Sisters

Average customer rating:

Excellent, until a too sudden, too sugarcoated ending!

Sisters

Too Fluffy too perfect !!!

Should have been a short story - not a novel

Disappointing

Sisters
Danielle Steel
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
Sisters | Women's Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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H.R.H. H.R.H.

Bungalow 2

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I Heard That Song Before: A Novel

ASIN: 0385340222
Release Date: 2007-02-13

Book Description

Four sisters, a Manhattan brownstone, and a tumultuous year of loss and courage are at the heart of Danielle Steel’s new novel about a remarkable family, a stunning tragedy—and what happens when four very different young women come together under one very lively roof.

Candy–it’s the only name she needs—is blazing her way through Paris, New York, and Tokyo as fashion’s latest international supermodel. . . .

Her sister Tammy has a job producing the most successful hit show on TV, and a home she loves in L.A.’s Hollywood Hills. . . . In New York, oldest sister Sabrina is an ambitious young lawyer, while Annie is an American artist in Florence, living for her art. . . . On one Fourth of July weekend, as they do every year, the four sisters come home to Connecticut for their family’s annual gathering. But before the holiday is over, tragedy strikes and their world is utterly changed.

Suddenly, four sisters who have been fervently pursuing success and their own lives—on opposite sides of the world—reunite to share one New York brownstone, to support each other and their father, and to pick up the pieces while one sister struggles to heal her shattered body and soul. Thus begins an unscripted chapter of their lives, as a bustling house is soon filled with eccentric dogs, laughter, tears, friends, men . . . and the kind of honesty and unconditional love only sisters can provide. But as the four women settle in, they are forced to confront the direction of their respective lives. As the year passes and another July Fourth approaches, a season of grief and change gives way to new beginnings—as a family comes together to share its blessings and a future filled with surprises and, ultimately, hope.

With unerring insight and compassion, Danielle Steel tells a compelling story of four sisters who love and laugh, struggle and triumph . . . and are irrevocably woven into the fabric of each other’s lives. Brilliantly blending humor and heartbreak, she delivers a powerful message about the fragility–and the wonder—of life.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent, until a too sudden, too sugarcoated ending!.......2007-09-14

In Danielle Steel's latest novel "Sisters", the story starts out with the usual trademark fairytale quality.

Four sisters with highly successful and interesting careers, are scattered around the world; New York, Los Angeles, Paris and Florence. Hardly your average bunch of ordinary lives.

But that's the beginning. The surface. The setting. Until tragedy strikes and man's vulnerability cuts through whatever glamourous lifestyles the sisters may seemingly enjoy.

Life is turned upside down. Reality is as unexpected, harsh and as far from a fairytale as can be. The best part of the book describes the developments straight forward, honest and with much warmth and insight.

That a happy ending awaits, is Danielle Steel's trademark. However, the way tragedy all too quickly literary turns into happiness is a bit too easy to give the story balance. The pieces of the puzzle fall into place so fast and conveniently for all the family members that the situation is hard to fathom even for the most soft-hearted.

Tragedies ARE overcome but usually it takes time and hardship to build up a new future.

This book could actually have been longer. A more natural development of the situation and not the lightening quick wrapping up of loose ends during the last fifty pages or so, would have given the story more credibility.

Happy solutions are nice, but the turning of events in "Sisters" is simply too sweet and sudden even for a fairytale.

Sisters.......2007-09-06

I really enjoyed this book and couldn't put it down. Being one of three sisters I could definatly understand the sisters.

Too Fluffy too perfect !!!.......2007-08-28

Although I did enjoy this book, I found the characters too perfect. The relationships between the sisters seemed too false. All the sisters were beautiful, with great jobs, and would do anything for each other, and they hardly ever had a fight, blah, blah,blah. Most sisters do not get to live like the girls in this fluffy type fairytale.

Should have been a short story - not a novel.......2007-08-20

I have not read DS in many years and now I remember why. This book repeated the same ideas and even the same phrases so often it was annoying. She could have written this book in just a few pages and not missed anything important. I anticipated the predictable story ie. tragedy, depression, find a man fall in love, live happily every after. The rape story seemed thrown in and was all wrapped up too quickly to add anything interesting to the story.

Disappointing.......2007-08-18

The plot was good and could have been written in a much better style. The details were repeated over and over so many times. It looked like it was written in a great hurry.

Regression Methods in Biostatistics: Linear, Logistic, Survival, and Repeated Measures Models (Statistics for Biology and Health)

Average customer rating:

very good book, compact but comprehensive
Excellent book ...

Regression Methods in Biostatistics: Linear, Logistic, Survival, and Repeated Measures Models (Statistics for Biology and Health)
Eric Vittinghoff , David V. Glidden , Stephen C. Shiboski , and Charles E. McCulloch
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387202757

Book Description

This new book provides a unified, in-depth, readable introduction to the multipredictor regression methods most widely used in biostatistics: linear models for continuous outcomes, logistic models for binary outcomes, the Cox model for right-censored survival times, repeated-measures models for longitudinal and hierarchical outcomes, and generalized linear models for counts and other outcomes.

Treating these topics together takes advantage of all they have in common. The authors point out the many-shared elements in the methods they present for selecting, estimating, checking, and interpreting each of these models. They also show that these regression methods deal with confounding, mediation, and interaction of causal effects in essentially the same way.

The examples, analyzed using Stata, are drawn from the biomedical context but generalize to other areas of application. While a first course in statistics is assumed, a chapter reviewing basic statistical methods is included. Some advanced topics are covered but the presentation remains intuitive. A brief introduction to regression analysis of complex surveys and notes for further reading are provided. For many students and researchers learning to use these methods, this one book may be all they need to conduct and interpret multipredictor regression analyses.

The authors are on the faculty in the Division of Biostatistics, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, University of California, San Francisco, and are authors or co-authors of more than 200 methodological as well as applied papers in the biological and biomedical sciences. The senior author, Charles E. McCulloch, is head of the Division and author of Generalized Linear Mixed Models (2003), Generalized, Linear, and Mixed Models (2000), and Variance Components (1992).

From the reviews:

"This book provides a unified introduction to the regression methods listed in the title...The methods are well illustrated by data drawn from medical studies...A real strength of this book is the careful discussion of issues common to all of the multipredictor methods covered." Journal of Biopharmaceutical Statistics, 2005

"This book is not just for biostatisticians. It is, in fact, a very good, and relatively nonmathematical, overview of multipredictor regression models. Although the examples are biologically oriented, they are generally easy to understand and follow...I heartily recommend the book" Technometrics, February 2006

"Overall, the text provides an overview of regression methods that is particularly strong in its breadth of coverage and emphasis on insight in place of mathematical detail. As intended, this well-unified approach should appeal to students who learn conceptually and verbally." Journal of the American Statistical Association, March 2006

Customer Reviews:

very good book, compact but comprehensive.......2007-05-12

This book covers a wide range of topics in Biostatistics, in a comprehensive, but not overwhelming way. In my opinion this book has the potential of being useful to a broad audience, from Statisticians to other professionals who do health related research.

Excellent book ..........2007-01-09

A very specific book, with a lot of details for a statistitian

Reclaiming the Great Commission: A Practical Model for Transforming Denominations and Congregations

Average customer rating:

THE place to start the discussion about mainline renewal
Church as mission outpost
Must Read
Building the church of Christ or building a denomination?
Every Church Vision Should Model This Book

Reclaiming the Great Commission: A Practical Model for Transforming Denominations and Congregations
Bishop Claude Payne , and Hamilton Beazley
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 0787952680

Book Description

Reclaiming the Great Commission describes a biblically based model that can restore the missionary power of first-century Christianity to twenty-first century denominations and their congregations. Based on shared vision and mission, the model can guide the members of any congregation or denomination into deeper and broader evangelism, an enhanced experience of community, and a renewed hope of personal and spiritual transformation.

Customer Reviews:

THE place to start the discussion about mainline renewal.......2005-10-24

In the last fifteen years or so there have been a zillion books written about mainline renewal. Most of them were written by consultants like Lyle Schaller or academics like Will Willimon. Most of them show a lack of real world concreteness. Payne and Beazley provide an cure for that problem

They take the changes made in the ministry of the most hidebound, change resistant group in the Protestant world-the Episcopal Church-and show what they did in Texas. They deal with real world problems and real world solutions. They call the organizational structure of the church to again become responsive to the needs of local churches and communities and work to accomplish the ministry of the church instead of perpetuate the structure at any cost. The one particular tool they developed that caught my eye was Team 1000 a plan to raise $1 million yearly for church development. Also important was the reminder that some churches we start will never be self supporting, but we as a church have an obligation to support them because the ministry is the right thing to do. Further it shows how important it is to have a leader who is willing to expend his/her leadership capital to accomplish what needs to be done

I highly recomend this book for anyone who has an interest in structural reorganization of denominations, or for those who have given up on the possibility of reform within their own judicatory bodies.

Church as mission outpost.......2005-08-19

This is a literate description of how the Anglican Church in Texas turned several hundred Churches into successful mission outposts. Well-written and helpful for the would-be mission Church.

Must Read.......2003-06-03

In a time of "Church Growth" gurus, books, and workshops - it is very refreshing to have a book that doesn't focus on bells and whistles and technological ways to manipulate, but calls the church back to the mission given by Christ - to go into the world with the transformative Christian faith. If only those of us in mainline denominations would be willing to lift our eyes off of agendas, useless meetings and other distactions and consider "Reclaiming the Great Commission." Mission, not maintenance, is the call of this book, bringing the focus of the church on God, people, and relationships. Shared vision founded in Biblical faith is the key for the local congregation and the larger church. I recommend this to pastors, priests, lay leaders, bishops, and all who are interested in sharing the Gospel.

Building the church of Christ or building a denomination?.......2003-05-04

The author says the present generation church can be like the first generation church, but how can that be? The first church had 'the same' gospel, there was only 'one denomination' at that time and they were simply called Christians. There was no need for denominations in the early church because disciples all believed 'exactly the same things'. To say the present church can be like the first is to not understand the first.

The teachings in this book merely show how to run a successful corporation for that is was this present generation of many churches has become.

Every Church Vision Should Model This Book.......2001-10-22

Our church is using this book as a model for its vision for the year 2001. Our Daughters of the King prayer group is using this book as its study for the coming year.

An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits (Chapman & Hall/Crc Mathematical and Computational Biology Series)

Average customer rating:

Clear, rigorous, fascinating
Building Mathematical Models of Cells
Great Job

An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits (Chapman & Hall/Crc Mathematical and Computational Biology Series)
Uri Alon
Manufacturer: Chapman & Hall/CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Biotechnology | Biological Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 1584886420

Book Description

Thorough and accessible, this book presents the design principles of biological systems, and highlights the recurring circuit elements that make up biological networks. It provides a simple mathematical framework which can be used to understand and even design biological circuits. The text avoids specialist terms, focusing instead on several well-studied biological systems that concisely demonstrate key principles. An Introduction to Systems Biology: Design Principles of Biological Circuits builds a solid foundation for the intuitive understanding of general principles. It encourages the reader to ask why a system is designed in a particular way and then proceeds to answer with simplified models.

Customer Reviews:

Clear, rigorous, fascinating.......2007-01-20

I'm a Ph.D. student in biophysics. This is the best treatment of systems biology that I've encountered. It treats both the math and the biology with clarity, rigor, and respect. It simplifies without dumbing down. It's beautifully written. If you doubt that systems biology is a real scientific discipline, this book will change your mind.

Building Mathematical Models of Cells.......2006-09-25

The history of science over the past few centuries is to become ever more specialized. The physicists, becomming ever more concerned with the very large (stars, galaxies, the cosmos) or the very tiny (first atoms, then atomic components, now sub-components. The biologists on the other hand were studying much larger things, such as the cells that make up life. Both sciences developed techniques to facilitate their study.

In recent years, researchers have discovered that sometimes these specialized techniques can be used to develop greater insight into what is happening in other sciences.

In this book, Dr. Alon uses his training in physics to examine certain aspects of biology and to use the terminology and mathematics to describe the way these biological networks work.

The goal of the book is to begin the formulation of general laws that apply to biological networks. This is done by providing a mathematical framework in which some of the design principles of biological systems can help to understand biological networks. In looking at the results, an underlying simplicity not seen before appears in biological systems.

Great Job.......2006-09-09

A superb intro to the field. The math is moderate and helpful. Network concepts and their ties to examples and theory are clearly and succinctly presented. This is a textbook but reads easily like a book. Covers key elements while connecting them by at least mention to up-to-date further research. The basics and the grandeur of systems biology. I am trying to remember now anything on the negative side and cannot.

Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time

Average customer rating:

Lead Like Jesus to become a Level 5 Leader
Lead Like Jesus
Lead Like Jesus by Blanchard
Excellent
Uses spiritual lessons to seek integrity and commitment in a leadership role

Lead Like Jesus: Lessons from the Greatest Leadership Role Model of All Time
Ken Blanchard
Manufacturer: Thomas Nelson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Leadership | Management & Leadership | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Christianity | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books

General | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0849918723

Book Description

"The more I read the Bible, the more evident it becomes that everything I have ever taught or written about effective leadership over the past 25 years, Jesus did to perfection. He is simply the greatest leadership role model of all time." Ken Blanchard

With simple yet profound principles from the life of Jesus, and dozens of stories and leadership examples from his life experiences, veteran author, speaker and leadership expert Ken Blanchard guides readers through the process of discovering how to lead like Jesus. He describes it as the process of aligning two internal domains-the heart and the head-and two external domains, the hands and the habits. These four dimensions of leadership form the outline for this very practical and transformational book.

Customer Reviews:

Lead Like Jesus to become a Level 5 Leader.......2007-08-02

Excellent book. One of my "a-ha!" moments was realizing that Jesus is a Level 5 Leader. In Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, Jim Collins explains that companies making the leap from good to great had Level 5 leaders in key positions, including the CEO, at the time of transition. He describes a Level 5 leader as a paradox of someone having great personal humility and professional will, having more ambition for the company/team than for themselves, and someone having an unwaivering resolve to do whatever must be done no matter how difficult.

A CEO describing herself as one with big ambition, ego, and drive asked Jim if you can learn to become a Level 5 Leader. He said that the data did not point to anything specific, so those aspiring to reach Level 5 should focus on the other discovered disciplines of becoming a good to great company.

I find Lead Like Jesus answers the question. Among other things it is a wonderful manual for becoming a Level 5 Leader.

Lead Like Jesus.......2007-07-09

This is a great guide for leaders of all forms. Definitely makes you take a closer look at the way you lead and the way you live. As I work to follow the ideas in this book, I find that I am a happier supervisor.

Lead Like Jesus by Blanchard.......2006-07-22

The author defines leadership as influence in a positive or negative direction. Given this definition, Jesus was the greatest
leader of all time. He was firmly grounded in the Rabinical
Judaism of the time. With this background, He took the fledging
Christian community on a Transformational Journey culminating in
His own crucifixion and a fantastic earthquake conincidental with
the Death and Resurrection. The author reminds us that the
ultimate leader serves the community first and not himself/herself.

Leadership comes from a variety of personal sources. i.e.
- the heart is the center of the leadership thrust
- the head formulates strategies and movement forward
- the hands relate to crafting specific actions
- the habits relate to consistency/predictability of actions

Blanchard presents the contrast between the serving leader
and the self-serving leader. The serving leader actively
engages in acts on behalf of the community while the self-serving
leader benefits himself mainly. In providing service, the serving
leader implements specific plans to move the community forward.
This was done very skillfully by Christ in His own time.

Excellent.......2006-06-29

If you want to get a clear prespective on how to relate and treat others and desire personal growth this is the book.

Uses spiritual lessons to seek integrity and commitment in a leadership role.......2006-05-23

If author Ken Blanchard's name rings a bell, it's because he authored the famous ONE MINUTE MANAGER, which became a big hit in business circles and taught everyone the basics about leadership principles. He's back with a new focus, LEAD LIKE JESUS: LESSONS FROM THE GREATEST LEADERSHIP ROLE MODEL OF ALL TIME, and here uses spiritual lessons to seek integrity and commitment in a leadership role. From business to personal life, Blanchard and Hodges focus on four key areas and how they can lend to exceptional leadership, presenting another powerhouse of detail for any who would be exceptional whether at work or at home.

Diane C. Donovan, Editor
California Bookwatch

Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life

Average customer rating:

An engrossing read - highly recommended
Excellent and Approachable Survey
The Marriage of Mathematics and Evolution
A dazzling book
wonderful life

Evolutionary Dynamics: Exploring the Equations of Life
Martin A. Nowak
Manufacturer: Belknap Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0674023382

Book Description

At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations.Evolutionary Dynamics is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem.

Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner's Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system--and everything that arises as a consequence of living systems--in terms of evolutionary dynamics.

Customer Reviews:

An engrossing read - highly recommended.......2007-09-05

This is a wonderful book by a master of the field. Prof. Nowak, who teaches at Harvard, has managed a minor miracle: writing a book on mathematical biology that is mathematically rigorous and extremely readable at the same time.

The book is divided into two broad sections. The first nine chapters explore various abstract models of evolution. Simple models of evolution do not demonstrate cooperation between individuals, while examples of it abound in the real world. This fact quite rightly fascinates the author and informs his presentation. The last four chapters of the book use some of the modeling techniques developed in previous chapters to study real-world systems, such as HIV infection and cancer.

This book is highly recommended for anyone interested in the mathematical aspects of biology. More broadly, it will be of interest to anyone who's interested in mathematical models of complex systems.

Excellent and Approachable Survey.......2007-05-23

This book is an accessible introduction to the mathematics of evolution and results in the field of evolutionary dynamics with a heavy emphasis on applications including the immune system, virulence, AIDS, and even the evolution of language. Many of the ideas are from fairly recent papers and results in mathematical biology, particularly the sections regarding the evolution of universal grammar and in the emerging field of evolutionary graph theory, which adds population structure to the mathematical analysis. (This is a now necessary generalization of evolutionary game theory, which assumes uniform population structure.) As noted above, this is the first book to present many of these ideas outside of scientific and mathematical journals.

Although the mathematical content is significant, Nowak diligently explains the implications of the mathematics in the text of the book, widening the potential audience of the book dramatically. Simply put, this book is filled with delicious evolutionary content, backed up with mathematical rigor for the interested reader, but you need not have a degree in mathematics in order to understand much of the material.

Highly recommended for those truly interested in evolution.

The Marriage of Mathematics and Evolution.......2007-01-10

Excellent book for the mathematically and evolutionarily minded. However, not for general reading unless you are doing graduate work in either mathematics or evolutionary biology. Just excellent survey.

A dazzling book.......2006-11-22

This is, quite simply, a dazzling book. Nowak manages to take very deep mathematical ideas that are on the cutting edge of science and make them fun and pretty rigorous at the same time. The review in Nature said "It should be on the shelf of anyone who has, or thinks they might have, an interest in theoretical biology" and I completely agree. The section on HIV, explaining mathematically why there is a long delay between infection and the disease, and how this proposal in 1990 correctly predicted several biolgical facts which were subseqently discovered (but not mentioning execpt in the notes, that this was his work) is truly exceptional. We are moving beyond the "Just So stories" phase of evolution (such as wooly rhetoric about "Selfish Genes") to real, mathematically rigorous, science.

wonderful life.......2006-10-13

This is a remarkable book, absolutely original, containing a lot of material which has never before appeared in book form. It is written in a very accessible style, and leads almost effortlessly from first principles to state-of-the-art research.

The book takes an eagle's view on evolution, covering an vast range of topics from molecules to man. It emphasises analytical methods and presents a large canvas of superbly elegant mathematical models.

The author has chosen a very personal, highly idiosyncratic sample of subjects of amazing diversity, basically because he feels excited about them: and this excitement shows through, and makes the book very engaging, a positively bracing experience. On all of the topics, the author has contributed substantially, and the feel to get it `straight from the horse's mouth' is one of the great assets of the book. I believe that it will be a splendid hit with students, and regret that I did not have anything like that when I was young.

The style of the book is lucid and vigorous, with short, clear sentences, occasionally in staccato style. The mathematics is reduced to the bare minimum. It is incredible how much mileage the author can get out of it. The illustrations play an important role, and are well devised.

The chapters are short, and they address an amazing array of topics, ranging from molecular evolution to evolutionary games, from HIV to cancer, and from cooperation to language. In spite of their different subjects, they are homogenous: first comes a breezy introduction to the biological (or chemical, or linguistic) facts, then a simple model, then an analysis, without heavy machinery, usually leading up to some remarkable results which could not be obtained without mathematics, then a summary in a few short statements and finally an extensive list of references, including both the classics and the very newest results in the field. The fact that in each case, a few pages suffice to start from scratch and lead to the cutting edge of present-day research is quite remarkable.

The book will certainly have a big impact, and raise a lot of follow-up work. There is hardly a better recipe for young PhDs than to pick one of the chapters and start doing their own research. But in addition, `the whole is more than the sum of its parts'. I usually hate this slogan but here it holds in a spectacular way. By simply putting together the different applications of simple models in so spectacularly diverse fields, Nowak's book promotes a radical `hands-on'-approach to evolution which, I am sure, will have seminal repercussions.

Analysis and Management of Animal Populations

Average customer rating:

Didn't have book, Issued VERY fast refund
Good reference book

Analysis and Management of Animal Populations
Byron K. Williams , James D. Nichols , and Michael J. Conroy
Manufacturer: Academic Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0127544062

Book Description

Analysis and Management of Animal Populations deals with the processes involved in making informed decisions about the management of animal populations. It covers the modeling of population responses to management actions, the estimation of quantities needed in the modeling effort, and the application of these estimates and models to the development of sound management decisions. The book synthesizes and integrates in a single volume the methods associated with these themes, as they apply to ecological assessment and conservation of animal populations.

Key Features
*Integrates population modeling, parameter estimation and decision-theoretic approaches to management in a single, cohesive framework
* Provides authoritative, state-of-the-art descriptions of quantitative approaches to modeling, estimation and decision-making
* Emphasizes the role of mathematical modeling in the conduct of science and management
* Utilizes a unifying biological context, consistent mathematical notation, and numerous biological examples

Customer Reviews:

Didn't have book, Issued VERY fast refund.......2005-09-23

They didn't have the book even though it was posted. However they issued a very promt refund without any problems.

Good reference book.......2003-04-03

This book provides a good summary of methods and techniques that are available for wildlife studies. It is a good starting point for graduate students and researchers who would like to get a broad overview, but for more details on particular types of analysis, other resources are needed. For someone who has never been exposed to population biology, the expansive breadth of the book may be somewhat overwhelming.

Model Selection and Multi-Model Inference

Average customer rating:

Model Selection and Multi-Model Inference
Good, but far too prolix
One of the best introduction to AIC (Akaike's Information Criterion)!!!
authoritative and thorough treatment

Model Selection and Multi-Model Inference
Kenneth P. Burnham , and David Anderson
Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0387953647

Book Description

The second edition of this book is unique in that it focuses on methods for making formal statistical inference from all the models in an a priori set (Multi-Model Inference). A philosophy is presented for model-based data analysis and a general strategy outlined for the analysis of empirical data. The book invites increased attention on a priori science hypotheses and modeling. Kullback-Leibler Information represents a fundamental quantity in science and is Hirotugu Akaike's basis for model selection. The maximized log-likelihood function can be bias-corrected as an estimator of expected, relative Kullback-Leibler information. This leads to Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC) and various extensions. These methods are relatively simple and easy to use in practice, but based on deep statistical theory. The information theoretic approaches provide a unified and rigorous theory, an extension of likelihood theory, an important application of information theory, and are objective and practical to employ across a very wide class of empirical problems. The book presents several new ways to incorporate model selection uncertainty into parameter estimates and estimates of precision. An array of challenging examples is given to illustrate various technical issues. This is an applied book written primarily for biologists and statisticians wanting to make inferences from multiple models and is suitable as a graduate text or as a reference for professional analysts.

Customer Reviews:

Model Selection and Multi-Model Inference .......2007-03-09

Those interested in mark-recapture models definitely should have this extraordinary book.
Very complete and easy to read

Good, but far too prolix.......2005-08-24

I admire this book very much for its accessible treatment of AIC, but if were reduced in length by half, it would be twice as good. The authors cannot resist repeating themselves, usually several times, especially when giving advice of the "motherhood and apple pie" variety. Another annoying feature is that many references are given for philosophical points, yet sometimes when a useful result is given without proof, no reference is provided. For example, on page 12 an expression for maximized likelihood is given without a derivation or a reference. Inside this fat book there is a thin book crying to be let out.

One of the best introduction to AIC (Akaike's Information Criterion)!!!.......2005-08-18

AIC is one of the widely known methods in model selection and inference.
This book includes not only a basic use but also advanced issues of the information-theoretic approach.
Using this book, you will learn the application of AIC soon!

authoritative and thorough treatment.......2000-12-18

Burnham and Anderson have put together a scholarly account of the developments in model selection techniques from the information theoretic viewpoint. This is an important practical subject. As computer algorithms become more and more available for fitting models and data mining and exploratory analysis become more popular and used more by novices, problems with overfitting models will again raise their ugly heads. This has been an issue for statisticians for decades. But the problems and the art of model selection has not been commonly covered in elementary courses on statistics and regression. George Box puts proper emphasis on the iterative nature of model selection and the importance of applying the principle of parismony in many of his books. Classic texts on regression like Draper and Smith point out the pitfalls of goodness of ift measures like R-square and explain Mallows Cp and adjusted R-square. There are now also a few good books devoted to model selection including the book by McQuarrie and Tsai (that I recently reviewed for Amazon) and the Chapman and Hall monograph by A. J. Miller.

Burnham and Anderson address all these issues and provide the best coverage to date on bootstrap and cross-validation approaches. They also are careful in their historical account and in putting together some coherence to the scattered literature. They are thorough in their references to the literature. Their theme is the information theoretic measures based on the Kullback-Liebler distance measure. The breakthrough in this theory came from Akaike in the 1970s and improvements and refinement came later. The authors provide the theory, but more importantly, they provide many real examples to illustrate the problems and show how the methods work.

They also refer to the recent work in Bayesian methods. Chapter 1 is a great introduction that everyone should read. Being a fan of the bootstrap I was interested in their coverage of it in chapters 4, 5 and 6 (much of which is the authors' own work).

Because the authors work in biological fields they cover survival models as well as the standard time series and regression models where most of the emphasis has been placed on model selection in the past.

Book Description

This book provides the first clear, comprehensive, and accessible account of complex adaptive social systems, by two of the field's leading authorities. Such systems--whether political parties, stock markets, or ant colonies--present some of the most intriguing theoretical and practical challenges confronting the social sciences. Engagingly written, and balancing technical detail with intuitive explanations, Complex Adaptive Systems focuses on the key tools and ideas that have emerged in the field since the mid-1990s, as well as the techniques needed to investigate such systems. It provides a detailed introduction to concepts such as emergence, self-organized criticality, automata, networks, diversity, adaptation, and feedback. It also demonstrates how complex adaptive systems can be explored using methods ranging from mathematics to computational models of adaptive agents.

John Miller and Scott Page show how to combine ideas from economics, political science, biology, physics, and computer science to illuminate topics in organization, adaptation, decentralization, and robustness. They also demonstrate how the usual extremes used in modeling can be fruitfully transcended.

Customer Reviews:

Annie Wu -- Book #1.......2007-08-10

I am a purchasing agent who buys books for my faculty, and as far as I know, this faculty member is very impressed with this particular book.

The Emergence of Convergence .......2007-08-04

At the time of writing this review, this book isn't searchable through Amazon, that's too bad because if you're reading the reviews wondering if it's worth buying, just browsing through any page from the intro or appendix B would clearly resolve any remnant hesitation. This book is a must have for anyone even remotely interested in complex adaptive systems. Scott Page and John Miller dress the landscape and state of the art of computational social science, the issues are motivated from the ground up and the existing approaches to resolve them explicitly detailed, yet using clear and jargon free language. For example, descriptions of the many concepts repeatedly used in the scientific method (of CAS et al) such as ergodicity or optimization theory are refreshing and insightful, simply stuff you don't get from textbooks, but rather that one would learn over years of experience doing.

In summary, the authors are handing us an expert summary of literature and developments of a complex field in a concise, fun and delightful read, it would be a shame to miss it.

Average customer rating:

Wonderful story
More self-absorbed than interesting
Good read aloud
For an afternoon on the sun porch...
A bit of a disappointment

Grayson
Lynne Cox
Manufacturer: Knopf
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0307264548
Release Date: 2006-08-01

Book Description

Grayson is Lynne Cox’s first book since Swimming to Antarctica (“Riveting”—Sports Illustrated; “Pitch-perfect”—Outside). In it she tells the story of a miraculous ocean encounter that happened to her when she was seventeen and in training for a big swim (she had already swum the English Channel, twice, and the Catalina Channel).

It was the dark of early morning; Lynne was in 55-degree water as smooth as black ice, two hundred yards offshore, outside the wave break. She was swimming her last half-mile back to the pier before heading home for breakfast when she became aware that something was swimming with her. The ocean was charged with energy as if a squall was moving in; thousands of baby anchovy darted through the water like lit sparklers, trying to evade something larger. Whatever it was, it felt large enough to be a white shark coursing beneath her body.

It wasn’t a shark. It became clear that it was a baby gray whale—following alongside Lynne for a mile or so. Lynne had been swimming for more than an hour; she needed to get out of the water to rest, but she realized that if she did, the young calf would follow her onto shore and die from collapsed lungs.

The baby whale—eighteen feet long!—was migrating on a three-month trek to its feeding grounds in the Bering Sea, an eight-thousand-mile journey. It would have to be carried on its mother’s back for much of that distance, and was dependent on its mother’s milk for food—baby whales drink up to fifty gallons of milk a day. If Lynne didn’t find the mother whale, the baby would suffer from dehydration and starve to death.

Something so enormous—the mother whale was fifty feet long—suddenly seemed very small in the vast Pacific Ocean. How could Lynne possibly find her?

This is the story—part mystery, part magical tale—of what happened . . .

Customer Reviews:

Wonderful story.......2007-09-28

This is a great story, I love the book and have given it to many friends

More self-absorbed than interesting.......2007-08-30

From the black, inky black, so very black ocean at the start to her misunderstanding of gray whales and sonar at the end, Grayson romps along but never quite gets there. I found myself repeatedly flipping to the author biography on the jacket flap, wondering how on earth Lynne Cox ever got published in The New Yorker...and how she could have apparently spent so much time in the ocean without learning very much about its inhabitants.

From the reviews, I was prepared to read about a singular connection between a human being and a gray whale made one lonely morning...instead I found a self-absorbed "true" story about a young woman's encounter with a young whale that wandered off course for several hours, then met up with its mother again. Despite Lynne's self-proclaimed connection with the ocean, she doesn't even realize the young whale is swimming near her until pointed out by her friend on the pier. And then suddenly she feels she is the one totally responsible for the whale, even swimming insanely out to an oil derrick offshore to stay with Grayson. Although she places herself front and center, this event involved many people, including dockside workers, lifeguard patrols, fishing boats, and even the ship Queen Mary. This comes as a slight shock to the reader, as her emphasis on the singularity of her swim with the whale initially has us believing the book is about her interaction with the whale, rather than a multi-pronged rescue effort. It would have read better as a simple narration of what happened, instead of her projections of what the whales were thinking, complete with dopey imaginings of telepathic whale-human connection.

I think there is a nice little story in here somewhere, but Lynne Cox desperately needs better editing, and would have done better to have written it as "based on a true story", which would have allowed the plethora of animal description and interaction without causing readers familiar with marine fauna to suffer from eyeroll strain.

Good read aloud.......2007-08-20

Because of the music of the prose here and the subject matter, this is a great little book to read aloud to kids. It's a charming little story, with a bit of oceanography thrown in.

For an afternoon on the sun porch..........2007-07-31

Greyson is a tale by Lynne Cox in which she has a close encounter with a large ocean dweller. Having taken place in her teens, this story is her "coming of age" in a few short hours. This book probably won't change your life, but it might just shift your perspective a little - and that is a good thing.

A bit of a disappointment.......2007-05-22

This book was a bit of a disappointment for me. I was hoping for a story about a whale, but got the reminicenses (sp) of a woman remembering...well, herself rather than the whale. She prattles on about her open-minded thinking and brash individualism. Whatever. I wanted to hear about the whale and the ocean. I suppose this could be taken as a motivational speech; but, again, I was hoping the whale would take center stage. I also wish she had written this as a younger woman so that we might have experienced some of her wonder and awe (at the creature -- not herself).

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