Enhancement Books

A Handbook For Stream Enhancement And Stewardship from the Izaak Walton League of America is an excellent study of conservationist activities in dynamically aiding the restoration, enhancement, and environmental maintenance of rivers and streams. Deftly providing readers with a conceptual grasp of the "stewardship" responsibilities of various groups, organizations, individuals, companies, communities, and government planning agencies, A Handbook For Stream Enhancement And Stewardship informatively presents a ideas and expertise with which to actively make a difference in maintaining and enhancing rivers and streams for purposes of the flora and fauna dependent upon them, as well as the critically important role of the stream with respect to watershed dynamics. A core addition to personal, professional, environmental activists, academic, and community library Environmental Studies reference collections, A Handbook For Stream Enhancement And Stewardship is very strongly recommended as an expert informational resource for environmental and waterway restoration and conservation.

I read this entire book only to discover it is a handbook. It would be great as a textbook. It was written by several writers which made it difficult to read. Some were better writers than others and some should have scaled down their writing.

I learned some very valuable tips for relocating - things I hadn't thought of. However, overall, I feel this book is not for the average middle income couple. The couple who shares their story of relocating seems to have an abundance of money and other resources, never short on cash - spending enormous amounts for travelling to other areas, dining, shopping, etc. Also, job prospects don't really factor into the equation, as they didn't even pursue employment prior to relocating. Both now lawyers, I'm certain they will find employment extremely easily in some capacity or another.

For myself and my husband, we need more a more practical, down-to-earth approach to relocating, making employment opportunities a priority.

Whether you're relocating by chance or by choice, the Fallers have given you all the information you'll ever need to make a successful move...all in one book. Moving the Nest is a reader-friendly approach to dealing with the demands of finding a new place to live, picking up your entire life and moving on. Sharing the travails and rewards of the Fallers' research is not only interesting and poignant, but their information, carefully thought out and meticulously organized, takes the guesswork out of one of life's most emotional situations (moving ranks third in this category, following the death of a spouse or divorce). The Fallers go through it all with you hand-in-hand, providing lists of everything you need to do, ask, and follow-up on. They even offer sound, sage advice about how to fit into your new community. In the end you'll feel as if you've had a personal team of relocation advisors. A definite must for the soon-to-relocate.

The book is pretty good, and I got a lot out of it. It contains lots of interesting ideas about pruning. I suppose I got out of it what I wanted to get out of it. The reason I don't rate the book higher is because most of the book was pretty worthless. Nearly 50 pages of the book is devoted to the move lists of all the games they played! I don't need to see 50 pages worth of computer chess game moves. That's something that could be better served from a website. Sure it's probably needed for the thesis to verify that they actually did the studies they say they did, but I don't think it belongs in the book. Also, a large portion of the book is devoted to end game databases and recognizing when to look in them and optimal ways to index, etc. I wasn't very interested in that. My last complaint is that there isn't really any source code included with the book. All of the snippets of code that are shown are greatly cut up to the point where they're completely illegal. This book would be a 5 start book if they had actual pieces of code - or even the whole source - instead of the stupid moves. Code like if(try_null) { // do null move here } is the kind of code you see. He should have just printed the full alpha-beta algorithms. He tries to describe them as clearly as possible, using as little as possible real code. Like he wants to explain it all, yet keep it a secret! Putting in the code would be self-descriptive.

This book will provide the most benefit to someone who has already written a computer chess program and is looking to improve it. The chapters on extended forward-pruning were especially informative and a number of high-level programs currently use the adaptive null-move pruning presented here.

I also found the chapter on interior-node recognizers unique and eye opening. A number of clever enhancements are provided that coupled with chapter 6, on knowledgable tablebase encoding, are sure to provide a idea or two even to hardened computer programmers.

This book is not for the faint of heart, but if you spend the time delving through it, you will more than likely find a number of ideas to apply to your chess engine. It is written with an academic perspective and is rigourous in the ideas that it presents (unlike Levy and Monroe's books which are geared more towards the general public).

Chuck Hogan has a gift for taking the seemingly endless list of instructions on how to swing a golf club and simplify them down to a few keys that can free golfers from the "paralysis by analysis" that can overload the mind. Not only was I able to shave about 7 strokes off my usual 92 (OK, really a 97, but this isn't about me), but I was also able to enjoy the game, the course and my companions to a greater degree. The only reason I held back from five stars, is that the golfing excellence in the title may promise more than any book can deliver. Relative to the cost of new clubs, a private lesson or the expense of a round of golf itself though, this book is a tremendous bargain.

The world premiere of Bandanna at the University of Texas Opera Theatre (Robert DeSimone, Diretor) combined the music of Daron Aric Hagen and words of Paul Muldoon into a two-act opera that reveals the "basic tension between characters who can accept that love is earned or is temporary, and those who demand that love be absolute." The music was wonderful, the scoring/orchestration magnificent. The performance a pleasure. The topic relevent. I hope this text stimulates further performances of the opera.

In an era when so many CEOs feel business would be great if only they didn't have to manage employees, we recommend William J. Rothwell's authoritative human resources classic. Its ideas converge nicely with the growing corporate requirement for a verifiable return on investment (ROI) for every activity. In the eyes of Human Performance Enhancement (HPE) experts, traditional training methods are too expensive, not very useful and too focused on behavior rather than on attaining organizational goals. Anyone who has experienced the corporate training phenomenon of "sheep-dipping" may agree that business training programs have room for improvement. This volume and its companion CD - complete with Power Point presentations - is a tremendous resource for training and human resources professionals, especially those seeking a fresh, practical approach to human performance.

I very much enjoyed reading Brain Dancing by Patrick T. Magee. I appreciated the great variety of sources that Pat has identified, studied, condensed down, and re-formulated. The book covers a wide breadth of material and never gets bogged down in unuseful minutia. Brain Dancing can serve as wonderful introduction to a wide range of personal development technologies. I recommend it highly. Kirk VandenBerghe, Facilitator, Consultant, & NLP Trainer

"'What do you want to be when you grow up?' is a question that evokes a range of emotions and responses. It can intimidate or motivate us, embarrass us or evoke pride." --Michael Shahnasarian

Throughout my career I've often contemplated this question. As a career coach and consultant, I help others discover more about their preferences, skills, and values in order to create a professional and personal life consistent with who they are. Decision Time has positively reshaped my thinking about career planning and has provided me with valuable tools in my roles as a business professional, coach, consultant, and college professor.

In eight chapters, Dr. Shahnasarian shares his valuable insight and expertise. In Chapter 2, he offers a simple career decision model to guide the reader's learning throughout the rest of the book. The five-step model is:
Step 1: Looking within yourself
Step 2: Exploring your options
Step 3: Making your decision
Step 4: Career planning
Step 5: Moving ahead

Chapter 6 provides helpful career management tips encouraging professionals to approach their career with confidence, focus, courage, passion, power, initiative, and a willingness to ask for help.

The writing style is animated, easy-to-read and personalized, appropriate for individual readers or for students taking a college career development course. The chapters are well-organized and build upon each other with interactive and reflective activities to keep the reader engaged and active in the learning process. The five-step decision model represents a lifelong tool for career planning.

Overwhelmed by work and family, we rarely dedicate time to develop a deliberate career strategy. Instead, we wait until we're forced to rethink our career direction after being downsized, suffering a toxic boss, or accepting a promotion which doesn't suit our talents and preferences. Dr. Shahnasarian shows us that a better path exists if we are willing to look within ourselves in order to define our goals, interests, skills, priorities and alternative options.

Armchair Interviews highly recommends this book for professionals in career transition, college students evaluating their career path, or faculty who teach career development and desire a useful textbook for student learning.

You'll get a mega dose of unapologetically frank thinking in this book. Organized into a basis of philosophy that covers life, love, dating, dieting, divorce, faith, health, crime, death and everything in between. All from the point of view of a keenly intelligent person who is not afraid to explain his personal reasons for not putting too much stock in doctors, how to diet (no diet book will ever say what he says), why he doesn't shake hands (but gives hugs), how we can reconcile the fact that our lives are predestined yet we are perfectly capable of greatly improving our levels of happiness. Want to spend some time with someone who will challenge your thinking, explain the unexplainable, restate the obvious, and say things that you probably haven't heard before? If you are up for it...

Erwin has creatively pulled together descriptions of various forms of group work for institutionalized elderly. My gerontology students and I were impressed with the number of techniques, but the real strength of this book lies in the wonderful examples of how these group work techniques can be employed. My students, in particular, liked the concepts of bibliotherapy and humor therapy. The general weakness, which is found in most writings on intervention for the elderly, there is little to no discussion on counterindications. We commonly see a discussion on counterindications for other age cohorts, but rarely for elderly groups. Ageism? I suspect that chapters 13 (Managed Payment Systems) and 14 (Alternative Funding for Elderly Groups) were outdated prior to the book going to press.

Nevertheless, this is an excellent book.