A fair set of books, but dated because of breakthroughs in FPA's and remote sensing technology. All eight volumes are free for downloading from DTIC in PDF format.

Although the price of the set may seem steep, it is well worth it for any engineer working with infrared optics given the amount of time it will save. All the chapters are written by various contributing authors, but all seem fairly well written and carefully edited. The focus is on military applications of infrared optics, which is the field I work in at the US Army Research Laboratory, but those dealing with environmental remote sensing and other fields may also find it quite useful. The amount of detail about military infrared target acquisition, surveillance, and countermeasure systems is incredible and the authors are respected authorities in the military research and development community.

This is not exactly bed-time reading (I tried), but many of the articles are well written. Most of them contain useful stuff and I hope to get around to implementing and testing some of the ideas. If you are interested in computational aspects of Comparative Genomics, then this book is a must.

David Goldberg's "Discontented America: The United States in the 1920s" for "The American Moment" series is a hybrid: part-college textbook and part-historical interpretation. While Goldberg's book presents his readers with an introduction of the discontented during the 1920s, because of its specialization, it also serves as an original historical inquiry.

Goldberg emphasis is to illustrate the disillusionment that was a direct result of the war. According to Goldberg, the discontent of the twenties was largely due to the early ending of World War I. Goldberg coverage includes: post-war foreign policy, decline of labor, red scare, African Americans, rise of second KKK, anti-immigration policies and the presidential election of 1928. While these areas of discontentment were largely a direct result of the war, there were other areas not addressed in his book.

Goldberg offers a selective picture, but it is not the entire picture. Areas not covered include: (1) the plight of the American farmer, (2) rural and small town discontentment against the larger more industrial cities, (3) conflict between modernist/liberals verse the conservatives/fundamentalist movements, (4) discontent between the generations and the emergence of a youth culture, (5) coverage of sentiment shared by many Americans of the enormous loss of life resulting from the war and the influenza outbreak and its influences on the brief return in the Spiritualist movements and finally, (6) returning veterans with their disillusionment towards the war, government in general, foreign policy and their eventual support of the isolationist movements in the thirties and early forties. Topics absolutely vital for understanding America's post WWI disillusionments.

This book is very much like its well known predecessor, the currently 3 volume Molecular Cloning Manual with which it shares an editor and a similar title (in fact, it could pass as volume 4).
Overall it gives a good coverage of spotted microarray technology starting from the preparation of probes and slides to sample preparation and hybridization. In addition to expression profiling areas covered include uses of microarrays for analysis of chromatin immunoprecipitation samples, DNA copy number determination, and detection of genetic polymorphisms (oligo arrays). Tissue-arrays and micro-dissection techniques for sample preparation are also described. The bioinformatics section is less extensive than the experimental parts, but the chapters on clustering, self organizing maps and databases serve as good introductions to these areas. I especially liked the image acquisition, normalization and quality control sections. These reviews presented their material in a very clear and sensible way.
Each chapter starts with a short summary of the relevant background. These introductions are very concise, straightforward, jargon-free and up to date in their references. They are written by leading experts of their fields. In addition, there are several "Information Panels" with similar qualities, covering somewhat more general background material.
This is a very nice looking book; it is a pleasure to look at and to hold. I am sure every lab that uses microarrays could benefit from it.

The Fox River/Wisconsin River road between Green Bay and the fur-rich Mississippi River was blocked by Mesquakie toll-collectors in the early 18th century. Here is an account of the French manipulation of trinket-greedy native warriors to break the Mesquakie blockade which eventually degenerates into cannibalistic genocide.

Joseph Modica has assembled something of a festschrift for Tony Campolo and his ministry in the interesting little book The Gospel with Extra Salt. This book covers a number of topics that the essay's authors deem appropriate to concerns that have played a role in Campolo's ministry. The authors address among the seven essays topics such as covenant, justice issues (including capital punishment), youth ministry, inclusive language, the biblical concept of family, and gender issues in local congregations. In many of the essays the authors allude to their ministry with Campolo and how he ministered to them. His fingerprints may be seen all over individual author's theologies. This is a good book on a variety of "current event" type topics. For those pastors who want to read how an evangelical approaches serious social action, then this is the book for that purpose.

reviewed by The Clergy Journal, March 2002

Daniels and VanHoose have put together an easy to read, real world applicable textbook. The topics covered are upper level collegiate international finance, but it's presented in a down to earth, orderly fashion. While I would have wanted color graphs, the full examples of complex operations (derivatives hedging, theoretical currency exchange rates and the like) more than made up the difference. They separate the elitist mathematics from that which students want and need. As a college student without a lot of time, that's a huge help. The most important teaching tool used extensively throughout the book is historical data. Being able to show why in theory, give evidence, and then present the deviations takes effort. There is no easy way to explain how the central banks around the world use different tactics in thier policies, but they got through it.

The watercolors of JMW Turner have the concise, simplified vision of contemporary art even though they were painted in the mid 1800's. This survey shows the progression of this master of light and delicate color from tightly delineated landscapes to the atmospheric , nearly abstract vistas of his late career. The reproductions are supported by quotes selected from writings contemporary to the paintings. This book provides an inspirational overview of the work of Turner and belongs in the library of the serious watercolor artist.

Dr. Marion, a professor at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, looks at Brennan from an unusual and refreshing perspective. Well worth the read.