effect

An excellent book for students of degree level. Not suitable for the novice. During my studies I have found this to be an outstanding reference book and an indispensible aid to writing assignments. The book is detailed scientifically but is easy to follow and has plenty of studies done to back up the information given. A top class book.

I took Mike's class at Harvard and found it fascinating. The book is thorough and extremely clear - when I first opened it I was intimidated by the number and complexity of some of the diagrams but all is explained in the book in short order. The chapters on climate change and urban ozone are particularly interesting. I think this book could easily be read even if you don't have a scientific bent by just skipping some of the more technical work - you don't need to understand the photolysis of ozone to understand smog. I don't know of any other text that applies to so well to a fairly broad audience.
THe only group to whom I would not reccommend this book are serious grad-level atmospheric chemists. This would be a little infantile for that group.

This is the best book I have seen so far on theories for sound design. I used it for my graduate design research thesis 4 years ago at Carnegie Mellon, and I am about to require it for my students at UT next week, for a course in sound design. Chion opened up so many new ideas for me on different ways that sound affects us. Like the book itself, the forward by Walter Murch (considered by many to be a hero in film sound design) is inspiring.

Recommended in "A Basic List of Recommended Books and Journals for Support of Clinical Dentistry in a Nondental Library" in Bulletin Of the Medical Library Association, July 1997.

Dr. Murray Straus has updated his 1994 _tour de force_ with new studies and data in a highly readable format for the general public. Professor Straus, of the University of New Hampshire, is one of the world's foremost researchers in the field of family violence, and it was his research on wife-beating in the 60's and 70's which led him to recognize the connectedness of all subtypes of family violence, including the "virtuous violence" against children euphemistically known as "spanking."

Spanking appears to "work" in the short run because the child stops doing whatever provoked the parent's displeasure. But the research Straus summarizes in this important new book clearly shows that in the longer run, spanking has no measurable beneficial effects at all, and is associated with a variety of long term negative effects. The more children are spanked, the more they assault siblings and other children. The more children are spanked, the more their rates of age adjusted antisocial behavior increase over time. Spanking in childhood is associated with higher levels of alcoholism, depression, masochistic fantasy, and suicidal ideation later in life.

As more family violence data accumulates, more evidence accumulates in support of Straus's view of normative forms of violence "spilling over" into criminal forms. Parents who spank their children are significantly more likely to also physically abuse them than parents who don't. Parents who spank their children are more likely to physically abuse each other. And physically abused children are even more likely to grow up to commit crimes against nonfamily members than spanked children, who are in turn more likely to do so than nonspanked children.

The mounting tide of research on spanking resembles the growth of research on the harmful effects of cigarette smoking. In both cases, no single study settled the issue. Every study had its weaknesses and its strengths. But when all of the available studies are viewed as a whole, a grim picture emerges: of a widespread, culturally ingrained habit which causes grave harm, bit by bit, by subtle increments.

The parallels between smoking and spanking extend beyond the similarity of research study designs. Both are addictive practices justified by their practicioners in similar ways. "I've smoked for fifty years and I feel great!" "I was spanked and it never did ME any harm!" Bit by bit, the mounting evidence linking smoking with cancer eroded much of the cultural denial. Straus's book is at once a recognition of a similar trend towards popular identification of spanking as a harmful, injurious act, and an influence furthering that trend.

Every new parent who is planning to spank their child simply because that is how they were raised should read this book and reconsider this thoughtless choice. The data which is emerging today in the social sciences will take years more to penetrate fully into the public consciousness, just as the awareness of the dangers of smoking did. By the time it does, today's spanking-aged children will be teenagers or young adults, coming of age in a world which will view physical punishment of children no more favorably than of forcing children to smoke cigarettes. They will retroactively judge today's parents in light of the cultural norms in which they themselves come of age, rather than the cultural norms of their early twenty-first century childhoods. They will want to know why their parents didn't pay attention to information, of the type summarized in this book, linking spanking with a variety of negative side effects and no long term benefits to children. Their parents will not be able to argue that they didn't know, because the information is already publically available now. They will only be able to say they are sorry, but the damage will have already been done.

Just because *you* don't resent your parents for spanking you doesn't mean your *children* won't. Today's small children will take their place as adults in a non-spanking world. Read this book now, and learn the facts about spanking rather than the myths. In the long run, it will be easier to do so than to explain to one's children, twenty years hence, why one didn't.

Christopher Dugan, M.A. ....

This book is only 116 pages long, but it has a wealth of information about digital image manipulation. Not really the interactive kind you might do in Photoshop, but the math behind some interesting transformations. This book presents a simple image manipulation language (popi) and the interpreter for it as well. I think that is this available on the net too. Overall this is a great book for anyone interested in getting into the programming/math side of image manipulation.

Oh, many of their sample images are of famous people from the Unix community at Bell Labs.

A very informative book, especially for those in the armed forces.Anyone who knows how the government works knows this book is so true to form. If you find something not right in the government or the armed forces don't dare tell anyone or they will try to make you look incompetant. They have doctors that will say your mental and don't know what your talking about. That's what seem to happen to Jeff. It's a sad day when you can't trust the very people you're supposed to look up to. Way to go Jeff, I hope everyone reads this book.

Our three-year old loves this book. Each spread features a full-page photograph of a big construction vehicle at work with text on the facing page. The wording is exciting, e.g. "Climb up in the cab and start your engine!" and interspersed throughout are symbols that correspond to pads at the right margin of the book. When your child presses the appropriate button, the story comes alive with the sound of a truck starting up, a horn, a digger scooping dirt, a backing-up beep or a jackhammer. The sounds are realistic and pretty clear. Your small truck devotee should really enjoy this exciting book.

One of the best book of free radicals andantioxidants in biological systems, last years.

Ellen Grant, a doctor who has done critical research on hormones for many years, wrote this book to give readers the information they need to protect their lives. Please, if you haven't already, read this book and reconsider your use of the birth control pill and other hormones. What you don't know, and what your doctor either doesn't know or doesn't tell you, can literally kill you. This book is fascinating and an easy read. I really hope that it comes back into print, because a whole new generation of hormone patients must be told the truth about what they're doing to their bodies. If you don't want to buy it, try your library or inter-library loan.