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Book reviews for "Davis,_Martin" sorted by average review score:

Classic Instruction
Published in Hardcover by Broadway Books (01 June, 2000)
Authors: Bobby Jones, Ben Crenshaw, Martin Davis, and Robert Tyre Jones
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Great Book!
This is truly Classic Instruction. Not only does it give great basic fundamental instruction from "The Greatest" Bobby Jones but Ben Crenshaw shows the more modern swing as well.

Great photos of Bobby Jones and his techniques.

It's also a must have for Jones' unique lost writings finally in print for the world to see. Great for a golf book collection.

Elegant Book of An Elegant Golf Swing
Crenshaw is not only a successful pro but also he is a passionate student of golf's history. So he is the perfect one to compile this side-by-side analysis of Jones' swing.

Martin Davis who edits this book found a box of over 100 photos of Jones' swing. Along with these were handwritten notes explaining the photos.

So, on one page is the B&W of Jones, then parallel is the four-color swing of Crenshaw and his discussion of Jones' notes.

It is masterful, elegant and a true keepsake to any serious golf historian's collection. A must!

Excellent golf instruction and gift book
This is a very fine (and unusual) book on golf instruction. Using original photos and text from the old master Bob Jones, modern master Ben Crenshaw compares his swing and golf philosophy to Jones' swing and golf philosophy. This is also a very fine gift book--handsome and not too expensive. I recommend it highly to golf enthusiasts and neophytes alike.


Davis's Manual of Critical Care Therapeutics
Published in Paperback by F A Davis Co (15 January, 1995)
Authors: Kathleen Miller, Rn Baldwin, Christine Seftchick, Rn Garza, Susan Sheriff, and Rita N. Martin
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Recommend to all new "wanna be" critical care Nurses
I have been a Critical Care nurse for more than 15 years and find this book to be one of the best at delivering the facts in a percise and readable manner. I have been recommending it to "new hires" in the Unit at my facility since I first found it.

contains all I need in a pocket sized source
I am a BSN nursing student who has a multitude of books containing information needed to complete clinical paperwork, dragging all of these books back and forth to clinicals was back breaking, this book is a must for any student, it's pocket size and wealth of information is worth every penny paid. I wish the authors would come up with a book like this for every area. I highly recommend this book, and will look forward to others of it's kind


'N Sync
Published in Hardcover by Metro Books (2000)
Authors: Lexi Martin and Jessica Davis
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Beautiful book with great pictures!
This is a great book if you're into pictures of the guys (which I am). There are a lot of pictures I'd never seen before (including a very rare one of Lance crying). I've had this book for over a year, and still enjoy it a lot!

What a great book!
For the first time ever in the history of all 'N Sync books, we come upon one that had a lot of fan imput included when put together. A general posting on an egroups list calling for quotes led me to submit something that got into a book for the first time ever. I have to say what an honor it is to have something that you submitted put into a book. I don't love it just because I'm in it but also because real fans from all over are included in it.


Super Searchers on Mergers & Acquisitions
Published in Paperback by CyberAge Books (01 April, 2001)
Authors: Jan Davis Tudor, Reva Basch, and Martin J. Sikora
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How to acquire the details about growth-oriented companies
Super Searchers On Mergers & Acquisitions reveals the online search services and tools used by leading researchers, who regularly use the Internet to uncover critical details on companies and industries. The focus on mergers and acquisitions and how to acquire the details about growth-oriented companies will please any business owner, broker, appraiser or business buyer.

Jan Tudor is simply the best
Jan Tudor is simply the best guide avaliable for climbing the summit of M&A research on-line or off. A professional researcher's professional her stellar reputation in the industry has insured a host of illustrative interviews, techniques, and fine honed observations from across the M&A landscape.


Cleveland Architecture, 1876-1976
Published in Paperback by Western Reserve Historical (01 December, 1979)
Author: Eric Johannesen
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The C-46 Commando, Curtiss' unsung workhorse
Up till the publication of 'C-46 Commando in Action' by Squadron/Signal this book was the only publication about the Curtiss Commando, but the five stars are merited by the thorough investigation by these enthousiasts. It is only lacking a color art section to make it a real all-time classic, but there is hardly anything that could be better (information-wise) in this nice book by Air Britain. Though the book is published in Britain, the writers all hail from the USA -as does Curtiss Aircraft- and these gentlemen give you the history of each and every 'Commando' ever built and a lot of black-and-white photographs of this plane. The 146 pages of this book are printed in a rather small typewriter font, so there is more information than you should judge just by mere size of this book.


Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game
Published in Hardcover by W.W. Norton & Company (10 May, 2003)
Author: Michael Lewis
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An Excellent Overview
I thought that this book was an excellent overview of the development of logical thought and it's relevance to the modern computer. Davis does a superior job of energizing a subject that is admittedly a little dull. I found myself rereading several of the sections to try to better understand some of the math involved, but overall, I think Davis found a nice balance between the complexity of the math and the history of logic. My one serious criticism of the book is that I found the chronology to be tough to follow, and I often found myself referring back to previous chapters to try and get a better sense of when events were happening. It is natural to assume that a book like this is presented in chronological fashion. The Universal Computer generally is presented that way, but there are some events that happen more or less simultaneously. This is important to the overview of the history of the field. I think the book could actually use a graphical timeline with the birth dates of the mathematicians and the significant events (i.e. 1902 - Russell's letter to Frege, etc.) that are involved. Other than that, the book is informative and enjoyable for those interested in the origins of the modern computer.

A history of the underlying mathematical concepts
As a recent college graduate, who earned a B.S. in computer science, I thought this book provided some good background information on the people who worked to discover the underlying principles of automated mathematics implemented in a machine. The book was, for the most part, not terribly difficult to follow and gave more insight on the actual history of the individual people and times than I thought it might. Nevertheless, the individual histories, and time context put the points being made into a better framework. Not a long book, I recommend this to the more intellectual type, rather than an occasional reader.

The best popular history of the computer as logic engine
While most of us consider computers to be some special silicon in a white box, they are in fact machines that execute rules in applied logic. For this reason, the history of computing has two tracks. The first is the hardware track, which generally starts with Charles Babbage and progresses through the recent advances in integrated circuits. One chapter of the book traces the historical development of computer hardware, starting with the Jacquard loom and moving up to the modern personal computer. The second is the history of logic that can be mechanically applied, which is the primary focus of this book.
Once again, the mathematics largely predates the applications. It is amazing how mathematicians develop mathematical structures that initially have no applications and then after some time, something appears that requires that form of mathematics. To me, it is nothing sort of amazing that Alan Turing invented an abstract universal computer long before any of the physical counterparts existed. No one has ever been able to substantially improve on his Turing machines and it is widely believed that they cannot be improved. This theme permeates the book and Davis does a very good job in presenting all of the advances in a historical context.
The contributions of Leibniz, Boole, Frege, Cantor, Hilbert, Godel and Turing are all described in detail, and it is clear how one person's work was built using that done by their predecessors. Other people noted include Bertrand Russell, Leopold Kronecker, and Albert Einstein.
This is the best popular history of the development of the computer viewed as a logic engine. I strongly recommend it as a book for courses in the history of mathematics and computing.


Computability, Complexity, and Languages: Fundamentals of Theoretical Computer Science (Computer Science and Applied Mathematics)
Published in Hardcover by Academic Press (1994)
Authors: Martin D. Davis, Ron Sigal, and Elaine J. Weyuker
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Beautiful overview
The authors of this book define theoretical computer science as the mathematical study of models of computation, and they do an excellent job of detailing the major results in the theory of computation as related to mathematical logic. Mathematicians, programmers, and philosophers will find the book an effective one in which to learn computability theory, and it serves well as a textbook for courses in the subject.

After a brief review of elementary mathematics and mathematical logic in chapter 1, the authors move right into the consideration of computable functions in chapter 2. They choose a particular abstract programming language in which to study the computability theory, which is built from variables, and programs that can be built from lists of instructions. Examples of programs are given, which have a Fortran flavor, with examples of computing partial functions. Unfortunately, a plethora of GOTO statements appear in the programs, and throughout the rest of the book, which is surprising given the publishing date. The use of these GOTO statements in the book is a major annoyance.

Then in chapter 3, the authors discuss primitive recursive functions, beginning with a treatment of composition, followed by the all-important concept of recursion. The class (PRC) of primitive recursive functions is introduced, and shown to be computable. The primitive recursive predicates are introduced, followed by a proof that the existential and universal quantifiers over an element of a PRC class are also PRC. This is followed by a discussion of minimalization and Godel numbers.

The next chapter is very interesting, wherein the famous halting problem is discussed and related to Church's thesis. The authors stress, most importantly, that an algorithm cannot be defined outside of the choice of a language, and therefore Church's thesis cannot be proved as a theorem. The authors also introduce recursively enumerable sets and show, via diagonalization, that non-recursively enumerable sets exist. They give an interesting example of a function that is computable but not primitive recursive.

The next chapter extends the results to strings of symbols instead of just numbers, and the authors introduce programming languages for doing string computations. One of these is the famous Post-Turing language, which they use to discuss the halting problem, with a variant used in the next chapter on Turing machines. The authors discuss the famous halting problem for Turing machines in this chapter. This is followed in chapter 7 by a discussion of productions and simulation of nondeterministic Turing machines. A very lucid treatment of Post's correspondence problem is given.

Things get somewhat more complicated in chapter 8, where the authors attempt to classify unsolvable problems. It contains one of the best discussions I have seen in the literature on oracles, and the authors give a very clear treatment of arithmetic hierarchies.

The second part of the book reads more like a book on compilers, as the authors delve into the area of grammars and automata. Regular languages, deterministic and non-deterministic finite automata are discussed, and Kleene's theorem, which states that regular languages and finite automata define the same languages, is proven. The context-free languages, so familiar from the study of compilers, are discussed also, along with a proof that a context-free grammar can be reduced to a Chomsky normal form grammar. Pushdown automata, needed for accepting context-free languages, are treated in detail. The authors give a good explanation here as to the additional facilities needed for a finite automaton to decide if a word belongs to a "bracket" language. Chomsky hierarchies are also discussed, and the authors motivate nicely the need for a linear bounded automaton to accept context sensitive languages.

Part three of the book is an overview of mathematical logic, and begins with a treatment of the propositional calculus. The satisfiability problem is discussed for this system, along with how to reduce formulas to normal form. The important compactness theorem is given a very detailed proof. Predicate calculus is then discussed, and Herbrand's theorem, which effectively reduces logical inference in predicate calculus to a problem of satisfiability of universal sentences, is proven. This theorem is fascinating and has important applications to automated theorem proving, as it ties together semantic and syntactical properties of a formal system. The Godel incompleteness theorem and the unsolvability of the satisfiability problem in predicate logic is proven.

In part 4, issues in computational complexity are addressed, the measure of complexity given in terms of the Blum axioms. This is a very abstract way of introducing complexity theory, as it introduces measures of complexity that more general than time and space complexity. The fascinating gap theorem, comparing program performance on two computing machines via complexity measures, is proven. This is followed by a detailed discussion of the speedup theorem, which essentially states that there is a wildly complicated recursive function such that for any program computing this function, there exists another program computing the function that works a lot faster for almost every input. The polynomial-time computability is discussed along with the famous P vs NP problem, with the discussion given in terms of Turing machines. Examples of NP-complete problems are given.

The last part of the book covers semantics, with operational and denotational semantics defined and compared. The emphasis in this part is on programming languages and constructions that one would actually find in practice, and so the preceding chapters on computable functions must be extended. The concept of an approximate ordering is introduced to allow for the instantaneous of a computation at some point before its completion. The denotational semantics of recursion equations and infinitary data structures are discussed, with the latter put it in to deal with the sophisticated systems that are constructed here. The discussion here is very involved, but the authors do a fair job of explaining the need for these types of data structures. The same is done for operational semantics, and the authors finally show that the computable numerical functions are actually partially computable. They then show the existence of computable irrational numbers.

Pure mathematical view of Computability and Complexity
This is not a common book on Computability and Complexity as Hopcroft-Ullman, Sipser or Papadimitrou. You won't find here too many words describing topics: you'll find the power and elegance of a superlative mathematical approach from one the best authors of the century in the field. Conversely, you'll find here a detailed and elegant treatment of the whole history of computational models that starts at the Primitive Recursive Functions, something you won't find in the other books above mentioned.
A special note goes to the chapter on Blum's complexity, which is about the only good place where I found it and from where I studied for my course on Complexity I.
For this reason the book requires quite more attention than others, but it really worths all the time one can spend reading it. Truly understanding Computability and Complexity as Professor Davis teaches them with this book is in my opinion a definitely high achievement, bringing the sensation that you grasp it totally, with no space for ambiguity or weakness.

My favorite book on the theory of computation
I first learned computability from this book and I loved every minute of it. It has lots of material and is superbly written. In fact, I think the chapters on logic are the most painless way to learn that subject. There are many other books around on this subject, but this is the ultimate!


HVAC Equations, Data and Rules of Thumb
Published in Paperback by McGraw-Hill Professional (02 June, 2000)
Author: Arthur A., Jr. Bell
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A thorough walk through options trading
This book is somewhat like 'A Random Walk Down Wallstreet" only applies to option trading, not just Wall Street and goes beyond.To the nit wit that blasted this book, I seriously doubt if he took the time to read it.I also recommend Safety First Investing and Wall Street Money Machine for more option techniques.Good books.

Can't say enough good stuff about this book
Wow, amazing, excellent, insufficient superlatives to describe my feelings - this one and Sheldon Nattenberg's Option Volatility and Pricing and you know more than most of the wall street professionals in my opinion. I found it practical and insightful, particularly with respect to the institutional trading strategies and how the trading floors operate.

An Excellent Overview of Options
This book presents a highly readable overview of the subject of options and I would recommend it to anyone. I have not been able to find one book on options which is as wide ranging in its scope (i.e., history, pricing, strategy, individual and institutional investors' approaches, how the trading floor operates, how market makers trade, etc.). The authors have struck a good balance between depth of the subject matter and readability. There are more detailed texts available in the area of strategy (McMillan's _Options as a Strategic Investment_) or pricing (Natenberg's _Option Volatility and Pricing_), but I would especially recommend this book to individual investors interested in options. After reading this book they will have a much stronger footing from which to approach the forementioned other books (which are also excellent, by the way).

The previous reviewer's comments should be disregarded as I cannot conceive of anyone writing about this subject matter any more clearly (yes, I have read both of Fontanills' books) -- the authors appear to have put much effort into this book judging by its clarity, and one nitwit's daffy comments should not dissuade you!


Rebounders Workshop: A Drill Manual on Rebounding
Published in Paperback by Human Kinetics Pub (1985)
Author: George Raveling
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Tune in Yesterday
Published in School & Library Binding by Holiday House (1978)
Author: T. Ernesto Bethancourt
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