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Book reviews for "Williams,_Robert_P." sorted by average review score:

Algebra: Structure and Method Book One
Published in Hardcover by Houghton Mifflin Co (1992)
Authors: Richard G. Brown, Mary P. Dolciani, Robert H. Sorgenfrey, William L. Cole, Cleo Campbell, and Joan Macdonald Piper
Amazon base price: $73.16
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Algebra Structure and Method
The book is broken down very nicely into sections. The topics are introduced clearly and briefly in understandable terms. Following the introductions are some examples that apply the concepts and/or equations. Each example has the step by step solution which is easy to follow and prepares the user for the practice exercises. There are sufficient practice problems with answers to the odd numbered problems. This allows the user to check his or her answer and correct any mistakes.

It's Great
It's great and easy to understand. It's broken into many different lessons that are really easy to comprehend.


Five Miles High: The Story of an Attack on the Second Highest Mountain in the World by the Members of the First American Karakoram Expedition
Published in Paperback by The Lyons Press (2000)
Authors: Richard L./ House, William P./ Houston, Charles S./ Petzoldt, Paul K./ Streatfield, Norman R. American Karakoram Expedition 1938)/ Burdsall, Charles Houston, and Robert Bates
Amazon base price: $11.87
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A certain style of expedition...
Well written and with occasional engaging flashes of humor, Five Miles High gives a well-drawn picture of the large Himalayan expeditions of the past. At the same time as expedition members are having their food cooked for them and having their gear carried by numerous "coolies", they are walking a much greater distance, and in some ways subsisting in harsher conditions, than climbers do today. The contrasts with the present day are perhaps the most interesting thing about this book. "Boy's First Adventure Book"-ish illustrations at the chapter headings add a charming retro touch.

1938 American Expedition to K2
Five Miles high is an extremely interesting and very readable firsthand account of the 1938 American Expedition to climb K2, the second highest peak in the world. The book is a reissue of the original book describing the expedition and is authored by two team leaders with additional contributions by the other four team members. Of particular interest is their description of their trek through the Karakoram just to reach the mountain in the days when the primary hauling of supplies was done by ponies and porters. The contrast between the preparations and efforts involved in this expediton and the efforts described in all of the current Mt. Everest books is amazing. All in all, you'll find this a very enjoyable book to read. The same authors also wrote a second book describing their 1953 expedition - K2, The Savage Mountain. This one also has been recently reissued.


McCormick on Evidence (Hornbook Series; Student Edition)
Published in Hardcover by West Information Pub Group (1999)
Authors: Charles Tilford McCormick, George E. Dix, Kenneth S. Brown, Edward J. Imwinkelrie, Robert P. Mosteler, E. F. Roberts, John William Strong, and Kenneth S. Broun
Amazon base price: $48.00
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The best book on evidence
My professor suggested this book and deemed it the "Bible on Evidence". I bought it and it is. A great book that will clear up many of your questions. If you don't understand what your law professor is saying, this book will make it clearer.


The Novell CNA/CNE Study Guide, 2/e
Published in Paperback by McGraw-Hill (01 June, 1996)
Authors: Robert A. Williams, Robert Williams, and John P. Mueller
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Good book to use when you need to explain who is a CNE

Seems like this book precedes "The CNA/CNE Study Guide Intranetware Edition" ISBN 0-07-913619-2 published by same publisher by the same author John Mueller.

A word of warning: the book I mentioned apparently is guilty of false advertising. First 200 pages tell you how the certification works, and might indeed help you explain why you want to be certified.

What this book is NOT is a replacement for a Novell's training course.

It pushes you to attend Novell classes while David Clarke IV's series with the latest and the greatest Novell's CNE Study set, which comes with 2 volums and 4 cd-roms including live version of Netware excells in that area.

Bottom line: For CNE Benefits & Philosophy this is a great book. For real training check out David Clarke IV's CNE Study Guides instead. This particular title gets my 8 only for the first 200 pages. That's all I personally found valuable in it. My advice, find the book in a local bookstore, the later release is called "The CNA/CNE Study Guide Intranetware Edition" and flip though it. More likely then not you'll have 2nd thoughts about it.

This book earns it's place on my bookshelf though :-)


Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex: Hate Speech, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties
Published in Paperback by New York University Press (1996)
Authors: Anthony P. Griffin, Donald E. Lively, Robert C. Post, William B. Rubenstein, Nadine Strossen, Ira Glasser, and Henry Louis, Jr. Gates
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A Challenging work
Instinctively, most decent people don't like to see anyone singled out and denigrated unfairly. To most, it seems particularly distasteful if the denigration is on the basis of race, gender or (to many, at least) sexual orientation. Yet the authors of this book, all of whom are active in campaigns for equality as well as for civil liberties, see codes on US campuses which prohibit and punish such speech as a threat.... Why?

Their book examines the arguments for and against such codes and the issues that underlie them. Objections to these codes include that :

They are a threat to basic free speech principles. In particular the idea that speech should be protected regardless of its content or viewpoint -- a principle intended to prevent the law from favouring one interest over another.
 
They have a chilling effect on wider discourse. Nadine Strossen points out that : Regardless of how carefully these rules are drafted, they inevitably are vague and unavoidably invest officials with substantial discretion in the enforcement process; thus, such regulations exert a chilling effect on speech beyond their literal bands. (1)
 
They put us on a "slippery slope". Ideas not originally intended to be the subject of the codes will be penalised. Throughout the book examples are given of this happening. Strossen points out that in Britain the "No Platform for racists and fascists" was extended to cover Zionism (whereby its victims included the Israeli ambassador to the UK). (2) In Canada the victims of restrictions of free expression have included the black feminist scholar Bell Hooks, and a gay & lesbian bookshop in Toronto. (3)

Much the same issue was raised from the floor of an LM sponsored conference in London at which one of the authors (Nadine Strossen) spoke; it was pointed out that the UK Public Order Act of 1936, which was ostensibly introduced to control the followers of British Fascist leader Oswald Mosley, had been invoked time and time again to ban demonstrations by leftists and trade unionists. Similarly, police tactics used against the National Front in the 1980s to prevent their coaches from reaching demonstrations were later employed against striking miners.

The book's authors note that the codes give power to institutions and government. Can we trust them with these new powers? As David Coles, a law professor at Georgetown University, wrote :

...in a democratic society the only speech government is likely to succeed in regulating will be that of the politically marginalised. If an idea is sufficiently popular, a representative government will lack the political wherewithal to supress it, irrespective of the First Amendment. But if an idea is unpopular, the only thing that may protect it from the majority is a strong constitutional norm of content neutrality. (4)

Donald E. Lively questions how new powers will be exercised :

Reliance upon a community to enact and enforce protective regulation when the dominant culture itself has evidenced insensitivity toward the harm for which sanction is sought does not seem well placed. A mentality that trivialises incidents such as those Lawrence relates is likely to house the attitudes that historically have inspired the turning of racially significant legislation against minorities. (5)

But perhaps Ira Glasser puts it best in her introduction to the book :

First, the attempt by minorities of any kind -- racial, political, religious, sexual -- to pass legal restrictions on speech creates a self-constructed trap. It is a trap because politically once you have such restrictions in place the most important questions to ask are: Who is going to enforce them? Who is going to interpret what they mean? Who is going to decide whom to target?
The answer is : those in power. (6)

Another condemnation is that the codes are an exercise in self-indulgency, a trivialisation of real racial imperatives by the pursuit of relatively marginal and debatable concerns....
Donald E. Lively states :

As a method for progress, however, protocolism (1) seriously misreads history and disregards evolving social and economic conditions, (2) is an exercise in manipulating and avoiding racial reality; and (3) represents a serious misallocation of scarce reformist resources. (7)

Speaking of Race, Speaking of Sex doesn't just put the arguments against speech codes -- it also deconstructs the arguments put in their favour. The three most interesting arguments in favour of such codes are, in my view, (1) that racist expression is not about truth or an attempt to persuade and so is not worthy of protection; (2) that racist declarations are in fact group libels; and (3) that racist expression is akin to an assault.

All three arguments are dismissed by the authors. In the first case, Justice Douglas is approvingly quoted :

(A) function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger. Speech is often provocative and challenging. It may strike at prejudices and preconceptions and have unsettling effects as it presses for acceptance of an idea. This is why freedom of speech, though not absolute is nevertheless protected against censorship or punishment, unless shown likely to produce a clear and present danger of a serious substantive evil that rises far above public inconvenience, annoyance or unrest. There is no room under our Constitution for a more restrictive view. For the alternative would lead to standardisation of ideas either by legislatures, courts, or dominant political or community groups. (8)

The second argument -- that racist, sexist or homophobic statements are group libels -- is likewise dismissed. The authors point out that libel involves the publication of information about someone that is both damaging and false. Apart from the obvious fact that group libel doesn't refer to an individual does it fit the definition? Henry Louis Gates Jr. states that it does not. He points out that racist statements may be right or wrong but cannot in many forms be judged true or false. they are often statements of what the individual thinks should be or an expression of feeling. As Gates points out : You cannot libel someone by saying 'I despise you', which seems to be the essential message of most racial epithets. (9)

The last argument -- that such speech represents an assault or words that wound -- is examined, and also dismissed. The authors accept that words can cause harm. Their concern, however, is that no code can be drawn in such a way as to punish only words which stigmatise and dehumanise. They point out that the most harmful forms of racist language are precisely those that combine insult with advocacy -- those that are in short the most political. (10) Attempts to deny that racist speech has a political content also deny that they are part of a larger mechanism of political subordination.

So, can we combat hatred on grounds of race, gender or sexual preference whilst cherishing and nurturing civil liberties? Can we encourage a diversity of thought as well as of population and lifestyle? The answer given by the authors of this book is an emphatic 'yes'. They don't see equality of opportunity and freedom of expression as being at odds. As such, their ideas are refreshing in contrast to the many who seem to have quite unthinkingly accepted that we must sacrifice our freedom on an altar of (faked) equality...


Telephone Survey Methodology
Published in Paperback by Wiley-Interscience (2001)
Authors: Robert M. Groves, Paul P. Biemer, Lars E. Lyberg, James T. Massey, William L. Nicholis, and Joseph Waksberg
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Good survey methods
A good if somewhat dated book on telephone survey methodology.


Principles of Tissue Engineering
Published in Hardcover by Academic Press (1997)
Authors: Robert P. Lanza, Robert Langer, and William L. Chick
Amazon base price: $147.00
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One sided
The book is mistitled as 'Principles' since it does not really do justice to the foundations of the field. It is more of a compilations of the research work of a 'few' investigators in the field.

Covering the whole body
This is a great book, covering most details of its field. It describes the physicians (and their patients) dream of substituting organs and cells and it also shows, how mankind could not solve problems ' up to now. History of artificial organs lacking the full function is one point, but the focus is on cells and their ability to build complete organs ' and therefore the book looks on the pathway for the future of organ substitution.
The introduction covers some main ideas of tissue engineering ' what do we want ' what are we able to do ' what do we still have to get knowledge of. After a short review of the history, the essentials of cell biology (Growth, Differentiation) are being introduced. The reader should have an idea of developmental biology to be able to follow topics like induction and morphogenesis. The authors emphasize the importance of the extracellular matrix as one of organ-prosthesis' main building blocks (ECM = scaffold; cells = function; cell signalling = integration and physiology).
The second part describes technical aspects of in-vitro organ synthesis: tissue culture and ECM, tissue culture und growth factors, bioreactors and vascularization. The third part continues with in-vivo techniques of organ reparation, exemplified by methods for substitution of the ECM of skin, peripheral nerves and meniscus.
Parts 4 ' 6 develop models for the substitution of the ECM (Collagen, BioPolymers), their implantation in the receiving organism and the resulting immunologic problems (emphasized).
Parts 7 ' 20 are concerned with the organs themselves. After few words about stem cells and gene therapy the book explains reconstruction and substitution methods for breast, heart and blood vessels, Cornea, endocrine glands, liver (very good), kidney and haematopoietic system. Biomechanical problems are outlined in the part about the musculoskeletal system. On this place tissue engineering celebrates its oldest success (cartilage substitution). Today innervation processes are being focused.
The book continues with substitutes for the senses (ear and eye), nerve cells, nerve regeneration and neural stem cells. Dents and skin could be all to make an ill patient 'healthy' by substitutes, one might think. But no, western medicine also knows something about substitutes for womb and placenta'
On me the book made a good impression. The only point is: it's quite too much text and too few pictures. It addresses medicals after their exams, practicing physicians and biologists. Chapters focus on the basic principles. There is a large number of links to more detailed publications.

Excellent textbook for students and researchers
A vast, detailed summary of the latest advances in tissue engineering.


Antithrombotics (Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology, Vol 132)
Published in Hardcover by Springer Verlag (1998)
Authors: William Robert Bell, Andrew C. G. Uprichard, and Kim P. Gallagher
Amazon base price: $425.00
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I like this book, but thought $325 was a bit steep
I particularly enjoyed using this book as an offensive weapon, but feel that for $325 I could have bought a much more effective automatic shotgun which would have served my purposes as a terrorist better.

A book that should be used as gold standard.
After noticing the book among others in the series on the shelves of the medical library, I checked it out and found it a very good reference. The authors clearly know their field and the writing is clear and concise, as this type of publication should be. It is a must have book for scientists and scholars, as well as practitioners. Considering the obvious involvement of at least one large multinational drug company in the book, one would think that that it would be a sponsored publication so that "normal" practitioners and scientists could actually purchase it for their own reference library!


Middle English Dictionary (Volume S.8)
Published in Paperback by University of Michigan Press (1988)
Authors: Robert E. Lewis, John Reidy, G.W. Abernethy, Lister M. Matheson, Joseph P. Pickett, Ann Shannon, Mary Jane Williams, and William C. Hale
Amazon base price: $30.00
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Yeah, I got snookered
I was very surprised when I ordered this book and found out that yes, indeed, it was merely a very tiny portion of what I had expected. I suppose I should have known from the price, but the description (at least at that time) did not make it clear that it wasn't the entire dictionary.

Must have more complete info before ordering...
While this may be a very thorough source for the words it covers, it should be noted in the basic information that this is ONLY 128 pages of a 15,000 page work. The description above is very misleading.

5 stars
itz a dictionary. what more can i say


The Novell Certification Handbook
Published in Paperback by Computing McGraw-Hill (1996)
Authors: Robert Williams and John P. Mueller
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Answers the question, "What does it take to be a CNE?"
Many people have chosen to become CNEs because they like computers, or because they hear there is money in it. This book looks at the CNE from the career approach, not as a study guide, but as a career preparation guide.

The authors not only describe study and testing, but the work necessary to make a successful career out of the CNE, including continuing education and marketing.

A worthwhile read for those planning a career change.


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