and reversed, tempered by a warning of the midlife crisis looming in the suburbs. It also offers practical steps that planners, elected officials, and citizens can take to create an environment in which cities and many suburbs can thrive."
Title A NEW ARCHITECTURE FOR THE U.S. NATIONAL ACCOUNTS. Author D.W. Jorgenson, J.S. Landefeld and W.D. Nordhaus (Eds.). Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2006, p. x + 638, US$99.00/£62.50. From the book jacket: "A New Architecture for the U.S. National Accounts brings together a distinguished group of contributors to initiate the development of a comprehensive and fully integrated set of United States national accounts. The purpose of the new architecture is not only to integrate the existing systems of accounts, but also to identify gaps and inconsistencies and expand and incorporate systems of nonmarket accounts within the core system.
"Since the United States economy accounts for almost thirty percent of the world economy, it is not surprising that accounting for this huge and diverse set of economic activities requires a decentralized statistical system. This volume outlines the major assignments among institutions that include the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.
''An important part of the motivation for the new architecture is to integrate the different components and make them consistent. This informative volume marks the first step towards achieving that goal."
Title STATISTICS, SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY IX. Government, Science and Politics. Proceedings of the Conference on Statistics, Science and Public Policy held at Herstmonceux Castle, Author A.M. Herzberg and R.W. Oldford (Eds.). Publisher Kingston, Canada: Queen's University, 2005, pp. xiv + 269, Can$49.95 Cloth; Can$29.95 Paper. "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 government, science and politics. This volume consists of the edited version of the proceedings of the conference."
Title STATISTICS, SCIENCE AND PUBLIC POLICY X. Education, Economics and Politics. Proceedings of the Conference on Statistics, Science and Public Policy held at Herstmonceux Castle, Author A.M. Herzberg (Ed.). Publisher Kingston, Canada: Queen's University, 2006, pp. xiii + 175, Can$49.95 Cloth; Can$29.95 Paper. "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 education, economics and politics. This volume consists of the edited version of the proceedings of the conference."
Title HARD SCIENCE, HARD CHOICES. FACTS, ETHICS AND POLICIES GUIDING BRAIN SCIENCE TODAY. Author S.J. Ackerman. Publisher Foreword by R. Fischbach and G. Fischbach. w York: Dana Press, 2006, p. vi + 152, US$12.95/£8.50.
From the foreword: "This book, Hard Science, Hard Choices, synthesizes for general readers a significant scholarly meeting called to discuss recent advances in neuroscience that give rise to ethical issues unprecedented in their consequence to individuals, society, and the body politic.
''The Library of Congress invited the organizers to hold the conference in the Library's classical building on Capitol Hill. There, in May 2005, more than sixty scholars from the fields of neuroscience, law, public policy, and philosophy gathered. The two-day meeting was co-sponsored by the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the Dana Foundation, along with the Library."
The volume is divided into three topics: neuro-imaging, drugs in the brain, neuro-technology.
Title STREAMFLOW GENERATION PROCESSES. Author K.J. Beven (Ed.). Publisher Wallingford, U.K.: IAHS Press, 2006, pp. x + 432, £40.00. From the back cover: "A series (of papers) from lAHS (International Association of Hydrological Sciences) that collects together, by theme, the scientific papers that provided the foundations for hydrology in the 20th Century. Published across a wide spectrum of disciplines, these papers define the field and provide an overview of the development of ideas that have led to our current concepts and understanding in hydrology."
Title THE ACCESS PRINCIPLE. THE CASE FOR OPEN ACCESS TO RESEARCH AND SCHOLARSHIP. Author J. Willinsky. Publisher Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2006, pp. ix + 287, US$34.95. From the book jacket: "Questions about access to scholarship go back farther than recent debates over subscription prices, rights, and electronic archives suggest. The great libraries of the past - from the fabled collection at Alexandria to the early public libraries of nineteenth-century America - stood as arguments for increasing access. In The Access Principle, John Willinsky describes the latest chapter in this ongoing story - online open access publishing by scholarly journals - and makes a case for open access as a public good.
"A commitment to scholarly work, writes Willinsky, carries with it a responsibility to circulate that work as widely as possible: this is the access principle. In the digital age, that responsibility includes exploring new publishing technologies and economic models to improve access to scholarly work. Wide circulation adds value to published work; it is a significant aspect of its claim to be knowledge. The right to know and the right to be known are inextricably mixed. Open access, argues Willinsky, can benefit both a researcher-author working at the best-equipped lab at a leading research university and a teacher struggling to find resources in an impoverished high school.
"Willinsky describes different types of access - the New England Journal of Medicine, for example, grants open access to issues six months after initial publication, and First Monday forgoes a print edition and makes its contents immediately accessible at no cost. He discusses the contradictions of copyright law, the reading of research, and the economic viability of open access. He also considers broader themes of public access to knowledge, human rights issues, lessons from publishing history, and "epistemological vanities." The debate over open access, writes Willinsky, raises crucial questions about the place of scholarly work in a larger world - and about the future of knowledge."
Title A DICTIONARY OF STATISTICS. Author G. Upton and I. Cook. Publisher Oxford University Press, 2006, p. v + 490, US$17.95; £9.99. From the back cover: "This jargon-free dictionary contains over 2,000 entries on all aspects of statistics, covering terms used in computing, mathematics, operational research, and probability. It will be invaluable for students and professionals from a wide range of disciplines, including market research, medicine, psychology, pharmaceuticals, economics, and mathematics.
"[This volume] includes Internet links for recommended websites; contains around two hundred biographies of key figures in statistics; seventeen useful appendices including keys of mathematical and statistical notation; illustrations and worked examples give terms a practical context."
Title THE CAMBRIDGE DICTIONARY OF STATISTICS, 3rd edition. Author B.S. Everitt. Publisher Cambridge University Press, 2006, pp. ix + 432, £45.00 Cloth; £17.99 Paper. [Original 1998; 2nd edition, 2002]
New entries including biographies of some statisticians have been added to the third edition along with corrections and classifications of some of the existing entries.
Title 100 STATISTICAL TESTS, 3rd edition. Author G.K. Kanji. Publisher London: Sage, 2006, pp. 242, £70.00 Cloth; £22,99 Paper. [Original 1993; 2nd edition, 1999]
From the back cover: "This expanded and updated edition of Gopal Kanji's best-selling resource on statistical tests provides unique coverage in one volume of the most commonly-used tests, with information on how to calculate and interpret results with simple datasets.
"Each entry begins with a short summary statement about the test's purpose and contains details of the objective, the limitations (or assumptions) involved, a brief outline of the method, a worked example and the numerical calculation.
"This new edition also includes: a new introduction to statistical testing with information to guide the reader through the book so that even non-statisticians can find information quickly and easily; real-world explanations of how and when to use each test, with examples drawn from a wide range of disciplines; a useful classification of tests table; all the relevant statistical tables for checking critical values."
Title PURSUIT OF GENIUS, Flexner, Einstein, and the Early Faculty at the Institute for Advanced Study Author S. Batterson. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, pp. xi + 301, US$39.00. From the book jacket: "This book offers a long-overdue account of the early years of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. This is the story of one man's vision of founding a higher-education institution that operates outside of the standard university model, a place without the pressures of teaching commitments, service obligations, or financial considerations - an environment focused on fostering genius through research."
"This is an engrossing tale about the development of advanced mathematical research in the twentieth century." Paul Sally, Jr., The University of Chicago
"The Institute for Advanced Study occupies a unique position among institutions of higher learning. An account of its early years is long overdue, so the appearance of the present volume, during the 75th anniversary of the Institute's founding, is most welcome. Batterson has mined the Institute's archives to provide a detailed and unvarnished account of the backstage conflicts and intrigue that attended the Institute's growth and determined its future. Those unfamiliar with the Institute will learn how one man's vision shaped a couple's philanthropy and created a haven for scholars in the midst of the Great Depression. Equally, those who have had the privilege of Institute membership will enhance their appreciation of the intellectual leaders who made their own Institute experiences possible." John W. Dawson, Jr., author of Logical Dilemmas: The Life and Work of Kurt Gödel
Title THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS. MATHEMATICS AND DESTINY. Author I. Ekeland. Publisher University of Chicago Press, 2006, p. 207, US$25.00/£16.00. From the book jacket: "Optimists believe this is the best of all possible worlds. Pessimists fear that might really be the case. But what is the best of all possible worlds? How do we define it? Is it the world that operates in the most efficient way? Or the one in which most people are comfortable and content? There was a time, during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when scientists felt they could answer these questions.
"This book is their story. Ivar Ekeland takes readers on a journey through scientific attempts to envision the best of all possible worlds. He begins with the French mathematician Maupertuis, whose least action principle asserted that everything in nature occurs in the way that requires the least possible action. This idea, Ekeland shows, was a pivotal breakthrough in science, because it was the first expression of the concept of optimization, or the design of systems that are the most efficient or functional. Although the least action principle was later elaborated and profoundly modified, the concept of optimization that emerged from it touches virtually every scientific discipline today.
"Tracing the profound impact of optimization and the unexpected ways in which it has influenced the study of mathematics, biology, economics, and even politics, Ekeland reveals throughout how the idea of optimization has driven some of our greatest intellectual break-throughs. The result is a fascinating story ? one that will be essential reading for popular-science buffs and historians of science alike."
Title AHA! A TWO VOLUME COLLECTION. AHA! GOTCHA AHA! INSIGHT. Author M. Gardner. Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 2006, p. xvii + 181, US$47.50. From the back cover: "Aha! Gotcha and Aha! Insight are here combined as a single volume. The aha! books, as they are referred to by fans of the author Martin Gardner, contain 144 wonderful puzzles from the reigning king of recreational mathematics. In this combined volume, you will find puzzles ranging over geometry, logic, probability, statistics, number, time, combinatorics, and word play. Gardner calls these puzzles aha! problems. He explains that aha! problems "seem difficult, and indeed are difficult if you go about trying to solve them in traditional ways. But if you can free your mind from standard problem solving techniques, you may be receptive to an aha! reaction that leads immediately to a solution"."
Title THE MATHEMATICS OF GAMES AND GAMBLING, 2nd edition. Author E.W. Packel. Publisher Washington, D.C.: The Mathematical Association of America, 2006, p. xiv + 175, US$44.00. From the back cover: "This book introduces and develops some of the important and beautiful elementary mathematics needed for rational analysis of various gambling and game activities. Most of the standard casino games (roulette, craps, blackjack, keno), some social games (backgammon, poker, bridge) and various other activities (state lotteries, horse racing, etc.) are treated in ways that bring out their mathematical aspects. The mathematics developed ranges from the predictable concepts of probability, expectation, and binomial coefficients to some less well-known ideas of elementary game theory. The second edition includes new material on: sports betting and the mathematics behind it; game theory applied to bluffing in poker and related to the "Texas Holdem phenomenon"; the Nash equilibrium concept and its emergence in the popular culture; internet links to games and to Java applets for practice and classroom use.
"The only formal mathematics background the reader needs is some facility with high school algebra. Game-related exercises are included at the end of most chapters for readers interested in working with and expanding ideas treated in the text. Solutions to some of the exercises appear at the end of the book."
Title AUTHENTICATION CODES AND COMBINATORIAL DESIGNS. Author D. Pei. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. vii + 241, US$89.95/£49.99. From the back cover: "Researchers and practitioners of cryptography and information security are constantly challenged to respond to new attacks and threats to information systems. Authentication Codes and Combinatorial Designs presents new findings and original work on perfect authentication codes characterized in terms of combinatorial designs, namely strong partially balanced designs (SPBD).
"Beginning with examples illustrating the concepts of authentication schemes and combinatorial designs, the book considers the probability of successful deceptions followed by schemes involving three and four participants, respectively. From this point, the author constructs the perfect authentication schemes and explores encoding rules for such schemes in some special cases. Using rational normal curves in protective spaces over finite fields, the author constructs a new family of SPBD. He then presents some established combinatorial designs that can be used to construct perfect schemes, such as t-designs, orthogonal arrays of index unity, and designs constructed by finite geometry. The book concludes by studying definitions of perfect secrecy, properties of perfectly secure schemes, and constructions of perfect secrecy schemes with and without authentication.
"[This volume] provides: comprehensive treatment of authentication in information security and authentication codes; covers combinatorial designs and their applications to authentication codes; discusses the applications of finite geometry over finite fields to the theory of combinatorial designs; presents an in-depth analysis of unconditionally secure authentication schemes; covers both symmetric and asymmetric authentication codes."
Title ADVERSARIAL REASONING. Computational Approaches to Reading the Opponent's Mind. Author A. Kott and W.M. McEneaney (Eds.). Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2007, pp. 340, US$89.95/£49.99. From the back cover: "The rising tide of threats, from financial cybercrime to asymmetric military conflicts demands greater sophistication in tools and techniques of law enforcement, commercial and domestic security professionals, and terrorism prevention. Concentrating on computational solutions to determine or anticipate an adversary's intent, Adversarial Reasoning. Computational Approaches to Reading the Opponent's Mind discusses the technologies for opponent strategy prediction, plan recognition, deception discovery and planning, and strategy formulation that not only applies to security issues but also to game industry and business transactions.
"Addressing a broad range of practical problems, including military planning and command, military and foreign intelligence, antiterrorism, network security, as well as simulation and training systems, this reference presents an overview of each problem and then explores the various approaches and applications to understand the mind and negate the action of your opponent. The beginning chapters outline the key concepts related to discovering the opponent's intent and plan while the subsequent chapters journey into more mathematical methods for counterdeception. The final chapters employ a range of techniques, including reinforcement learning within a stochastic dynamic games context to devise strategies that combat opponents."
Title A COURSE IN MATHEMATICAL BIOLOGY. QUANTITATIVE MODELING WITH MATHEMATICAL AND COMPUTATIONAL METHODS. Author G. de Vries, T. Hillen, M. Lewis, J. Muller and B. Schonfisch. Publisher Philadelphia: Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, 2006, pp. xii + 309. From the back cover: "The field of mathematical biology is growing rapidly. Questions about infectious diseases, heart attacks, cell movement, ecology, environmental changes, and genomics are now being analyzed using mathematical and computational methods. A Course in Mathematical Biology: Quantitative Modeling with Mathematical and Computational Methods teaches all aspects of modern mathematical modeling and is specifically designed to introduce undergraduate students to problem solving in the context of biology.
"Divided into three parts, the book covers basic analytical modeling techniques and model validation methods; introduces computational tools used in the modeling of biological problems; and provides a source of open-ended problems from epidemiology, ecology and physiology. All chapters include realistic biological examples, and there are many exercises related to biological questions. In addition, the book includes 25 open-ended research projects that can be used by students. The book is accompanied by a Web site that contains solutions to most of the exercises and a tutorial for the implementation of the computational modeling techniques. Calculations can be done in modern computing languages such as Maple, Mathematica and Matlabâ."
Title INTRODUCTION TO THE MATHEMATICS OF OPERATIONS RESEARCH WITH MATHEMATICA, 2nd edition. Author K.J. Hastings. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. vii + 567, US$89.95/£44.99. [Original 1990; Short Book Reviews, Vol. 10, p. 9]
From the back cover: "The breadth of information about operations research and the overwhelming size of previous sources on the subject make it a difficult topic for non-specialists to grasp. Fortunately, Introduction to the Mathematics of Operations Research with Mathematicaâ, Second Edition delivers a concise analysis that benefits professionals in operations research and related fields in statistics, management, applied mathematics, and finance.
"The second edition retains the character of the earlier version, while incorporating developments in the sphere of operations research, technology, and mathematics pedagogy. Covering the topics crucial to applied mathematics, it examines graph theory, linear programming, stochastic processes, and dynamic programming. This self-contained text includes an accompanying electronic version and a package of useful commands. The electronic version is in the form of Mathematica notebooks."
Title MULTIPLE CORRESPONDENCE ANALYSIS AND RELATED METHODS. Author M. Greenacre and J. Blasius (Eds.). Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. 581, US$99.95/£56.99. From the back cover: "As a generalization of simple correspondence analysis, multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) is a powerful technique for handling larger, more complex datasets, including the high-dimensional catagorical data often encountered in the social sciences, marketing, health economics, and biomedical research. However, the literature on the subject has been scattered, leaving many in these fields with no comprehensive resource from which to learn its theory, applications, and implementation.
"Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Related Methods gives a state-of-the-art description of this new field in an accessible, self-contained, textbook format. Explaining the methodology step-by-step, it offers an exhaustive survey of the different approaches taken by researchers from different statistical "schools" and explores a wide variety of application areas. Each chapter includes empirical examples that provide a practical understanding of the method and its interpretation and most chapters end with a "Software Note" that discusses software and computational aspects. An appendix at the end of the book gives further computing details along with code written in the R language for performing MCA and related techniques. The code and the sets of data used in the book are available for download from a supporting Web page.
"Providing a unique, multidisciplinary perspective, experts in multiple correspondence analysis from both statistics and the social sciences contributed chapters to the book. The editors unified the notation and co-ordinated and cross-referenced the theory across all of the chapters, making the book read seamlessly. Practical, accessible, and thorough, Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Related Methods brings the theory and applications of MCA under one cover and provides a valuable addition to your statistical toolbox."
Title STATISTICAL METHODS FOR SPATIO-TEMPORAL SYSTEMS. Author B. Finkenstad, L. Held and V. Isham (Eds.). Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2007, pp. xvi + 286, US$89.95/£49.99. From the back cover: "Statistical Methods for Spatio-Temporal Systems presents current statistical research issues on spatio-temporal data modeling and will promote advances in research and a greater understanding between the mechanistic and the statistical modeling communities.
"Contributed by leading researchers in the field, each self-contained chapter starts with an introduction of the topic and progresses to recent research results. Presenting specific examples of epidemic data of bovine tuberculosis, gastroenteric disease, and the U.K. foot-and-mouth outbreak, the first chapter uses stochastic models to provide the probabilistic backbone that facilitates statistical inference from data. The next chapter discusses the critical issue of modeling random growth objects in diverse biological systems, such as bacteria colonies, tumors, and plant populations. The subsequent chapter examines data transformation tools using examples from ecology and air quality data, followed by a chapter on space-time covariance functions. The contributors then describe stochastic and statistical models that are used to generate simulated rainfall sequences for hydrological use. The final chapter explores Gaussian Markov random field specifications and Bayesian computational inference via Gibbs sampling and Markov chain Monte Carlo, illustrating the methods with a variety of data examples, such as temperature surfaces and dioxin concentrations."
Title UNCERTAINTY MODELING AND ANALYSIS IN ENGINEERING AND THE SCIENCES. Author B. Ayyub and G. Klir. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. i + 378, US$89.95/£39.99. From the back cover: "Engineers and scientists often need to solve complex problems with incomplete information resources, necessitating a proper treatment of uncertainty and a reliance on expert opinions. Uncertainty Modeling and Analysis in Engineering and the Sciences prepares current and future analysts and practitioners to understand the fundamentals of knowledge and ignorance, how to model and analyze uncertainty, and how to select appropriate analytical tools for particular problems.
"This volume covers primary components of ignorance and their impact on practice and decision making. It provides an overview of the current state of uncertainty modeling and analysis, and reviews emerging theories while emphasizing practical applications in science and engineering.
"The book introduces fundamental concepts of classical, fuzzy, and rough sets, probability, Bayesian methods, interval analysis, fuzzy arithmetic, interval probabilities, evidence theory, open-world models, sequences, and possibility theory. The authors present these methods to meet the needs of practitioners in many fields, emphasizing the practical use, limitations, advantages, and disadvantages of the methods."
Title COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY. A Statistical Mechanics Perspective. Author R. Blossey. Publisher Boca Raton, Florida: Chapman and Hall/CRC Press, 2006, pp. 251, US$79.95/£44.99. From the back cover: "Computational Biology: A Statistical Mechanics Perspective is the first book dedicated to the interface between statistical physics and bioinformatics. Introducing both equilibrium and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics in a manner tailored to computational biologists, the author applies these methods to understand and model the properties of various biomolecules and biological networks at the systems level."
Title STATISTICAL METHODS IN COUNTERTERRORISM. GAME THEORY, MODELING, SYNDROMIC SURVEILLANCE, AND BIOMETRIC AUTHENTICATION. Author A.G. Wilson, G.D. Wilson and D.H. Olwell (Eds.). Publisher New York: Springer-Verlag, 2006, p. xii + 292, US$39.95. From the back cover: ""All the data was out there to warn us of this impending attack, why didn't we see it?" This was a frequently asked question in the weeks and months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In the wake of the attacks, statisticians moved quickly to become part of the national response to the global war on terror. This book is an overview of the emerging research program at the intersection of national security and statistical sciences. A wide range of talented researchers address issues in Syndromic Surveillance - How do we detect and recognize bioterrorist events? Modeling and Simulation - How do we better understand and explain complex processes so that decision makers can take the best course of action? Biometric Authentication - How do we pick the terrorist out of the crowd of faces or better match the passport to the traveler? Game Theory - How do we understand the rules that terrorists are playing by?
This book includes technical treatments of statistical issues that will be of use to quantitative researchers as well as more general examinations of quantitative approaches to counterterrorism that will be accessible to decision makers with stronger policy backgrounds."
Title THE CRYPTOCLUB. Using Mathematics to Make and Break Secret Codes. Author J. Beissinger and V. Pless. Publisher Wellesley, Massachusetts: A.K. Peters, 2006, pp. xvi + 199, US$35.00. From the back cover: "The encryption systems covered in this book range from classic ciphers that have been around for hundreds of years, such as the Caesar and Vigenere ciphers, to the modern RSA system that provides security for information passed over the internet. Connections are made to historical events and applications of recent mathematical research, giving students the opportunity to see mathematics as an exciting, changing subject.
"The book includes problems, suggestions for games and classroom activities, and messages to encrypt and decrypt. The material can be used in conventional classrooms, by after-school clubs, in home-schooling environments, or for independent learning."
Back to ISI Home