Nick Evans has a great sense of the mobile marketplace. This book is a solid balance of the high level trends in the mobile industry and practical examples of businesses deploying these technologies.

Nick has done a nice job of summarizing the current new, new technologies and matching them to business issues. Solid read for managers and technologists alike.

This was one of my very first books in graduate school and it was the key to understanding all of the literature I'll ever need to read. This text fully explains how to break down highly technical research into easily understandable and useful material. Now I feel confident in picking up any piece of research and knowing whether it is a valid and reliable source of information. I can also apply the same methods to testing materials as well. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever felt overwhelmed by research.

An excellent source-book for anyone studying Middle English. It compiles an extensive selection of excerpts which demonstrate the ways in which medieval English writers struggled with the concept of writing in English, and defended their use of the vernacular. The accompanying essays range from excellent to mediocre, but the texts themselves make the book worth buying. By compiling texts about medieval literary theory, this book begins to fill a major gap in medieval studies.

This is an extremely valuable compendium of what almost any pracitioner needs to know about 40 of the most commonly used statistical distributions. It is designed as a quick lookup reference for each of the distributions. Most chapters begin with a few brief lines describing some of the applications of the distribution, and then provide a list of relevant formulae, such as for the distribution function, probability density, moments etc. Relationships to other distributions are defined, means of estimating the parameters provided, and ways of generating random numbers from the distribution are indicated.
Graphs of the distributions are shown with varying parameter values in most cases.

The book should be seen purely as a handbook on statistical distributions, not as a theoretical reference. The book is ideal for those who make use of statistical distributions in other fields, and who are not necessarily statisticians themselves. I have no formal statistics training, but use distributions extensively in my own work, and found this book very easy to understand. I have been using Johnson and Kotz monographs fairly extensively as references for the distributions in which I am interested, but find this book a much simpler reference for the basic facts of the distributions. In addition, its consistent use of notation across the chapters makes it much easier for the reader to cross reference.

I refrain from giving 5 stars to the book because of a few weaknesses, primarily omissions. Firstly, as an earlier reviewer pointed out, the lack of an index is a little annoying sometimes. Secondly, the bibliography is very slim, and so the reader interested in finding further details, proofs etc., is given very little direction. Thirdly, there are a few obvious omissions, such as the cumulative distribution function for the chi-squared distribution. Fourthly, random number generation is described only when the generation is relatively simple (for example, a method for generating random variates from a gamma distribution is described only for special cases). Finally, I would like to have seen more guidance provided in the sections on parameter estimation, such as first and second derivatives of log-likelihood functions when the estimates have to be derived iteratively.

This is the most thorough reference on distributions that I have found. The information contained about each distribution is concisely stated in a few pages - you would probably have to look in several books to get the same material. Most useful to people writing digital simulations is instructions on how to generate the distribution using random number generators. This is especially useful if you don't have access to statistical software packages. Lack of an index detracts, but is minor. Listings are alphabetical, by distribution name, so you might have to page through the book to find one that is not in an obvious location (like continuous uniform is listed as "rectangular", but discrete uniform is listed as "discrete uniform"). You need to be familiar with basic statistics to understand the book; but you don't have to be a statistician.

This is a very good reference for univariate statistical distributions. It provides maximum likelihood and moment estimation formulas for many distributions i'ven't seen anywhere else. That's right that the price is quite high for the number of pages but this information is invaluable for practitioners who need to fit distributions to real data.

Sarantakes covers the battle that began Easter Sunday in 1945, candidly dissecting the actions of the American commander in the battle and his resourceful Japanese counterparts. The book then proceeds to cover the political and strategic reasoning for keeping Okinawa under American control. The main reason, Sarantakes notes, is that America did not trust a militaristic Japan to maintain its promises in the surrender agreements, and wanted to be sure they didn't have to fight the battle of Okinawa all over again. Okinawa's strategic central location in Asia also made it very convenient as a forward deployment area should the need arise.

Keystone reads like a doctoral dissertation on the American administration of Okinawa. Historians and political science aficionados will find it interesting, but aside from the first chapter, there is little action. And there is little to no examination of 29 years of post-reversion history, even though Okinawa is still host to several American military bases and personnel.

I served on Okinwawa with the Army for three years, and while this book filled in a lot of the history from the Battle to Reversion, I was disappointed to find no mention of what has happened in the 29 years since.

In this thorough and well-written work, Professor Nicholas Sarantakes relates the story of how the United States occupied and controlled the strategically vital region of Okinawa after World War II, and held it until the early 1970s. No issue is ignored: Sarantakes combines politics, diplomacy, strategy, and even culture in this detailed look at a controversial American policy.

A number of general things make this book especially valuable. Sarantakes writes well, especially in his vivid description of the 1945 battle for Okinawa itself. His research is impressive, as he makes use of material from presidential archives, government repositories, and a good collection of oral histories. His argument that Okinawa was essentially an American colony is clear and convincing, even if policymakers would not have used the term. And, he does a nice job showing why American policymakers began to rethink this approach in the 1970s; not because of any ideals or principles, but because of Japanese resistance to the heavy-handed American presence.

A few things in particular deserve mention. Sarantakes does an excellent job explaining how American policy toward Okinawa evolved, showing that policymakers first wanted control of the area because of fears of a rearmed and aggressive Japan. Then, when it became clear that Japan was not moving toward militarism, American officials still refused to abandon Okinawa, afraid that doing so might encourage Japan to move toward a more neutral position in the Cold War. His account of the political infighting between State Department officials who saw withdrawal as a means to build up goodwill in Japan and elsewhere, and military leaders who clung to the base for its potential strategic value, is particularly insightful. He also does a nice job looking at the way that, especially in the early years, military officials were able to rule Okinawa with an almost iron fist. Finally, Dr. Sarantakes does a nice job putting the occupation in the context of the Cold War; its strategic location, for example, which allowed American planes to threaten targets in Asia and parts of Europe, made Okinawa especially valuable as American fears of Chinese and Soviet expansion grew.

Overall, this is convincing, thorough, and interesting book. I recommend it highly.

This is one of the few good book you can find, you can't find one like that easily. It is the best thing you can get that tells you all what you need to know on that topic, if you want a good book, buy this one.

I have read this book and I found it very useful for those who are beginning with internet projects (like me). It will explain step by step how to build good and efficient programs. The reason why I rated 8 is because the book doesn't explain too much (at all, in fact) the problems of database connection, and maybe it needs a little more explanation of features like mixing Java (not JavaScript) with PB and so on. Anyway, it's a very good book. Buy it, and learn.

By reading the other reviews, this book seems to be one that you love or hate. I, myself, thought it was a very entertaining read. Some reviewer's claim his facts aren't 100 percent true. It doesn't really matter. The story was well written and the character's were interesting. I found "Buck" to be a great character. He peaked my interest throughout this book. I was less interested in the "Luke" character but I did enjoy reading about "Helen". I was touched with Mr. Evan's description of Helen and Joel's romance in the beginning. It is the character's of the novel that make it worthwhile reading and in remembering, and I feel that Mr. Evan's has written a memorable novel. I did enjoy the "Horse Whisperer" novel and I have enjoyed this one. I will read more from this author in the future. People should try to take the facts of wolves a little less seriously. The wolf doesn't usually prey upon dogs or babies but this is a novel. A story that is made up of idea's and the freedom to express them by the author and he has done a vivid description of wolves, the character's and Montana as a backdrop.

Young woman, and an even younger man, strive to save pack of wolves from angry ranchers while trying to overcome their own personal doubts and shortcomings. When they turn to each other for love, it threathens their mission. In "The Horse Whisperer," author Nicholas Evans showed how wounded people and animals can help each other. Now he's done it again in "The Loop." In both works, he proves to be a master in foreshadowing events, thereby creating masterful page-turners. But, while tension builds with each page in "The Loop," at its heart this work is a study of our humanity. Though the wolf can be a dangerous creature, when does man become the greater monster? As for the title, does it refer to the "circle" of life described by Black Elk in the front of the book? Or does it only represent the device of a cruel, haunted character named J.J.Lovelace, who kills entire families of wolves when the price is right? Part of the satisfaction is deciding for yourself. If you want forbidden love, betrayals, human conflicts, tragic loss, and a tale that makes you question your own level of humanity, then this is the book for you.

This was my second book by Mr. Evans. The first was the Horse Whisperer. I'm definately a new fan. I was very impressed by both books. I find his characters likeable & there is excellent character development.

It's always fun to read a story about a topic you don't know much about, and that's part of the reason I enjoyed this book too. The descriptions of some of the horrific things people did to wolves were chilling.

I read this book in 4 days, basically any free time I had, I was reading it. It was also very easy to get into the story line. I hate it when the first 50 pages are slow or boring. Not in this book. I really recommend reading it.

Having heard very little about the book or the film, I picked up The Horse Whisperer basically on a whim, and found myself completely glued from the very start. Evan's work as a screenwriter serves him wonderfully in this masterful novel, as the scenery is described so vividly that its cinematic quality is more than palpable. He draws you into a powerful world of emotions and hope, simplicity and underneath it all, that primal animality that pervades all of us. What a way he has with developing his characters too! Every one of them had a separate and unmistakable identity, personality, and history that Evans fleshes out skillfully. however, the story itself was depressing and uncomfortable...I felt angry and disappointed for Robert, Annie's husband, for having to suffer through so much on account of no mistake of his own. And the extremely lucid love scene between Tom and Annie made me feel like getting up to go take a shower. The ending blew me away though...and after I read it, I surely was able to forgive Evans the raunchy events of pages past. I look forward to reading The Loop!

Unlike some other reviewers I wasn't expecting this book to be a great work of modern literature but rather a beautiful story that everyman could relate to with a bit of thought. I wasn't disappointed. Maybe the author was a screenwriter and maybe the sentimental story itself is set out to read like a movie plot unfolding, none of that, to my way of thinking, diminished the simple zen beauty of the authors prose which reflected the search for an inner calm in each of the main characters.

Others here have commented on the gore and adrenalin surging accident of Grace and the conveniently named Pilgrim and I from similar experiences found it traumatic - for the horse, but not for Grace herself because her story is really the means by which she and her mother find grace. Her mother Annie is forced to take stock of a life that she fears is not satisfying and which casts an effect on her child and her marriage.

If Tom, in a typical display of the western horseman, seems wooden through a lack of dialogue it is because he relates to the world through the horses he works with, espousing the simple wisdoms of a man who has learned to read what is subtle and unspoken. His loneliness is echoed in the souls of Pilgrim, Grace and Annie.

That Annie and Tom predictably fall in love and betray her marriage vows, in a different rendition of Graces relationship with Pilgrim, is not an issue. It is that only through the catalyst for change in Tom and the nature of his work with Pilgrim we find the key to the characters, that they too must sacrifice the instinct for self preservation to be remade with maturity.

The plot and characters have been defined a number of times. What is unique and most interesting is that the book is written to attract readers from all age groups. The skill and technique of the Horse Whisperer, his ability to communicate with the animal, and also his depth of understanding of human nature in young people and also in adult relationships makes the book a sure winner! No wonder it was a best seller. The movie was also great!
Evelyn Horan - teacher/counselor/author
Jeannie, A Texas Frontier Girl - Books One - Three