IssueWeb: A Guide and Sourcebook for Researching Controversial Issues on the Web : 9781591580782

What student has graduated from col lege with out writing an opinion or position pa per? We dare to venture that the num ber is quite small. After all, opinion papers are an av enue for teaching critical think ing skills. They can help stu dents understand whether their opin ion on a topic has a bias, is based on suf ficient information, and falls within a continuum of widely held be liefs. It is a way for individuals to be gin play ing lifelong val ues and be liefs off those of so ciety as a whole, to evaluate their own be liefs, and to de termine what roles they wish to play in society. However, to accomplish all these things, one must be exposed to new and dif ferent ideas. One important route to this exposure is research.

The idea for this book came from an on line Internet course in which we teach students to use the Web for research pur poses. Top ics that lend themselves well to our assignments are those that are con troversial in na ture. We have discovered in the years of teaching this course that not only do students need to learn about search techniques and tools they also require instruction in the evaluation of pub lished or on line materials. Put simply, what the student knows or believes colors his or her un derstanding of the sig nificance or pur pose of what he or she reads. For instance, if we ask students to judge whether a Web site is trying to sway opin ion, one student might think it is not if the Web site corroborates his or her own worldview, while an other stu dent might think it is if the view stands in opposition to his or her own beliefs.

We have also found that the ease of us ing search en gines, such as Google or AltaVista, en courages students to take a noncontextual, key word approach to research. Spit in a word and see what co mes out. Not only does this present the student with an overwhelming amount of material, it pro vides a hap hazard lump made of pieces that are unrelated in context. An ad might ap pear in the same re - sult list as a scholarly ar ticle. An ex tremist in dividual's Web page might be grouped with a student assignment posted to a course Web site. How do we get past this? How do any of us move from be ing in dividuals who can only see con troversial in formation we read through the lens of our own bias? And how do we find material that is grouped ap propriately by type? This is the process we are at tempting to address here.

About the Author

KAREN R. DIAZ is an Instruction Librarian at the Ohio State University Libraries, Columbus. She currently teaches online courses on research skills for college students. She has held positions as Web librarian, reference librarian, and online coordinator in academic libraries. Karen holds a Masters of Library Information Science from Louisiana State University. Other publications include articles and an edited book about online reference and research. NANCY O'HANLON is currently an Instruction Librarian at the Ohio State University Libraries, Columbus, where she is responsible for developing and managing online information literacy programs. Nancy received an M.S. in Library Information Science from University of Illinois, Urbana, in 1983. In addition to holding various library positions at Ohio State, she was Associate Director of the Eisenhower National Clearinghouse for Mathematics and Science Education, and has also worked as a freelance Web developer. She has published a variety of articles on instruction-related topics.

Introduction to Probability with Statistical Applications : 9780817644970

This book provides a calculus-based introduction to probability and statistics. It contains enough material for two semesters but, with judicious selection, it can be used as a textbook for a one-semester course, either in probability and statistics or in probability alone.

Each section contains many examples and exercises and, in the statistical sections, examples taken from current research journals.

The discussion is rigorous, with carefully motivated definitions, theorems and proofs, but aimed for an audience, such as computer science students, whose mathematical background is not very strong and who do not need the detail and mathematical depth of similar books written for mathematics or statistics majors.

The use of linear algebra is avoided and the use of multivariable calculus is minimized as much as possible. The few concepts from the latter, like double integrals, that were unavoidable, are explained in an informal manner, but triple or higher integrals are not used. The reader may find a few brief references to other more advanced concepts, but they can safely be ignored.

Introduction to Discrete Event Systems : 9780387333328

As its title suggests, this book is about a special class of systems which in recent decades have become an integral part of our world. Before getting into the details of this particular class of systems, it is reasonable to start out by simply describing what we mean by a “system”, and by presenting the fundamental concepts associated with system theory as it developed over the years. This defines the first objective of this chapter, which is for the benefit of readers with little or no prior exposure to introductory material on systems and control theory (Sect. 1.2). Readers who are already familiar with concepts such as “state spaces”, “state equations”, “sample paths”, and “feedback” may immediately proceed to Sect. 1.3.

The second objective is to look at useful classifications of systems so as to reveal the features motivating our study of discrete event systems. Historically, scientists and engineers have concentrated on studying and harnessing natural phenomena which are well-modeled by the laws of gravity, classical and nonclassical mechanics, physical chemistry, etc. In so doing, we typically deal with quantities such as the displacement, velocity, and acceleration of particles and rigid bodies, or the pressure, temperature, and flow rates of fluids and gases. These are “continuous variables” in the sense that they can take on any real value as time itself “continuously” evolves. Based on this fact, a vast body of mathematical tools and techniques has been developed to model, analyze, and control the systems around us. It is fair to say that the study of ordinary and partial differential equations currently provides the main infrastructure for system analysis and control.

Introduction to CDMA Wireless Communications : 9780750652520

The book gives an in-depth study of the principles of the spread spectrum techniques and their applications in mobile communications. It starts with solid foundations in the digital communications that are essential to unequivocal understanding of the CDMA technology, and guides the reader through the fundamentals and characteristics of cellular CDMA communications.

Features include:

* A very clear and thorough description of the principles and applications of spread spectrum techniques in multi-user mobile communications.

* Matlab-based worked examples, exercises and practical sessions to clearly explain the theoretical concepts.

* An easy-to-read explanation of the air interface standards used in IS-95 A/B, cdma2000, and 3G WCDMA.

* Clear presentations of the high speed downlink and uplink packet access (HSDPA/HSUPA) techniques used in 3G WCDMA.

The book is a very suitable introduction to the principles of CDMA communications for senior undergraduate and graduate students, as well researchers and engineers in industry who are looking to develop their expertise.

Introduction to Bayesian Scientific Computing: Ten Lectures on Subjective Computing : 9780387733937

The book of nature, according to Galilei, is written in the language of mathematics. The nature of mathematics is being exact, and its exactness is underlined by the formalism used by mathematicians to write it. This formalism, characterized by theorems and proofs, and syncopated with occasional lemmas, remarks and corollaries, is so deeply ingrained that mathematicians feel uncomfortable when the pattern is broken, to the point of giving the impression that the attitude of mathematicians towards the way mathematics should be written is almost moralistic. There is a definition often quoted, “A mathematician is a person who proves theorems”, and a similar, more alchemistic one, credited to Paul Erd˝os, but more likely going back to Alfr´ed R´enyi, stating that “A mathematician is a machine that transforms coffee into theorems1”. Therefore it seems to be the form, not the content, that characterizes mathematics, similarly to what happens in any formal moralistic code wherein form takes precedence over content.

This book is deliberately written in a very different manner, without a single theorem or proof. Since morality has its subjective component, to paraphrase Manuel Vasquez Montalban, we could call it Ten Immoral Mathematical Recipes2. Does the lack of theorems and proofs mean that the book is more inaccurate than traditional books of mathematics? Or is it possibly just a sign of lack of coffee? This is our first open question.

This book has been written for undergraduate and graduate students in various areas of mathematics and its applications. It is for students who are willing to get acquainted with Bayesian approach to computational science but not necessarily to go through the full immersion into the statistical analysis. It has also been written for researchers working in areas where mathematical and statistical modeling are of central importance, such as biology and engineering.

Introduction to Artificial Neural Systems : 9780314933911

The recent resurgence of interest in neural networks has its roots in the recognition that the brain performs computations in a different manner than do conventional digital computers. Computers are extremely fast and precise at executing sequences of instructions that have been formulated for them. A human information processing system is composed of neurons switching at speeds about a million times slower than computer gates. Yet, humans are more efficient than computers at computationally complex tasks such as speech understanding. Moreover, not only humans, but even animals, can process visual information better than the fastest computers.

The question of whether technology can benefit from emulating the computational capabilities of organisms is a natural one. Unfortunately, the understanding of biological neural systems is not developed enough to address the issues of functional similarity that may exist between the biological and man-made neural systems. As a result, any major potential gains derived from such functional similarity, if they exist, have yet to be exploited.

This book introduces the foundations of artificial neural systems. Much of the inspiration for such systems comes from neuroscience. However, we are not directly concerned with networks of biological neurons in this text. Although the newly developed paradigms of artificial neural networks have strongly contributed to the discovery, understanding, and utilization of potential functional similarities between human and artificial information processing systems, many questions remain open. Intense research interest persists and the area continues to develop. The ultimate research objective is the theory and implementation of massively parallel interconnected systems which could process the information with an efficiency comparable to that of the brain.

Intelligent Sensor Design Using the Microchip dsPIC (Embedded Technology) : 9780750677554

In this book, readers will find:

In-depth design techniques, real-world examples, detailed figures and usable code

Application chapters thoroughly exploring temperature, pressure and load, and flow sensors

A FREE CD that provides a toolkit of software models in both C and assembly language

Intelligent sensors are revolutionizing the world of system design in everything from sports cars to assembly lines. These new sensors have abilities that leave their predecessors in the dust! They not only measure parameters efficiently and precisely, but they also have the ability to enhance and interpret those measurements, thereby transforming raw data into truly useful information.

Within the pages of this book, expert designer Creed Huddleston teaches readers to become quickly proficient in the application of the most popular digital signal controller on the market, the Microchip dsPIC, which handily marries beefy DSP processing power to the ubiquitous PIC. Digital signal controllers have proven to be an optimal way of adding intelligence to sensors because they combine the control advantages of a microcontroller with the speed of a digital signal processor. Through concrete examples and in-depth information on real-world sensor systems, Intelligent Sensor Design Using the Mircrochip dsPIC enables designers to easily produce more accurate code, even while slicing time off product design cycles!

Unlike many embedded systems books that confine themselves strictly to discussing software, this book also delves into the supporting electronic hardware, thereby providing a complete understanding of interfacing to three specific types of sensors (temperature, pressure and load, and flow sensors). This practical, easy-to-read resource offers insight into the real problems designers face in the course of their daily work, and guides readers toward solutions that will help them to take advantage of the powerful tool that is the intelligent sensor.

Intelligent Agents for Telecommunication Environments (Innovative Technology Series) : 9781903996294

Mobile agents are program instances (or processes) capable of moving within the network under their own control. They consist of three parts: code, data state, and execution state. Migration of mobile agents takes place between hosts. These hosts execute the agents and provide functionality to them. This functionality includes communication with other agents and users, migration to other hosts, and other services such as persistency (i.e. storing data or agent snapshots), services lookup (i.e. finding agents that offer a service), location of agents (either locally or on a larger scale), integration of legacy systems such as databases, and the like.

Being the technical basis for applications, mobile agents offer a number of advantages. These include the saving of network bandwidth and increase in the overall performance by allowing the application to process data on or near the source of data (e.g. a database), asynchronous processing, i.e. the possibility to fulfil a task without the need to have a permanent connection from the client to a host, achieving true parallel computation by employing a number of agents working on different nodes, the replacement of a fault model where network failures can interrupt every phase of the computation by one where network failures can influence only the migration of an agent (as the rest is then done locally on the same node), and so on. Additionally, mobile agents "inherit" the advantages of mobile code systems, especially the possibility to transport functionality automatically to nodes where it has not been installed before.

For mobile agents, security is a very important aspect since neither the provider of a host or an agent-based service, nor the owner of an agent wants to be harmed by employing this technology. This is a non-trivial requirement in mobile agent systems, because firstly, the executing party has no vital interest in executing a program correctly, and secondly, the employer of a program has to give away the control over its execution.

Inside the Publishing Revolution: The Adobe Story : 9780321115645

Tech journalist Pamela Pfiffner explores the rich history behind the modernpublishing revolution, as seen through the lens of one of its most importantplayers. In the past 20 years, Adobe Systems has become synonymous withgreat design tools, and the company's impact on how we work in publishing,graphic arts, and on the Web is unmatched. Join Pfiffner on a colorfuljourney from the roots of the desktop publishing revolution through the riseof the Web and interactive design. Along the way, you'll witness the birthand evolution of PostScript, the explosion of the Photoshop market, therealization of the paperless office, and other events that have shaped theway we communicate.

Inside the Publishing Revolution is not one of those dull historicaltomes you know and loathe from high school. Pfiffner packs its pages withlively, insightful interviews with world-class designers and illustrators,as well as personal insights and recollections from John Warnock, ChuckGeschke, Jonathan Seybold, and other publishing luminaries. Richlyillustrated and beautifully designed, the book features galleries ofhistorically significant work by leading artists and rare photographs fromthe Adobe archives. For added perspective, Pfiffner walks you through anillustrated timeline of the publishing revolution. As with history, thefinal chapter of the Adobe story remains to be written, so the book endswith an eye toward the future: an exclusive overview of the company'svision of publishing in the next decade.

About the Author

Pamela Pfiffner's 14-year career in publishing encompasses print, Web, and television. She has been editor in chief of such magazines as MacUser and Publish, working to extend the publications' brands to the Internet. She joined the launch team of the 24-hour cable television station ZDTV (now TechTV) in 1997 as executive producer of its dynamic media Web site. In 1999 she launched creativepro.com as an independent portal for creative professionals.

Inside SQLite : 9780596550066

SQLite is a small, zero-configuration, custom-tailored, embeddable, threadsafe, easily maintainable, transactionoriented, SQL-based, relational database management system. There is no separate install or setup procedure to initialize SQLite before using it. There is no configuration file.

SQLite is open source, and is available in the public domain (for more information on open source, visit http:// opensource.org). You can download SQLite source code from its homepage http://www.sqlite.org, compile it using your favorite C compiler, and start using the compiled library. SQLite runs on Linux, Windows, Mac OS X, and a few other operating systems. It has been widely used in low-to-medium tier database applications.

This Short Cut discusses design principles, engineering trade-offs, implementation issues, and operations of SQLite. It presents a comprehensive description of all important components of the SQLite engine.

Information Theory and Statistics: A Tutorial : 9781933019055

Information Theory and Statistics: A Tutorial is concerned with applications of information theory concepts in statistics, in the finite alphabet setting. The topics covered include large deviations, hypothesis testing, maximum likelihood estimation in exponential families, analysis of contingency tables, and iterative algorithms with an "information geometry" background. Also, an introduction is provided to the theory of universal coding, and to statistical inference via the minimum description length principle motivated by that theory. The tutorial does not assume the reader has an in-depth knowledge of Information Theory or statistics. As such, Information Theory and Statistics: A Tutorial, is an excellent introductory text to this highly-important topic in mathematics, computer science and electrical engineering. It provides both students and researchers with an invaluable resource to quickly get up to speed in the field.

Information Systems Reengineering and Integration : 9781846283826

The strategic importance of information systems is now widely accepted, and over the last three decades these systems have received considerable investment. Systems have evolved from file systems, through database systems, to the emergence of Management Information Systems (MIS) and more recently Executive Information Systems (EIS). With the advent of each new form of the technology there has been a need to redesign and re-implement existing systems. Hence the dramatic increase in the amount of resources put into the area of reengineering.

Reengineering involves the re-design of an existing Information System, whilst utilising as much of the existing system as possible. This text takes a practical approach to re-engineering existing systems and looks at data integration, and focuses on proven methods and tools for:

• the conversion of hierarchical or network database systems into relational database technology, or from relational to object-oriented and XML databases


• the integration of database systems and expert systems to produce MIS and EIS systems

Taking a very practical approach, the book describes in detail database conversion techniques, reverse engineering and forward engineering, and re-engineering methodology for information systems, offering a systematic software engineering approach for reusing existing database systems built with "old" technology, Many examples, illustrations and case studies are used, making the methodology easy to follow, and a CD is included containing solutions to problems.

This book is used for a text book of undergraduate and first year graduate students, and also for a reference book of computer professionals.

An Instructor's Guide is available on web site: www.springer.com for lecturers, and a help desk for using the CDROM is available on web site: www.udw.com.hk/helpdesk.

About the Author

Professor Fong teaches a course for which the book is required reading, which attracts between 80 and 90 students.

Information Retrieval for Music and Motion : 9783540740476

A general scenario that has attracted a lot of attention for multimedia information retrieval is based on the query-by-example paradigm: retrieve all documents from a database containing parts or aspects similar to a given data fragment. However, multimedia objects, even though they are similar from a structural or semantic viewpoint, often reveal significant spatial or temporal differences. This makes content-based multimedia retrieval a challenging research field with many unsolved problems.

Meinard Müller details concepts and algorithms for robust and efficient information retrieval by means of two different types of multimedia data: waveform-based music data and human motion data. In Part I, he discusses in depth several approaches in music information retrieval, in particular general strategies as well as efficient algorithms for music synchronization, audio matching, and audio structure analysis. He also shows how the analysis results can be used in an advanced audio player to facilitate additional retrieval and browsing functionality. In Part II, he introduces a general and unified framework for motion analysis, retrieval, and classification, highlighting the design of suitable features, the notion of similarity used to compare data streams, and data organization. The detailed chapters at the beginning of each part give consideration to the interdisciplinary character of this field, covering information science, digital signal processing, audio engineering, musicology, and computer graphics.

This first monograph specializing in music and motion retrieval appeals to a wide audience, from students at the graduate level and lecturers to scientists working in the above mentioned fields in academia or industry. Lecturers and students will benefit from the didactic style, and each unit is suitable for stand-alone use in specialized graduate courses. Researchers will be interested in the detailed description of original research results and their application in real-world browsing and retrieval scenarios.

About the Author

Meinard Müller is a Member of the Multimedia Signal Processing Group, Bonn University, working as a Researcher and Assistant Lecturer. His research interests include digital signal processing, multimedia information retrieval, computational group theory, and combinatorics. His special research topics include audio signal processing, computational musicology, analysis of 3D motion capture data, and content-based retrieval in multimedia documents.

Infection and Local Treatment in Orthopedic Surgery : 9783540479987

Bone infections involve enormous social, economic and human impact. Despite improvements in surgical techniques, asepsis and prevention, the increasing use of surgery in orthopaedics and trauma means that the absolute number of bone infections is progressively increasing in western countries.

The work of orthopaedic surgeons is increasingly assisted by industrial innovation designed to meet new requirements and achieve what clinical and scientific evidence indicates in terms of prevention and treatment of bone and joint infections.

In particular, new technologies in recent years, such as those allowing local treatment with antibiotic-loaded cements and preformed spacers, havemade it possible to improve substantially the effectiveness of infection treatment in orthopaedics. This book collects the scientific contributions of eminent European and International scientists, which were presented during the International Congress organized by Tecres Spa (Verona, Italy) and held in Verona at the “Palazzo della Gran Guardia” (7–9 September 2006).

Specialists of surgery and medicine (orthopaedic, trauma and infection surgeons, microbiologists and pharmacologists) from all over the world met to exchange the latest information. This is a collection of their personal clinical experience in the treatment of orthopaedic implant infections.

With the hope that this book may represent a useful tool for updating those who dedicate themselves to the difficult art of treating osteo-articular infections, we wish a good reading!

Indian Medicinal Plants: An Illustrated Dictionary : 9780387706375

In 2004, Springer-Verlag Heidelberg published C.P.Khares "Encyclopedia of Indian Medicinal Plants" which contained 400 monographs comprising classical as well as contemporary research findings.

"Indian Medicinal Plants. An Illustrated Dictionary" is the second major one-volume reference work by C.P.Khare which has been dedicated to the distinguished scientist, Dr. A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, who did pioneering work by reviving the glory of medicinal and aromatic plants in Rashtrapati Bhavan.

Scientific monographs of "The Wealth of India" series (17 volumes) have been capsulised in the dictionary and corroborated with the judicious findings of German Commission E, European Cooperative on Phytotherapy (ESCOP) and WHO. Therapeutic leads, active indications and contraindications are salient features of the core text. These are based on herbal pharmacopoeias, compendiums and latest editions of standard reference works like "PDR for Herbal Medicines," "(Laurance) Review of Natural Products", "Natural Medicines Comprehensive Database". Leads for further research have been provided at a number of places.

The Dictionary is the first updated source of Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha synonyms of their botanical counterparts, after a gap of more than 30 years. The synonyms which appeared in "The Wealth of India" series (1948-1976) and in Chopras "Glossary of Indian Medicinal Plants" (1956) have been updated till January, 2007.

More than 2000 medicinal plants of "The Ayurvedic Formulary of India" and "The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India" and more than 100 species of non-Indian origin, incorporated in "National Formulary of Unani Medicine" have been covered in the Dictionary. Divergent sources of Ayurvedic, Unani and Siddha herbs have been identified and a number of controversies have been sorted out.

Pharmacognosy experts have selected important herbs, which were specially collected from leading pharamaceutical companies and pharmacopoeial laboratories and included in the dictionary as four colour photographs under the "Crude Herb Identification Guide" section. This is a unique feature and makes it an exclusive treat.

The Dictionary has been presented in a user-friendly format, as a compact, handy, easy to use and moderately priced one-volume reference work. It unfolds hidden virtues and potentials of Indian herbs for busy professionals, researchers, practitioners of herbal as well as modern medicine, and library frequenters. It will prove a ready information source for students of botany, economic botany, pharmacy, agricultural and medical sciences, who aspire to have an edge over others and are keen to keep themselves abreast of the times.