One Small Place in a Tree (Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 (Awards))

Book Description

Deep in the forest . . .

A bear sharpens her claws on a tree trunk. The scratched bark chips; a tiny hole forms. Timber beetles tunnel inside. The hole grows bigger and bigger.

In lyrical prose, Barbara Brenner reveals the fascinating happenings in one small place. She explains how, over many years, the rough hole transforms into a cozy hollow -- home to salamanders, tree frogs, a family of white-footed mice. Tom Leonard's absorbing illustrations take you beneath the bark to a hidden world. His warm, lifelike depictions of squirrels and bluebirds, snakes and spiders show the splendor that dwells in the most unexpected places.

So stop. Observe. Explore your natural world. If you look closely enough, you will surely find . . . one small place that is home for something.

Customer Reviews:

great science lesson.......2005-04-01

One small place by in a Tree takes the reader on an imaginary journey to a forest where a brown bear is clawing a tree trunk. A hole is made from the claw marks. Then timber beetles eat away at the wood inside. The hole grows bigger and bigger. It starts to die inside because bacteria has set in. The tree then becomes home to many woodland animals.

The book was very informative. I learned a lot about forests and ecology while reading this book.

I would recommend it to all parents who wish to give their child an appreciation of nature, and to every teacher as a curriculum-enrichment aid.

Average customer rating:

Super maps, but....

Comprehensive Dive Atlas

Nicely illustrated overview of dive sites of the world

Dive Atlas of the World: An Illustrated Reference to the Best Sites

Manufacturer: The Lyons Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Dive: The Ultimate Guide to 60 of the World's Top Dive Locations (Ultimate Sports Guide)

Diving: The World's Best Sites

Dive in Style

DAN Pocket Guide to First Aid for Scuba Diving

Dive Like a Pro: 101 Ways to Improve Your Scuba Skills and Safety

ASIN: 1592282067

Book Description

This global guide to the world's top dive sites is an inspirational reference source for divers who wish to experience, personally or vicariously, the best diving the planet has to offer. Written by award-winning and experienced dive authors, coverage starts with the Atlantic, from the West Coast of North America, and proceeds west to east and north to south. For those inspired to travel to any of the featured sites or regions, the appendix lists all important travel and dive information, the best times to go, contacts, dive operators, and emergency facilities.
Brimming with superb underwater photography of famous wrecks, a wide range of marine habitats, and a huge diversity of species ranging from whale sharks to nudibranchs, DIVE ATLAS OF THE WORLD also features six large scale ocean/sea maps, and over three hundred comprehensive maps to all the best sites.

Customer Reviews:

Super maps, but...........2005-10-26

Definitely not enough coverage of the Caribbean and Atlantic sites. This book should be named the Pacific and Indian Ocean Dive Atlas. It is a quality written book however that covers the included sites thoroughly. Would recommend it but not for Caribbean reference!

Comprehensive Dive Atlas.......2005-08-17

This is a really big coffee table size book that is stocked with information about dive sites throughout the world, Some parts of the world (Asia) are given more space than others (Carribbean), but overall, it touches all the bases. I like the way it took individual divesites and broke down the dives with temps, currents, difficultly status, and photos. The maps of the areas profiled is worth the price of the book alone (which is reasonably priced.) If you get one book to get an overview of what's out there, this is agood place to start.

Nicely illustrated overview of dive sites of the world.......2004-12-15

Coffee table book. Nicely illustrated and informative listing and overview of dive sites of the world. Lots of vacation ideas, including some I wasn't aware of before.
Good motivation for new divers as well.

Then, once you're inspired to take your next dive vacation, consult one of the travel guides:

Aqua Quest Diving series
Globetrotter Dive guides
Lonely Planet Pisces Diving & Snorkeling Guides
Periplus Action Guides (Asia/Pacific)

Average customer rating:

Nice photos - but NOT The Best Dive Sites of the World.

The Best Dive Sites of the World

Manufacturer: Abbeville Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0789206773

Book Description

From the Great Barrier Reef to the Florida Keys, from Polynesia to the Caribbean, from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, this volume charts the globe for the world's best dive sites. The short chapters covering each of the 50 dives provide crucial data and full-color, three-dimensional maps to provide the information diving enthusiasts need to plan their dives for maximum enjoyment.

Like every guide in the series, the lively text by dive experts has been vetted by Diving Science and Technology Corporation (DSAT), which is a corporate affiliate of the Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI), making these the most reliable guides for the expert as well as the first-time diver.

Customer Reviews:

Nice photos - but NOT The Best Dive Sites of the World........2001-07-30

There are a number of books currently available claiming to show the "top" or "best" dive sites of the world and one gets the impression that this publisher has thrown together whatever was available from the 6 contributors in order to add something on a similar theme. Sadly, if this is the best they can deliver with such an all-encompassing title, they simply should not have bothered.

Of course, any personal selection claiming "the best of" will always be subjective. My list will be different from yours and neither of us is either right or wrong - it is simply a matter of personal choice coupled with our personal diving experiences. That said, the title of this book really is making a very big claim and not for the first time with this particular parent publisher, the content of the book fails to live up to the promise of that title.

The Best Dive Sites of the World is a hard-back coffee table book slightly larger than the well-established format we expect to see from this publisher. 50 dive-sites have been chosen from the Atlantic, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean. Each section commences with an introduction and each specific dive site with an artistic impression of the entire site followed by a written description supported by page after page of excellent photography. Sadly, however, the overall standard of artwork has seriously declined since they were first seen and some images look as though they might have been drawn by schoolchildren.

Otherwise, there is no doubt that this is a very beautiful book containing some really stunning photography. When it comes to the "Best" Dive Sites of the World, however, this is not a book to make you reach for the telephone and call your travel operator - because they are simply not here.

The book commences with a General Introduction which likens the earth to a tennis ball filled with water - with the ball being the land and the water being the sea. Yes, I know, I am also still trying to work that one out. This is then followed by page after page of close ups and wide-angle shots of reefs, many different species of fish, plenty of Soft Corals, Gorgonians - and yet more Soft Corals and yet more Gorgonians - and then there are even more Soft Corals and... You get the idea.

I would have thought that at least one shipwreck - even if it had to be the Thistlegorm, would have been included in any divers selection of best dive sites - but not in this book. Not one. Furthermore, not only are some of the world's outstanding reefs missing from this book, countries such as Fiji and Hawaii are excluded altogether and Malta does not even appear on their own map of the Mediterranean.

In conclusion, therefore, a change of title is much needed - something like "Good Dive Sites for Gorgonians and Soft Corals" or even "Good Sites for Colour Photography (Underwater - Still Life)" would have scored better for being an honest title. What I cannot accept is the inference that for any dive site - anywhere in the world, to qualify as one of the "Best," that site must have an abundance of Gorgonians and Corals - especially colourful Soft Corals, which is clearly the criteria for this book. Readers can only study so many photographs with a very similar theme before boredom sets in.

Two stars retained for the photography and overall presentation of the product, 3 stars lost for artwork, repetition and misleading title.

NM

Book Description

"The fish's streamlined shape reveals functional knowledge of the physical properties of water.... The deadly effectiveness of the cobra's venom shows useful knowledge of the physiology of its prey.... Indeed, knowledge itself may be broadly conceived as the fit of some aspect of an organism to some aspect of its environment, whether it be the fit of the butterfly's long siphon of a mouth to the flowers from which it feeds or the fit of the astrophysicist's theories to the structure of the universe. ... But how did such remarkable instances of fit arise? How did the animate world obtain its impressive knowledge of its surroundings? And how do organisms continue to acquire knowledge and thereby increase their fit during their lifetimes?"

In this sweeping account of the emergence of fit, Gary Cziko integrates numerous scientific disciplines within the perspective of a universal selection theory that attempts to account for all cases of fit involving living organisms, including those that might appear miraculous. Cziko's bold assertion is that all novel forms of adapted complexity -- whether single-celled organisms or scientific theories -- emerge from an evolutionary process involving cumulative blind variation and selection.

Without Miracles describes many remarkable examples of the fit of various structures, behaviors, and products of living organisms to their environments in a broad synthesis of humankind's attempt to understand the emergence of complex, adapted entities. These explanations range from the providential accounts of the early philosophers and "natural theologians," through instructionist theories of the type proposed by Lamarck, to an ongoing "second Darwinian revolution" in which natural and artificial selection are being applied to many fields of science to both explain the emergence of naturally occurring adapted complexity and to facilitate the design of useful products ranging from microbes to computer programs.

The evolution of explanations of fit from providential through instructionist to selectionist theories, Cziko argues, has occurred repeatedly in many different fields of knowledge along with a growing realization that the Darwinian mechanism of cumulative blind variation and selection is the only tenable nonmiraculous explanation for the emergence of any kind of functional complexity.

Cziko applies this provocative selectionist thesis to a stunning range of domains including biology, immunology, neuroscience, ethology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, education, linguistics, and computer science. The result is an up-to-date, clearly summarized collection of selectionist arguments that shows how our knowledge of the emergence of fit has itself evolved and continues to do so. A Bradford Book

Customer Reviews:

FULL? VERISON ONLINE.......2004-05-28

This book can be found at http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/g-cziko/wm/

Deceptively simple process generates beauty!.......2002-01-24

That applies to this book, as well as the concepts described herein.

When a book can alter your perception and understanding of the world for the better you reread it. I'm currently on my third formal reading of this masterpiece. I go back to it often.

Cziko has brought to life the simple but powerful concept that Campbell called evolutionary epistemology: blind variation and selection. I use these concepts in everyday life (risk-taking, creativity, trade-off decision-making). Even if not useful, the concept would enegender admiration for its sheer beauty. The fact that it can be useful and fun is an added benefit.

A Must! But far from flawless..........2001-11-22

This book is surely a must for anyone interested in phylosophical discussions concerning "darwinian" (or better, neo-darwinian) evolution theory, and its potential to explain other fields where any kind of innovation is created. The author describes these innovations as "puzzles of fit" of an organism or of a system to another organism or system, and he brilliantly equals all these "fits" to "knowledge". Cziko reached a good level of quality in his transdisciplinary approach, putting together data from fields like evolutionary biology, immunology, neurobiology, animal and human learning, human thought and language, scientific knowledge growth, and cultural adaptation. For this, he no doubt deserves a four-star ranking. But then, there come the flaws...

The central issue in the book is that just any kind of innovation, puzzle of fit, knowledge growth, or whatever you call it, can only be achieved through a process very much like biological evolution as accepted by the neo-darwinian paradigm: cumulative blind variation followed by the survival of the fittest. Cziko also shows how explanations for these puzzles of fit have evolved in all fields from providential explanations (like in the book of Genesis, where things happened to achieve a pourpose previously devised), through instructionist ones (like Lamarck's "Use and Disuse" plus "Inheritance of Acquired Characters", where the environment would "force" the individual creatures to change just in the right, successful way, and then the creatures would pass these changes on to their offsprings), and finally to selectionist ones (Darwin's Selection Theory). He says that only selectionist explanations can give truly "scientific" and "naturalistic" accounts for these fits, without recoursing to miraculous schemes. In short: Cziko brings us the good news that not only are we merely machines (like we have feared ever since the mechanical physics of Newton), but we are blind ones too!

The starting point of his reasoning is evolutionary biology, and Cziko's understanding of it seems to me too narrow-minded, with a strong bias toward the old notions of New-Darwinism. Consequently, his report and deductions on it are misinformative. Evolution was (and, to a large extent, still is) thought to be based on "variation and survival of the fittest". But in the past the view of the causes of these variations were believed to be basically errors: DNA damage by the environment, and failure of the organism to correct damages or to make precise copies of the DNA. It's been a long time now that this view has changed dramatically, and organisms, even as simple as bacteria, are now known (from before 1990) to possess amazing control over the ways and the contexts in which these variations happen. They can trigger DNA mutation under appropriate conditions (stress, threats to survival), and even control which areas of the genome will be subject to change. This renders organisms much more "smartly" interactive with the environment as might be expected from reading Cziko.

So, what Cziko did not tell about the process of antibody creation by B-Lynphocytes is that when they undergo somatic hypermutation to fine tune their antibody production to the antigen, this hypermutation is, first, triggered by the interaction with the very antigen, and second, it is far from blind: the mutation happens only in a very restricted area of the chromosome, changing only the areas of the antibody molecule that interact with the antigen (and not even the whole molecule!). So this is a very "thematic" kind of mutation-variation; maybe "short-sighted", but surely not "blind"!

When he comments on the phenomenon of "directed mutation", the strange capability of many procarionts (like bacteria) to seemingly direct their mutation to the desired result, he takes a rather cynical and slightly arrogant stand, apparently rejecting the existance of the phenomenon itself, even saying "But let us continue to imagine for a moment that a bacterium was able to change just those genes regulating metabolism in just the right way to allow for the digestion of a foreign sugar". It seems that he read only two research articles on this, and not quite well, and draw much of his attitude towards the phenomenon from his academic-environment prejudiced and uninformed criticism. By the time he was writing his book , directed mutation had been fully demonstrated by many researchers, and not only by Cairns. Actually, even as early as 1984, four years before Cairns revolutionary and controversial paper on it, J.A. Shapiro had already shown the phenomenon fully (Observations on the Formation of Clones Containing araB-lacZ cistrons fusions. Molecular & General Genetics 1984;194(1-2):79-80), only in a much more discreet maner. By 1995, a wealth of information was already available, from researchers like Shapiro and B.G. Hall, among others, and now even eukariotes (yeast) are known to perform "directed mutation" (Hall BG. Adaptive Mutagenesis: a Process that Generates Almost Exclusively Beneficial Mutations. Genetica 1998;102(103):109-125.). Strikingly, this process shows some resemblance to human B-lynphocyte somatic hypermutation!

When Cziko moves on to the other areas, scientific knowledge growth, etc, the already "short-sighted" (and not blind) variation seems to have undergone a surgical operation on its eye and starts to see almost sharply. Also, the second step, that is, the survival of the fittest (in biology, through killing the non-fit) seems to change to a true "selection" process (choosing one among many, by identifying its desirable qualities, which is quite different from "survival of the fittest"). Even Campbell and Pinker, which he defines as fully (or almost) selectionists, seem to turn to rather providential viewpoints, like "innativism" and "constraints", for triggering and orienting the variation, and guiding the selection, not succeding in solving Meno's providential dilema: "...if you don't already possess the knowledge you are looking for, how will you know when you have found it?"

Cziko, like many, wrongly equals "scientific" and "naturalistic" explanations to "mechanical" ones, and since our mechanistic view of nature is basically deterministic, he only sees lamarckism as an instructionist process, not a "freely-willed" one, failing to address vital phenomena like human consciouness and apparent free-will.

A brilliant tour de force.......2001-07-13

We all know about the theory of evolution by natural selection, but what I didn't know was that this idea could be extended to any field in which something new is produced. Cziko brilliantly reviews the application of selection theory (blind variation followed by selection of best fits) to fields as different as neurology, immunology, linguistics, education, pharmacology and artificial intelligence, and presents a strong argument for the claim that innovation in any field can only arise through an application of selection theory. How does our immune system deal with a potentially infinite variety of antigens? Not directly through information contained in the genes, which are quite limited in number. Not through direct copying of the shapes of antigens, since no mechanism allows it to copy an infinite number of potential shapes. Rather, sequential generations of B lymphocytes produce antibodies that fit the antigen better and better, with continual selection of the B lymphocytes that produce the best-fitting antibodies. How do we acquire new knowledge? It is not innate, as Plato claimed. And we don't directly "learn" it from others, except in the sense that a parrot learns. Rather, we are constantly trying to make better and better sense of our perceptions, by building better and better explanations in our minds and rejecting inadequate explanations. Information and instruction received from others are only perceptions to us until we have incorporated them into our own explanatory schemes. So "learning" is actually an active process of explanation-building through trial and error, in other words, a form of blind variation of explanatory schemes and selection of the best ones.

This book is well-written, clear, and immensely "instructive", causing me to modify a number of explanatory schemes in my own mind. I put it alongside the best of Dawkins, Dennett and Wilson. It should have a much wider readership than it apparently has.

Average customer rating:
Without Miracles: Universal Selection Theory and the Second Darwinian Revolution
Gary Cziko
Manufacturer: MIT
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GR74JW

Book Description

This volume accomplishes the unique task of providing the reader with the analytical fundamentals for both single queues and queueing networks while keeping the description simple enough so that the results may be directly used for modeling and analysis. A very wide range of single-queue models has been covered, while networks are analyzed through a very comprehensive set of approximation algorithms ready to apply in modeling. The text was honed through years of research and teaching, and is an excellent tool for engineers and students who wish to apply queueing methods to study the performance of systems.
For the table of contents, solution manual, and sample tests please visit the author's website at http://home.iitk.ac.in/~skb/qbook/qbook.html

Customer Reviews:

A lot of examples and figures! Easy to understand!.......2007-09-15

This book is written in a very clear manner (a lot of figures and exercise problems). The exercise problems in each chapter have the solutions posted in the book website and even exam problems with solutions are provided by the author. Some of articles and references in the site are also very helpful.

An Introduction to Queueing Theory: and Matrix-Analytic Methods

Average customer rating:

It is a good book

An Introduction to Queueing Theory: and Matrix-Analytic Methods
L. Breuer , and Dieter Baum
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Matrix-Geometric Solutions in Stochastic Models: An Algorithmic Approach

ASIN: 1402036302

Book Description

The textbook contains the records of a two-semester course on queueing theory, including an introduction to matrix-analytic methods. The course is directed to last year undergraduate and first year graduate students of applied probability and computer science, who have already completed an introduction to probability theory. Its purpose is to present material that is close enough to concrete queueing models and their applications, while providing a sound mathematical foundation for their analysis. A prominent part of the book will be devoted to matrix-analytic methods. This is a collection of approaches which extend the applicability of Markov renewal methods to queueing theory by introducing a finite number of auxiliary states. For the embedded Markov chains this leads to transition matrices in block form resembling the structure of classical models. Matrix-analytic methods have become quite popular in queueing theory during the last twenty years. The intention to include these in a students' introduction to queueing theory has been the main motivation for the authors to write the present book. Its aim is a presentation of the most important matrix-analytic concepts like phase-type distributions, Markovian arrival processes, the GI/PH/1 and BMAP/G/1 queues as well as QBDs and discrete time approaches.

Customer Reviews:

It is a good book.......2007-02-12

I haven't read the book. However, from its content I know it is a good book. It seems that everyone loves "Fundamentals of Queueing Theory". However, it has too many pages. 464 pages. I can not believe someone can finish it mostly unless he/she uses that book for textbook and has a weekly lecture about this book. Therefore, if you have good mathematical skill and plan to self-study queueing theory, this is the book for you.

Introduction to Stochastic Networks (Stochastic Modelling and Applied Probability)

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Introduction to Stochastic Networks (Stochastic Modelling and Applied Probability)
Richard Serfozo
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387987738

Book Description

In a stochastic network, such as those in computer/telecommunications and manufacturing, discrete units move among a network of stations where they are processed or served. Randomness may occur in the servicing and routing of units, and there may be queueing for services. This book describes several basic stochastic network processes, beginning with Jackson networks and ending with spatial queueing systems in which units, such as cellular phones, move in a space or region where they are served. The focus is on network processes that have tractable (closed-form) expressions for the equilibrium probability distribution of the numbers of units at the stations. These distributions yield network performance parameters such as expectations of throughputs, delays, costs, and travel times. The book is intended for graduate students and researchers in engineering, science and mathematics interested in the basics of stochastic networks that have been developed over the last twenty years. Assuming a graduate course in stochastic processes without measure theory, the emphasis is on multi-dimensional Markov processes. There is also some self-contained material on point processes involving real analysis. The book also contains rather complete introductions to reversible Markov processes, Palm probabilities for stationary systems, Little laws for queueing systems and space-time Poisson processes. This material is used in describing reversible networks, waiting times at stations, travel times and space-time flows in networks. Richard Serfozo received the Ph.D. degree in Industrial Engineering and Management Sciences at Northwestern University in 1969 and is currently Professor of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to that he held positions in the Boeing Company, Syracuse University, and Bell Laboratories. He has held

An Introduction to Queueing Systems (Network and Systems Management)

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An Introduction to Queueing Systems (Network and Systems Management)
Sanjay K. Bose
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OSDOFQ

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In Search of Lost Time: Volume II: Within a Budding Grove
Marcel PROUST
Manufacturer: Random House
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UZTW7W

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