this boock is an excllent and accurate source of information on electrotherapy and all of it forms, including TENS, electroacupuncture and more

I liked this book. That surprised me. This speaks directly to strength in narration and artistry of Mr. Choukri, who shows us, in this first volume of his autobiography, the despair brought about by ignorance and poverty. Our young man's apparent lack of hope for a better future is made clear from the start. In his teens, born in Marocco, during the French domination, he struggles to find the rules and reasons for the world around him. I say apparent lack of hope, because after the first few paragraphs we already know that he is sensitive, smart and will attempt to survive as best he can, without any help from his family or society. In this respect, I was satisfied early on, for I sensed it would be all right to attach my emotions to this hero; that he would not betray my confidence. Mr. Choukri's narration is also masterful in the depiction of the most despicable acts of violence both physical and moral. He is detached. So we can also keep our safe distance.

I confess to having a special reason for reading this book. Since I spent some time in the early 1980s in Oran, Algeria, I have been intrigued with the peoples of North Africa. And this book takes place in many of the cities and towns that are familiar to me. What surprises is to see that even though there was a good thirty years difference between the time this story took place and the 1980s, there were vestiges that for some, things still remained. I can only hope that there has been considerable improvement in the past 20 years.

This is a book that makes us think. And even though the subject: a disenfranchised youth in the life of petty crimes in the fringe of society is not unusual in the literature of developing countries, it is important to return to these themes once in a while, getting out of our comforatble, well educated bubbles, and rethink our own contributions to world around us.

I am a better person for having read this book. That's a sign of excellence.

The greatest strength of this book is that the author creates it with the students in mind. If you are new to digital circuit design, this book will save you from literally hundred of hours of headache. Studying in college is not easy because you have so many classes to take; you probably have to work to support yourself, also. The last thing most students need is a textbook written by a PhD author understood only by the author. Dr. Raffiquzzaman writes this book to give the students a strong foundation in digital design and to help the students financially.

First, when I started learning digital logic four years ago, I had difficulty understanding the required textbook. It took too long to try and understand each page in that book. (It was a bad experience; I chose not to remember the title of that darn book.) I felt discouraged but, luckily, my fellow students told me about this book. Since then, I used only Dr. Rafi book as my first step in learning digital. Like I said, students don't have time!

Oh! About saving money, this book is one of the few digital textbooks, if not the only book, which costs less than a hundred dollars. Check out the price above. The author, in his great insight, creates his own publishing company along with this book. Furthermore, this book is not slim. It has enough materials inside to cover your first three years of digital study. In addition, in only four years, the author has updated it two times to make sure you have the latest technology information. After all, we are living in the Pentium 4 world.

The book has everything you need to know. This book had every hotel, lodge or tented camp we stayed at and the information was accurate. It also list places to eat, shop, and sites to see in each area. The book gives you a history of the country, profiles on the different tribes, details about each park and reserve, maps and travel tips that were very good. Really liked the information on the wildlife since this was the main reason for our trip. My 10 old daughter also enjoyed reading this book.

The cataclysmic events both inside and outside the Muslim world since 9/11 have caused some serious collateral damage. Inter-religious dialogue has suffered a severe setback as a result of the increased antagonism between Muslims and non-Muslims. Especially progressive Muslim thinkers are now in an even less enviable position than before. In their attempts to find ouvertures these potential bridge-builders between modern western thought and Islamic discourse are often vilified by less open-minded fellow Muslims. In today's climate poisoned with suspicion, these intellectuals face a real danger of being stonewalled or considered mere apologists in the West as well.

The only way out of this deadlock of mistrust is to take note of the views and ideas of these often original thinkers. "Islam and Modernity: Muslim Intellectuals Respond" is a volume of essays in which some innovative Muslim thinkers are either presented and interpreted by Islamic studies specialists or given opportunity to speak for themselves.

After an introduction by Derek Hopwood, sketching the intellectual climate in which the debate on cultural heritage and response to outside influences is grounded in the world of Islam, followed by an essay on modernist influences on 19th century Urdu literature, John Cooper analyzes the contributions of Iran's controversial philosopher of science, 'Abd al-Karim Soroush, to the debate on the "Islamization of knowledge". A pharmacologist by training, Soroush also engages in penetrating studies of traditionalism and Islamic philosophy. Although he was very much involved in the educational reforms taking place in the wake of Iran's Islamic revolution, Soroush has nevertheless been able to retain an independent intellectual stand. Cooper explains that he succeeded in doing so because "[h]e began to present a more personalized discourse, in which his intellectual autobiography came to figure prominently [..]". In his argumentations for new trajectories towards knowledge Soroush uses elements from the entire Islamic intellectual spectrum: Persian poetry, ideas borrowed from revivalism, mysticism, and scriptural studies are employed to trace genealogies and suggest a new Islamic epistemology.

Andreas Christmann presents a micro-level study of the Damascus-based preacher Shaikh Muhammad Sa'id Ramadan al-Buti. The essay is based on field-work in which he has researched the biography of this representative of the traditional 'ulama or religious scholars, and the influences his ideas have had, mainly through the modern media of radio and TV.

Nadia Abu-Zahra's survey of the liberal writer on Islam, Husayn Ahmed Amin, shows that his main focus is on the importance of correct knowledge of Islamic history and consideration for social circumstances in the development and implementation of Islamic law or Shari'a. Together these will make Muslims aware that Shari'a law developed centuries ago and that its stipulations have failed to keep pace with new social conditions. In adapting to these new circumstances, Muslims can enhance their confidence in their Islamic identity. That such a reform has failed sofar is, among others, due to the misconception of the Prophet's infallibility, ignoring the fact that many of the Prophet's actions were driven by political and economic interests, and the isolationist attitudes of later generations of jurists. In a detailed analysis of Amin's argumentation on the basis of historical and scriptural studies, the author points out several inconsistencies in Amin's reasonings.

The Sudanese reformist Mahmud Muhammad Taha has paid the ultimate price for his modernist thinking: in 1985 he was condemned to death on charges of apostacy and executed. Mohamed Mahmoud's essay focusses mainly on the thinker's most influential work: "The Second Message of Islam". Taha may be characterized as a universalist and gnostic, as such his thought was not so different from certain strands of Sufism.
Taha's philosophy is permeated by two interrelated problems: the relationship between individual and society, and man's relationship to the universe. Taha's starting point that "in Islam the individual is the end. Everything else, including the Qur'an and the religion of Islam itself, are means to that end.", makes him a true humanist. Further on Mohamad Mahmoud explains that Taha's evolutionary perspective on religion induces him to take Islam as a living, endless process rather than a doctrine pregnant with dogmatism.
The author then takes us through some intriguing concepts that Taha's philosophy touched upon: original and subsidiary revelations, jihad, gender, slavery, the position of democracy.

According to Ronald Nettler, Tunesian-born mediaevist Mohamed Talbi has made a significant contribution to modernist Islamic religious thought in the later half of the twentieth century. Central themes in Talbi's thinking are the contextuality of scriptural exegesis, man's innate pluralism, and the provisionality of all knowledge. Interestingly, Talbi acknowledges his intellectual debt to the Christian theologian Hans Kueng for his views on interreligious relations.

The Moroccan Mohamed Abed Jabri is a professional philosopher, who has engaged in the debate on how Muslims can accommodate concepts like democracy and human rights in their conceptional world. Central to his thinking are notions such as ethical princple and rationality. Abdou Filali-Ansari's essay contains an interesting exposition on Jabri's view of secularism, serving as an illustration of the invasion of the theological field by 'secular' intellectuals.

From a similar mold, but decidedly post-modernist in tone, is the essay by Mohammed Arkoun, an expert on Islamic philosophy. He makes a case for differentiation between 'Qur'an-as-fact' and 'Islam-as-fact' on the basis of historical, sociological and linguistic research, without losing sight of the influence that ideologies have on the formation of 'meaning'.

Another thinker who has suffered the consequences of his innovative approaches to Islamic studies is Nasr Hamid Abu Zaid, who had to seek refuge in the Netherlands after being sued for apostacy in Egypt. He suggests that semiotic methods can be fruitfully applied to the study of Qur'an. His essay, dealing with the textuality of the Qur'an, illuminates Islamic notions of 'text', 'language' and 'semantics'. He emphasizes, however, that textual particularities must be studied in their historical context, and that the text's interpretation is absolutely human and therefore infinitely diverse.

All in all, this collection of essays makes an excellent companion volume to any of the vast number of books on political Islam.

The book is excellent for any one wanting to learn more on archipelagic states and its relationship with UNCLOS. The language is very simple and easy to understand. Anybody will understand the concepts involved in Archipelagos in no time. Hope to read more books by the same author. Keep up the good work Mohamed Munavvar!

Here again is Mahfouz sunk in the depth of this new phase of his, the phase that started with "The Theif and The Dogs" followed by "Autumn Grocer Quail," non of which I liked that much.

In this one, I think, Mahfouz mastered this new writing disciplin of his. Now he knows what he wants to do and what to say, and he pretty much did a good job.

This story, I feel, combines elements from this and the previous phases (The privious phase was the one ending with the Trilogy). It is a romance, and is a deep study of the psychology of Egyptians.

The story starts with a prostitute/pimp mother revealing to her son that his father was still alife and is a wealthy man. Then she dies. The boy starts "The Search" for his father, which is the title of the novel. The real Arabic title was "The Road." The story from this point on takes a different turn. You would think that the story is only conserned with the search for the father. I think what Mahfouz wants is the search for the identity.

I think this is a story of how a man can be both a villain and a magnanimous. How a man can both enjoy a platonic love and indulge in an animalistic sexual relationship in the same time.

Mahfouz does a great job describing the feelings of a suspicious man, and how this might lead him to a point from where he cannot return. How a man can hate the same person he used to love, or on whome his life depended.

The story is worth reading, and is one of the best I read. If you already like it, why don't you try "Midaq Alley" and "The Trilogy." For more reviews about Mahfouz's books, please strike the blue "a_mathematician" below the title of this review, and enjoy.

A man born in a luxury brothel is asked by his mother, a madam, to search for his father. During the search he meets two women : the unselfish Ilhaam and the provocative Kariema, who is married to a much older man. The man is torn between the two: Ilhaam, a reflection of his father - a promise and a dream difficult to become true- and Kariema, a reflection of his mother - sensual pleasure and criminal practices. Kariema asks him to kill her husband and to marry her. In the meantime the search for his father continues.
A thrilling story, sensually written.

Naguib Mahfouz is probably one of the most controversial and prominent writers the Arab world has ever known. His novels give a vivid and intimate depiction of life in his native Egypt. Some have said that reading one of his books is just like sitting at a maqha (coffee house) in Alexandria. All this can be seen very clearly in one of his best novels ever "The Search". In it we are told the story of Saber el Reheimy, a man torn between a dark past and a hopeless future. His mother was a prostitute. Right before she dies she tells him that his father is still alive (ok...not the most original idea in the world, but nevertheless makes for an interesting story). He goes out to search for his father but instead finds something else, himself. The story is quite exhilarating; I was not able to put it down until the end (which by the way was highly unexpected).

The ``Application Framework'' series (building, implementing, and domain-specific applications) are truly excellent experienced-based guide on building and implementing object-oriented (OO) frameworks. Each book in the series is a gold mine; excellent examples of successful implementation at corporations from all around the world are provided. The examples practically walk one thru all steps of developing and implementing a framework. The series provides numerous invaluable technical as well as managerial tips. This is a very unique practical series and most essential for those who want to be successful in enterprise software development in 21st century.

The authors/editors are well-known experts in the OO arena and that sure adds to the credibility and value of the series.

I'd recommend all three books to practitioners and consultants. It is a money well invested. I also recommended the first book for a graduate course in object-oriented development.

An almost indispensable 3-volume reading to understand the success of framework technologies in today's software systems. The books include most of the top articles on the subject, providing a thorough insight in both design and implementation issues regarding frameworks, also complemented with practical experience about framework usage. Although the work is mainly concentrated on technical aspects, the articles are comprehensible enough to be taken as reference material by a broad community, for example, software engineers, programmers, or technology managers. The books are useful for anybody planning to include framework-based techniques in software development processes or planning to improve current object-oriented practices. It is also an excellent source for graduate courses.

Volume 1 lays the fundamental concepts supporting object-oriented frameworks, and describes the problems and challenges that this
technology raises in software development. The book covers topics such as domain analysis, development concepts and approaches,
documentation, and management, among others. Of course, the compilation of articles makes some parts little redundant, but this is a minor detail compared with the fruitful contributions made by the book. In particular, the articles on reusing hooks, hot-spot-driven development, composing modeling frameworks in Catalysis, and composition problems, causes and solutions, are a sample of the outstanding level of this work. Each chapter adds at the end a number of related questions and student projects aiming to reinforce concepts and promote further investigation. As a comment, novice readers should take the sections concerning hooks and hot-spots carefully because these topics are presented in a slightly confusing way.

Volume 2 focuses on specific framework implementations, dealing with existing frameworks for different application domains, such as businesses, multi-agent systems, languages and system software. In this book, the readers will find a level of detail much closer to specific implementations issues than in the previous volume. Nonetheless, the writing style remains mostly clear and accessible for a quite broad audience. The case-studies and experience reports described by the articles show an attractive industrial perspective of the framework approach, and more important, they go an step forward in the road of a more mature discipline for software development. In addition, a
CD-Rom with concrete examples of these applications is included with the book.

Volume 3 completes this series with a number of domain-specific application frameworks developed by industry, showing how to apply the concepts and ideas of the previous books in software products. In this line, it includes very interesting frameworks for manufacturing systems and distributed systems, among others. It also goes through concrete software scenarios, illustrating the benefits of combining domain knowledge and object-orientation expertise. Although the level of the articles is rather odd, the volume certainly provides the readers a realistic picture of the problems of building and adapting frameworks by learning from others' experience. A CD-Rom is also included with this book.

Overall, these framework books collect the state-of-the-art on framework development, offering a comprehensive and
easy-to-understand guide for both academics and practitioners in the field. It is clear that framework technologies will not solve all the problems (perhaps they rise more challenges than current approaches), however, taking advantage of the framework possibilities can make your development process more repeatable, productive, and also less painful. The gains of this retrain are no doubt a good investment.

This book in conjunction with the books Building Application Frameworks: Object-Oriented Foundations of Framework Design and "Domain-Specific Application Frameworks: Frameworks Experience by Industry" are a series of three books that constitute a complete and necessary guide for the design and implementation of application frameworks. They are based on multiple academic and industrial contributors experience building a wide range of domain-specific application framework. These books are very easy to read and understand and you can learn from them not only what a framework and an application framework are, but also how to apply this technology to real world domains, like manufacturing, health care, distributed computing, real-time systems, simulation environments, ...

First book, "Building Application Frameworks: Object-Oriented Foundations of Framework Design" introduces application frameworks, their benefits and problems. It addresses all the fundamental concepts behind OO application frameworks and provides guidelines for OO application framework development. It is organized in eight parts. Part one provides a complete overview of OO application framework technology describing what is an application framework, what are the problems and benefits of application frameworks and how to use, develop and evaluate an application framework. Part Two presents some historical application frameworks and discusses some general guidelines to increase the reusability of application frameworks. Part Three describes how to build a framework analysing a concrete domain. The rest of the book provides all the necessary information to completely build an application framework. It presents all the concepts managed in framework development, which are the different development approaches, how to test the resulting frameworks, the problems derived from integration and a question sometimes forgotten but very important, the framework documentation.

Second book, "Domain-Specific Application Frameworks: Frameworks Experience by Industry" is focused in the experience of industrial and academic contributors in the development of OO application framework in different domains. Each chapter covers step by step the complete development of an application framework in manufacturing, distributed systems, real-time systems, telecommunication, multimedia, chemistry and data visualization domains. It includes the motivation developers founded to choose application framework technology, the problems they had to solve and the final solutions they developed.

This book, "Implementing Application Frameworks: Object-Oriented Frameworks at Work", shows step by step how to implement application frameworks in different domains. It is organized in six parts covering examples about i) Business Frameworks with different examples in sales and administrative domains, ii) Artificial Intelligence, iii) Agent Application Frameworks, presenting interesting frameworks for speech recognition, neural networks and agents. iv) Specialized tool frameworks, v) Language Specific Frameworks, vi) System Application Frameworks, which present and analyse the application of OO frameworks in combination with other methodologies as component-oriented programming, language constructs or constraint programming and vi) Experiences in Application Frameworks. This last section is very useful because analyse the lessons learned using the application framework technology.

An almost indispensable 3-volume reading to understand the success of framework technologies in today's software systems. The books include most of the top articles on the subject, providing a thorough insight in both design and implementation issues regarding frameworks, also complemented with practical experience about framework usage. Although the work is mainly concentrated on technical aspects, the articles are comprehensible enough to be taken as reference material by a broad community, for example, software engineers, programmers, or technology managers. The books are useful for anybody planning to include framework-based techniques in software development processes or planning to improve current object-oriented practices. It is also an excellent source for graduate courses.

Volume 1 lays the fundamental concepts supporting object-oriented frameworks, and describes the problems and challenges that this technology raises in software development. The book covers topics such as domain analysis, development concepts and approaches, documentation, and management, among others. Of course, the compilation of articles makes some parts little redundant, but this is a minor detail compared with the fruitful contributions made by the book. In particular, the articles on reusing hooks, hot-spot-driven development, composing modeling frameworks in Catalysis, and composition problems, causes and solutions, are a sample of the outstanding level of this work. Each chapter adds at the end a number of related questions and student projects aiming to reinforce concepts and promote further investigation. As a comment, novice readers should take the sections concerning hooks and hot-spots carefully because these topics are presented in a slightly confusing way.

Volume 2 focuses on specific framework implementations, dealing with existing frameworks for different application domains, such as businesses, multi-agent systems, languages and system software. In this book, the readers will find a level of detail much closer to specific implementations issues than in the previous volume. Nonetheless, the writing style remains mostly clear and accessible for a quite broad audience. The case-studies and experience reports described by the articles show an attractive industrial perspective of the framework approach, and more important, they go an step forward in the road of a more mature discipline for software development. In addition, a CD-Rom with concrete examples of these applications is included with the book.

Volume 3 completes this series with a number of domain-specific application frameworks developed by industry, showing how to apply the concepts and ideas of the previous books in software products. In this line, it includes very interesting frameworks for manufacturing systems and distributed systems, among others. It also goes through concrete software scenarios, illustrating the benefits of combining domain knowledge and object-orientation expertise. Although the level of the articles is rather odd, the volume certainly provides the readers a realistic picture of the problems of building and adapting frameworks by learning from others' experience. A CD-Rom is also included with this book.

Overall, these framework books collect the state-of-the-art on framework development, offering a comprehensive and easy-to-understand guide for both academics and practitioners in the field. It is clear that framework technologies will not solve all the problems (perhaps they rise more challenges than current approaches), however, taking advantage of the framework possibilities can make your development process more repeatable, productive, and also less painful. The gains of this retrain are no doubt a good investment.

This three volume set distils the experience of a number of software practitioners, project managers, application engineers, researchers, and academics in dealing with framework-based software development. It offers a comprehensive and accessible treatment of the theory and practice of building and using application frameworks.

The three volumes address the needs both of the business and of the research. They suggest practical solutions to recurrent development problems and point out hot research topics.

In particular, Volume 1 "Building Application Frameworks" highlights the difficulties and draws the path towards the successful development of effective application frameworks. Each chapter has a final section with review questions and project proposals, which helps teachers and students to better assess the mastery of new concepts.

Volume 2 "Implementing Application Frameworks" comprises a number of case studies that exemplify how to develop complex frameworks by exploiting the synergy of advanced techniques and methodologies, such as design patterns, architectural styles, software components, multi-agent systems, and more.

Volume 3 "Domain-Specific Application Frameworks" emphasises the best practice in software development and reuse for a variety of application domains.

Volumes 2 and 3 include two CD-ROMs with case studies, sample models, framework code, and demos.

This book in conjunction with the books "Domain-Specific Application Frameworks: Frameworks Experience by Industry" and "Implementing Application Frameworks: Object-Oriented Frameworks at Work" are a series of three books that constitute a complete and necessary guide for the design and implementation of application frameworks. They are based on multiple academic and industrial contributors experience building a wide range of domain-specific application framework. These books are very easy to read and understand and you can learn from them not only what a framework and an application framework are, but also how to apply this technology to real world domains, like manufacturing, health care, distributed computing, real-time systems, simulation environments, ...

First book, "Building Application Frameworks: Object-Oriented Foundations of Framework Design" introduces application frameworks, their benefits and problems. It addresses all the fundamental concepts behind OO application frameworks and provides guidelines for OO application framework development. It is organized in eight parts. Part one provides a complete overview of OO application framework technology describing what is an application framework, what are the problems and benefits of application frameworks and how to use, develop and evaluate an application framework. Part Two presents some historical application frameworks and discusses some general guidelines to increase the reusability of application frameworks. Part Three describes how to build a framework analysing a concrete domain. The rest of the book provides all the necessary information to completely build an application framework. It presents all the concepts managed in framework development, which are the different development approaches, how to test the resulting frameworks, the problems derived from integration and a question sometimes forgotten but very important, the framework documentation.

Second book, "Domain-Specific Application Frameworks: Frameworks Experience by Industry" is focused in the experience of industrial and academic contributors in the development of OO application framework in different domains. Each chapter covers step by step the complete development of an application framework in manufacturing, distributed systems, real-time systems, telecommunication, multimedia, chemistry and data visualization domains. It includes the motivation developers founded to choose application framework technology, the problems they had to solve and the final solutions they developed.

Third book, "Implementing Application Frameworks: Object-Oriented Frameworks at Work", shows step by step how to implement application frameworks in different domains. It is organized in six parts covering examples about i) Business Frameworks with different examples in sales and administrative domains, ii) Artificial Intelligence, iii) Agent Application Frameworks, presenting interesting frameworks for speech recognition, neural networks and agents. iv) Specialized tool frameworks, v) Language Specific Frameworks, vi) System Application Frameworks, which present and analyse the application of OO frameworks in combination with other methodologies as component-oriented programming, language constructs or constraint programming and vi) Experiences in Application Frameworks. This last section is very useful because analyse the lessons learned using the application framework technology.

This is a good introduction to Urdu. It provides a good overview of spoken Urdu and a more thorough study of written urdu. I wish there was more diction and focus on speaking

after i learned quite a bit, i realized it was punjabi i really wanted to learn... but this book is still really good. i just wish they would have kept translating the dialogue throughout the book, not just at the beginning. i guess they assume you'll actually go in order, chapter by chapter, like you're supposed to :)

This is a great book for students who want a solid base in both written and spoken Urdu. My main interest at the moment is in Urdu sufi literature and this course really gives a great start (although its focus is mostly on more useful, everyday language it's not hard to jump to more complicated texts once you have a sufficient base). The "Teach Yourself" series is generally good and targets the most useful and relevant parts of the language to teach. This book is another great example.Mujhe bahut pasand hai!