CRC Press
Cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases in health and disease.
Beavo (pharmacology, U. of Washington, US), Francis (molecular physiology and biophysics, Vanderbilt U. School of Medicine, US), and Houslay (biochemistry, U. of Glasgow, UK) present the first major compendium on the science of cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterases (PDEs) and their therapeutic and biomedical applications in some 15 years, a period during which new mammalian PDE families have been discovered and characterized and PDE-selective inhibitors have been successively marketed (including Viagra, Levitra, and Cialis). The regulation, molecular, and biochemical characteristics of the known mammalian PDE families are explored in individual chapters, followed by discussion of protozoal PDEs and studies of PDE function using fruit fly genomics and transgenics. Two contributions discuss PDEs' functional significance for gene-targeted knockout strategies and three others examine compartmentation in cyclic nucleotide signaling. The remaining 14 chapters are concerned with PDEs as pharmacological targets in disease processes and the development of specific PDE inhibitors as therapeutic agents. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Death investigation; systems and procedures.
Chief medical examiner for a Georgia county, Hanzlick (forensic pathology, Emory U.) sets out the laws and administrative and operational procedures that pertain to medical examiner and coroner systems in the US, which are charged by law to investigate sudden and unexplained deaths. His themes include general aspects, the various players, goals, types of investigation, specific features, and special circumstances. He does not discuss medical aspects or explain how to solve crimes. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Digital avionics handbook, 2d ed.; 2v.
This two-volume work, edited by Spitzer (AvioniCon, Inc.), is intended to serve as a comprehensive overview of the state-of-the-art in the field of avionics (aerospace electronics). The 24 chapters of first volume cover individual elements and functions of avionics systems, including commercial standard bus, head-mounted displays, speech recognition and synthesis, human factors engineering and flight deck design, synthetic vision, terrain awareness, batteries, and avionics application software standard interface, as well as general functions such as communications, navigation systems, navigation and tracking, flight management systems, vehicle health management systems, traffic collision avoidance systems, the Boeing B-777's fly-by-wire flight controls, and fault-tolerant flight control system in future military transport aircraft. The other volume contains seven chapters on the development of avionic systems, discussing processes for engineering a system, digital avionics modeling and simulation, formal methods, electronic hardware reliability, the electromagnetic environment, design guidance and certification considerations of integrated modular avionics, and certification of civil avionics. It also contains six chapters focusing on implementation that discuss fault-tolerant avionics; the Boeing B-777; new avionics systems for the Airbus A330/A340; the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 avionics system; a hardware/software platform that provides computing, communication, and input/output services for hosted functions (the Genesis Platform); and advanced distributed architectures. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Direct sum decompositions of torsion-free finite rank groups.
Faticoni (mathematics, Fordham U.) explores advanced topics in direct sum decompositions of abelian groups and their consequences. He aims this primarily at those requiring a reference in isomorphism, endomorphism, refinement, the Baer splitting property, Gabriel filters and endomorphism modules. He includes exercises with answers and appendices on pathological direct sums, ACD groups, power cancellation, corner rings and modules, Corner's theorem, torsion/torsion-free groups, E-flat groups and other topics. This is eminently readable. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Drug abuse handbook, 2d ed.
Featuring contributions by 90-plus international specialists in the legal, medical, and treatment fields, this text provides a guide to the pharmacology and pharmacokinetics of abused drugs, and an overview of the pathology of drug abuse. It examines criminalistics, pharmacokinetics, neurochemistry, treatment, and drug-related death investigation, and the ethical, legal, and practical issues involved. The second edition contains a substantial amount of new material — some 40 percent — including new chapters on toxicogenetics and on the genetics of sudden cardiac death, and a section on legal notions of causation. For researchers, students, and practitioners in the fields of forensics and criminal justice. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Ecosystem responses to mercury contamination; indicators of change; proceedings.
Six papers propose a framework for a national-scale program to monitor changes in mercury concentrations in the environment following the expected reduction of atmospheric mercury emissions after new regulations by state and national governments. Work on the plan commenced in 2003 and has engaged specialists in atmospheric mercury transport and deposition, mercury cycling in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, and mercury bio-accumulation in aquatic food webs and wildlife. Published in collaboration with the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Ecological risk assessment, 2d ed.
Aiming to provide scientifically sound advice on ecological risk assessment to environmental decision makers (who have a basic knowledge of biology, chemistry, mathematics, and statistics), Sutter (science advisor, US Environmental Protection Agency's National Center for Environmental Assessment) and colleagues provide an introduction to the field, focusing on risks for chemicals and chemical mixtures. Introductory chapters discuss risk assessment frameworks; ecological epidemiology and causal analysis; variability, uncertainty, and probability; dimensions, scales, and levels of organization; modes and mechanisms of action; mixed and multiple agents; and quality assurance. Planning and problem formulation is explored, followed by chapters on the analysis of exposure which cover source identification and characterization; sampling, analysis, and assays; mathematical models of chemical transport and fate; and exposure to chemicals and other agents. Exposure-response relationships, testing, biological surveys, organism-level extrapolation models, population modeling, and ecosystems effects modeling are explored under the "analysis of effects" heading and concluding chapters discuss risk characterization and risk management. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Electronic components and technology, 3d ed.
Sangwine (electrical engineering, University of Essex) describes the technology of interconnecting electronic components, circuits, and subsystems, and introduces the properties of power supplies, resistors, capacitors, inductors, transistors, and integrated circuits. The third edition of the undergraduate textbook updates the material on lead-free solders, digital oscilloscopes, and batteries. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Electrical contacts; fundamentals, applications and technology.
Braunovic (technical physics, U. of Belgrade, Yugoslavia), Myshkin, and Konchits (both National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, Russia), present this text covering theory and applications of electrical contacts in modern engineering, designed for electrical engineers and postgraduate engineering students. Eleven chapters provide analytical models, techniques, methodologies, and tools used to assess and maintain the reliability of moving ad permanent electrical contacts. Applications include automotive and aerospace technologies, high- and low-power contact joints, sliding and braking contacts, and electromechanical systems. Material integrates research in mechanical engineering and tribology with new data on electrical current transfer, especially at the micro/nanoscale. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Environment modeling; a practical introduction. (CD-ROM included)
Barnsley (environment and society, Swansea U., Wales) introduces undergraduate and even some graduate students of the environmental sciences to the methods, techniques, and skills involved in the increasingly complex computerized environmental modeling. He discusses representing an environmental problem in conceptual terms, formalizing the conceptual model using mathematical expressions, converting the mathematical model into a program that can be run on a home computer (these days maybe cell phone or iPod), and examining the results produced in comparison with observations. The disc contains all the software, data, and compiler programs needed. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Functional protein microarrays in drug discovery.
Biological, medical, physical, and technical scientists provide their colleagues and graduate students with a broad reference to microarrays with large numbers of correctly folded and functional proteins, and to their application in developing new drugs. They discuss generation functional protein content, standard and new fabrication methods, assay detection, applications, and fundamental computational issues. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Gas lasers.
This volume focuses on the fundamentals, research, and applications of gas lasers for graduate students, scientists, and engineers. Endo (physics, Tokai U., Japan) and Walter, who works in directed energy systems at a corporation in the US, bring together 11 chapters. The technology and physics of each laser is described, as are properties, including dynamics, electric circuits for excitations, and optical resonators. Gaseous media, spectral broadening, and applications, such as those for modern engineering, are also discussed. Five of the chapters concentrate on a specific laser device, classified by the medium and excitation scheme and kinds of atoms or molecules. Contributors work in the field of laser physics and are from Russia, the US, Bulgaria, and Poland. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Genomic approaches for cross-species extrapolation in toxicology.
Genomic approaches are proving valuable in investigating stress responses in organisms, but they are too new to have yet received testing, verification and codification. This seeks to begin the process as 35 practitioners from such fields as environmental toxicology, chemistry, biomedical toxicology, molecular biology, genetics, physiology, bioinformatics, computer science and statistics weigh in with their research and observations. The five chapters here cover and "omics" approach to the context of environmental toxicology, a selection of surrogate animal species for comparative toxicogenomics, species differences in response to toxic substances in terms of shared pathways of toxicity and the accompanying mode of action, bioinformatic approaches and computational models for data integration and cross-species extrapolation, and the extension of molecular and computational information to risk assessment and regulatory decision making. Published by CRC Press in association with the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry (SETAC). (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
GIS applications in agriculture. (CD-ROM included)
The series is intended to promote the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) in agriculture by providing a venue for practitioners and researchers to share their knowledge and experience with each other and with others in the industry who might consider the approach. Volumes will appear periodically as need and resources allow, and of course depending on the weather. In the first volume, contributors from GIS and from agriculture discuss such topics as managing nitrogen in sugar beet using remote sensing and GIS, developing productivity zones from multiple years of yield monitor data, and assessing variable-depth tillage. The disk contains data-sets described in the text. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Guide to microbiological control in pharmaceuticals and medical devices, 2d ed.
This update of the 2000 handbook (as it was titled) is intended to be used in tandem with the new companion Handbook of Microbiological Quality Control in Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices. Noting that the new edition incorporates material on biotechnological products, medical devices, package integrity testing, and the evaluation of contamination risks in "clean rooms," Denyer (pharmacy, Cardiff, Wales) and Baird (pharmacy and pharmacology, U. of Bath, UK) introduce 21 chapters by international scientists with an overview of principles of microbiology for nonspecialists. Contributors review bioburden challenges, solutions, standards, and auditing in the production of pharmaceutical products and medical devices (e.g., catheters, coronary stents, and orthopedic implants). (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Handbook of alternative fuel technologies.
Lee (chemical and biological engineering, U. of Missouri — Rolla), Speight (an energy and environmental consultant with CD&W, Inc.), and Loyalka (nuclear and chemical engineering, U. of Missouri — Columbia) present 16 chapters that synthesize the literature on the science of alternative fuels and their processing technologies, focusing on their environmental and technical readiness as principal energy sources for a future postpetroleum era and addressing associated environmental and socioeconomic issues. Following a global energy overview, individual chapters treat gasification of coal, clean liquid fuels from coal, coal slurry fuel, liquid fuels from natural gas, resids, liquid fuels from oil sand, shale oil from oil shale, methanol synthesis from syngas, ethanol from corn, ethanol from lignocellulosics, energy from biomass conversion, energy generation from waste sources, geothermal energy, nuclear energy, and fuel cells. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Handbook of finite translation planes.
Concentrating on the finite case but occasionally using a general argument over arbitrary/infinite structures, this comprehensive reference includes examples, processes, construction techniques and models so general geometers can find a particular plane. It provides a complete description of all known finite translation planes with examples and related geometries, connects translation plans with areas of incidence geometry such as quadric sets, generalized quadrangles and partitions, and shows how various classes of translation planes fit within fundamental classification schemes. The authors have organized the material into over 100 concise and compact entries and cover everything from the methods of André to coordinate and linear algebra, with particular attention to the processes that are used to study translation planes such as ovoid and Klein quadric projection, multiple derivation, hyper-regular placement, sub-regular lifting, conical distortion and Hermitian sequences. They include details on the affects of the collineation group and group theoretic conditions. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Handbook of regression and modeling; applications for the clinical and pharmaceutical industries.
Writing for researchers in the pharmaceutical, applied microbiological, and healthcare-product-formulation industries, Paulson (Bioscience Laboratories, Inc) describes the use of linear regression models that are more complicated than the simple models he included in his 2003 Applied Statistical Designs for the Researcher (Marcel Dekker, Inc). After introducing basic statistical concepts and simple linear regression, he discusses multiple linear regression procedures and matrix algebra, aspects of correlation analysis and partial correlation analysis, common problems of multiple linear regression such as multiple collinearity and ridge regression bias, polynomial regression and its uses, residual analysis, the use of indicator or dummy variables, forward and stepwise selections of xi and backward elimination in statistical software, and covariance analysis. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
The image processing handbook, 5th ed.
Although there is some overlap, there are two principle purposes to image processing: improving the visual appearances of images to a human viewer and preparing images for the measurement of revealed features and structures. In describing the use of image processing tools and methods, Russ (materials science and engineering, North Carolina State U.) provides coverage of both purposes, emphasizing clarity of explanation over mathematical rigor. He presents 14 chapters on image acquisition, human vision, printing and storage, correcting image defects, image enhancement in the spatial domain, processing images in frequency space, segmentation and thresholding, processing binary images, global image measurements, feature-specific measurements, feature recognition and classification, tomographic imaging, three-dimensional image visualization, and imaging surfaces. The material is illustrated with some 600 new and revised figures. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
Introduction to bioinformatics.
"Bioinformatics," a term that emerged in the early 1990s, refers to the discipline that "uses the instruments of informatics to analyze biological data in order to formulate hypotheses about life." But in introducing a field made possible by high-speed computers and the Web, Tramontano (biochemistry, U. of Rome La Sapienza, Italy) notes that an operational definition is in order. Therefore, she describes the rationale; biological, statistical, and programming knowledge required; and limitations and future evolution of the tools and methods used for such applications as genomic (gene sequencing), modeling, and other "omics" projects. The book includes chapter problems and a list of commonly used Web sites. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
An introduction to rehabilitation engineering.
Designed for new practitioners as well as students, this collection of 18 articles includes study questions and references for each, and wisely includes commentary on why not all assistive technologies will be accepted by those for whom they are intended. Topics include rehabilitative engineering as a clinical practice, universal design, technology transfer, standards, seating biomechanics and systems, tissue integrity management, wheelchairs and wheelchair transportation safety, functional electrical stimulation, rehabilitative robotics, major limb prosthetics and orthotic devices, assisted technology for vision and hearing, augmenting and alternative communication technology, adaptive sports and recreation, and devices related to telecommunication, computers and web accessibility. (Annotation ©2007 Book News Inc. Portland, OR)
