Elements of China: Water, Wood, Fire, Earth, Gold

Book Description

China's astonishing transformation from a centrally planned to a market economy was one of the most remarkable stories of the twentieth century. It has set the stage for what many see as a period of unparalleled future growth. During this spell of delicate and risk-fraught economic transition, one defining figure stands out as the true driving force - Zhu Rongji.

A remarkable visionary, Zhu has consistently refused to follow the conventional wisdom of established economics. Instead, he has developed a unique approach for a unique situation. Author Laurence Brahm tells the inside story of Zhu's rise to power, the political obstacles that he has overcome and the policies that he has engineered to set China on a new path. While other developing countries such as Russia, have floundered badly, China continues to excite the world with its phenomenal growth. Brahm skillfully argues that Zhu's policies of managed marketization deserve international recognition as a new economic model for both developing and transitional economies.

In Zhu Rongji and the Transformation of Modern China, Laurence Brahm provides a fascinating inside account of the man dubbed an "economic czar" by many western commentators. This is the untold story of Zhu and his strategies, and the key events that have shaped China into a modern nation and economic powerhouse.

Customer Reviews:

Lawrence Brahm Mixed Review.......2002-06-05

I am nearly finished reading Zhu Rongji & the Transformation of Modern China and must say I have mixed reactions. The book is interesting for its chronology of the major events and milestones in China's recent history leading up to entry into WTO. The book provides a lot of interesting Chinese for my crib notes to use in meetings with Chinese party and private officials in Beijing and Shanghai -- which is a testament of the author's knowledge of the terrain and people. I do not recall any critical reference of Zhu or Zhu policy so I must conclude that to a certain extent Mr Brahm's writing is not unbiased and written with dual - self serving purpose. There is also little documentation and no formal references listed anywhere.

Average customer rating:

Excellent

response

A must have for Americans that care about America

lousy logic

A Must Have Book in your Truck or Car!

How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism
Roger Simmermaker
Manufacturer: Rivercross Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Research | Marketing | Marketing & Sales | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
Consumer Guides | Reference | Subjects | Books
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How Americans Can Buy American

A Year Without "Made in China": One Family's True Life Adventure in the Global Economy

Exporting America: Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas

America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It

ASIN: 1581410964

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2007-09-14

This is a wonderful book. I had no idea of how many companies that I thought were American were actually owned by other countries. This is must reading for every American Patriot. I take it with me when I go shopping, especially to the grocery store.

response.......2004-07-15

ok all of you who swear by this book. you need to quit using these too

Champagne - France
Scotch - Scotland
VODKA - Russia
and stop buying CDs of U2 - Irish, Beatles - UK
stop Yoga .blah blah

A must have for Americans that care about America.......2004-07-07

Great book! The person who wrote the previous review must be communist or have the last name Clinton!

lousy logic.......2004-07-05

reflects the feeling of insecurity of competing with world-class products.
consumer patriotism ?? huh its not a solution. can every invention every product be american ? the SONY walkman for instance.
why should it matter to me if anything i buy is made or not made by my country ?
all i am bothered is if the stuff gives me value-for-money irrespective of its orgin.
why should i pay for a worse deal ? just to reward and encourage inefficiency ?

A Must Have Book in your Truck or Car!.......2004-06-09

Roger Simmermaker gives us all the data we need to buying American owned, American made products that keep the dollar circulating in America! He also explains how our country has changed and the problems that are cropping up in every community when we buy foreign products from foreign companies.

The book is easy to read and a perfect reference when you go shopping. I bought books for both sides of our family and we use them every time we shop. Finally, someone has put together information that gives us the power to make changes in this great country.

Book Description

From aspects of early trials to complex modeling problems, Advances in Clinical Trial Biostatistics summarizes current methodologies used in the design and analysis of clinical trials. Its chapters, contributed by internationally renowned methodologists experienced in clinical trials, address topics that include Bayesian methods for phase I clinical trials, adaptive two-stage clinical trials, and the design and analysis of cluster randomization trials, trials with multiple endpoints, and therapeutic equivalence trials. Other discussions explore Bayesian reporting, methods incorporating compliance in treatment evaluation, and statistical issues emerging from clinical trials in HIV infection.

Advances in Biometric Person Authentication: International Workshop on Biometric Recognition Systems, IWBRS 2005, Beijing, China, October 22 23, 2005, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Average customer rating:

Advances in Biometric Person Authentication: International Workshop on Biometric Recognition Systems, IWBRS 2005, Beijing, China, October 22 23, 2005, Proceedings (Lecture Notes in Computer Science)

Manufacturer: Springer
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Systems Analysis & Design | Computer Science | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Programming | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

General | Computers & Internet | Subjects | Books

All Amazon Upgrade | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Amazon Upgrade | Stores | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Computers & Internet | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 3540294317

Book Description

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the International Workshop on Biometric Recognition Systems, IWBRS 2005, held in Beijing, China in October 2005 within the scope of ICCV 2005, the International Conference on Computer Vision. This workshop combines the annual Chinese Conference on Biometric Recognition (Sinobiometrics 2005).

The 32 revised full papers were carefully reviewed and selected from 130 submissions. The papers address the problems of automatic and reliable authentication of individuals in face, iris, fingerprint, palmprint, speaker, writing and other biometrics, and contribute new ideas to research and development of reliable and practical solutions for biometric authentication.

Advances in Biometry (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics)

Average customer rating:

survey of important results over 50 years

Advances in Biometry (Wiley Series in Probability and Statistics)

Manufacturer: Wiley-Interscience
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

Biostatistics | Research | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Thirty leading international figures celebrate 50 years of achievement in biometry

Over the past half-century, biometry has grown from a fledgling application of statistics to a vital and dynamic field that is relevant to some of the most important, substantive scientific and social issues that face us today. Statistical methodology has played a central role in the interpretation of experimental data in such dissimilar areas of biological and medical research as genetics, toxicology, neurology, and clinical trials. It has been applied in both the study and the solution of practical problems in the areas of public health, forestry, animal habitats, environmental contamination, and many more. In this book, 30 leading researchersâmany of whom have made outstanding contributions to our understanding of the living worldâdiscuss their specific branches of the subject and reflect on the exciting interaction of mathematics, statistics, and biology that has characterized the growth of biometry.

Beginning with a brief history of the International Biometric Society and its journal Biometrics on the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the book goes on to offer a series of views on important developments in the field from two main perspectives: branches of statistical methodology that have played a central role in biometric applications, and branches of biology and medicine that have benefited from these applications. Selected topics are developed in depth, typically with a glance toward the future, and the book is extensively referenced throughout.

Advances in Biometry is fascinating reading for students and researchers in applied statistics and mathematics, the biological and medical sciences, public health, and the environmental sciences.

Customer Reviews:

survey of important results over 50 years.......2000-07-15

This volume was edited by two world renown statisticians who have made major contributions to Biometry. It is a collection of 21 articles surveying statistical methods that were developed over the past 50 year and have had an impact on the science of biology (biometrics). The volume was proposed by Lynn Billard in 1996 to celebrate the 50th aniverary of the International Biometrics Society (IBS)and their journal Biometrics. Interesting accounts of the history of the society and the journal can be found in the first paper by Billard (then the President of the IBS)and the second paper by James. The third paper by Bradley and Anderson deals with an historical account of the contributions of the society and the journal to experimental design. Dagnelie provides an historical account of the teaching of biometry. The remaining papers are more technical and deal with special topics, all written by experts. Searle and McCulloch discuss the developments over the 50 year period 1945 to 1995 in linear models. Imrey, Koch and Preisser look at categorical data modeling. C. R. Rao talks about Hierarchical Bayesian procedures. Efron and Tibshirani discuss computer-intensive methods. Gower discusses multivariate analysis and multidimensional scaling. Anderson and Keiding cover survival analysis. Nelder covers statistical computing advances and the use of computer-intensive methods, graphics, computer algebra and expert systems and their impact on biostatistics. Patil covers ecology and environmental methods. Freeman and Riley discuss agriculture and forestry. Thomson deal with the latest hot topic - genetics. Breslow covers epidemiology and Dietz talks about infectious disease epidemology. Ware and Liang cover another important topic - longitudal studies. Diggle covers spatial data analysis. Glasbey and Berman review image analysis. The articles are well written and scholarly and most are great reference articles for historical developments up to 1996. This is a rapidly evolving and important field. Many statistician including me, have moved into biostatistics from other fields and now work in the medical device or pharmaceutical industry. To us, this in an invaluable reference source.

Book Description

The ability to conduct measurements on living organisms and systems has developed at a momentous rate concurrent with changes in technology over recent years. Measurement plays a vital role in developing our understanding of biological processes and in furthering our ability to understand and then treat illnesses and injuries. However, in conducting measurements on living organisms the information we collect comes in many different guises, is variable and the measurand is often unstable. Understanding these complexities is fundamental to biological and biomedical measurement. This concise encyclopedia therefore contains more than a comprehensive survey of the measurement systems. It includes also descriptions of the biological systems and subsystems so that the way in which decisions are made on measurement for a given application can be understood more easily. The encyclopedia contains specially commissioned articles and updated and revised articles from the acclaimed Systems & Control Encyclopedia. A vast array of disciplines are covered in this concise, comprehensive single volume, which will be a vital reference tool for practitioners in the area, measurement experts moving into the biological and biomedical field and beginners needing to understand methods of measurement and the complexities of the measurand.

Book Description

This book will cover the fundamental principles of measuring oceans from space, but will contain state-of-the-art developments in data analysis and interpretation and in sensors. Completely new will be material covering advances in oceanography that have grown out of remote sensing, including some of the global applications of the data. The variety of applications of remotely sensed data to ocean science has grown significantly and new areas of science are emerging to exploit the gobal datasets being recovered by satellites, particularly in relation to climate and climate change, basin-scale, air-sea interaction processes (e.g. El Niño) and the modelling, forecasting and prediction of the ocean.

Book Description

This textbook deals with the physics and chemistry of energy resources, bringing together material having to do with a wide range of resources - coal gas, oil, hydropower, and nuclear. After a brief introduction to the concepts of force, work, and energy the book discusses energy resources: specifically, the worldwide reserves of fossil fuels, the uses to which these fuels are put, and the conversion of fuels into other forms - such as the conversion of coal to gas or liquid fuels. This is followed by discussions of electric power and of nuclear, solar, geothermal and other methods for generating electricity. The discussion then turns to the uses of energy in agriculture, transportation and so forth, and the pollution that accompanies these uses. The book concludes with discussions of energy conservation and projections of energy supplies for the future. Intended for a general-education course in natural sciences, it will also be useful for teachers of science in high schools. The presentation assumes no prior knowledge of physics or chemistry, but it includes the necessary background information where needed.

Customer Reviews:

I get this feeling..........2006-08-21

that this author was either funded by or worked for the fossil fuel industry. I'll get to that after I go over what I liked about the book.

There is a lot of information about the spectrum of energy production in the US. The topics include (I'll just list the chapter titles)

1. Energy Concepts, Forms, Laws
2. Petroleum
3. Natural Gas
4. Coal
5. Gaseous and Liquid Fuels from Coal
6. Fuels from Oil Shale, Tar Sands, Biomass, Waste
7. Fossil Fuel Reserves Versus Consumption
8. Electric Power
9. Nuclear Energy
10. Solar Energy
11. Other Sources of Energy for Electric Power Generation
12. Energy Storage
13. Energy Use in Agriculture
14. Energy Use in Transportation
15. Pollution of the Atmosphere from Energy Use
16. Energy Conservation
17. Energy Supply for the Future

What I really enjoyed were the numbers that were given. Those make the time I spent reading this book worth it, but I wouldn't pay for this book. That is, I would be happy to get this book out from the library (again), but I would not spend any money to look at this book.

Now to why I think this book is tainted...

The first red flag was, keeping in mind that this book was full of statistics, that there is no mention of fossil fuel subsidies! (2006 subsidies were about $15 billion... that's a HUGE number to ignore!) Next, the book basically says global warming is a complete fluke, and then goes on to only focus on the Northern Hemisphere (ie, not GLOBAL warming); I would have thought that someone who specialized in energy would not have been ignorant on global warming in 1999. Lastly, some of the analysis seemed very much off and biased... here's an example...

"[2000-pound-class vehicle] are very unsafe on highways where most vehicles are much heavier... It would be difficult, even impossible, for the elected legislators to impose such a weight reduction against the wishes of their constituents. Furthermore, from safety considerations, informed legislators would not impose such safety hazards on their constituents." -page 346

The above quotation essentially summarizes what he says on the topic repeatedly in the book -- that people who are concerned about safety should drive large vehicles and those that don't are just asking to get hurt. There are a few problems with Wiser's analysis. First off, isn't there a government concern about those people in the small cars? Second, in his scenario he ignores the fact that vehicle weight would be lower, meaning it would be safer for smaller vehicles (and not substantially more dangerous for the larger ones in the accident). Third, he NEVER mentions the rollover dangers of large vehicles, which was a major concern at the time of the book's writing.

This repitition of the dangers of small cars and negligence in not mentioning the issues above is ludicrous. Wiser takes a very irresponsible perspective on this topic.

If it was just one topic when Wiser aired on the side of the fossil fuel industry or just 50% of the time, I would not be questioning the spirit of the book. However, it seemed whenever there was an opportunity for Wiser to comment, it was either neutral or in favor of the fossil fuel industry. Even when a comment seemed unwelcome, Wiser was there with (occasionally negligent) commentary. Also, don't be fooled by the conservation chapter -- it was pretty much worthless relative to most websites on energy conservation.

On top of this, the book is outdated. "Cost competitive" of the year 1999 means nothing to today's high energy prices, both oil and electricity, meaning a lot of the cost comparison in this book are useless.

Basically, this book is, at best, outdated, and, at worst, corrupted. Look elsewhere unless you can get your hands on this book for free (and even then, be warned about the apparent bias).

This review was written on August 20th, 2006.

Customer Reviews:

What life was really like for one Southern woman.......1998-02-16

Magnolia LeGuin was a woman struggling to deal with daily life as it was post-bellum. This includes frequent childbirths, servant problems, and few if any modern conveniences. Yet it is also a testiment to the power of love between a husband and wife and a mother and her children. I found it far superior to many of the women's diaries put out for publication these days and would recommend it highly. -Marianna

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