Book Description

Experience the magic of biology in your own home lab. This hands-on introduction includes more than 30 educational (and fun) experiments that help you explore this fascinating field on your own. Perfect for middle- and high-school students and DIY enthusiasts, this full-color guide teaches you the basics of biology lab work and shows you how to set up a safe lab at home.

The Illustrated Guide to Home Biology Experiments is also written with the needs of homeschoolers firmly in mind, as well as adults who are eager to explore the science of nature as a life-long hobby. To get the most from the experiments, we recommend using this guide in conjunction with a standard biology text, such as the freely downloadable CK-12 Biology (ck-12.org).

• Master the use of the microscope, including sectioning and staining
• Build and observe microcosms, soda-bottle worlds of pond life
• Investigate the chemistry of life from simple acids, bases, and buffers to complex carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, enzymes, and DNA
• Extract, isolate, and observe DNA
• Explore photosynthesis, osmosis, nitrogen fixation, and other life processes
• Investigate the cell cycle (mitosis and cytokinesis)
• Observe populations and ecosystems, and perform air and water pollution tests
• Investigate genetics and inheritance
• Do hands-on microbiology, from simple culturing to micro-evolution of bacteria by forced selection
• Gain hands-on lab experience to prepare for the AP Biology exam

Through their company, The Home Scientist, LLC (thehomescientist.com/biology), the authors also offer inexpensive custom kits that provide specialized equipment and supplies you’ll need to complete the experiments. Add a microscope and some common household items and you’re good to go.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Equipping a Home Biology Laboratory
Chapter 3. Laboratory Safety
Chapter 4. Using a Microscope
Chapter 5. Mounting Specimens
Chapter 6. Staining
Chapter 7. Building and Observing Microcosms
Chapter 8. Observing Succession in Aquarium Microcosms
Chapter 9. Observing the Effects of Pollution in Microcosms
Chapter 10. Acids, Bases, and Buffers
Chapter 11. Carbohydrates and Lipids
Chapter 12. Proteins, Enzymes, and Vitamins
Chapter 13. Coacervates
Chapter 14. Extracting, Isolating, and Visualizing DNA
Chapter 15. Build a Gel Electrophoresis Apparatus
Chapter 16. Simulated DNA Separation by Gel Electrophoresis
Chapter 17. Chlorophyll and Photosynthesis
Chapter 18. Investigating Osmosis
Chapter 19. Investigating Cell Division
Chapter 20. Sampling Plant Populations in a Community
Chapter 21. Observing the Effect of Rhizobia on Plant Growth
Chapter 22. Air Pollution Testing
Chapter 23. Soil and Water Pollution Testing
Chapter 24. Exploring Mendelian Genetics
Chapter 25. Observing Specialized Eukaryotic Cells
Chapter 26. Preparing Culturing Media
Chapter 27. Culturing Bacteria
Chapter 28. Investigating Bacterial Antibiotic Sensitivity
Chapter 29. Investigating Protista
Chapter 30. Investigating Fungi
Chapter 31. Investigating Simple Plants: Mosses and Ferns
Chapter 32. Investigating Seed Plants
Chapter 33. Investigating Porifera and Cnidaria
Chapter 34. Investigating Platyhelminthes, Nematoda, and Annelida
Chapter 35. Investigating Arthropods
Chapter 36. Investigating Vertebrate Tissues

Book Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media / Make (April 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449396593
• ISBN-13: 978-1449396596

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Book Description

If you’re interested in how things work, this guide will help you experiment with one crucial system you usually ignore—your body and its health. Long hours focusing on code or circuits tends to stifle notions of nutrition, but with this educational and highly useful book you can approach fitness through science, whether it’s investigating your ancestral health or using the latest self-tracking apps and gear.

Tune into components of your health through discussions on food, exercise, sleep, hormesis, and other issues—as well as interviews with various scientists and athletes—and discover healthy ways to tinker with your lifestyle.

• Learn to live in the modern digital world and still be physically vibrant
• Examine apps and widgets for self-tracking various fitness issues
• Zero in on carbs, fats, proteins, vitamins, minerals, and phytochemicals
• Find and choose food, and learn when to eat and when to fast
• Reboot your system through movement in the outside world
• Select from more than a dozen techniques for your gym workout
• Fuel fitness by focusing on the science of nutrition and supplements
• Apply lifestyle hacks, such as high-intensity exercise and good stress

Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Fitness and the Human Codebase: Reboot Your Operating System
Chapter 2. Fitness Tools and Apps
Chapter 3. Food Chemistry Basics: Proteins, Fats, and Carbs
Chapter 4. Micronutrients: Vitamins, Minerals, and Phytochemicals
Chapter 5. Food Hacks: Finding and Choosing Food
Chapter 6. Food Timing: When to Eat, When to Fast
Chapter 7. The Other World: A.K.A. Outside
Chapter 8. Hello, Gym! Finding Your Way Around the Fitness Facility
Chapter 9. Randomizing Fitness and the Importance of R & R
Chapter 10. Code Maintenance: Human Fueling and Supplements
Chapter 11. Lifestyle Hacks for Fitness

Book Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media (April 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449399894
• ISBN-13: 978-1449399894

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Book Description

As we move into an era of unprecedented volumes of data and computing power, the benefits aren’t for business alone. Data can help citizens access government, hold it accountable and build new services to help themselves.

Simply making data available is not sufficient. The use of data for the public good is being driven by a distributed community of media, nonprofits, academics and civic advocates.

This report from O’Reilly Radar highlights the principles of data in the public good, and surveys areas where data is already being used to great effect, covering:

• Consumer finance
• Transit data
• Government transparency
• Data journalism
• Aid and development
• Crisis and emergency response
• Healthcare

Table of Contents

• From Healthcare to Finance to Emergency Response, Data Holds
• Immense Potential to Help Citizens and Government
• Financial Good
• Transit Data as Economic Fuel
• Transparency and Civic Goods
• Principles for Data in the Public Good
• The Case for Open Data
• The Promise of Data Journalism
• Open Aid and Development
• Crisis Data and Emergency Response
• Healthcare
• What Lies Ahead
• Public Data Is a Public Good

Book Details

• Paperback: 22 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media (February 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449329713
• ISBN-13: 978-1449329716

Book Description

Although the digital revolution has made content available to more people than print books ever could, ebooks are still only as accessible as the foundation they’re built on—and all too often the foundation is weak. But that’s changing. With the introduction of EPUB 3, publishers now have the means to create a single rich data source for audiences of all reading abilities.

Through practical tips and examples, Accessible EPUB 3 takes you inside the EPUB 3 format and explores how you can enrich and enhance content for all readers. Author Matt Garrish demystifies the process of making content easier to access, demonstrating how accessible practices are intertwined with standard content best practices.

Among many techniques, this guide will teach you how to:

• Add structure and meaning to your publications to make them more usable by accessible technologies
• Tailor EPUB Navigation Documents for readers requiring either full or reduced navigation
• Create media overlays to synchronize human narration with text display
• Improve text-to-speech playback by adding SSML, PLS lexicons, and CSS3 Speech functionality

Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Building a Better EPUB: Fundamental Accessibility
Chapter 3. It’s Alive: Rich Content Accessibility
Chapter 4. Conclusion

Book Details

• Paperback: 94 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media (February 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449328032
• ISBN-13: 978-1449328030

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Book Description

The Best of TOC New York 2012

The acceleration of change and innovation in the publishing industry today is dizzying, and the pace can be overwhelming. At O’Reilly’s TOC New York Conference in February 2012, practitioners and executives from the publishing and tech industries joined together to navigate the ongoing transformation. With this video compilation, you’ll get a seat in the front row of every session at this groundbreaking conference.

Watch stirring keynotes from luminaries such as LeVar Burton (RRKidz), Tim Carmody (Wired), and Judith Curr (Atria Books). Then take in practical and inspiring sessions in three tracks: Manage, Make, and Market. Download these videos or view them through our HD player, and learn about the innovations rocking every aspect of the art, craft, and business of publishing in the 21st century.

Here are just a few of the sessions you’ll receive in this video package:

Manage:

• Hippo in Ballet Shoes, Or Greyhound on the Track? Applying Agile Methodologies to Traditional Publishing—Kristen McLean (Bookigee)
• You’ve Decided The Cloud Is Right For Your Organization. Now the Hard Part—Jonathan Reichental (City of Palo Alto, California)
• Minimum Viable (Publishing) Product—Todd Sattersten (BizBookLab)
• Case Study: Experimenting with Print-to-Digital Publishing Models—Ana Vela (National Geographic Learning)

Make:

• InDesign to EPUB: The Basics and Beyond—Anne-Marie Concepcion (Seneca Design & Training, Inc.)
• Using WordPress for Digital Workflows and More—Kirk Biglione (Oxford Media Works), Hugh McGuire (PressBooks / LibriVox / Iambik )
• Margin Walking: How Annotation Technology Reinvents and Renews the Book—Joe Wikert (O’Reilly Media, Inc.), Seth Kaufman (Copia Interactive)

Market:

• Keplers2020: Building the Community Bookstore of the 21st Century—Thad McIlroy (TheFutureofPublishing.com), Praveen Madan (Keplers2020, Booksmith)
• Creating A Strong Youth Media Brand—Frederik Wiedemann (ReD Associates), Kasper Tostesen (Danish Broadcasting Corporation)
• Consumer Attitudes toward E-Book Reading—Len Vlahos (Book Industry Study Group), Kelly Gallagher (RR Bowker)

Book Details

• Paperback: 66 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media (February 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449328148
• ISBN-13: 978-1449328146

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• Accessible EPUB 3 (07-03-2012)
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Book Description

iBooks Author is the first tool of its kind. Never before have publishers, authors, and content creators had a tool for making dynamic, interactive ebooks in a WYSIWYG environment. This book is intended to get you up and writing in iBooks Author. You’ll learn what to expect from this new tool and what its strengths and limitations are. You’ll see how you can create beautifully designed pages and how you can bring those designs to life with interactive content in ways that, before now, were only possible in a web browser on the Internet. You’ll also find out how to navigate the occasionally tricky terrain of Apple’s ecosystem so that you can get your book published to the iBookstore.

Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Tour
Chapter 2. Book Building Basics
Chapter 3. Text
Chapter 4. Objects
Chapter 5. Layouts
Chapter 6. Publish Your Book

About the Author
Nellie McKesson is a production specialist at O’Reilly Media, where she focuses on ebook development and improved production processes while also overseeing book reprints and errata. She began as a print layout specialist with an expert knowledge of InDesign. She’s currently experimenting with a new production workflow using CSS to transform XML documents to print- and web-friendly PDFs. Nellie is also the production assistant at A Book Apart, and provides freelance ebook and print production services.

Adam Witwer oversees the Publishing Services division at O’Reilly Media. He manages print, ebook/digital development, video production, and manufacturing. Adam managed the O’Reilly production department’s transition to an XML-based workflow. In the process, he became an expert in the challenges of publishing to multiple sources and formats from a single source. He now focuses on ebook development at O’Reilly and thinking about the next generation of books.

Book Details

• Paperback: 70 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media (February 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449329780
• ISBN-13: 978-1449329785

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Book Description

At last, here’s an approachable introduction to the widely used Portable Document Format. PDFs are everywhere, both online and in printed form, but few people take advantage of the useful features or grasp the nuances of this format. This concise book provides a hands-on tour of the world’s leading page-description language for programmers, power users, and professionals in the search, electronic publishing, and printing industries. Illustrated with lots of examples, this book is the documentation you need to fully understand PDF.

• Build a simple PDF file from scratch in a text editor
• Learn the layout and content of a PDF file, as well as the syntax of its objects
• Examine the logical structure of PDF objects, and learn how pages and their resources are arranged into a document
• Create vector graphics and raster images in PDF, and deal with transparency, color spaces, and patterns
• Explore PDF operators for building and showing text strings
• Get up to speed on bookmarks, metadata, hyperlinks, annotations, and file attachments
• Learn how encryption and document permissions work in PDF
• Use the pdftk program to process PDF files from the command line

Table of Contents
Chapter 1. Introduction
Chapter 2. Building a Simple PDF
Chapter 3. File Structure
Chapter 4. Document Structure
Chapter 5. Graphics
Chapter 6. Text and Fonts
Chapter 7. Document Metadata and Navigation
Chapter 8. Encrypted Documents
Chapter 9. Working with Pdftk
Chapter 10. PDF Software and Documentation

Book Details

• Paperback: 138 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media (December 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449310028
• ISBN-13: 978-1449310028

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Book Description

Based on more than forty interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.

At a time when America is seeking ways to sustain its innovative edge, and when societies around the world are trying to build digital-age economies, Jobs stands as the ultimate icon of inventiveness and applied imagination. He knew that the best way to create value in the twenty-first century was to connect creativity with technology. He built a company where leaps of the imagination were combined with remarkable feats of engineering.

Although Jobs cooperated with this book, he asked for no control over what was written nor even the right to read it before it was published. He put nothing off-limits. He encouraged the people he knew to speak honestly. And Jobs speaks candidly, sometimes brutally so, about the people he worked with and competed against. His friends, foes, and colleagues provide an unvarnished view of the passions, perfectionism, obsessions, artistry, devilry, and compulsion for control that shaped his approach to business and the innovative products that resulted.

Driven by demons, Jobs could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and products were interrelated, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.

About the Author
Walter Isaacson, the CEO of the Aspen Institute, has been chairman of CNN and the managing editor of Time magazine. He is the author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and of Kissinger: A Biography, and the coauthor of The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made. He lives in Washington, D.C., with his wife and daughter.

Book Details

• Hardcover: 656 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (October 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1451648537
• ISBN-13: 978-1451648539

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Book Description

Renowned neuroscientist Dr. Masao Ito advances a sophisticated new view of the cerebellum’s roles in brain function, explaining how its multiple neuronal machine modules enable humans to unconsciously master motor skills through practice, and suggesting how it may serve implicit thought and cognitive processes that manipulate knowledge—playing a surprising role in intuition, imagination, and hallucination.

From the Back Cover
A New Assessment of the Cerebellum’s Role in Brain Function by One of the Field’s Most Respected Researchers

In The Cerebellum, leading neuroscientist Masao Ito draws on current research to advance a detailed new view of the cerebellum’s multiple roles in brain function.

The cerebellum’s role in coordinating body movement control and facilitating motor skills learning has long been recognized. Ito presents new insights into how it accomplishes these tasks. He explains how the cerebellum assembles numerous neuronal machine modules, each providing implicit learning capabilities—and how these modules enable humans to unconsciously learn motor skills through practice by forming internal models that simulate the control system properties of body parts.

Ito shows how the cerebellum also serves higher brain functions, including implicit components of thought and cognitive processes that manipulate knowledge. In particular, he discusses evidence of the cerebellum’s role in complex mental actions—such as intuition, imagination, hallucination, and delusion—and in supporting the implicit self.

Ito’s insights will be valuable to a wide audience of neuroscientific investigators and might also be applicable in artificial intelligence, control engineering, robotics, and related fields.

Book Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: FT Press (August 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0137050682
• ISBN-13: 978-0137050680

Book Description

Bookbinding may well be a dying art in this digital age, but you can still learn how to do it yourself with this easy-to-follow ebook. In fact, you can reverse the course of evolution and convert this particular digital specimen into a durable, hand-stitched book that will last for generations. When you’re finished, this ebook will truly be “hands-on.”

O’Reilly Senior Editor Brian Sawyer takes you through the process with step-by-step instructions and scores of instructive photographs. All you need to bring to the table are a few simple materials—including magazines you’d like to preserve. Discover how simple, unmessy, fun, and satisfying binding books by hand can be.

• Print the pages of this ebook or remove the existing cover from a magazine
• Create signatures and prepare them for stitching
• Glue the spine
• Build and attach the cover boards
• Cover the exterior and interior of the cover boards

About the Author
Brian Sawyer is a Senior Editor for O’Reilly Media, where he manages the Missing Manuals division. He has also served as lead editor for the company’s popular Hacks series, editor for Head First and Make: Books titles, and contributing editor to Craft magazine. When not writing or editing about technology, he uses it to help train for marathons (see Chapter 4 of Best Android Apps).

Book Details

• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: O’Reilly Media / Make (July 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1449307698
• ISBN-13: 978-1449307691

Book Description

Leading neuroscientist Samuel Barondes shares scientific frameworks and tools for improving your intuitions about people, and sizing them up more consciously, systematically, and successfully. He shows how to use the latest research about personality and character to get along better, choose great friends, decide whom to trust, and avoid narcissists and sociopaths.

From the Back Cover
“This pioneering book does for our mental life what the periodic table did for chemistry; it breaks the mind down into elementary constituents and their interactions–thereby transforming personality research into science. In addition to being a rich treasure-trove of insights into human nature, it can potentially enrich your relationships with people. Barondes has written a masterpiece.”
–V.S. Ramachandran, author of Phantoms in the Brain and The Tell-Tale Mind

“We’re a fantastically social species, constantly taking the measure of everyone’s personality. In this wise, enjoyable book, the esteemed biological psychiatrist Sam Barondes considers ways to build up this vital skill. The book is clear, entertaining, and educational, and will not only make you a more adept social primate, but a more self-reflective one as well.”
–Robert Sapolsky, Professor of Biology, Stanford University; author of A Primate’s Memoir and Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers

“Making Sense of People is a marvelous guided tour through the infinitely variable landscape of personality. Barondes truly illuminates how genes and environment shape human behavior, and he tells the story with an engaging armchair style that makes the book hard to put down!”
–John Oldham, President, American Psychiatric Association; author of The New Personality Self-Portrait

“Human beings judge personalities every day, but often in an unconscious muddle. Sam Barondes has taken a daunting research literature on personality and has made it remarkably accessible as well as useful. I suspect that many psychiatrists will find this book as valuable as lay readers will.”
–Steven E. Hyman, Professor of Neurobiology and Provost, Harvard University; former Director, National Institute of Mental Health

“In Making Sense of People, Sam Barondes, a superb teacher and writer, creates his own schema to help us better understand each other and make the right decisions about who to share our lives with. A highly readable and enjoyable introduction to the psychology of everyday life.”
–Eric Kandel, University Professor, Columbia University; Nobel Laureate; author of In Search of Memory

What really bothers you about your boss–or your daughter’s boyfriend? Could the person you’re dating really become your life partner? Can you really rely on your intuition about people? This book will help you find out.

Drawing on extensive research, renowned psychiatrist and neuroscientist Samuel Barondes gives you powerful, easy-to-use tools for understanding what people are really like and how they got to be the way they are. These tools will provide you with a system for assessing the person’s traits, character, and sense of identity, and then putting these elements together into a unified picture. Learning to think of people in this way will help you choose more satisfying relationships, recognize telltale signs of dysfunction and danger, and savor the complexity and uniqueness of everyone you meet.

Supplement your intuition!

• Learn a system for understanding anyone
• Identify character strengths and weaknesses
• Make better decisions about whom to seek out and whom to avoid
• Find out how all personalities are shaped by two great chance events:  the set of genes we happen to be born with, and the particular world we happen to grow up in

Book Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: FT Press (June 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132172607
• ISBN-13: 978-0132172608

Book Description

The Logic of Chance offers a reappraisal and a new synthesis of theories, concepts, and hypotheses on the key aspects of the evolution of life on earth in light of comparative genomics and systems biology. The author presents many specific examples from systems and comparative genomic analysis to begin to build a new, much more detailed, complex, and realistic picture of evolution. The book examines a broad range of topics in evolutionary biology including  the inadequacy of natural selection and adaptation as the only or even the main mode of evolution; the key role of horizontal gene transfer in evolution and the consequent overhaul of the Tree of Life concept;  the central, underappreciated evolutionary importance of viruses; the origin of eukaryotes as a result of endosymbiosis; the concomitant origin of cells and viruses on the primordial earth; universal dependences between genomic and molecular-phenomic variables; and the evolving landscape of constraints that shape the evolution of genomes and molecular phenomes.

From the Back Cover
An Outline of a Fundamentally New Evolutionary Synthesis Reflecting Key Advances in Genomics, Systems Biology, and Biological PhysicsIn this ambitious book, Eugene V. Koonin illuminates the gamut of randomness and regularity that is at the heart of life.

Pointing the way beyond Modern Synthesis, Koonin brings together new data and concepts in an attempt to achieve a far deeper understanding of the interplay between chance and necessity that drives biological evolution. He explains evolution as a stochastic process based on historical contingency, constrained by requirements for maintaining cell organization and modulated by adaptation.

To support his argument, he weaves together multiple conceptual threads: genomic comparisons that illuminate ancestral forms; new insights into pattern, process, and contingency in evolution; advances in the study of gene expression, protein abundance, and other phenotypic molecular characteristics; application of statistical physics to the study of the evolution of genes and genomes; and new perspectives on probability now emerging from modern cosmology.

The Logic of Chance shows why these insights make the twentieth-century scientific consensus about evolution appear outdated and incomplete and outlines a fundamentally new approach: one that is challenging, sometimes controversial, and always firmly rooted in hard science. Coverage includes

• Understanding the forces and patterns of evolution
• Surprising evolutionary “reconstructions” arising from the comparison of complete genomes
• Is there a “tree” of life–or a “forest”?
• How complex eukaryotes arose: tantalizing hints about one of evolutionary biology’s key enigmas
• Biological complexity and entropy: evolutionary lessons from Kolmogorov, Shannon, and Boltzmann
• Robustness, evolvability, and the creative role of noise in evolution
• The Last Universal Common Ancestor, cell origins, and the primordial gene pool
• The key role of viruses and the virus-cell arms race in evolution
• Life’s origin: estimating the probability of “unique events” in the context of modern cosmology

Book Details

• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: FT Press (June 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132542498
• ISBN-13: 978-0132542494

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Book Description

James A. Shapiro’s Evolution: A View from the 21st Century proposes an important new paradigm for understanding biological evolution. Shapiro demonstrates why traditional views of evolution are inadequate to explain the latest evidence, and presents a compelling alternative. His information- and systems-based approach integrates advances in symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and mobile genetic elements, and points toward an emerging synthesis of physical, information, and biological sciences.

From the Back Cover
“Shapiro has written a stimulating, innovative manuscript that surely Darwin would have liked.”
—Sidney Altman, Yale University; Nobel Laureate in Chemistry, 1989

“Based on a long and highly competent personal experience in science and his novel insights into biological functions, the author has reached views of biological evolution that can reveal to a wide, interested readership how the living world co-evolves with the environment through its intrinsic powers.”
—Werner Arber, Professor Emeritus, University of Basel, Switzerland; Nobel Laureate in Physiology/Medicine, 1978

“Professor Shapiro’s offering is the best book on basic modern biology I have ever seen. As far as I can tell, the book is a game changer.”
—Carl Woese, University of Illinois; discoverer of Archaea, the third realm of life; National Medal of Science 2000

“‘[N]atural genetic engineering’ explains evolutionary processes that preceded people by at least 3,000 million years. Shapiro’s detailed account of ubiquitous genetic dynamism, DNA machination, repair, and recombination in real life, bacterial to mammalian, destroys myths…. Shapiro’s careful, authoritative narrative is entirely scientific and should interest all of us who care about the evolution of genetic systems.”
—Lynn Margulis, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; National Academy of Sciences, National Medal of Science 1999

“[T]his book is a magnificent analysis of the key questions of the origin of variation…. Jim Shapiro has new insights on all the central issues of evolutionary theory. The genome becomes a read-write storage system rather than the sole determinant of heredity. After reading this book, you will find it imperative to see biology as the 21st century is coming to see it.”
—Denis Noble, CBE FRS, Balliol College, Oxford; author of The Music of Life

“This book highlights…dynamic systems biology and engineering between the evolving genome, cell, and environmental stresses…affecting the…read-write memory system underlying life’s evolution.”
—Eviatar Nevo, University of Haifa, U.S. National Academy of Sciences; explorer of Evolution Canyon

James Shapiro’s Evolution: A View from the 21st Century proposes an important new science-based paradigm for understanding biological evolution. Shapiro explains how conventional evolutionary theory (as elaborated from the neo-Darwinian synthesis) has become outdated, and he marshals new molecular genetics and DNA sequence evidence to reinterpret fundamental evolutionary processes.

Shapiro’s new information- and systems-based paradigm integrates important phenomena such as symbiogenesis, epigenetics, and natural genetic engineering. He demonstrates how active cell processes can drive the rapid, large evolutionary changes seen in the DNA that cannot be adequately explained by earlier theories.

Evolution: A View from the 21st Century is likely to generate extensive discussion throughout the biological community and might change your own thinking about how life has evolved. Shapiro’s vision also has major implications for evolutionary computation, information science, and the growing synthesis of physical and biological sciences.

Living cells: evolution’s not-so-blind watchmakers
How cells acquire and use external information–and what that means for evolution

Cellular read-write mechanisms and informatics-based approaches
Cell-mediated genome inscriptions at time scales ranging from days to epochs

Nature’s leaps: beyond Linnaeus and Darwin
The growing molecular evidence for rapid, large-scale, evolutionary change

A new conceptual basis for 21st century evolutionary research
Discovering how evolutionary innovation is generated, dispersed, and diversified

Book Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: FT Press (June 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132780933
• ISBN-13: 978-0132780933

Book Description

Leading medical genetics scholar Moyra Smith reviews current prospects and progress in medical genetics and genomics, arising from the growth of gene mapping and Human Genome sequencing. She addresses recent investigations into human origins, migrations, and diversity; psychiatric diseases; Alzheimer’s, Parkinsonism, and ALS; protein misfolding; gene-environment interactions; mRNA; epigenetics, and much more

From the Back Cover
An Up-to-Date Assessment of Recent Advances in Human Genetics, Human Variation,and Gene-Related Disease

In Investigating the Human Genome, leading medical genetics scholar Moyra Smith reviews current and recent work in genetics and genomics to assess progress in understanding human variation and the pathogenesis of common and rare diseases in which genetics plays a role.

Smith provides an exceptional overview of the most important biomedical progress arising from the greatly increased genetic information base generated by gene mapping and the sequencing of the complete Human Genome. She addresses diverse topics associated with human genetics and genomics, ranging from psychiatric and late-onset illness to early human history.

Coverage includes

• Genetic research on human origins, migrations, and population diversity
• Genome architecture and sequence variation in health and disease
• Genes, transcripts, and regulation at multiple levels
• Modifications via epigenetics and epigenomics
• Phenotypes, phenocopies, pathways, and interactions
• Key issues of protein misfolding
• Gene-environment interactions in DNA damage, instability, and repair
• Synaptic activity and plasticity, and relevance to cognitive impairment and behavioral abnormalities
• Micro RNAs and mRNA translation
• Late-onset neurodegenerative diseases: Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s
• Genes, cancer, signaling pathways, and targeted therapies
• Functional genomics and personalized medicine

Book Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: FT Press (June 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0132168146
• ISBN-13: 978-0132168144

Book Description

You’ll learn how to handle each aspect of the flexible Scrivener manuscript-generation process:
Set up: Add reference materials to your project for easy access – videos, audio files, PDFs, Web resources, and more. And, if you’ve already written bits of text, you can import those items too, including OPML outline files (such as from OmniOutliner Pro). Beyond importing from the Finder, you can use Mac OS X Services or Scrivener’s handy Scratch Pad panel. Or, you can use the Import and Split feature to import a long document into multiple chapters or segments in Scrivener.

Organize: Use the Outliner, Corkboard, Collections, and Binder to mix and match your content into the perfect final arrangement. For example, you can:

• Ignore the concept of a traditional file and break your manuscript into sections based on character, theme, topic, scene, or whatever you like.
• Organize your manuscript linearly in the Outliner.
• Use search Collections to search for a character, location, or phrase and see just those texts.
• Organize ideas by dragging and pinning index cards on the Corkboard.

Write: Use Full Screen mode to hide distractions so you can wordsmith in peace; set up Typewriter Scrolling to keep your writing focus at the center of the screen, not the bottom; and view more than one part of your project at once, so you can write in one section while referring to another. Also, use Scrivenings view to write one thread of a story all at once in a single view, even if it is broken up in multiple scenes or chapters in the final manuscript.

Format: Optimize the formatting you see when you work in Scrivener for your eyes and your screen, and understand how this can differ from the formatting in a “compiled” version of your manuscript.

Revise: Use revision marking and the useful Snapshot capability to experiment with and compare the effect of different revision strategies, while still being able to roll back to a previous version.

Be Mobile: Work on your project using more than one Mac, or on an iPad.

Compile: Don’t worry if the term “compile” is unfamiliar; it enables you to assemble your manuscript into linear order, in a form that can be printed or converted to common file formats. Scrivener supports RTF, Microsoft Word, Final Draft, PDF, and EPUB.

Specific questions answered in the ebook include:

• What’s the difference between a Scrivener folder and a file?
• How do I change which columns appear in the Outliner?
• How do I open the Inspector and control what appears in it?
• What is the relationship between Corkboard index cards and Finder items?
• How do I monitor character, word, or page count?
• How do text format presets work?
• How do I track changes when I revise a draft?
• How do I change the color of a revision level?
• What is the difference between an annotation, a comment, and a footnote?
• How do I export in an ebook format from Scrivener?

Book Details

• Paperback: 105 pages
• Publisher: TidBITS Publishing, Inc. (May 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1615421343
• ISBN-13: 978-1615421343

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Book Description

TIBCO’s product suite comprises a diverse range of components. Each component is specialized for a particular functionality, ranging from basic messaging through services, service orchestration, the management of complex business processes, managing master data across multiple systems, and the interpretation ofmassive streams of events (complex event processing).

The architecture series from TIBCO® Press comprises a coordinated set of books for software architects and developers, showing how to combine TIBCO components to design and build real-world solutions.

TIBCO® Architecture Fundamentals is the core book for understanding and using the TIBCO product suite. It focuses on the TIBCO ActiveMatrix® product suite and a handful of the other most commonly used components, including the TIBCO Enterprise Message Service^TM and TIBCO BusinessEvents^TM. The book provides a sound basis for applying TIBCO products to solve the most common integration and SOA challenges faced by architects and developers. In addition, it lays the foundation for the more advanced books to be added to the architecture series.

Designed to make the material as accessible as possible, the book starts with concrete problems architects and developers face every day, showing how to solve these problems with combinations of TIBCO (and selected third-party) products. In the context of specific design scenarios, it also discusses key concepts and decision trade-offs. To accomplish its practical aims, the book

• Provides useful techniques for discussing and documenting architectures
• Presents reference architectures (design patterns) for solving common SOA and system integration problems
• Describes each problem and solution from both business process and technical perspectives
• Supplies an overview of the typical solution roles played by different TIBCO products

The book largely avoids the code-level detail already available in the product manuals, concentrating instead on blueprints for solving whole classes of problems.

“TIBCO® Architecture Fundamentals is a must-read for anybody involved with the architecture and design of distributed systems, system integration issues, or service-based application design.”
—Bert Hooyman, Chief Architect, Europe, for MphasiS (an HP Company)

“I would like all the folks on my team to read this, to ensure we are all on the same page with the deliverables that are expected from architecture teams involved in global projects and the role that the TIBCO tools play in implementing these solutions.”
—Joseph G. Meyer, Director of Architecture Services and R&D, Citi

Book Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Addison-Wesley Professional (May 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 032177261X
• ISBN-13: 978-0321772619

Book Description

Step-by-Step, Full-Color Graphics!

Take advantage of your computer’s features and tools right away–the QuickSteps way. Color photos and screenshots with clear instructions make it easy to accomplish everything you want to do. Follow along and quickly learn how to navigate the Windows operating system; get online; use core programs such as Word, Excel, and Quicken; and secure your computer. Fun activities, such as genealogy, photo editing and management, social networking, and online dating are covered, plus you’ll get tips for enjoying music, ebooks, and videos. Written by seniors for seniors, this practical, fast-paced guide helps you get the most out of your computer.

Use these handy guideposts:

• Shortcuts for accomplishing common tasks
• Personal insights from other seniors
• Need-to-know facts in concise narrative
• Helpful reminders or alternative ways of doing things
• Bonus information related to the topic being covered
• Errors and pitfalls to avoid

Book Details

• Paperback: 306 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill Osborne Media (April 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 007174035X
• ISBN-13: 978-0071740357

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Book Description

Discover BIM: A better way to build better buildings

Building Information Modeling (BIM) offers a novel approach to design, construction, and facility management in which a digital representation of the building process is used to facilitate the exchange and interoperability of information in digital format. BIM is beginning to change the way buildings look, the way they function, and the ways in which they are designed and built.

The BIM Handbook, Second Edition provides an in-depth understanding of BIM technologies, the business and organizational issues associated with its implementation, and the profound advantages that effective use of BIM can provide to all members of a project team. Updates to this edition include:

• Completely updated material covering the current practice and technology in this fast-moving field
• Expanded coverage of lean construction and its use of BIM, with special focus on Integrated Project Delivery throughout the book
• New insight on the ways BIM facilitates sustainable building
• New information on interoperability schemas and collaboration tools
• Six new case studies

Painting a colorful and thorough picture of the state of the art in building information modeling, the BIM Handbook, Second Edition guides readers to successful implementations, helping them to avoid needless frustration and costs and take full advantage of this paradigm-shifting approach to construct better buildings that consume fewer materials and require less time, labor, and capital resources.

“The BIM Handbook is an extensively researched and meticulously written book, showing evidence of years of work rather than something that has been quickly put together in the course of a few months. It brings together most of the current information about BIM, its history, as well as its potential future in one convenient place, and can serve as a handy reference book on BIM for anyone who is involved in the design, construction, and operation of buildings and needs to know about the technologies that support it. The need for such a book is indisputable, and it is terrific that Chuck Eastman and his team were able to step up to the plate and make it happen. Thanks to their efforts, anyone in the AEC industry looking for a deeper understanding of BIM now knows exactly where to look for it.”
—AECbytes book review, August 28, 2008 (www.aecbytes.com/review/2008/BIMHandbook.html)

Book Details

• Hardcover: 648 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 2nd Edition (April 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470541377
• ISBN-13: 978-0470541371

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Book Description

Why do enterprise systems have complicated search pages, when Google has a single search box that works better? Why struggle with an expense reimbursement system that is not as easy as home accounting software? Although this seems like comparing apples to oranges, as information and communication technologies increasingly reach into every industry the demand for easy-to-use work tools continues to grow. An exploration of cutting-edge approaches for evaluating the usability of complex user interaction, Usability of Complex Information Systems: Evaluation of User Interaction focuses on improving design and communicating content to the end user.

The book continues the conversation about the evolution of usability, asking how we can design and evaluate these complex systems and the complex work they support. It describes and analyzes approaches to teaching, testing, analyzing, or managing usability studies—approaches that involve technical communicators making novel contributions to how we think about and evaluate increasingly complex systems. The book contains case studies on different types of complexity, including:

• A complex work environment, requiring collaboration among different people or a goal sustained over time, and often in the face of distractions, interruptions, and planned pauses
• A complex information context, one with no single answer, where the data changes dynamically or where the best answer may rely on other aspects of a fluid environment
• A complex technology, in which people use many different applications in their work and collaboration
• A complex topic, requiring advanced technical or domain knowledge

Even systems that seem simple are, in fact, complex. The shopping interface for an e-commerce system may not be complex, but the databases, business processes, and logistics behind it certainly are. The examination of different aspects of designing and examining complexity presented in this book brings you a step further in developing a deeper understanding of what it takes to make complex systems work.

Book Details

• Hardcover: 399 pages
• Publisher: CRC Press (October, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781439828946
• ISBN-13: 978-1439828946

Book Description

Updated and expanded, Bayesian Artificial Intelligence, Second Edition provides a practical and accessible introduction to the main concepts, foundation, and applications of Bayesian networks. It focuses on both the causal discovery of networks and Bayesian inference procedures. Adopting a causal interpretation of Bayesian networks, the authors discuss the use of Bayesian networks for causal modeling. They also draw on their own applied research to illustrate various applications of the technology.

New to the Second Edition

• New chapter on Bayesian network classifiers
• New section on object-oriented Bayesian networks
• New section that addresses foundational problems with causal discovery and Markov blanket discovery
• New section that covers methods of evaluating causal discovery programs
• Discussions of many common modeling errors
• New applications and case studies
• More coverage on the uses of causal interventions to understand and reason with causal Bayesian networks

Illustrated with real case studies, the second edition of this bestseller continues to cover the groundwork of Bayesian networks. It presents the elements of Bayesian network technology, automated causal discovery, and learning probabilities from data and shows how to employ these technologies to develop probabilistic expert systems.

Web Resource
The book’s website at www.csse.monash.edu.au/bai/book/book.html offers a variety of supplemental materials, including example Bayesian networks and data sets. Instructors can email the authors for sample solutions to many of the problems in the text.

Book Details

• Hardcover: 491 pages
• Publisher: CRC Press; 2nd Edition (December, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9781439815915
• ISBN-13: 978-1439815915