This book is an excellent source of information on multivariate analysis techniques. I especially like the flowcharts used for determining which analysis method to use as well as the flowcharts showing what steps to take for the analysis method chosen. If you have a good basic knowledge of statistics and a good head on your shoulders, you will have no problem understanding the methods presented.

This is the best applied book on multivariate analysis I know. It clearly explains how to do statistical analyses and how to interpret the output. Clear examples throughout. Syntax supplied for each type of multivariate analysis in both SPSS and SAS, with LISREL notation for CFA. In addition to specific techniques (factor analysis, multiple regression, multiple discriminant analysis, MANOVA, conjoint analysis, canonical correlation, cluster analysis, multidimensional scaling, structural equation modeling/CFA) excellent sections on structuring data, cleaning data, and handling missing data. While mathematical sophistication always helps in stat, this book doesn't require it. No knowledge of matrix algebra needed to understand this book. Few if any formulas. Emphasis is on logic rather than math.

The book helped me get through the different statistical options for my dissertation- and understand them!

Memorable, satisfying.
Not as frightening as the blurb would suggest, and a little slow-moving in parts; but very atmospheric, and full of grotesque delights. Treats include the governess, the green parrot, Maud's cousins, and the pipe. Maud is a well-rounded, enterprising protagonist, and her relationship with the deeply weird Silas has great dramatic energy.
Recommended!!!

Joseph Sheridan (J. S.) LeFanu, despite fame in Victorian times, has mostly fallen off the radar of modern readers. His superlative "Uncle Silas" is clear evidence as to why anyone who loves a good yarn will be immediately drawn in by his considerable gifts. This novel has a well-modulated dark atmosphere, clearly drawn and fully human characters and a superb plot.

The titular Silas is the uncle of our heroine Maud Ruthyn, who becomes the ward of her mysterious uncle upon her father's death. Silas has an unsavory reputation, having once been accused of murdering a man to whom he owed a gambling debt, but he has, by the time Maud first meets him, apparently repented and found religion. She goes to his home willingly, quickly befriends his saucy daughter Milly and is, for the most part, happy in her new surroundings. The plot thickens from there, and without giving away important details, the reader should know that LeFanu lets loose with a ripping good story that ends most satisfactorily and with some wonderful twists.

LeFanu is a skilled writer at the apex of his powers and an astute observer of the human condition. Some of the more telling lines exhibiting his gifts include:

" . . . that lady has a certain spirit of opposition within her, and to disclose a small wish of any sort was generally, if it lay in her power, to prevent its accomplishment."

"Already I was sorry to lose him. So soon we begin to make a property of what pleases us."

"People grow to be friends by liking, Madame, and liking comes of itself, not by bargain."

"She had received a note from Papa. He had had the impudence to forgive HER for HIS impertinence."

"In very early youth, we do not appreciate the restraints which act upon malignity, or know how effectually fear protects us where conscience is wanting."

"One of the terrible dislocations of our habits of mind respecting the dead is that our earthly future is robbed of them, and we thrown exclusively upon retrospect."

" 'The world,' he resumed after a short pause, 'has no faith in any man's conversion; it never forgets what he was, it never believes him anything better, it is an inexorable and stupid judge.' "

" . . . I had felt, in the whirl and horror of my mind, on the very point of submitting, just as nervous people are said to throw themselves over precipices through sheer dread of falling."

Admirers of Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy and, to a lesser degree, of Charles Dickens will find much to please them in the classic "Uncle Silas."

"Uncle Silas" has all the ingredients of a great gothic novel: creepy atmosphere, slowly building tension, a sympathetic heroine, and villains you really hate. Don't trust the blurb on the back cover of the Penguin edition, however; it talks about spirits, perception vs. reality, and the like. This is NOT a ghost story. The evil depicted is all too human, which accounts for the story's disturbing effect. A great read.

Truly inspirational and insightful to human nature and the economic forces that drive us.

This is the story of Steve, a failing salesman who starts receiving inspirational messages from a mystery source after he makes a charitable donation. I enjoyed the story very much and have found the messages contained in it to be true for successful selling. However, the messages can be summarized on the back of an envelope, so as a sales training aid it is rather thin. As a pure novel it doesn't hold up because it is not very well written. But if you put the messages with the format, it works well as an inspirational story that sales people should all spend time considering. It is a little book with a big message that would make the basis of a fun movie script (check it out you guys in Hollywood!).

I was told by a friend that this was a powerful book. Although I am now retired as an office worker first in a city hall, and then at a hospital after I relocated downstate; I recall so many situations, that would have been made easier if I'd had the opportunity to read this book. It is hard to put down, and so full of excellent thoughts and methods of making things work out for the best, even though at times you feel you are risking everything. This is an inspiring guide for anyone in business or out. I highly recommend it for anyone who desires personal improvement .

I swapped books with Joe Finch at the 2002 VHPA convention in Las Vegas. We both flew helicopters about the same time in Vietnam. Luckily I flew in the Mekong Delta, and did not have to deal much with the jungles and trees as described in this book. Only once or twice did the Outlaws of the 175th have to go "up-North" and risk the hazards these pilots commonly underwent northwest of Saigon. Lotsa teak trees and agent Orange!
As a result, I feel I have to comment on the amount of contact with tropical vegetation as expressed within this book! We would have lost our aircraft commander orders with the blade strikes this pilot reveals! However, that said, I am glad to see my book, OUTLAWS IN VIETNAM, paired with Joe's book and I hope many readers know more about our Army Aviation experiences in RVN as a result.

Lieutenant Colonel (retired) Joseph R. Finch has written a thoughtful, readable, affirming book about being an Army aviator in Vietnam during 1969. Angel's Wing; a Year in the Skies of Vietnam isn't "Rambo" or "Apocalypse Now"; it's "the war" as thousands of pilots and crewmembers knew it but made accessible in a way that few will beyond a small circle of family or friends. Joe wove together the mundane and the dramatic, and related both in terms that someone who wasn't there can easily grasp. Perhaps more important, he has informed this narrative with insights gained later during a highly productive career cut short by medical retirement. The title is a play on words. The Angel's Wing was the nickname for a geographic area in Vietnam west of Cu Chi. That is where Joe's unit -- A Company, 25th Aviation Battalion (The Little Bears) -- had its base. Joe also gives Angel's Wing two implied meanings. First is a protecting presence to which Joe attributes his survival. Second is the basic role Army aviation plays for ground soldiers, whose lives often depended on the skill and courage of their brothers in the air. A great strength is the book's conversational tone. Part of that comes from Joe's unassuming nature. Part comes from the fact that the major source was letters Joe wrote home and his mother saved. Possibly the greatest value of this book is its discussions of the human aspects of Army aviation -- things they don't teach in flight school but that every military flight school graduate should know about. The business of the military is war, and war is breaking things and people. A cost of doing that business is being responsible for that breakage. Mistakes and tragedies occur. Joe is forthright in talking about such things, as well as about how those things affect those who commit the acts -' a subject very often swept under the carpet in a de facto conspiracy of silence among both those directly involved and those around them who don't really want to know the bad news. As an example, Joe relates an incident where a Viet Cong guerrilla fired at their aircraft. The door gunner killed the VC, who turned out to be a nursing mother. He also relates having to watch an armored column get shot up under conditions that prevented doing anything to help and how that experience affected him as a person and a pilot. For the non-aviator, Joe provides a real service in explaining key technical aspects in layman's terms ' e.g., autorotation and density altitude. He also explains tricks of the trade, such trading off fuel and weight carried for time of flight and vice versa. These are critical judgments that pilots constantly make but ground people often never even realize exist. He also tells about the strain that some kinds of flying impose ' notably, tight formation flying at night, which is a skill that makes U.S. Army Aviation the predominant force of its kind in the world today. There are a few minor flaws that an editor/publisher ought to have caught. Some are simple spelling/word choice -- e.g., ordinance (law) for ordnance (weapon). Some reflect the lack of knowledge that often exists among operators -- e.g., gattling for Gatling (gun), FUGAS for fougasse (improvised flame munition), and Himmelman for Immelman (aerobatic maneuver). Some slips could give a knowledgeable reader pause ' e.g., 175 inch for 175 millimeter guns and Silver Star as the "second highest" award for bravery, rather than third ' behind the Medal of Honor and Distinguished Service Cross. Ironically Joe received the Silver Star in recognition for his unflinching support to ground soldiers. Perhaps the slip simply reflects Joe's indifference to formal awards and his focus on the real quality of people and action that should underlie awards. I have confirmed these errors with Joe. He acknowledges them and will correct them in any future edition. Possibly the best measure of Joe's credibility is the photographs, generously donated by fellow members of his unit. Comrades don't knowingly help people who misrepresent them. In that sense, Joe has the implied testimonial of those others who served in the Little Bears. This unit and its members compiled a highly creditable record and rightfully enjoy high regard among Vietnam vets. In short, this is a book well worth reading.

Angel's Wing is a primary source for anyone seeking to understand what VietNam was really like. The daily heroism of the young men who flew, and fought, and died cannot be forgotten. Joe Finch's story, 30 years in the writing, is poignant, real and fascinating. I was not in VietNam. I lived in California and in Thailand and watched the guys departing from Travis AFB, or taking a few days of R&R at the beach in Pattaya. Angel's Wing has helped me become more aware of just how much was sacrificed, and determined to make sure that every man or woman who serves in uniform receives the respect and thanks their sacrifices deserve.
Angel's Wing is an easy read and fascinating to children from 5th grade and older. The author has taken great care to tell the truth without straying from a PG rating.

The Ideology of Life: The Foundation of Political Revolution and 21st Century Sustainability By Dr Joseph Palmer Roberts ISBN: 1-890456-02-0 In The Ideology of Life, Joseph Roberts defines two broad groups of people, the Maladaptors and the Adaptors. The former are the Systematized types who are the spoilers and the latter, those who are seeking something entirely new. Joseph Roberts sees that the underlying cultural ideology is primal in coercing the former behavior and way of thinking and insists that this factor is not generally appreciated. Thus, people continue plugging away at mis-aligned policies and ways of life detrimental even to themselves. While familiar in a general manner with most of Joseph Robert's positions, certainly the support material and concepts he holds are more detailed and further reaching than I usually see expounded. I see the value of this book, not only in educational terms - as it is targeted at those in the Maladaptor sector - who will be reluctant to read it - but for those activists and thinkers who are trying to do something about the mis-directed circumstance of the human being today. Here is a lot of information and a comprehension of processes. The most receptive audience of course is the already converted, but isn't this always the case! Here, those on the brink of a universal change, likely because of personal suffering which causes them to begin a rethink for the matter is coming from a place beyond their own immediate control - the System reverting to default. In this way The Idealogy of Life will help turn the tide in the favour of the Adaptors. Beyond that it appears Joseph Roberts writing has all the elements of a world-wide manifesto for a political entity that takes as its focus the entirety of the problems which, implicating all people's on their own doorstep, originate elsewhere. This points at the multi-national corporation, the supporting industrial and military complex and the power holders of today who refuse to give an inch or assist in the furthering of real democracy. They only want a style of formal democracy where they retain control. Because of a fixed market - the Maladaptors would say free market' - the stance of the developing nations is negatively affecting economically distant countries as seen in the North America-South America fiascos of market domination and the suppression of home industries, which in turn - as detailed in the Ideology of Life - is breaking families everywhere. Quote: "Make no mistake about it, it is the negative economic impact that the globalization and centralization of the economy is having on families and communities, not the lack of family values' as the ruling elite want us to believe, that is the primary cause of family and community disintegration.". Ignoring what is plainly stated in the book may result in a general collapse where humanity has to start again. This means terrible world-wide suffering. So we had better use such as this writing as a basis for change in a linked grouping of political parties - or create them if they don't exist as Joseph Roberts assumes - across the world to begin affecting the kind of root changes delineated in The Ideology of Life. A worthy read that is more than timely; that is almost too late... Tony Henderson, Chairman, Humanist Association of Hong Kong, and Asia Zone Representative of the Humanist International.

The revealed truth becomes obvious to the reader only after one has had time to digest all that the author is saying. Even though the ideas presented are controversial, it is the controversial nature of those ideas that make the book very interesting reading. Dr. Roberts is obviously a leading thinker on the subject of 21st century sustainability. His vision of a sustainable future is compelling. His suggested path to that future (a political-ideological revolution) is both compelling and controversial. I embrace that vision, if not the entire path, and urge others to fully understand and think about what he is saying. This book should be mandatory reading for all students, politicians and environmentalists. In fact, it should be mandatory reading for any person who is interested in using the democratic process to create a better world. -- M. Jones.

"The Ideology of Life" is unique in its field at simultaneously incoorporating a deep look at the causes of the Western world's accumulating crises, with a rational and detailed outline of solutions to our crises. He accomplishes his goal of instigating cultural change by presenting this information in a style that allows an average reader to fully and easily grasp the implications of the processes. His formula for cultural change remains within the framework of the capitalist infrastructure, a goal usually overlooked by writers of this calibur in the field of political revolution. Few writers present criticism this extensive and answer it with this level of detail in novel and practical solutions capable of being understood by the majority of people. This book presents a balanced paradigm shift.

This is the classic technical manual that inspired a whole generation of fans in the Trek-less time of the 1970's. It is hard to imagine how Franz Joseph could collect all the information and draw all the nifty schematics with ink only, without the help of a computer back in 1975. Showing phasers, communicators, tricorders, floor plans and even uniform patterns in such a great detail, this book is a treasure trove for any TOS fan. It is even more valuable considering that Franz Joseph had access to much of the actual blueprints and props which he transferred into drawings that are often more precise than those of the computer-age technical manuals. Only the quality of his starship drawings is lacking.

Being a true fan and knowing that the series wouldn't continue (at least not so soon), he carefully supplemented the information on screen with his own creations, such as the Articles of the Federation, flags and emblems of member worlds, a design for an orbital Starfleet Headquarters and his famous starships. This is where some sort of dispute is going on. Especially many older fans still regard the Star Fleet Technical Manual as canon, considering that Franz Joseph had Gene Roddenberry's support on it. Some time prior to TNG, they didn't get along with each other any longer, and it is said that Roddenberry intentionally laid out technical specs of TNG so as to devalue Franz Joseph's work - but this doesn't really belong here.

Well, while many of the ideas are very good, it is probably too late to regard this whole book as canon, because the speculation in it is already too detailed. Too much of it, such as the location of Starfleet Headquarters or the map of the galaxy, has been contradicted since. Some things, finally, are simply silly, like the electric circuit schematics or the emblem of the alien civilization of 61 Cygni that -what a coincidence- has a swan in it.

Anyway, The Star Fleet Technical Manual has more than only nostalgic merits. I was a bit skeptical and I waited a long time until I finally bought it only two years ago, but I wouldn't want to miss it.

Many, many moons ago, technical manuals and blueprints for Star Trek technology and ships were made solely by fans and found only at conventions or on the black market. This collection of material began as such a labor of love but ended up being published by Ballantine Books. Much of it (the Federation Constitution; the "offical" Starfleet color pallette; the Dreadnought, Scout, and Tug Class ships; the map of the Federation planets; the Starbase innards, etc.) is sheer speculation by Franz and nitpickers will remind you there are a number of errors in the canon material. But, in a day before there were 50 zillion Trek books and five different TV series on tape and DVD to use as reference, this book was fantastic. It made the TOS universe even more "real" and was the crowning glory of any Trek bookshelf. Fan models and props were built and painted based on the drawings and specs in this manual. Joseph's imagination and draftsmanship (remember, it's all drawn by hand) are impressive and this is a classic for Classic Trekkers.

I can just barely remember watching The Doomsday Machine on the television with my father in the late 1960s. When I became older, visions of Captain Kirk and the proud USS Enterprise filled my mind with adventure and derring-do. I wanted to know every detail about the program, and for a time, we had nothing but a few grainy photographs in books like The Making of Star Trek, The Trouble With Tribbles and The World of Star Trek. Of course, you could do as I did, buy TOS filmclips from Lincoln Enterprises and examine them under your junior high school science class microscopes!, but mostly there was precious little available to us.

Then came The Star Fleet Technical Manual and all that changed instantly. Around the same time, Franz Josef designs mass-marketed their Enterprise Blueprints, causing Lincoln (now Star Trek) Enterprises to begin selling spirit-duplicated versions of the original Paramount set blueprints, too!

What heady days! Back then, there were very few geeks as we know them today, and it was OK that every little detail did not match between the TV and the books. Hell, without video tape, let alone DVDs, who knew? Who cared?! Fans and their love of Star Trek were all that mattered and this book was the ne plus ultra, the Mother Lode of Trekker Trivia.

I am proud to say my original, first edition print, with plastic slip cover, is beat to the bones with dog ears, spilled turpentine, saw-dust and pencil notes from all the hours spent in the garage making phasers, communicators and more from plywood, elbow grease and imagination.

What glorious days! O to live them again!

This is a very well written book and the first of its kind
on Bayesian survival analysis. The authors have a very keen
sense of the important issues and models in this area, and they
do a wonderful job of presenting the various topics. The book
discusses state-of-the-art methods for fitting Bayesian survival
models. The content on the power prior and its uses in survival
analysis was very exciting. The motivating examples in Chapter 1
were novel and very appealing. The authors have a great deal
of experience in this area and in the applications they present.
I definitely recommend buying this book. It serves as an
exceptional reference or textbook.

This is a great book on Bayesian survival analysis. It presents
a very comprehensive account of modern Bayesian methods in
survival analysis. The applications that are addressed in the
book are excellent and present major modeling and computational
challenges that would be impossible to implement in the
frequentist paradigm. The book has some outstanding chapters
on model selection, cure rate models, joint models for
longitudinal and survival data, and Bayesian methods for
clinical trials. This book would serve as a great textbook
for a Ph.D. level course in Bayesian survival analysis. The
book contains a number of useful and challenging exercises
and it contains a very exhaustive bibliography. I definitely
recommend this book.

This is truly a marvelous book on Bayesian survival analysis.
The authors, who are true experts in the field, have written
a gem that covers modern Bayesian methods in survival analysis.
They have a nice blend between modeling, theory, and applications
that truly makes this book the first of its kind. It has some
very nicely written chapters on semiparametric models based on
prior processes and frailty models. The book is very extensive
in its coverage and has a very long bibliography. This book is
going to be a best seller for a long time.

An easy and maths free introduction to the world of A.E. However, some of the more silly and irrelevant cartoons might distract the reader.

All in all, not a bad introduction to A.E. (In fact a damn good place to start discovering relativity). My grouse is that it does not cover all of A.E.'s works. The treatment of relativity touches the tip of the ice-berg only, so to speak.

Still, it really makes you want to read more about A.E.'s works, at least for this reader.

This book is about the Theory of Relativity and a bit about how it was developed. The author done a wonderful job in teaching it in a very easy way and also showing the details of the theory (not being only superficial), like equations etc. You see, the deduction of the equations he done in a great way that everyone can easily understand (it's not like the appendix in the Einstein's book about relativity which I never understood). Of course this "deduction" is not formal, but it helps a lot to understand how it works and how they got to the theory.

Einstein for Beginners acts more as a visual representation of Einsteins work. An easy to read format for anyone interested in knowing Einsteins theories without the mind-boggling formulas. I would suggest this as a place to begin. A nice read, although the theories one still needs to comprehend. The author, Joseph Schwartz puts it in a perspective that both challenges and educates. Highly reccomended!

Every time I want to try something somewhat obscure and don't want to dig through the Oracle on-line manuals, I have found a quick, easy-to-read piece of sample code in this book. Excellent choice for the experienced Oracle developer's reference book.

One of the best books I have bought for Oracle PL/SQL. Well worth the money. I have been a developer for 5 years now. Thank you for the insightful and examples that actually make sense AND work.

Very well drafted for a beginner/intermediate level PL/SQL developer.

Highly recommend it.

The book is easily worth the price and is an excellent reference volume. It provides standards for best practices for developers of PL/SQL applications, from naming conventions to commenting the source code. This is something that every Oracle developer and DBA should read and try to apply to their environments. The book covers many of the new features of Oracle8i and provides ample examples. The one complaint I have, and it was echoed by some of my associates, was that their was no disk or CD accompanying the book. The authors refer to the examples by file name but there is no disk or CD to get the files from. Presumedly, the examples are available from the Oracle Press Osborne web site. But a disk should have been included for those users who may not have access to the internet.

Aside from this, the book is excellent reading for DBAs and developers and is crammed with information. It includes a history of Oracle and PL/SQL that some may not be aware of, as well as the major features of each version of PL/SQL, from version 1.0 through 8.1. For me it was a brief trip down memory lane, for I cut my teeth on version 1.0 of PL/SQL. The index could be improved a little for better cross referencing, but the coverage of Oracle topics is first rate.

As a DBA and developer, I found the book invaluable and it is one of the books that I recommend to clients and associates. (Here's a tip: Tell your associates to get their own copy.) The book is written in a near conversational tone and far from the dry, antiseptic tone of Oracle's own manuals. Maybe Oracle should get the TUSC guys to write their manuals. The books is nothing less than what I have come to expect from the people at TUSC.

Just watch that racist Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to see that this man is deathly afraid of India and Indians in general. Too bad - he seems to love the Communist Chinese a lot though.

I want to give this book 4 stars, but I just can't bring myself to do it. This book is certainly an impressive scholarly work - well researched, reasonably well referenced, and when there is analysis offered, it is thorough and insightful.

Unfortunately, the analysis is also my major complaint with the book. McBride seems to haphazardly pick pictures to analyse, while ignoring others. What possessed him to give devote more pages to 1941 than all the Indiana Jones movies combined? Further, he has a tendency to focus too much on the story of the movie - I submit that most people reading this book have seen these movies and can draw their own conclusions about the significance of the story. We'd rather hear about how they were made, etc. That is, more facts and less analysis would would make this a better book.

The first half of the book is very good, because the author takes his time explaining family connections, his amateur films, etc. It is a little repetitive (how often does McBride feel he has to tell us that Spielberg felt like an outsider growing up?), but the detail and narrative flow are very good, telling us a lot about the man behind the movies. Especially interesting is the information on S's TV work.

The second half of the book rapidly degenerates into a shallow overview of things we already know about Spielberg, and is very disappointing. It's almost like McBride had a page limit, and after spending so much time on S's childhood, he had to rush through the remaining material, save for sections on Schindler's List and Colour Purple (both deserving movies, of course). Even Jurassic Park is little more than a sideshow, wherein McBride denegrates Crichton's novel (a fate that Peter Benchley's Jaws seems to avoid, even though in my opinion JP is a work far superior to Jaws) and comments on how Spielberg worked on the effects in Poland while shooting Schindler's List. Even his fine analytical powers seem to break down. What else could possess him to comment that Raider of the Lost ark is racist and "a soulless and impersonal film", while praising Last Crusade as "a graceful piece of popular filmaking...gratifyingly free of racist overtones that blighted the two previous films." Huh? Has McBride actually watched these three movies together? Or does he really think it's okay to portray stereotyped Arabs, but not stereotyped Indians or Nepalese?

At any rate, this is an important work, recommended for anyone that wants to learn more about the early life and works of Spielberg. But I would suggest putting it down without reading the last 5 chapters.

I've now read about five or six biographies of Steven Spielberg and all vary in depth and quality. However Joseph McBride book can only be described as THE most in-depth account of Spielberg's fascinating life. You simply won't read a more well-researched account of Spielberg's life unless the great man writes his autobiography. Don't be put off by the fact that Spielberg didn't co-operate with this book, virtually everyone else did including, most surprisingly, his father. A terrific read from start to finish.