Great information. But the format needs work. Author credentials and degrees should be included. Author email also. Very lousy format for graphs, which do have useful information. However, the print and keys are literally fuzzy. Perhaps the paper absorbed too much ink, black and white is not sufficient, and the symbols for different concepts are too much alike. So far I have not found mention of NCLEX or applications in nursing.

This book contains most of what you need to understand how computerized adaptive tests (CAT) do what they do. It is a good complement to the seminal book on Item Response Theory (IRT) by Wainer's colleague, Frederic Lord (Applications of Item Response Theory to Practical Testing Problems).

The assumptions that go into item characterizations and test designs are discussed here; these assumptions are frequently glossed over or accepted as "fact" by many in the psychometric field. My own interests are in the type of test called a Mastery test. The test design criteria for a Mastery test are different than those for a general achievement test (e.g., the SAT). The stopping rules, the range of item difficulties, and the next-item selection algorithm should be tailored to the needs of a Mastery test, but this is not always the case. One consequence is that if an examinee misses several items early on in a poorly designed Mastery test, it may be difficult or impossible to recover, because the items at the beginning usually carry the most "weight" toward the final score or grade. Wainer gives a good description of the design criteria for different situations and how to avoid various problems and pitfalls.

Chapter 6, Scaling and Equating, shows the reader how an open-ended logarithmic scoring scale - used by any CAT based on IRT - is converted to a fixed scale such as 0-100 or 0-1000. A variety of methods are available, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.

This primer is cited by the Microsoft Corporation in their electronic white paper on adaptive testing (along with Lord's book and several other references.) Microsoft also has a sample adaptive test available. This test has at least three incorrect answers in it, and the impact of giving the real correct answer to an item, but having it graded as incorrect, is easily seen. Other items on the Microsoft sample CAT have assigned item difficulties that are out of line with their true difficulties. These types of problems are covered in Wainer's book but not in any of the other references on adaptive testing or IRT that I have perused.

A nice touch in the primer is a chapter-by-chapter "running story" about Cindy and Scott who apply for jobs and go through the adaptive-test-taking experience. The story line is constructed to fit in with the concepts covered in each chapter. Another feature in the book is the inclusion of Exercise/Study Questions at the end of each chapter. Many books on IRT include similar questions and exercises, probably a consequence of being written by educators who write textbooks. Wainer does not include the answers, but they can be deduced if one actually reads the book.

The book does not provide computer algorithms or pseudocode that would allow one to actually create an adaptive test Hopefully, a future edition will provide better guidance in this area. Although almost a decade since its initial publication, Wainer's book is still a good reference book for anyone interested in computer adaptive testing.

If you want to learn more about computer adaptive testing (CAT), this book is the place to start. Chapter four, the best chapter in the book, provides an excellent introduction to item response theory (IRT). If the chapter on IRT seems hard to understand and full of strange mathematical symbols, this reflects the unfortunate fact that ALL the literature on IRT has these shortcomings. This book could contain a lot more information. Outside of chapter four, the information is only marginally useful. Nevertheless, it's the best book on CAT that's currently available. I recommend it for anyone who wants to learn about CAT and IRT. However, if you are weak in math and statistics, you probably won't understand most of the book.

Star Trek - The Next Generation: Perchance to Dream written by Howard Weinstein is a lighter Trek novel... Oh, there is some suspense and intrigue, but it doesn't come out and grab you by the ears and makes you want to read this book in one setting.

In this book there is a planetary life force which can move mountains and dig valleys in a single day, make new oceans and change the course of rivers. With all of this said, this race is rather a benevolent and what they really want is to communicate with the humanoid species that are now claiming the planet for their own the Tenarins.

On a rountine survey of the planet Domarius IV, Captain Jean-Luc Picard and the Starship Enterprise crew encounter the Tenarins as they try to hijack an Enterprise shuttle with Data, Troi, Wesley Crusher and two of his friends as they leave the planet with some interesting soil and rock samples. Caught up in the Tenarin tractor beam the shuttle is about to break up when it disappears in a flash of colorful light and is transported to a subterranian location.

Now, with the Enterprise closing in, the Tenarin captain and Jean-Luc Picard also become missing in a flash of colorful light and are transported to the planet's surface. All of the time under the watchful eye of the planetary intelligence which are diamond shaped with light of different colorsul coursing though them.

Until the planetary intelligence discovers how to communicate with the humanoids things become quite mystifing. Data is the link by which the planetary intelligence gains the knowledge to communicate. All along the planetary race that can move mountains is preparing the planet for humanoid life and as they begin to wake-up from their one-thousand year sleep, their mission is about to become complete as the Tenarins looking for a home are invited to stay.

This was an interesting read and kept my attention, but it wasn't one of the best TREK novels as the mystery, intrigue and action-adventure was rather lacking and some areas of the story bogged down to a near halt.

All in all, this story is a good 4 stars it could have been written with more action-adventure and intrigue to carry the reader to the ending.

Not the worst Star Trek novel I've ever read, but not the best either. It lacked tension. There was never a feeling that anyone was really in danger. I felt the inclusion of Wesley's young friends superfluous. It felt flat though not entirely boring.

I must say there our times when the book is better than the show. This is one of those times. It's a good thing Picard does alot of reading or the show and the book would have had unhappy endings. I enjoyed this book so much I read it twice in the same week. After which I brushed up on my Shakespeare. This book is very good reading for all

The main character, Harry Kraft is kind of an anti-hero. This is a good comic for those that might be tired of costumed heros but still like comics. Harry basically "drops out" of his unfulfilling life by faking his death. He leaves his alduterous, unaffectionate and uncaring wife. He resurfaces in Latin America and the adventure begins. Corrupt politicians, drug dealers, hookers, guns, violence, sex, it's all here!!! If you like these themes, GET THIS BOOK!!!

Scars & Stripes contains issues 1 through 4 (the first story arc) from the Vertigo title, American Century. The first issue alone is worth the price of the book, as it sets up Harry's wandering ways. Imagine a character similiar to Indiana Jones that leans more towards an anti-hero. That is Harry. Love the artwork from Marc Lamning! 'Pulp' definitely is the best way to describe this series. The future for this title is bright. Definitely for adults.

If you don't have access to the 5-volume "Selected Letters" (published by Arkham House), this book is indispensible. This collection of letters spans Lovecraft's adulthood and covers such diverse topics as writing, eighteenth century antiquities, philosophy, politics, racism, economics, cats, travel, and even the art of buying a cheap suit!

Veteran Lovecraft scholars will enjoy this work because of the editors' efforts at placing each selection of letters in its proper context. These little annotations assist the reader in gaining a better understanding of the author's need to communicate with kindred spirits (despite his avowed misanthropy), his attempts to battle his depression with satiric humor, and the sometimes extreme lengths undertaken to cope with the slide into poverty and near starvation.

Well researched and ably constructed, Joshi and Schultz's offering is a welcome addition. Highly recommended.

Strange that it took so long for someone to think of this. Lovecraft was one of history's great letter-writers, and many of his letters contain autobiographical details, so why not gather those all together? Well, here they are, 343 pages of letters, Lovecraft's autobiographical sketch SOME NOTES ON A NONENTITY, and some explanatory notes. The letters don't really form a coherent autobiography, and someone who reads this book without having read Joshi's biography of Lovecraft first will probably not form a very clear idea of Lovecraft's life.

Most of the letters are new to me, even though I am familiar with the contents of the multi-volume Arkham House "Collected Letters." Virtually all the letters are a delight to read, since poor Lovecraft could find entertainment in even the most humdrum activities... consider the wild Arabian Nights bazaar-haggling fantasy he inserts into the account of his search for a good, cheap suit, after a thief made away with almost everything he owned in the way of wearables.

The text has one annoying defect; the letters are usually not introduced by telling us who they were written to, and one must repeatedly turn to a couple of pages marked "sources" for this vital info. Lovecraft's tone and style, and openness or reticence, varied greatly with correspondent, and this is background info you have to have to appreciate a given letter.

Typographical errors are very few; I spotted only about four, all probably transcription errors in copying from Lovecraft's microscopically hand-written originals.

Like the majority of university press books I have seen over the past 40 long-suffering years, this one suffers from what Lovecraft himself might call "preternaturally odious" design. The cover consists of a fuzzy snapshot of Lovecraft superimposed on a collage of details from old engravings, and each major section is defaced by a grey blob that is probably imagined, by someone with no sense of design, to be decorative. Chapter headings seem to have been affected by word-processing runaway, so that for instance the index is headed "Marriage and Exile, Clinton Street and Red Hook"!

Let's just say I loved every word of it. After you read it, this should go right on the shelf with your worn, much-read volumes of Lovecraft fiction, and you'll find yourself dipping into it at random, at odd times. What a man! Recommended!

This book is especially good to advanced users with some basic pharmacologic background. It contains clinically useful drugs and their effects, abandoning those which you will never meet in hospital. I recommand it to senior medi students for their clinical rotation.

This new and significantly updated edition of Melmon and Morrelli's classic textbook of clinical pharmacology is a must- read for anybody interested in improving their therapeutic practices. The editors need to be commended for getting leading authorities to contribute chapters in their respective fields. This book should be equally relevant to medical students and physicians in practice. Overall, an excellent buy !

This book begins with an introduction to MATLAB, language and graphics. I found this useful (fprint instead of disp, for example). Many engineering problems are set up and solved using MATLAB functions and m-files Applications of Fourier Series, the Dynamic Response of Second-Order Systems, and problems in ordinary and partial differential equations are presented. Many of the problems are specialized (consider the forced vibration of a pile embedded in an elastic medium, for example). Overall I liked the book, it presents a brief overview of the mathematics upon which each problem is based, and the m-files are well documented. I'm using it in an Applied Mathematics class.

In each volume of The Best American Poetry, there are usually a handful of really good or great poems, but on a whole, I find them to disappointing. It's generally not the best American poetry in any given year. Nor is 1995's volume the 'best' but it does have a higher number of good or great poems in it. Richard Howard (1995's guest editor) does a better job than most of the other guest editors I've read. You find poems by Margaret Atwood, Rafael Campo, Ginsberg, Marilyn Hacker, Anthony Hecht, Andrw Hudgins, Kizer, Kumin, Mary Jo Salter, and a great series of poems by Molly Peacock. There is also a wonderful poem by Sally Ball. I wish the series would get back up to this level of quality.

This book really does show a unique perspective on Cats. I think that it would make a great addition to school classrooms as another way to introduce children to the animal kingdom.

With the Cisco certification craze in full swing, there are any number of study guides that purport to help one pass the CCIE written exam, the required first step to becoming a CCIE. Most take the approach of following the published exam blueprint, supplemented with excursions into the actual test, then tailoring the content around a best guess as to the actual exam contents.

Not so with the Certification Zone materials. Here a candidate will learn to master protocol behaviour, and to think through the implications of situations posed. One learns to read questions carefully, and to examine the answer choices with a critical eye. Trick questions? Only to those unwilling to take the extra step necessary to become expert.

The Certification Zone materials are not meant to be the only study aids for the CCIE candidate. They are designed to provide the finishing touches to the preparation required to pass this exam. As such, the materials are probably more difficult than the real thing. The questions can be frustrating to those who think they know enough just to get by.

Among the nice features of this CD format are the ability to choose from among several full blown simulated CCIE written exams, as well as the ability to focus on particular topics, such as LAN protocols, WAN protocols, bridging, or routing protocols.

There are plenty of other study materials available. But for those willing to accept the Certification Zone challenge to become a master of networking technology, this CD is a definite must and a valuable part of any preparation effort.

I used the Certification Zone CD extensively in the three weeks prior to my taking the written test, and I passed with miles to spare. I believe I had an edge because I accepted the Certification Zone challenge, and used the materials to help me hone my critical thinking - something quite valuable in a test as challenging as the CCIE written.

I should add that although I did not use the materials for the CCNA, this CD also contains an extensive set of test questions and practice tests for the CCNA exam as well. So an investment by those just starting their certification pursuits can serve candidates well at both the beginning and end of their certification pursuits.

All in all, I have to say that the Study Questions 2000 CD is most definitely a good addition to any Cisco certification candidate's toolkit.

This is an excellent book!!! It really does cover topics in a way not often presented by other books or texts, it presents them in an easily understandable way. The topics are ones every anesthesiologist hopes to never encounter but inevitably does. This is a great book for stimulating your brain about how you will deal with those crises!