The definitive self-teaching guide to learning mathematics--now fully up-to-date. Unlike other math books that make your start at page one and work your way up to the technique you need, this unique guide steers you right to your topic of interest, fully explains it within its own context, and then shows you how to use it with real-world examples.

The unique jump-in-anywhere format and conversational tone of Stan Gibilisco's and Norman Crowhurst's Mastering Technical Mathematics makes this book--now thoroughly updated--a must for just about any technical professional. It's also the perfect instruction manual for independent students who want to structure their own learning.

With this one-of-a-kind, case study-filled guide to all kinds of math used in technical fields, you can--find the technique you need quickly, along with easy-to-understand examples showing how it's used; skip from topic to topic in any order, and learn in your own style at your own pace; master technical math painlessly with this guide's easy-going style and example-packed format; discover new applications in logic, digital systems, and numbering systems; test yourself with quiz questions in each chapter (and complete worked-out solutions). If you work in a field where math comes with the territory, don't miss the guide that puts a multitude of math solutions right at your fingertips: Mastering Technical Mathematics, Second Edition.

About the Author

Stan Gibilisco is a professional technical writer who specializes in books on electronics and science topics. He is the author of The Encyclopedia of Electronics, The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Personal Computing, and The Illustrated Dictionary of Electronics, as well as over 20 other technical books. His published works have won numerous awards. The Encyclopedia of Electronics was chosen a "Best Reference Book of the 1980s" by the American Library Association, which also named his McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Personal Computing a "Best Reference of 1996."

This training kit is designed for server administrators who have two to three years of experience managing Windows servers and infrastructure in an environment that typically supports 250 to 5,000 or more users in three or more physical locations and has three or more domain controllers. You will likely be responsible for supporting network services and resources such as messaging, database servers, file and print servers, a proxy server, a firewall, Internet connectivity, an intranet, remote access, and client computers. You will also be responsible for implementing connectivity requirements such as connecting branch offices and individual users in remote locations to the corporate network and connecting corporate networks to the Internet.

By using this training kit, you will learn how to do the following:

■ Plan and implement Windows Server 2008 server deployment
■ Plan and implement Windows Server 2008 server management
■ Monitor, maintain, and optimize servers
■ Plan application and data provisioning
■ Plan and implement high-availability strategies and ensure business continuity

75,000 COPIES SOLD!

Is that home or condominium apartment you plan on buying a true bargain or an overpriced “handyman’s special”? Here’s how to find out!

No other book on the market increases your chances more of getting your money’s worth when buying a home than The Complete Book of Home Inspection. If you want to find out exactly what’s behind, beneath, above, and around the home you’re thinking of making an offer on, this is just what the inspector ordered. And if you’re thinking of selling your home, here’s the perfect way to accurately evaluate its condition prior to setting a price.

This comprehensive instruction manual covers every aspect of exterior, interior, and electromechanical home inspection and is basic enough for a layperson and detailed enough to be a working on-site tool for professional home inspectors.

Revealing techniques and methods used by experienced home inspectors, this heavily illustrated reference details how to evaluate the condition of a home or condominium apartment – inside and out. Precise step-by-step procedures enable you to inspect a home as though accompanied by an inspector with many years’ experience.

Written by a professional home inspector, The Complete Book of Home Inspection is packed with photos, graphs, dozens of checklists, and worksheets and valuable chapter summaries.

If you want to avoid costly mistakes and headaches down the road, don’t even think of making an offer on a house without reading this book first!

NEW TO THIS EDITION:
* A new chapter on swimming pools
* An added section on exterior walls discussing problems with synthetic stucco (EIFS)
* New material added to the environmental concerns chapter on molds and associated problems
* Most chapters and sections have been extensively updated and expanded

The Complete Book of Home Inspection, Third Edition:
* Includes professional inspection worksheets with checklists in every chapter
* Fully illustrated (over 150 photos and drawings)
* All the information homeowner's need to maintain their house
* Content based on the author's 30 years' experience as a home inspector
* New material that updates chapters, including synthetic stucco (EIFS), mold, termite bait systems, sagging plaster ceilings, truss uplift cracks, and much more, plus a new chapter on swimming pools.

About the Author

Norman Becker, P.E., a nationally known authority on the subject of home inspection, has more than 30 years’ experience in home and building inspection, and is one of the founders of the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). He has been qualified in court as an expert witness on the subject of home inspection. He also writes the widely read “Homeowners Clinic” column for Popular Mechanics magazine. Mr. Becker holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in mechanical engineering and is a licensed professional engineer in New York, New Jersey, and Florida.

Quickly Master AutoCAD 2009 Essentials

The new edition of this hands-on guide helps users of all skill levels learn the basics of AutoCAD 2009 and AutoCAD LT® 2009 easily and efficiently. Bestselling AutoCAD author and expert George Omura offers clear explanations, a task-based approach, and pages of real-world examples and exercises to make this thorough book more valuable and useful than ever. Whether you're new to AutoCAD or just looking for a quick refresher, you'll find the fast, focused introduction to AutoCAD you need to get quickly up to speed.

• Explore the all-new interface in AutoCAD 2009 and AutoCAD LT 2009

• Navigate the new Ribbon panel to access the tools you need

• Master the basics of drawing and editing with precision

• Add and edit notes and dimensions

• Learn the fundamentals of 2D drawings and 3D models

• Understand layers, blocks, groups, and external references

• Find areas and distances quickly

• Easily extract hidden data

George Omura is the all-time bestselling AutoCAD author and was cited as the favorite CAD author by members of the Autodesk User Group International (AUGI) in AUGIWorld magazine's "Best of Everything CAD" issue.

About the Author

George Omura is a licensed architect, Autodesk Authorized Author, and CAD specialist with more than 20 years of experience in AutoCAD and over 30 years of experience in architecture. He has worked on design projects ranging from resort hotels to metropolitan transit systems to the San Francisco Library project. George has written numerous other AutoCAD books for Sybex, including Introducing AutoCAD 2008, Mastering AutoCAD 2008 and AutoCAD LT 2008, and Just Enough AutoCAD 2007.

An eminent futures trader explores crucial factors in the markets that most experts overlook--time, volume and open interest--and describes little-known indicators to profitably track them. Covers all the popular technical approaches to futures, options and stock markets including Elliott Wave, oscillators, moving averages, Market Logic, point-and-figure charting. Explains why most traders sabotage themselves and how to avoid doing the same.

You have just taken a big step away from the crowd of amateurs. By opening Trading for a Living, you’ve resolved to become a successful trader. Dr. Alexander Elder is a professional trader, a world-class expert in technical analysis, and a practicing psychiatrist. He believes that successful trading is based on three M’s: Mind, Method, and Money. First, you will see that the key to winning is inside your Mind. You will find out how to develop discipline and how to avoid the traps of emotional trading. Second, you will learn how to find good trades by using charts, computerized indicators, and other tools. You will discover how to combine several analytic Methods into a powerful trading system. Finally, you will learn how to manage Money in your trading account. The rules for limiting risks are as vital to a trader as a safety net is to a high-wire walker. With this book, you are on your way to mastering a new way of trading stocks, futures, currencies, and options. Dr. Alexander Elder helps you embark on an intense pursuit—trading for a living.

About the Author

ALEXANDER ELDER, MD, was born in Leningrad and grew up in Estonia where he entered medical school at the age of 16. At 23, while working as a ship’s doctor, he escaped from a Soviet ship in Africa and received political asylum in the U.S.A. He continued to work as a psychiatrist in New York City, served as book editor of The Psychiatric Times, and taught at Columbia University. After becoming involved in financial trading, Dr. Elder published over 50 articles, software, and book reviews, and spoke at many conferences. In 1988 he founded Financial Trading Seminars, Inc., an educational firm for traders.

Finally, a research handbook focused on the field of experiential education!....The handbook is a great starting place for anyone in the field of work-based learning. It can provide a good orientation to what we already know about this kind of experiential learning, can raise questions about what we have not yet considered, and provides guidance and examples that enable us to discover what and how our students are learning out there in the world.'

—National Society for Experiential Education

This Handbook is designed to help cooperative education and internship professionals and employers design, carry out, and disseminate quality research and evaluation studies of work-based education. It offers examples of current, leading-edge studies about work-based education, but with a practical twist: The chapter authors frame their studies within a specific key research design issue, including finding a starting point and a theoretical framework; fitting research into one's busy practitioner workload; deciding on particular data-gathering methods and an overall methodological approach; integrating qualitative and quantitative methodologies; and disseminating results. Also addressed are questions and concerns that are relevant throughout the course of a research project: the use of theory in research; the role and relationship of program assessment to research; and ethical considerations in research.

By combining descriptions of exemplary research and evaluation studies with practical advice from top researchers in the field, this volume is a useful tool for educators and employers who are designing and carrying out their own studies, as well as a resource for what current research is discovering and affirming about the field itself. Educators from other fields, such as study abroad and service-learning will also find this book an indispensable reference in conducting research on experiential learning and teaching.

"Part of the publishers series of International handbooks on information systems, this is a great fat book which does indeed concentrate on the technical side rather than on pedagogy. its concern is the design and implementation of hardware/software systems (including networks) for educational and training contexts. Its more than forty chapters each describe relevant research and practice and close with invaluable reference lists; the book itself has a fairly lengthy and detailed index also invaluable." (British Journal of Education Technology, Vol. 33 (3), 2002)

The handbook's goal is to enable the reader to gain a deep understanding of past, current and future research and applications in the field of educational technology. The reader will gain an in-depth understanding of complex theories, strategies, concepts, and methods relating to the design, development, implementation, and evaluation of educational technologies. Because it combines both the present experience in the field and the vision of its emerging directions, the handbook will be a comprehensive guide for researchers and practitioners working with educational technologies. All the chapters of the second edition are newly written, the handbook therefore presents the latest developments in the field.

Video Coding with Superimposed Motion-Compensated Signals: Applications to H.264 and Beyond captures recent advances in motion compensation for efficient video compression. This book investigates linearly combined motion compensated signals, and generalizes the well known superposition for bidirectional prediction in B-pictures. The number of superimposed signals and the reference picture selection are important aspects of discussion.
The application oriented part of the book employs the concept to ITU-T Recommendation H.263, and continues with the improvements by superimposed motion-compensated signals for the EMERGING STANDARDS ITU-T Recommendation H.264 & ISO/IEC MPEG-4 part 10. In addition, Video Coding with Superimposed Motion-Compensated Signals: Applications to H.264 and Beyond discusses a new approach for wavelet-based video coding. This technology is currently being investigated by MPEG, to develop a new video compression standard for the mid-term future.

The theoretical part of Video Coding with Superimposed Motion-Compensated Signals: Applications to H.264 and Beyond provides a deeper understanding of the underlying principles of superimposed motion-compensated signals. This book incorporates more than 200 references, summarizes relevant prior work, and develops a mathematical characterization of superimposed motion-compensated signals. The derived information-theoretic performance bounds permit a valuable comparison of the investigated compression schemes.
Video Coding with Superimposed Motion-Compensated Signals: Applications to H.264 and Beyond is designed for a professional audience composed of researchers and practitioners in industry. This book is also suitable as a secondary text for graduate-level students in computer science and engineering.

Networked control systems (NCS) consist of sensors, actuators and controllers the operations of which may be distributed over geographically disparate locations and co-ordinated by the exchange of information passed over a communication network. The communication network may be physically wired or not. The widespread applications of the Internet have been a major driving force for research and development of NCS. NCS have advantages in terms of cost reduction, system diagnosis and flexibility, minimizing wiring and making the addition and replacement of individual elements relatively simple; efficient data sharing makes taking globally intelligent control decisions easier with an NCS.

The applications of NCS are very wide, from the large scale of factory automation and plant monitoring to the smaller but complicated networks of computers in modern cars, places and autonomous robots.

Networked Control Systems presents the most recent results in stability and robustness analysis as well as new developments related to networked fuzzy and optimal control. Many of the chapters contain details of case-studies, experimental, simulation and/or other application-related work showing how the theories put forward can be implemented in real systems.

The state-of-the art research reported in this volume by an international team of contributors will make Networked Control Systems an essential reference for researchers and postgraduate students in control, electrical, computer and mechanical engineering and computer science.