Some books just have the right feel about them and this is one of them. The author clearly knows neural networks and also knows how to communicate to others in a no-nonsense fashion. With so many books being published, you rarely find a technical book that is as good as this. The emphasis here is on conveying the insights that the experts in this area would know. Importantly, concepts are explained equally in words, graphics and mathematics, maximising the uptake of knowledge from the book. Tufte would be impressed by the quality of the line graphics in this book, and the information that they convey, not to mention the overall presentation. I suspect that this book would make an ideal textbook for a course in neural networks. Overall, I've enjoyed reading it very much.

Book is excellent. Covers the theory very well, such that you can make the computer code yourself. They also provide puedocode. You will be able to learn it better than other books that just give you the code. I find that once you understand the theory, writing the code is easy.

Everybody who tries to use NNets for real goes through these steps.
First, there is the Delta rule.
Then, there is overfitting, local minima, generalization problems and frustration.

The complexity of NN is not in it's math; the difficulty is in the construction of a NN. This book is excellent in providing rules-of-thumb for NN construction, while at the same time providing the theoretical backing.

Hey I am not making money reviewing this book, it's just really good.

As a co-author, I can report that Instructional Media upholds the tradition established by this textbook in 1982. It is aimed primarily at those who are at the entry level in terms of using media for education or training. It helps instructors decide what media to use for different teaching/learning situations, and gives practical tips on HOW to achieve the best effect when using technology. The book began with a focus on audiovisual media; the sixth edition retains the most relevant audiovisual content, but shifts focus toward computer-based delivery. What remains constant is the conviction that effectiveness of mediated instruction depends very much on what the instructor does...how the technology is integrated into the overall learning program.

Prof. Roberts, an economics professor, has created series on interesting little novels to teach his readers about libertarian economic thought.

In The Choice, Roberts borrows from Capra's "It's A Wonderful Life" to introduce his protagonist Ed Johnson to alternate worlds where free trade does and does not exist. Instead of Clarence the Angel, Ed is led around by David Ricardo, the economist who developed the Law of Comparative Advantages, which forms the foundations for supporting global free trade.

Throughout the novel, Ed raises questions based on his traditional thinking on protectionsim. Ricardo addresses each key concern in turn. The concepts debated include: loss of jobs, loss of our nation's economic status, national security needs, etc. More importantly, Ricardo convinvingly makes the point that total national economic self-sufficiency is a recipe for economic disaster/failure.

I found this to be an entertaining way to learn more about the debate on free trade and protectionism. This novel is easily more enjoyable than the typical economics text or article, and hence its message was delivered more effectively.

This book is, as the title suggests, an allegory with the notion of free trade at its center. It also not-so-subtly introduces the lay reader, for whom this book was written, to the arguments supporting free trade.

It is written in the style of It's A Wonderful Life, in that the main character, resembling the American Everyman in his doubts about the merits of free trade, wishes that things could have been different. He is led on a journey of what might have been. Roberts masterfully mixes in macroeconomic and international economic theory in the process, allowing the reader to make their own decisions on the merits of free trade, rather than simply being cowed by the picture he paints of a protectionist United States.

For those who are familiar with both macroeconomic and international economic theory, this book won't open your eyes. It does, however, provide a framework for explaining the merits of free trade to others. For those unfamiliar with economic theory, however, it is probably the most painless and enjoyable ways to become familiar with the territory.

Russell Roberts aims to persuade the intelligent layman that the stuff of wealth is goods and services (not money or jobs) and that the way to create wealth is through specialization and trade, which he calls the "roundabout way to wealth." The book is better than a novel. The author creates a dialogue between the late economist David Ricardo and fictional businessman Ed Johnson. It's easy to imagine that Ricardo represents Roberts as professor and Johnson represents every student who ever raised a challenging question in his class. One can learn a lot about international trade from this dialectic approach.
The author uses some numbers and case studies to illustrate what happens when trade is free and when it is not. The "rigor" is there even if the elaborate geometry and mathematics usually found in economics textbooks are not. Like most economists, Roberts makes the case for free trade in terms of efficiency. Ultimately though, his message becomes a moral one and a challenge. "The real choice" declares David Ricardo (Russell Roberts), "is between a dynamic world and a static world---a world of encouraging people to dream and acquire the skills to make those dreams come true and a world of encouraging people to be content with what they have and to dream less." The Choice is about as good in spirit and persuasiveness as Frederic Bastiat's Economic Sophisms.

While the author has some good ideas for start-up businesses, she is behind the times. Keep in mind it was most recently published 6 years ago. Read it to get ideas, but don't count on it to reflect current trends. According to the author, typing, word processing, old school computer languages, and pagers are all in hot demand.

I saw that the first two reviews listed here are for the old edition of this book! The new edition, just released last month, is completely updated. Here are just some examples covering virtually every established and emerging field, including the Internet: Internet marketing, designing web pages, ecotourism, gourmet food shop or producer, take-out restaurateur, adult day services provider, play gym operator, home health care provider, personal chef, dating service provider, B&B innkeeper, craft wholesaler, "whodunit" producer, party planner, and the list goes on and on. Each entry gives a complete behind the scenes look and relays success stories from real entrepreneurs, with verbatim comments and must-know secrets about every aspect of running the business. The introductory chapter gives you all the nuts and bolts information about how to succeed as an entrepreneur with topics like the positive character traits of entrepreneurs, and info about generating capital, business plans, finding lawyers and bookkeepers and bankers, marketing, working from home, finding and keeping employees, and more.

lots of fresh item

This is the best book I have read on the subject of sexual harassment in education. Its intended audience is the trainers and teachers of middle and high school age pupils, but I believe that it is also appropriate for traditional college aged students as well. The book is very well organized, clearly written and the subject is made interesting. So many other books in the field tend to mix employment situations and school situations, and mixing adult and authority figures' sexual harassment of innocent young targets, but this book is well focused on adolescent peer behavior. The first four brief chapters provide a very readable and solid background in understanding the nature of the problems that sexual harassment causes, including summaries of the important research in the field. Don't skip reading the legal history because it adds to the trainer's understanding of the development of the interest of various parties to an offensive sequence of events (for example, teacher and school board liability for student-to-student behavior). The heart of the book is the 8 session sequence of training sessions that can stand alone or become part of the existing curriculum in language arts or social studies. Each session contains everything needed to conduct the activities. The authors include reproducible visual aids for the sessions as well. As a bonus, additional exercises are included as well. The chapter on the facilitative model can be used to remind professionals of the essentials of group leadership and it can also serve as a training model for peer facilitators. The last chapter acknowledges the value of programming accountability and includes evaluations inventories. This book is jam-packed with goodies. It is clear, focused and entertaining. There is one factual error, however, which the lead author assures me will be corrected in the 2nd edition. The error occurs as an answer to question #8 in the Tic-Tac-Know activity. Sexual harassment is governed by federal law, however it is governed by civil law and not criminal law. It therefore carries no penalty of fines or jail time.