Record Keeping in the Computer Age

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Reliability Engineering and System Safety, published by Elsevier in 2007. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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The paper suggests a modification of the generalized reliability block diagram (RBD) method for evaluating reliability and performance indices of multi-state systems with uncovered failures. Such systems (or their subsystems) can fail to perform their task in the case of undetected failure of any one of their elements. Examples of this effect can be found in computing systems, electrical power distribution networks, pipe lines carrying dangerous materials etc. The suggested method based on a universal generating function technique allows performance distribution of complex multi-state series-parallel system with uncovered failures to be obtained using a straightforward recursive procedure. Illustrative examples are presented.

Use of oscillograph records for analyzing system performance

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Use of oscillograph records for analyzing system performance
John R Boyle
Manufacturer: s.n
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007AXAP0

Book Description

We don't need to poison the earth in order to grow better food, and what is harmful to the environment when improperly disposed of often can be turned back to the soil in a beneficial way through composting — if you know how. Here's how. Malcolm Beck's Garden-Ville is one of the largest commercial composting operations in the country. He shares his insight into the processes of decay that can transform everything from lawn trimmings to sewer sludge into life-giving earth. Coupled with Beck's insight into nature and practical advice are remarks from Charles Walters, author, founder of Acres U.S.A.

Book Description

This volume is the eighth of a series of biennial Beam Instrumentation Workshop Proceedings. It addresses design principles and engineering issues of beam diagnostic and control instrumentation for charged-particle accelerators and for beam transportation lines. This workshop forum promotes the exchange and review of new ideas in instrumentation design. Tutorial sessions introduce relevant topics for engineers and scientists. This proceedings volume includes the tutorial presentations, invited papers, contributed papers, and posters. The Workshop was organized by a committee consisting of 14 members from US accelerator-based laboratories and 2 members of CERN.

Book Description

Of related interest…Radiochemistry and Nuclear Methods of Analysis William D. Ehmann and Diane Vance Here is a concise review of the state of the art in radio chemistry and nuclear methods of analysis. It provides a thorough look at the fundamentals of radiochemistry as well as the specific applications of nuclear techniques to analytical chemistry. There is also considerable coverage of the current nuclear methods of analysis such as neutron activation PIXE, nuclear reaction analysis, Rutherford backscattering, isotope dilution, and more. This comprehensive reference would form an excellent basic text for upper-division undergraduate or graduate courses in this critical field. 1991 (0 471-60076-8) 552 pp. Analytical Raman Spectroscopy Edited by Jeanette G. Grasselli and Bernard J. Bulkin Analytical Raman Spectroscopy charts, through a series of contributed articles, the spectacular versatility of the method and its applications in semiconductor characterization, synthetic organic polymer analysis, organic and petrochemical analysis, heterogeneous catalysts, and biological studies. Chapters feature an outline structure which systematically details the critical aspects of each subject discussed. The book provides a unique look at the field's fundamental operational techniques, instrumentation, and up-to-the-minute advances: components of modern Raman spectrometers; Raman spectroscopy of inorganic species in solution; quantitative analysis by Raman spectroscopy; and much more. 1991 (0 471-51955-3) 480 pp. Principles and Practice of Spectroscopic Calibration Howard Mark Clearly linking theory with applications, this unique guide to spectroscopic calibration advances an approach that is understandable, free of the usual uncertainties, and simple to execute. The book details the practical aspects of generating a calibration equation, as well as the basics of recognizing and dealing with different types of problems affecting calibration. Most of the procedures are applicable to such sophisticated and popular approaches as Principal Component Calibration (PCA), Partial Least Squares Calibration (PLS), and Fourier Transform Calibration. 1991 (0 471-54614-3) 208 pp.

Activation Spectrometry in Chemical Analysis (Chemical Analysis: A Series of Monographs on Analytical Chemistry and Its Applications)

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Activation Spectrometry in Chemical Analysis (Chemical Analysis: A Series of Monographs on Analytical Chemistry and Its Applications)
Susan J. Parry
Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000DPMO6

Book Description

This book presents a modern and self-contained treatment of the Liapunov method for stability analysis, in the framework of mathematical nonlinear control theory. A Particular focus is on the problem of the existence of Liapunov functions (converse Liapunov theorems) and their regularity, whose interest is especially motivated by applications to automatic control. Many recent results in this area have been collected and presented in a systematic way. Some of them are given in extended, unified versions and with new, simpler proofs. In the 2 ^nd edition of this successful book several new sections were added and old sections have been improved, e.g., about the Zubovs method, Liapunov functions for discontinuous systems and cascaded systems. Many new examples, explanations and figures were added making this book accessible and well readable for engineers as well as mathematicians.

Customer Reviews:

Super Book.......2002-12-17

Bacciotti and Rosier have managed to present a nonformal, yet rigorous and well-organized introduction to nonlinear stabilization and controllability. They have definetly captured the most important research trends in the area and have managed to cover a wide range of topics with appropriate deepness. My only suggestion would be to add a list of symbols to the book and to discuss Chow's Theorem and the accessibility rank condition. Thanks for a great book!

Book Description

The extraordinary story of Sir Percy Sykes and his unique role in preserving British interests in Persia between the 1890s and World War I—offering a valuable insight into Iran today and its edgy relations with the outside world.

Customer Reviews:

A perfect character study of the Great Gamer Sir Percy Sykes and an indispensable introduction to modern Iran.......2007-04-22

Persia was interested in the Great Game as one of the possible routes to India for the Russians and for this reason became the object of England's important presence in this area. The political situation of Iran today finds it roots in the confilctive relationships between Britain and Russia during the Victorian Age and the early Nineteenth Century.

Sir Percy Sykes was one of the principal englishmen that influenced the permanence of the English in Persia and due to his remarkable caracter is still rememberd there today.

Antony Wynn draws abbundantly from Sir Percy's, his sister Ella's and his wife Evelyn's diaries, official documents and correspondance to bring back to life this rocky and slightly megalomaniac server of his country. From training in the cavalry in India, to the extensive explorations of Kashmir, Ladakh, Turkmenistan and the whole Persian territory, Sykes' career is followed to the founding of the Kerman consulate and after that the permanence in Meshed, where he probably really influenced the insucess of the Russian attempt to annex the North of Persia.
After WWI Russia and Britain became allies and the services of Sykes became very important. Eventhough a diplomat and not a military he founded and commanded the South Persia Rifles that became the first modern Persian army. In contrast to the Central Governement he managed to check the influence of the Germans and check the tribal disorders mustered up by Wassmuss and defeated the raiding tribes of the South ensuring the safety of commerce.
After the war, Lord Curzon showed no sympathy for this knowledgable but difficult to treat military/diplomat, and practically determined his retirement. Sir Percy however had many arrows to his bow and through conferences, articles, books and public apprearances managed to support his vast family.

Antont Wynn writes with detail and is never boring. Historical biographies gain much when contextualization is attempted. In this aspect I found the book a little defective even if the bibliography and the recalls to other sources is satisfying. The photographs add flavour to the reading helping to visualize the caracters.

This book is an indispensable read for the understanding of how the Iranian opinion of the West has formed and is still ongoing. The description of the basis of the economical and political relationships between England and Iran are still part of our current situation.

Customer Reviews:

A masterpiece........2005-11-23

I can do no better than to quote what Annie Dillard, in Harper's magazine, wrote about this book:

"It takes the form of a spiritual journey 'towards penance and redemption,' a journey through all the fabulous and fiery cruelties of history that purge the spirit's basest dross and purify it to gold. On the page it is a dazzling series of disparate chunks. These are the 'notes from the bottle' written in increasingly apocalyptic haste by the poem's speaker, or 'note-taker...'

"The tone is merciless and meticulous; the alien landscapes are spare. ...

"I cannot begin to suggest the intricate tensions of the poem's complexity. After you read it once, you can get lost on any page."

After an equally glowing review of Connell's Points for a Compass, she writes:

"These poems are masterpieces. You could bend a lifetime of energy to their study, and have lived well. The fabric of their meaning is seamless, inexhaustible. ... their language is steely and bladelike; from both of its surfaces flickering lights gleam. Each page sheds insight on every other page; understanding snaps back and forth, tacking like a sloop up the long fjord of mystery."

Haunting..........2004-12-22

Connell chooses to start his Notes with an excerpt from Euripedes:

"There be many shapes of mystery,
And many things God makes to be,
Past hope or fear.
And the end men looked for
Cometh not,
And a path is there where no man sought.
So hath it fallen here."

It is difficult to describe the merits of this book. It is strange and wonderful and so unlike anything else I've read. It does become less convoluted, however , if you also read his book The Aztec Treasure House. A lot of the background information is made explanatory in that book.

Here are the recurring motifs in the book...if you like them, then buy this book.

"Things that remain and are not diminished by time
are whichever live in men's hearts or have fallen
or have been thrown into the sea."

"To think deeply right now would terrify me."

"Each life is a myth, a song given out
of darkness, a tale for children, the legend we create.
Are we not heroes, each of us
in one fashion or another,
wandering through mysterious labyrinths?"

from beginning to end.......1999-03-28

this book held me captive from begining to end. The first page he describes the death of his brother, pulled apart while chained to horses, sort of a medievel torture. The rest of the book follows his search for his brother, in a sort of "wandering mind", best described as rantings. (I am not a poetry critic nor will I ever pretend to be, so forgive the short descriptions)

This is the first book of poetry I ever picked up since reading Homer and I am stuck now, looking for something or some author that can match the magnitude of how wonderful this one was.

It reads as though you have entered his mind for this fascinating trip through a bit of lunacy and mind wandering. If you like th strange and surreal, you will love this one!

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Annoying memoir of drinking

Post - it in a Bottle

Misleading title

Just plain bad

So Light That It Floats Away

Note Found in a Bottle (Wsp Readers Club)
Susan Cheever
Manufacturer: Washington Square Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Authors | Arts & Literature | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
General | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Special Needs | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Women | Specific Groups | Biographies & Memoirs | Subjects | Books
Alcoholism | Recovery | Health, Mind & Body | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0671040731

Amazon.com

"My grandmother Cheever taught me how to embroider, how to say the Lord's Prayer, and how to make a perfect dry martini."

Alcoholism seems to have been a family tradition among the Cheevers. The posthumous publication of pater John Cheever's journals revealed both his fondness for the bottle and his bisexuality; daughter Susan has gone her father one better, publishing a memoir of promiscuity and drunkenness while still alive. In Note in a Bottle, she leaves little to the imagination as she chronicles her career, her many sexual escapades and, of course, her drinking. A typical passage goes something like this:

Warren knows San Francisco so well it's like being in his own house to be there with him. He took me to a bar with wooden booths. We ate delicious chowder and drank white wine. He drank vodka and grapefruit; it was lunchtime but I could see he had just gotten up. I wondered who he had been in bed with. I drank more white wine.... "I still love you," he said, and he kissed me. I was late for dinner with Calvin.

The early sections of Cheever's memoir, in which she describes the culture of drinking in the '50s and '60s, are quite interesting; the problem is (to rewrite Tolstoy), all unhappy drunks are the same. Once Cheever shifts her focus to her own personal catalog of cocktails and dysfunctional affairs, she becomes interchangeable with any number of other alcoholics who have trod that slippery slope before her. And as the details of her various messy marriages or affairs (or both) with Robert, with Calvin, with Warren, et. al pile up, one finds oneself wishing for a little less history and a little more mystery. Still, Note in a Bottle contains some astute observation delivered in Susan Cheever's appealingly ironic prose style and some interesting insights into the rarified world of the literati that she inhabits. --Margaret Prior

Book Description

Born into a world ruled and defined by the cocktail hour, in which the solution to any problem could be found in a dry martini or another glass of wine, Susan Cheever led a life both charmed and damned. She and her father, the celebrated writer John Cheever, were deeply affected and troubled by alcohol. Addressing for the first time the profound effects that alcohol had on her life, in shaping of her relationships with men and in influencing her as a writer, Susan Cheever delivers an elegant memoir of clear-eyed candor and unsettling immediacy. She tells of her childhood obsession with the niceties of cocktails and all that they implied -- sociability, sophistication, status; of college days spent drinking beer and cheap wine; of her three failed marriages, in which alcohol was the inescapable component, of a way of life that brought her perilously close to the edge. At once devastating and inspiring, Note Found in a Bottle offers a startlingly intimate portrait of the alcoholic's life -- and of the corageous journey to recovery.

Customer Reviews:

Annoying memoir of drinking.......2005-04-30

You know when you're in AA meetings and there's that person who just blah-blah-blahs aimlessly about herself and everyone else is bored? That's fine for an AA meeting--it's important for us to process out loud in that forum--but it's not fine for a memoir. It's not that there is no value in this book, in the way that hearing other alcoholics' stories has value...but where is the craft? What is Cheever saying that someone else hasn't said better? This writer would never have been a writer if not for her famous name. Or, maybe if she hadn't had the famous name to fall back on, she might have actually developed her craft. As memoirs of drinking lives go, skip this one and try Augsten Burroughs' DRY or Caroline Knapp's wonderful DRINKING: A LOVE STORY.

Post - it in a Bottle.......2004-02-28

Though "Note" is neither deep or introspective, it was easy to read with occasional excellent lines. My favorite (which made the whole book worth it for me) was "It's not that I had a miserable childhood -- I didn't -- it's that I was a miserable child."

The memoir is interesting in its very ordinariness: except for her father's fame which gave her access to more wealthy and famous people, her life, her affairs, her alcoholism and her recovery were unremarkable.

Though I enjoyed this book, it was more like an after-school special on the dangers of alcohol (you will forget things, have big fights, and sleep with many men) than an illustration of alcoholism or even the life of Susan Cheever. She admits some things, such as God, and apparently her feelings about her father, are "too private" to explain. Perhaps so, but then why write a memoir?

Misleading title.......2000-06-06

In reviewing a book, one must have a basis from which to start. In considering Cheever's book, I cannot fathom where to start a conclusive review because the entire title of the novel is completely misleading. My intent in reading this autobiography was to learn more about an alcoholic firsthand, in her own words. Unfortunately, there was very little substantial material written about alcoholism, its effects, repercussions, etc. In fact, had that title been different I would have probably enjoyed this bland book about a woman's life tinged with alcohol, among many other things which were given just as much attention in the book. Therefor I find it useless to judge this book because it is based on so many vacant concepts.

Just plain bad.......2000-06-03

The autobiographical drinking story has been done many times before, so the subject matter here is nothing new.

What's so striking different about this book is that there is almost no self-reflection. It's just a compilation of what Susan Cheever drank, the places Susan Cheever drank, the men Susan Cheeer screwed while she was drunk. We'd get much the same result of Susan had gone to Kitty Kelley and asked "Will you write a shallow, vapid account of my life?"

Note Found In a Bottle is self-absored and boringly so. I imagine what keeps Susan awake at night is that most people have found this account of her drinking years Not Very Interesting. She earnestly wants the reader to believe her life was glamourous, but in fact it's just an average drunk story.

I guess there are worse ways to spend (money) than to throw it away on this book....but not many.

So Light That It Floats Away.......2000-06-02

At one point in her recent memoir 'Note Found In A Bottle', Susan Cheever tells us that looking back on her life she almost feels as though it had happened to someone else. I find that very easy to believe, because this comes off as an amatuerish biography by a not-so-close aquaintance. Reading this book, I felt as though Cheever were fast-forwarding through a poorly made movie of her life. She has clearly been through a lot and has experienced enough to write something formidable, but instead she rushes through her life stopping only to drop the occasional name. What is truly amazing to me is the lack of introspection on Cheever's part. Once in a while she attempts to analyze her past, but the attempts are shallow. Simply put, she was unable to get close enough to her own life to allow me to empathize.

It is very difficult to review a memoir, because in the end you are not only reviewing an individual's work, you are reviewing the individual. That being said, I don't think I would have enjoyed having Susan Cheever as a friend. While she seems to have made some vague connection between her past problems and her drinking, she often writes as though she were patting herself on the back for her cool friends and hip lifestyle. Now she pats herself on the back for outgrowing her desire for a drink. If only she had spent more time thinking and less time revelling in the hype she has created for herself, this could have been a book worth reading.

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The twelve million dollar note: Strange but true tales of messages found in seagoing bottles
Robert Kraske
Manufacturer: T. Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Exploration & Discovery | History & Historical Fiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
General | Reference & Nonfiction | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0840765754

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Note Found In a Bottle
Susan Cheever
Manufacturer: SIMON AND SCHUSTER
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OKPDJ4

Average customer rating:
Note Found in a Bottle
Susan CHEEVER
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UZQQ76

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Note Found in a Bottle, My Life as a Drinker
Susan Cheever
Manufacturer: Simon and Schuster
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MHM2WK

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Notes From a Bottle Found on the Beach at Carmel
Evan S. CONNELL
Manufacturer: Viking
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000ILI6L6

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Notes from a Bottle Found on the Beach At Carmel
E.S. Connell
Manufacturer: VINTAGE
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000OLLJ64

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Notes from a bottle found on the beach at Carmel
Evan S. Connell
Manufacturer: Vintage
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NXZ806

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NOTES FROM A BOTTLE FOUND ON THE BEACH AT CARMEL.

Manufacturer: Heinemann
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000CM45L

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