This book fills a major void in the existing literature on OTTER,
the automated reasoning program developed at Argonne Research by William McCune. The book seems unusual in that, on one hand, it provides numerous examples of OTTER input/output files, useful tips on operating OTTER, and a plethora of exercises which, if carried out, will lead to a rapid understanding of the program and how to use it. But on the other hand, the book also works as a formidable introduction to automated reasoning. Starting from basic concepts such as inference rules and unification, and working up to more advanced topics in equational reasoning, one can gain a fairly good introduction to the theory of automated reasoning. My only complaint involves the lack of a good appendix or glossary which lists and summarizes the numerous commands that can be fed to OTTER. Furthermore, many of them are not even indexed, which makes referencing them somewhat tedious. Other than this, I highly recommend the book. However, I would encourage the novice to first study a more user friendly logic programming environment, such as swi prolog, before attacking OTTER. For having some experience with prolog programming will allow the reader to compare and contrast the two automated-reasoning methodologies. As for OTTER itself, I consider it more useful than a prolog interpreter since it allows for the use of
strategies for finding the desired proof or computation. On the other hand, it is a living embodiment of the fact that there is much progress that still needs to made in developing useful and powerful tools for automating logic and mathematics.

This book is an excellent source for rediscovering the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Fr John Arnold deals with a problem that has caused many to abandon the sacrament, that is, since Catholics today are taught confession usually around 7 years old and nothing is said about it later, most adult Catholics have a childish, immature understanding of the Sacrament. I only rated the book 4 stars because I thought that the discussion on History of the Sacrament was insufficient. For a more detailed history of the sacrament I would recommend George A. Mahoney's book Your Sins Are Forgiven You. However I strongly recommend Confession is Good for Your Soul for any Catholic who wants to discover the true meaning of the Sacrament and make better use of it, as well as to any non-Catholic who wants to know why Catholics confess their sins to a priest.

I used this book for a course in ODE's. The edition that was available for purchase at our school's bookstore also included a book by the authors for using MatLab for solving ODE's, The combination of the two were great. The book is logically structured and generally easy to read. The authors use many examples from a variety of fields. The MatLab book was a phenomenal help: it's the best intro to MatLab that I've found, and was very useful in helping to solve problems. My only beef with the book is that since this is a first edition, there are several errors in the odd numbered solutions at the end of the book, which caused many sleepless nights.

This, folks, is the reference book for my A Level Students.

A Level is the main exam route taking in the UK for entry into Universities.

The continual rapid development of computer technology means it is a nightmare trying to keep up with terminology and acronymns. This glossary has the defintions the examiners will accept. Very useful when different text books all have their own definitons.

The 4star rating rather than 5 is a reflection of the date of issue of this glossary. There must be another one on its way soon, we sure need it.

Disappointing memoir of Dickens' trip to the U.S. which he took during a twelve month break between BARNABY RUDGE and MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. Dickens hated the national arrogance, the shrill politics and, especially, the hypocrisy of slavery paraded under the banner of the Declaration of Independence. Yet his commentary on it all, as laid down here, is generally circumspect and often flippant. It's as if he was concerned about giving too much offense. Perhaps he felt too exposed without the cloak of fiction to allow his imagination free reign to picture what he really saw. In the end what we have is a compromised account which pleased no one, not the Americans nor the fans of his social satire. There are good bits: the initial passage across a stormy Atlantic, the persistent disgust with the fade of chewing tobacco. And the Penguin edition has a useful introduction and notes, most of which refer to the influence of the American sojourn on MARTIN CHUZZLEWIT. The American sections of that novel are exteme, pointed, undoubtedly unfair and utterly unforgettable. They are Dickens' true American notes.

In 1842, the young Dickens made a sweeping tour of the United States and Canada, visiting Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, Pittsburg, Cincinatti, St. Louis, Niagra Falls, Montreal, and Quebec among other places. (He chose not to venture to the south, out of a repugnance for slavery.) This brief account of his travels begins with optimism and the usual Dickens eye for the comic. As it goes on, we begin to sense the weariness of the journey and the author's disappointment with what he found. We get a vivid picture of a nation still being built, quite literally in the case of frontier places. The fine introduction to the Penguin edition places this work in the context of English travel narratives of the time. This edition is also well footnoted and contains a sampling of letters Dickens wrote to friends at home, in which he is quite candid. Modern readers may find fascinating glimpses of American life at the time (such as the disgusting habit of spitting and the nastiness of the press), but may be less interested than the author was in prisons, courts, and other public institutions. Furthermore, some places are passed over cursorily, but this is to keep the journey moving along. (My favorite parts are the anecdotes about individual characters that Dickens meets while travelling.) As the introduction suggests, this book is as much about Dickens and his personal evolution as it is about America, despite the fact that Dickens does not speak extensively of the inconveniences he faced due to his fame. The trip was to inspire parts of "Martin Chuzzlewit" and must be taken in the context of Dickens' career - some of the views herein were moderated by a second trip to America later in life.

Someone please pick up this book! I've already mentioned it to two of my English professor who knew almost nothing about what I consider a true classic. Just because there is no movie to accompany it does not mean it should'nt be read for fear of confusing a public accustomed to Dickens' supposed "classics". Please take the time to open one of my favorite books. I am sure it will surprise and delight you. Remember, a "classic" is what we make of it!

This has a good explanation of regular expression search/replace and the Emacs regexp syntax. It also has a lot of little tidbits not in the O'Reilly book (which is still a better starting place). It's a bit older though (1992) and has chapters on Fortran and Pascal modes so a lot of trees are dying for nothing .

I bought this after reading all of the O'Reilly book and most of the O'Reilly "Writing GNU Emacs Extension" and have only gotten a few new things out of it, so it's good for completists like myself.

One of the neat things I learned were: when you C-x C-f to open a file, rather than backspacing to erase the path Emacs provided you can just type two slashes (//) and then the path to the file you want (of course C-a C-k would work too, but I want choice, damnit! :-)

The organization is also very different than the O'Reilly book; for example there is a whole chapter on "Administering Emacs" (how to find the parts of it on your system), a huge chapter that is nothing but a command reference (with keybindings), and "how to edit" happens in only three chapters, with the following chapters each devoted to specific things (except for the "Miscellaneous" chapter).

The print quality is not the best, if that matters to you, but it is a sizable book and a decent desktop reference.

I liked the depth of examples in this book. Where the O'Reilly book "Learning GNU Emacs" gave an excellent introduction and overview, this book gave more involved examples. For example in the regexp-search-replace, this book showed the use of \( and \) for grouping and \1 \2 \3 for where to place the each group in the replacement string. If your are new to Emacs, get the O'Reilly book; then get this book next.

it seems like all the people reviewing this book has taken diffe at rice university, and no other universities have assigned this book. fortunately, i did not attend professor polking's section (i sat in on the first day and quickly switched sections). professor polking is a nice guy, and offers help when you need it (having said that, hopefully i won't feel so bad in my subsequent bashing). however, the book, like the second reviewer said, has very confusing proofs. the book is mostly just talk, and it's hard to tell what the key points (key equations) of each section are. it's also confusing because the sections aren't "sectioned" off--what leads to which key point? rather, it just seems to be one big blob of text, with the equations interspersed throughout. sure, buy it if it's required, but keep attend all lectures (if you are a college student) and keep another differential equations book handy, as you will undoubtedly not have a clue what polking is talking about.

As a student forced to buy Professor Polking's textbook, I feel that the only reason he publishes it is to punish students with more of his drivel. It isn't enough that he teaches the course poorly, his book is absolutely horrible, filled with mistakes. The proofs are confusing, and the book is less than helpful about the subject of differential equations. The problems are frequently unrelated to the material covered in sections, and are overly difficult, adding little to the student's knowledge of differential equations. I was very dissappointed after Professor Polking lined his pockets with the proceeds of this abysmal book.

I loved this book. The examples are clear, the proofs are easy to follow, and the book has a major applications aspect regarding applying what you learn on the computer and Matlab. My only complaint is that ch 5 (Laplace Transformations) is a little too terse, but besides that it is perfect. This and Lay's Linear Algebra book are my favorite mathematics books I've used so far.

This was the text book for my Cognition class at Rutgers University. It's not organized very well, and is extremely confusing. There are frequent spelling and grammar mistakes, and Glass often makes up his own words, which is laughable at times. Glass obviously has a lot of knowledge about Cognitive Psychology, and a little more attention to the flow of paragraphs would make all the difference. Not to mention a good editor.

I don't know, it could be just me but I think that they could have done a better job of keeping your attention. One of my family members is an avid golfer and even for him it took a long time before he got bored enough to try to finish it.

The book is a litany of jaded corporate arguments for the continued destruction of nature so that a few people can get richer. To be read only in the same way you watch a bad B-movie -- for the unintentional laughs. The book's inability to understand social activism (not to mention concepts like justice) would have made it a best-seller in Czarist Russia.

Arnold provides a valuable detailed account of how eco-terrorism got its foothold in the United States and to what end some environmental vigilantes are willing to go to affect social change. It is only by fully understanding what drives eco-terrorism that we as a community can expect to prevent the considerable social and economic harm caused when eco-terrorists take the law into their own hands.

In dealing with radical environmentalist, I felt this book was right on. I have had the pleasure of dealing with their actions myself and this book explained my experiences to a T. The theory behind the radical enviros actions is compassionately explained in Mr. Arnolds analysis of them. I recommend this book to anyone who has ever been terrorized by or curious about the true objectives of the movement.