This book contains a great many quality photos of Cai Guo-Qiang amazing, breath-taking works, and also includes an informative introduction and transcripts of a some interesting interviews with the artist. A lovely book.

It is to the detriment of modern history that ANDRII SHEPTYTS'KYI is little known in Western nations. Sheptyts'kyi stands as a collossal figure in the life of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church, and as a significant bridge between Orthodoxy and Catholicism. However, Andrii Krawchuk's text goes beyond the restricted readership of those interested in Church matters or Christian ethics. The text brilliantly highlights Sheptyts'kyi's struggle to combat the spread of communism and fascism during his 44 year tenure as the Head of the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church. Krawchuk succinctly portrays how Sheptyts'kyi tackled the issues of nationalism, and how this could best be focussed toward the improvement of social justice within a nation, as well as how it could also lead eventually to a sense of internationalism - a respect for all nationalities. Later in the text Krawchuk describes how the Ukrainian Metropolitan sought to protect not only his own parishoners but also those Ukrainian citizens who were Orthodox and Jewish. In fact Sheptyts'kyi's resolute stance against the NAZI persecution of the Jews, saw him challenge Heinrich Himmler himself, only to be warned by the SS leader that but for Sheptyts'kyi's age he would have been executed. Details of Sheptyts'kyi's network of clergy who falsified Baptismal forms and smuggled Jewish children to monasteries, make for a better read than "Schindler's Ark". I thoroughly recommend this text to any person wishing to read a work which is uplifting - it is fundamentally a tale of one man's desire to see the message of the Gospel placed firmly here on earth; one man's odyssey against two evil regimes which traversed his beloved nation. "Christian Social Ethics in Ukraine", is in short the saga of a truly great 20th Century figure, perhaps with the hindsight of history - to be considered amongst the greatest.

I agree wholeheartedly with the following Wall Street Journal Review of November 30, 2001: "Some of the best specimens of the human animal show up in "The Importance Of Being" by Christopher Felver. And by this I do not mean the "beautiful people" but the accomplished ones - writers, artists, musicians, activists. No pretense here, just straight-ahead, black-and-white portraits of a staggering 436 "creative revolutionaries," as Mr. Felver calls them, photographed by him over the past two decades. He presents here an incredible collection of the most creative spirits of our times and it is fascinating to see the immediacy with which the subjects posed for this bohemian photographer.

Though I did not finish reading the entire book because just this morning my cat threw up all over it, I would recommend Codrescu's A Craving for Swan. It's a collection of his writings which once aired on NPR. He chooses topics--Transylvania, Louisiana, his son, whatever--and then expounds upon them--expository style--in his own, singular, funny, forthright, post-beatnik, Eastern-European/Nawlins vernacular style. What I like about Codrescu is not so much his writing ability (not intended as a slight, Mr. Andrei) as his longing for a more human existence in an increasingly nonhuman/computerish world. His storytelling talent as well as his critical eye regarding mass media and things plugged in are top-rate. To anyone who's ever read Exquisite Corpse or has seen the video of Codrescu's ride across America, this book is certainly worth it's weight in . . . cat vomit? No. Gold? No. Mardi Gras beads wrapped around a Draculian wooden cross? Yes.

Beginning with the work of Grothendiek, the theory of motives is, very loosely speaking, an attempt at a "unified theory" of number theory and algebraic geometry. This years Fields Medals reflect the interest in motives, as one of the authors in this book (Voevodsky) was awarded for his research in this area. In a gist, this book tries to see how much of (standard) algebraic topology can be carried over to the study of algebraic varieties and schemes. By defining a new topology on algebraic cycles, the "qfh topology", Voevodsky showed that the techniques of sheaf theory can be used to study them from the standpoint of algebraic topology. This topology is finer than the etale topology and allows one to use sheaf cohomology to study algebraic cycles. The reader will be expected to have a substantial background in the theory of schemes, higher K-theory, algebraic topology, and sheaf theory. Reading this book will give one a deep appreciation of how difficult it is to do algebraic topology in algebraic geometry, requiring formidable technical machinery.

The use of K-theory in topology and algebra goes back half a century, beginning with the K-theory of CW-complexes and the construction of Atiyah and Hirzebruch of spectral sequences relating singular cohomology to topological K-theory. The K-theory of algebraic varieties is a little more subtle, and involves looking at the isomorphism classes of algebraic vector bundles on the variety. These form an abelian group with the group operation being defined via the existence of an exact sequence between the isomorphism classes.

As a warm-up to the scheme-theoretic setting, the K-theory of an arbitrary ring proceeds by analogy with the simplicial setting, the latter of which involves the classifying space of homotopy maps of the complex and the notion of stable equivalence. But for a general ring, the unit interval used in the definition of homotopy is replaced by the affine line. The work of Karoubi and Villamayor, and Quillen defined precisely higher algebraic K-theory for rings, the former using this simplicial motivation, the latter using what is called a "Q-construction". The definitions coincide for regular schemes but not for singular ones.

Motivic cohomology, which is an algebraic analog of singular cohomology, arose in the setting of the Chow ring of algebraic cycles modulo rational equivalence. A homology theory of the free abelian group of algebraic cycles of a variety, with the replacement of the unit interval with the affine line, was developed. The products existing in cohomology arise from the consideration of the intersection of subvarieties, leading to the familiar Chow ring. The Chow ring is functorial under pull-backs, and can be related to the zeroth K-group via the use of the Chern class and the Riemann-Roch theorem. The higher K-groups of Quillen give the desired long exact sequence of K-groups.

Bloch then defined motivic cohomology via the construction of higher Chow groups, again by analogy to the simplicial theory, and with a careful definition of intersection product, so as to insure the algebraic cycles intersect the faces in the correct codimension. It was then shown that the higher Chow groups are related to the the higher K-groups for a variety which is smooth over a field.

One of the authors (Frielander) and Dwyer, using the etale cohomology of Grothendieck, gave a mod-n topological K-theory, called etale K-theory, which led to the work of Suslin and Voevodsky on the motivic homology of algebraic cycles, which is the main focus of this book.

After a brief introduction to motivic cohomology in chapter 1 and an historical introduction, the second chapter deals with relative cycles on schemes and Chow sheaves. Relative cycles are defined for schemes of finite type over a Noetherian (base) scheme and are well-behaved for morphisms of of the base scheme. The authors concentrate most of their attention not to general schemes but to varieties over a field. The cdh-topology is introduced here as one which allows the construction of long exact sequences for sheaves of relative cycles.

Chapter 3 overviews the cohomological theory of presheaves and defines the notion of a transfer map. For smooth schemes over a field, these maps are used to define a "pretheory" over the field, and homotopy invariance of pretheories can then be defined. Examples of pretheories include etale cohomology, algebraic K-theory, and algebraic de Rham cohomology. The Mayer-Vietoris exact sequence for the Suslin homology is proven, giving another analogue of ordinary algebraic topology.

In chapter 4 the authors consider the generalization of the duality property of homology and cohomology in algebraic topology using bivariant cycle cohomology. The bivariant cycle cohomology groups are defined for schemes of finite type over a field in terms of the higher Chow groups. They have the origin in the generalization of the simplicial theory to the algebraic geometry setting. Homotopy invariance, suspension maps, and the Gysin sequence find their place here also. The authors detail to what extent the higher Chow groups can be considered to be a motivic cohomology theory. Motivic homology, motivic cohomology, and Borel-Moore motivic cohomology are shown to be related to the bivariant cycle cohomology and their algebraic topological properties discussed briefly.

Chapter 5 studies algebraic cycle cohomology theories categorically via the construction of triangulated categories of motives. This is the key step in allowing the techniques of (ordinary) sheaf cohomology to be applied to the category of motives. The discussion is done in the context of smooth schemes, but it would be interesting if the authors would have given some concrete examples, possibly with elliptic curves, showing how these constructions come into play for elementary algebraic varieties.

The book ends with a discussion of the higher Chow groups and how they relate to etale cohomology. A relatively concrete presentation, the author proves the equality between the higher Chow groups and etale cohomology with compact supports for quasiprojective schemes over algebraically closed fields of characteristic zero.

How can i know the truth ? ,,,it's incorrect. Nowhere is truth. Sir.A.Tarkovsky's Response is NO-Reason. We're being in the world. The world and I can't separate , as internal relationship. we must pursue to the ViVid Reality,not Theoria but Knowing as Techne ( a sort of Skill in life or Spiritual Experience ) i thought Wittgenstein,Nagarjuna,Tarkovsky Who are investigated to Ultimate Human in Universe in Context for life. i asked everyday to my self " is something related to me ? " . Because All things and All events are interdependent to MySELF . " Nothing Beyond the Texts " " Texts are World " " I'm member of the World " I can't SEE, I can't Touch, I and world are organic whole. We are related internally eachother. A.Tarkovsky asks for position Searcher for non-metaphisical and non - realistic Truth . Already Buddha, Wittgenstein,Nagarjuna Says. His Film is Echoes of Life and Human in Darkness before White Logos . As Natural Scene, For Ethical Need,

especially i want to recommend to Philosopher with illness ( notes : wittgenstein's Philosophical investigation. 255.)

I liked the book since it has depth, simplicity, and good illustrations. The writing style is clear. The chapters on magnetic recording and magneto-optical recording were the most interesting to me. The index and glossary are good too. I think, the chapter on data loss and recovery should have more material. Again, I liked the book for covering all important subjects, including SAN, NAS, Flash, RAID, etc.

This book should be required for all SAN managers. It covers different platforms and configurations, network standards, and design issues. It offers suggestions for performing cost analyses, installing and testing, and implementing SANs, along with an in-depth discussion of the future role of SANs in numerous business environments.

Ably edited and with informative commentary by Joan Aruz, Ann Farkas, Andrei Alekseev, and Elena Korolkova, The Golden Deer Of Eurasia: Scythian And Sarmatian Treasures From The Russian Steppes is a showcase volume of spectacular artifacts crated from about the fifth to the fourth century B.C.E. by the nomadic people who lived on the steeps of the southern Ural Mountain region and uncovered by recent archaeology expeditions in Filippovka, Russia. The objects include wooden, deer-like creatures overlaid with sheets of gold and silver, as well as gold attachments for wooden vessels, leather, and fabric. Very highly recommended for art history, anthropology, and archaeology reference collections, The Golden Deer Of Eurasia is the catalogue for an exhibition presented by The Metropolitan Museum of Art and is a 320-page compendium of 335 illustrations (280 in color) and seven maps.

Hey that's my sister on the cover, so I have to give it five stars. (I would have anyway.) pj