The description of the book has more meat than the book itself. This disappointing book is a 15 short chapter breeze through a multitude of subjects, and does not linger long on any single subject. There are some nice diagrams and ten thousand foot views crammed into 374 total pages (the page count vs. chapter count alone should indicate how superficial this book is). An example is the 21 pages devoted to weighty subjects encompassing project management tasks, configuration management, verification and validation, quality assurance, decisions and risks. Any one of the topics would have merited at least 20 page in a serious book on systems engineering. Useful to sales and marketing types who are selling systems engineering services, and executive management who might like a quick overview of systems engineering. This book is useless for technical professionals.

This book is a great introduction to the system engineering process. It might be lightweight for a practicing system engineer, but for an IT professional whose background is service delivery, production support and data center operations this book opened a whole new world.

An example of how this book opened my eyes is the way configuration management is explained, and how it fits within the system engineering process. IT professionals with my background are subject matter experts in change control; however, few of us (certainly myself) realize that change control is a subset of a much larger picture. Every part of system engineering it covered in sufficient detail to understand the basics. This understanding created, in my case, a desire to further research some areas in greater detail. Overall, seeing the process from a high-level view provided some unique insights about what is missing in IT management that can be filled by borrowing from our system engineering brothers and sisters.

I found this book valuable because I did not have to wade through a dry manual and sort out the details in order to get a big picture of system engineering. The brief, succinct chapters and excellent illustrations provided me with a coherent approach to my own job. In fact, I personally believe that applying system engineering principles to IT service delivery and operations management will significantly improve the IT profession. As such I highly recommend this book to my peers and anyone else who needs to see the big picture of the system engineering and how its principles can be related to their job.

Stevens' Systems Engineering looks at the place ofrequirements in a world which consists of complex systems in a highlycompetitive marketplace. This may be the commercial world or equally the military-industrial world in which systems must literally do battle with their rivals.

Stevens and his co-authors (two of them from the UK's Defence Evaluation and Research Agency) know that in this environment, many systems fail, very often because they were inadequately thought out, and often also because their development projects were poorly managed. Chapter 1 begins "The world is currently gripped by changes more intense and rapid than those triggered by the ndustrial revolution..." : we are at once swept into the rich, complex, and dangerous life of real system development.

For Stevens, the problem in systems engineering is complexity, and its mastery is, as the subtitle implies, the key to success. The design of complex systems demands hierarchy - of organisations, of projects, of contracts, of documents. Hierarchy implies interfaces: if you split a system into three, you probably create three interfaces between the component subsystems. Interfaces in turn imply specialisation: someone develops the hardware; someone else, the software. Similarly, someone (the customer) writes the requirements specification, while someone else (the developer) tries to meet those requirements. This, like the prime contractor - subcontractor relationship, consists of a customer and a supplier: the marketplace reaches right into the core of system engineering.

The book therefore covers a startling breadth of subjects, but always with the same practical vision and with the same conceptual tools. The first few chapters broadly follow the European Space Agency's now-classical PSS-05 software engineering standard life-cycle phases: user requirements, system requirements, architectural design, integration (of subsystems) and verification, management.

(Requirements are involved in every one of these phases.) Once the reader is grounded in the basics, the next chapter discusses how to tailor the simple life-cycle just presented. A tell-tale section entitled 'smaller systems' gives the game away: the systems in the authors' minds are a great deal larger than the PC 'systems' beloved of advertising copywriters.

The second part of the book (chapter 8 onwards) starts by looking at more realistic life-cycles, based on the management of risk: when is it sensible to go ahead with something? The answer is, when success can be assured even if the bad risks materialize. That can only be guaranteed if the risks have been quantified. Concepts of requirement priority and benefit, risk, and cost loom much larger in the marketplace than technical issues.

The remaining chapters examine management in multi-level projects (hierarchy again), software and systems, prototyping (to control risk), information modeling, projects and the enterprise, a chapter on how to improve and a summary.

Each chapter consists of a double-page title/table of contents, overlaid on some crisp pencil artwork on the theme of engineering progress (from Leonardo's hang-glider to an agile jet). The text is broken up by plenty of simple flow diagrams illustrating life-cycles, trade-offs, business processes and information models, as well as short summaries of what the most important system documents should contain. Key points are highlighted or bulleted within the text. The chapters end with a page or two of realistically tricky exercises: the answers cannot be coded in C.

The helpful appendices include a list of websites: Systems Engineering comes with its own website which contains pointers to several related sites, and itself includes 'proposed' answers to the exercises which end each chapter. Students will find the glossary helpful and comprehensive. There is an extensive list of very varied references, and a detailed index. This book is a carefully worked out description of the process of developing any large, complex, and risky system. The book can also be read as a polemic: an impassioned plea for the discipline to graduate from its narrow roots, whether in academia or in quality control. The concluding paragraphs make it clear that system engineering is a human process, a 'game' in which there are losers as well as winners, something that can be played well, and that absolutely must be played better to limit the risks and losses that are still all too common....

The book will be of interest to several quite different communities: in particular development managers, clients having large systems developed, and students of system and software engineering will all find much that is of interest here. The book may also be a useful supplement (or perhaps an antidote) to the academic perspective on RE. Everyone should have access to a copy.

This is a good coffee table book that contains a wealth of information, statistics and data on boxing dating all the way back to 1681. Harry Mullan, erudite boxing historian has again done a fine job in presenting to the general reading audience a comprehensive written documentary on the fight game. However there are a number of textual and photo editing flaws which may be worth noting down for rectification in subdequent reprints. One of such is on page 58 where a photo of Roy Jones is miscaptioned as that of James Toney.

I thought this book had a lot of good information on boxers from John L Sullivan to Mike Tyson and pictures with almost all of them this is agreat book about all of the greats, I thought this was a great book.

This was a clear, easy to follow book on improving your child's alertness and ability in school through proper nutrition. As a practitioner, I found this full of sound advice and information. A diet plan was also included.

Arnold's coffee table size book is still one of the most comprehensive collections of information on and about gambling. First published in 1978 the book has become dated although it remains a great starting point for anyone who wants a general overview that would otherwise require reading a collection of books on different aspects of gambling.

Some of the photgraphs and drawings used to illustrate the book are excellent and one wonders how Arnold managed to find them all.

I teach a university course based on this textbook and I really like it. It is full of mathematics that students can apply readily to everyday situations, without being heavily computational. The problem sets are relevant to the chapter text. Also, the problem sets are divided into three categories ("walking", "jogging", and "running") based on the level of thought that must go into them. The four chapters on statistics and probability are not quite what I'd like them to be, because in my opinion they cover too much statistical ground in hardly any depth. They would be better if they just did some basic statistics and didn't try to get students at this level into normal curves and standard deviations and all that. My students are particularly fond of the graph theory unit (chapters 5-8). In fact, their only complaint of the book so far is the high price.

A very informative book, Napoleon: The Final Verdict, describes all aspects of Napoleon's military career. Although it lacked extensive details on individual battles, it gave basic knowledge necesary to understand the Napoleonic Wars. The book is divided into two sections. The First section gives the knowledge obtained on his life. The second section analyzes the information given in the first to help you determine Napoleon's true quality. I especially like the pages of quotes which the author has included in the back of the book.

This is a really cute book, contains easy to follow recipies for younger and older children. I have used the potato soup recipe many times with a blender! It is decorated with the illustrations from the classic Peter Rabbit story books. It was published in hardcover and softbound editions.

read this book if you care about AFRICA

I received this score this morning and was completly in shock at what a disgrace Dover had published. Please note, I am a very pleased fan of what this company has produced, but I feel that this score is one of the worst that I have seen. Schoenberg's Gurrelieder is know for its use of one of the largest late-romantic orchestras ever required. Unfortunatly Dover has provided the public with a score that lacks any of Schoenberg's orchestration and has printed a piano reduction done some years later by Schoenberg's pupil, Alban Berg. To publish a piece like this in a piano for before a publication of Schoenberg's original. This would be a great addition to the Dover Miniature Score series ALONG with the orchestral version.

It is a great piano reduction of one of my favorite pieces. I bought it in the official edition (much more expansive...). As one reviwer mentionned, this is not the orchestral score. But for most of us, it will do as well.

This a facsimile of the standard piano reduction of an early Schoenberg work. The Gurre Lieder epitomize the post-Wagnerian genre but also introduce a lot of Schoenberg future techniques (e.g., "Sprachgesang").

The piano reduction makes it easy to follow this rather complex score (the Conductor or the study version of the scores is very rewarding but challenging). The piano reduction itrseld has been done by Alban Berg a marvelous musicien himself and a friend and student of Schoenberg. So the reduction is outstandingly well done and in particular all the important harmonic information is very clear. More than a piano reduction, this vocal score is an abtraction of this suberp score.

If you love the piece, you may also want to have the complete score. Even if you have the conductor score and love it, this version will add to your understanding of the piece.

After a hard day at work, fixing dinner for my family, getting everyone bathed, and doing homework I found it par for the course to sit down to a book about a working mom who is a witch. She is not even very successful as a working mom witch!!! When will society start being kind to the working mother? I found this a distressing comentary on how society sees women in the workplace. I do not think it is appropriate for children.

This book is soooo bad I burst out laughing. I am married to a working mom, and even I could tell that it is insulting to working moms everywhere! Working moms have enough guilt without this book to pile salt in the wound. Portraying the working mom as a witch sets the book off to a bad start. And to imply that she is rarely around, always late for kids' events, and ferocious after a bad day (as if stay-at-home moms don't get mad!) is no help. Would the author have written this about a working dad? I doubt it. This book sets us back decades in our fight for social justice.

This book caught my eye because as a mother of Wiccan faith, I wanted a book to help my toddler understand what witchcraft is and is NOT, and to give him the right perspective and sense of humor about it. I am also a working mom. I think any book that helps kids deal compassionately with the confused feelings or questions they have about their working mom is great. I think other witches/pagan parents will appreciate this fun book.