For those of you interested in reading a little history, some present implementations and the possibilities the future holds...this book is for you. If you require a more design-oriented book you might look elsewhere. I absolutely loved this book!!

Being the broad-scope work that it is, this book has hit the bulls-eye in terms of coverage. While there have been other books on IAs recently, this one covers all aspects of IAs.

Doing so, it has more positives than negatives; but of course this depends on whether you want an overview of the field, or an Intelligent Agent (IA) in "C" programming reference manual. It is more of the former than the latter.

It does cover a lot of ground and gives one a detailed taste for what artificial intelligence(AI), and IA's (Intelligent Agents) created from AI technologies are, and more importantly, what they *could* be. That is, if all the suggestions in this book were followed, we might soon have really 'intelligent' software emerging from various quarters (like the Internet or Intranets).

It concentrates on explaining the essentials of the cognitive and computer sciences that are relevant to IA design and creation, especially the considerations that seem to have contributed to 'intelligence' in the natural world (like our brains). I liked all the various definitions of intelligence!

It goes into the details of various architectural approaches to designing systems of interacting, or collaborating components. I found the material on the necessity of common agent languages (that is, languages in which the agents speak to each other) to be particularly enlightening.

Also especially useful was all the information about autonomy, agent mobility, standards that agents can make use of (like IIOP), and what languages and environments might be particularly suited to IA implementation. There were a couple of subjects that seem, in retrospect, out of place (like OpenDoc). But given that the coverage is about certain architectural and implementation concepts of those subjects that were important to IAs, and that it was only a few pages, this was a minor issue with me.

The book explains, at a surface level, the common soft-computing technologies like ANNs, genetic computing and fuzzy logi! c, as well as more traditional approaches like expert systems. It gives examples of real software that you can buy and use to incorporate these techniques into agents. For example, the book provides a good synopsis of Cyc, which can be used by agents to incorporate 'common sense' reasoning capabilities.

I did not expect it, so I was not surprised that this was not a programming manual. There are a couple of other books on IAs that concentrate on particular kinds of relatively simple agents in particular languages. Yet, to be honest, in lieu of lots of specific code and examples of actual agents, it provides a lot of pointers to other researchers' works in companies and academic settings.

This book is much more than what has appeared on the market thus far. Its breadth is actually pretty amazing considering its length of around 400 pages. I would recommend it to anyone who wanted to either gain a good grounding in intelligent agent design and development issues, or to expand one's purview of how intelligence could be enabled within today's and tomorrow's distributed computer systems.

Intelligente Agenten sind längst nicht mehr nur ein Thema für abgedrehte Software-Entwickler. Microsoft ist in den Markt der Agent Software Produkte eingestiegen und die Regale der Buchhandlungen füllen sich mit Abhandlungen zu diesem Themenkomplex. Inhalt: Michael Kapnik und Jay Johnson beschreiben in Ihrem Buch die Architektur, Technologie und Anwendungen für Intelligente Agenten in ver-teilten Umgebungen. Die Autoren thematisieren nahezu alle Aspekte dieser Technologie. Künstliche Intelligenz in Experten Systemen, Fuzzy Logik, Objektorien-tierung und Architekturen von Agenten bilden den ersten Teil des Buches. Der Vergleich na-türlicher und künstlicher Intelligenz beschäftigt sich mit der Frage, ob Computer die Natur des Gehirns nachbilden können. Die Industriestan-dards CORBA, OpenDoc, OLE/ActiveX und DCE werden als Basis für die Infrastruktur intelli-genter Agenten kurz erleutert. Für Tools und Entwicklungsumgebungen geben die Autoren neben der theoretischen Beschreibung auch einen Marktüberblick über verfügbare Produkte und weiterführende Literatur zu den Tei-laspekten. Im Anschluß werden Design- und Sicher-heitspekte beschrieben. Dies umfaßt die Bereiche Anforderungsanalyse, Plattform, Umgebung und Paradigmen für verteilte Um-gebungen, Client/Server und Mobilität. Daneben werden Methoden zur Fehlerbe-handlung, digitale Signaturen und Konfigurationen durch die Endanwender dar-gestellt. Nachdem die Grundlagen für die Entwicklung der Agenten gelegt sind, beschäftigt sich das Kapitel "Developing Intelligent Agents NOW" mit Sprachen und Entwicklungsumgebungen, wie Java, Smalltalk und Telescript. Die Einsatzgebiete intelligenter Agenten sind vielfältig. Viele Anwender setzen sie bereits in Standard-Office-Produkten oder E-Mail-Anwendungen ein. Daneben unterstützen in-telligente Agenten ihre Anwender im Netzwerk-Management, bei der Suche im WWW, bei der Filterung von Daten, beim Kommunikations-management und vielen anderen Bereichen. Der Ausblick in die Zukunft intelligenter Agen-ten bi! ldet den Abschluß des Buches. Neben weiteren Anwendungsgebieten für Agenten in Datenbanken, im Netzwerkmanagement, in Suchmaschinen und im Privatbereich wird auch auf mögliche Gefahren durch spionierende oder destruktiv agierende Agenten hingewie-sen. Beurteilung: Sätze, wie "Mein Computer fühlt sich alleine, weil ich es bin" zeigen, daß es sich nicht um eine theoretische Abhandlung über die Agen-ten-Technologie handelt. Immer wieder stellen die Autoren einen praktischen Bezug her oder wagen einen Blick in die Zukunft. Es gibt je-doch auch Kapitel, die nicht so leicht zu lesen sind. Dies ergibt sich aus der Komplexität der behandelten Themen. Denn die Entwicklung intelligenter Agenten in verteilten Umgebungen ist nicht trivial. Das Buch liefert das "Handwerkszeug" für die Entwicklung verteilter Systeme mit Hilfe intelli-genter Agenten. Es schneidet alle relevanten Themen an, ohne dabei zu theoretisch zu wer-den. Aufgrund des Umfangs der behandelten Themen sind die einzelnen Technologien nicht erschöpfend dargestellt. Wer detaillierte In-formationen benötigt, kann jedoch auf weiterführende Literatur, auf die in dem Buch hingewiesen wird, zurückgreifen.

I originally had to buy this book for a death & dying course. Now, after the class ended, I refer to it constantly. It presents the information on death & afterlife beliefs of about 20 different religions in a very easy-to-understand, easy-to-grasp manner. Each religions death beliefs is prefaced by a concise background or history, putting the information on death beliefs into context. You don't have to struggle through pages of difficult-to-understand concepts to comprehend why each faith has its beliefs. Anyone interested in the subject should not skip this book. It is a superior resource!

Drs. Johnson & McGee have provided the perfect avenue for exploring and understanding different views of death and the afterlife. This is a very complete and easy to read resource which I highly recommend.

This book is the best of the best in presenting a fair, unbias representation of what different world religions and christian faiths believe about death and the afterlife.

Here is the best tip that I can give anyone for fly fishing Arizona, ready? Buy it! Try buying it right here you won't find it in the shops yet. Get your credit card out, and type me a message right now telling me "thank you" so you don't have to hold yourself up e-mailing adam while you are getting ready to explore all the wonderful opportunities that are exposed in this book. I am absolutely impressed! In 1999, no less than three books on Arizona Fly Fishing have been released for the public. This book is a MUST HAVE for any fly fisher in the state of Arizona. If you have to buy one book, this is it. It is my favorite, did I say that? For those of you visiting the state, this resource is definitely one that puts you in touch with more information than most of the locals. Mr Johnson is obviously a very keen Arizona explorer with a fly rod. In a nutshell, you will not find any careless meanderings, no miss marked maps, just a Christopher Columbus of fly fishing here in our state. Gee's this guy has been around. The answers are there for questions that are very close to my heart. I will not go into detail about this book other than I TOLD YOU SO! Do you want Arizona Trout???

No, Barney & Baby Bop at the Beach is not great literature deftly composed by a renowned author. No, the illustrations are not superb works of art rendered by an inspired artist. An furthermore, in this book there is no depth of story line, development of character, nor spine tingling suspense. And, yes, this book deserves a ten exactly because it lacks all of the above. This is an unpretentious chunky, clunky board book based on the two outrageously purple and green popular television characters, Barney and Baby Bop. In the simplest of prose and the brightest of colors, they spend a delightful day at the beach doing just the ordinary, mundane things that any toddler delights in - playing with a sandpail, a beach ball and a dog, wearing sun glasses, building a sand castle, etc. And best of all, the book is tactiley interactive with cutaway sections of a squishy plastic beach ball, shiney sunglasses, furry dog, rough sand castle and more, for pudgy hands to explore! Summer's just around the corner. The annual family jaunt to the beach beckons as temperatures rise. Don't think twice about snapping this one up so your toddler can anticipate future fun by spending the day at the beach with Barney and Baby Bop.

This volume consists of articles on children's folklore. The book provides various ways of studying the games, songs, rhymes, and other forms of folk culture that children express. It is an excellent resource for learning to understand ways that children's culture leads insight into the worldview of children. I also am impressed with the ways that the study of children's culture leads one to think about common and implicit aspects of adults' culture that form important ways of thinking about life -- but need to be critically examined. This volume should interest anyone who is curious about kids, but it is also academically-oriented and scholarly.

Please excuse my spelling, it's terrible This book is terrific. I started reading this book and couldn't put it down. It is a fine collection of stories ranging from the great soilbank days when Kansas alone had 4 million birds to the Royal hunts in Europe where an average daily bag mesaures in the thousands, It has stories more like mine where the average hunt ends with tired dogs and few birds. The book through it's many differant authors also explores the ethics associated with hunting. This book is for the bird hunter who's cleaning his gun for the third time this week when hunting season isn;t for 6 months. It's for the guy who can't stop dreaming of how his new pup will do his first time out. It's for the guy who spends more time with his dogs than with his wife. All hunters will enjoy this book, but the true bird hunter won;t be able to put it down.

This book gets kids thinking as they try to unfold the mystery themselves -- what do the missing letters spell??? Bright colors and cool underwater scenes keep the kids interested. This one is a keeper.

This hardcover book had a sparkly cover and bright, bold pictures throughout. It's one of the first books my two-and-a-half year old reaches for. The story is brief enough to keep the attention of a toddler, but adults wont be overly bored after many repeated readings. The variety of characters illustrated on the pages keeps children interested in the book even without someone to read to them. A great treasure at a decent price.

Very well conceived book. My child loves looking at the pictures and enjoys pointing out the missing letters. A book for kids to treasure.

The book is great for inspiring your toddler to participate in reading. While the book is not heavy in plot, the child is asked to find objects that are in the nursery rhyme and pictured on the page. My toddler is 2 and was overjoyed to be able to accomplish what the book asked. It is challenging because the pictures are quite lively. It teaches a child to concentrate on the task at hand and not to be distracted by other activity. The classic "concentrate,work hard, and you will succeed" book. A great buy!

As well as being mother to an active 2 year old, I teach ESL to 30 children from 1 to 3 years old. Anyone who knows toddlers, also knows how hard it can be to get them to sit and look at a book, especially in a group setting when they don't understand much English. This is the first book I have found which draws the children in and holds their attention right to the end!

I read Silent Thunder. I thought it was a great book. Because you can learn about war and how most slaves got free. I think everyone who wants to learn about slaves and how to people got free. This book is based on a real story about a boy that is around 13 and an unidentified girl. I recommend it to kids around the age of 10 to 14.I think others that like civil war stories then take a peek or you should read it if you want a great and interesting book about action, thrill and sadness. If you want all of that stuff then you should read this great book.

This story tells about a brother and sister growing up during the time of the civil war. Read this book to see life from a slave childs perspective during war.

Searching for a book in my school's library. I did what anyone kid would do randomly picked a book of the shelf. It wasn't like what I thought it would be. I felt like I was in the book. I love how Andrea Davis portrays the characters, it really does make them seem real. The author really did her job on researching the facts for this book. She gave the characters such vivid description I felt like I knew them. It was creatively written. It was definetely a book I couldn't put down!