Book Description
From the Internet to networks of friendship, disease transmission, and even terrorism, the concept--and the reality--of networks has come to pervade modern society. But what exactly is a network? What different types of networks are there? Why are they interesting, and what can they tell us? In recent years, scientists from a range of fields--including mathematics, physics, computer science, sociology, and biology--have been pursuing these questions and building a new "science of networks." This book brings together for the first time a set of seminal articles representing research from across these disciplines. It is an ideal sourcebook for the key research in this fast-growing field.
The book is organized into four sections, each preceded by an editors' introduction summarizing its contents and general theme. The first section sets the stage by discussing some of the historical antecedents of contemporary research in the area. From there the book moves to the empirical side of the science of networks before turning to the foundational modeling ideas that have been the focus of much subsequent activity. The book closes by taking the reader to the cutting edge of network science--the relationship between network structure and system dynamics. From network robustness to the spread of disease, this section offers a potpourri of topics on this rapidly expanding frontier of the new science.
Customer Reviews:
Vice President IT Global Business Initiavies.......2007-08-10
Excellent resource to follow the progress of Network Science through the history of the field up to the present day. I would definitlly recommend this book to anyone embarking on a social netowkring track. You may need a math referesher to follow some of the studies but well worth it!
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.
Average customer rating:
- Great Service
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- Good book.
- Fantastic Book
- Forces you know or not????
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Intermolecular and Surface Forces, Second Edition: With Applications to Colloidal and Biological Systems (Colloid Science)
Jacob N. Israelachvili
Manufacturer: Academic Press
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Principles of Colloid and Surface Chemistry (Undergraduate Chemistry Series)
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Capillarity and Wetting Phenomena: Drops, Bubbles, Pearls, Waves
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Statistical Thermodynamics of Surfaces, Interfaces, and Membranes
ASIN: 0123751810 |
Book Description
This book describes the roles of various intermolecular and interparticle forces in determining the properties of simple systems such as gases, liquids, and solids, of more complex colloidal, polymeric, and biological systems. The book provides a thorough grounding in theories and concepts of intermolecular forces, allowing students and researchers to recognize which forces are important in any particular system and how to control these forces.
Key Features
* Surface-force measurements
* Solvation and structural forces
* Hydration and hydophobic forces
* Ion-correlation forces
* Thermal fluctuation (steric and undulation) forces
* Particle and surface interactions in polymer melts and polymer solutions
* Contains worked examples, discussion topics, and more than 100 problems
Customer Reviews:
Great Service.......2007-10-08
The book was brand new and the shipping was fast.
Thank you for an easy transaction.
A great text with lots of information in a small package........2007-09-29
This text is perfect for the reader who can read graphs and diagrams. A picture is worth a thousand words and so are graphs and diagrams. This text is chock full of graphs with all the information that you may need for an undergraduate or graduate course. I love this book. Its an excellent reference.
Good book........2007-09-03
Was used for "intermolecular forces" class... Advanced, and I think, it could be useful for people who work with AFM.
Fantastic Book.......2005-07-23
If you want to learn about the title subject, this is a great intro book. And it's probably the most enjoyable theory book you are likely to own, if you purchase it.
Forces you know or not????.......2004-02-13
The above "reviewer" needs to learn the English language! What the hell is that guy trying to tell us? I'm glad the book is useful to the outdoors.
I have not read too far into the book, but it seems to be fairly well written.
Book Description
Everyone knows the small-world phenomenon: soon after meeting a stranger, we are surprised to discover that we have a mutual friend, or we are connected through a short chain of acquaintances. In his book, Duncan Watts uses this intriguing phenomenon--colloquially called "six degrees of separation"--as a prelude to a more general exploration: under what conditions can a small world arise in any kind of network?
The networks of this story are everywhere: the brain is a network of neurons; organisations are people networks; the global economy is a network of national economies, which are networks of markets, which are in turn networks of interacting producers and consumers. Food webs, ecosystems, and the Internet can all be represented as networks, as can strategies for solving a problem, topics in a conversation, and even words in a language. Many of these networks, the author claims, will turn out to be small worlds.
How do such networks matter? Simply put, local actions can have global consequences, and the relationship between local and global dynamics depends critically on the network's structure. Watts illustrates the subtleties of this relationship using a variety of simple models---the spread of infectious disease through a structured population; the evolution of cooperation in game theory; the computational capacity of cellular automata; and the sychronisation of coupled phase-oscillators.
Watts's novel approach is relevant to many problems that deal with network connectivity and complex systems' behaviour in general: How do diseases (or rumours) spread through social networks? How does cooperation evolve in large groups? How do cascading failures propagate through large power grids, or financial systems? What is the most efficient architecture for an organisation, or for a communications network? This fascinating exploration will be fruitful in a remarkable variety of fields, including physics and mathematics, as well as sociology, economics, and biology.
Customer Reviews:
All the details you need to know to understand Watts' and Strogatz' famous article.......2007-03-12
The book basically gives all the details needed to understand Watts and Strogatz famous Nature article 'Collective Dynamics of Complex Networks' in 1998. I think that it is basically Watts PhD-thesis and as such it is of course nicely written, but nothing for the laymen who is rather referred to Watts other, more story-telling book 'Six Degrees', Barabasi's book 'Linked', or to another book that I would recommend most, namely the one by Mark Buchanan titled 'Small Worlds'. Mark is a skillful scientific writer and his book has a broader scope that makes it more interesting than each of the two monographs that are a bit more focused on the scientists own contribution.
Not enough contents to be a good book.......2005-07-08
Networks are since a couple of years object of intense research in several different disciplines. One reason therefore is certainly the outstanding article by Watts and Strogatz, Collective dynamics of small world networks, Nature, 393:440--442, 1998. Unfortunatelly, this book can not continue the high level of this article. Actually, it does not really provide much more information than the article itself. I would suggest to read the article cited above and either decide for another book or to look directly in the literature and read the origninal articles.
To summarize, this book is not terribly weak, but one can clearly sees that it swims on the current 'complex networks' wave without providing enough justification for its existence. Of course, if you do not have access to the original literature and just what to have a general overview of complex networks and what be done with them, you may consider buying this book.
Good, but some typos.......2005-06-02
Mathematical level: Moderate; there's no calculus, and little high level math, but the book is quite mathematical in tone, and some of the arguments may be difficult to follow without a good "math sense". There are MANY equations and graphs.
Good points: Watts covers an area that will interest those who deal with mathematical models of social networks e.g. models of disease-spread, especially HIV. It might, however, cover other things that can spread through networks as well. He presents analysis of graphs (or networks) that are neither random nor highly structured; and begins to examine ways that the degree of structure v. randomness can be measured.
Bad points: There are more than the usual number of typos. The models presented are a "first step", only.
Inspiring.......2001-07-24
The author believes that human thought might be a small world, in the sense that one could reach any idea if he/she finds the right associations and "short-cut"s. The small-world theory is indeed one of those short cuts itself. It links many different domains and uncovers some interesting common behavior.
The theory is developed in a scientific manner with extensive numerical support. Rich literature reviews and many open questions make this book a good research reference. Complex observations are generally followed by qualitative explanations. However, some of the simpler derivations are not fully clear. I believe that adding a few lines here and there can turn this book into a textbook.
The book spans many different areas of science and a deep understanding of the related results may require some background. However, each chapter ends with a brief summary, allowing the reader to move forward if he/she finds the chapter difficult. In summary, as the author puts it, the book is simply the "end of the beginning" in an exciting new field.
Great scientific synthesis.......2000-07-12
The book takes a systematic look at the 'small world' graphs. These natural graphs have been discovered by graph theoretist as erly as 60's, but were not properly understood. The graphs are remarkable in their ability to cluster and scale lengths. There are fundumental connections between these graphs and complex systems, discrete dynamical systems, computation and information processing. Duncan has done a tremendous job in building experimetal and theoretical models trying to understand how these graphs come about and sustain themselves. Read this book.
Book Description
Computational science is a quickly emerging field at the intersection of the sciences, computer science, and mathematics because much scientific investigation now involves computing as well as theory and experiment. However, limited educational materials exist in this field. Introduction to Computational Science fills this void with a flexible, readable textbook that assumes only a background in high school algebra and enables instructors to follow tailored pathways through the material. It is the first textbook designed specifically for an introductory course in the computational science and engineering curriculum.
The text embraces two major approaches to computational science problems: System dynamics models with their global views of major systems that change with time; and cellular automaton simulations with their local views of how individuals affect individuals. While the text is generic, an extensive author-generated Web-site contains tutorials and files in a variety of software packages to accompany the text.
- Generic software approach in the text
- Web site with tutorials and files in a variety of software packages
- Engaging examples, exercises, and projects that explore science
- Additional, substantial projects for students to develop individually or in teams
- Consistent application of the modeling process
- Quick review questions and answers
- Projects for students to develop individually or in teams
- Reference sections for most modules, as well as a glossary
- Online instructor's manual with a test bank and solutions
Book Description
Why do you shift from walking to running at a particular speed? How can we predict transition speeds for animals of different sizes? Why must the flexible elastic of arterial walls behave differently than a rubber tube or balloon? How do leaves manage to expose a broad expanse of surface while suffering only a small fraction of the drag of flags in high winds?
The field of biomechanics--how living things move and work--hasn't seen a new general textbook in more than two decades. Here a leading investigator and teacher lays out the key concepts of biomechanics using examples drawn from throughout the plant and animal kingdoms. Up-to-date and comprehensive, this is also the only book to give thorough coverage to both major subfields of biomechanics: fluid and solid mechanics.
Steven Vogel explains how biomechanics makes use of models and methods drawn from physics and mechanical engineering to investigate a wide range of general questions--from how animals swim and fly and the modes of terrestrial locomotion to the way organisms respond to wind and water currents and the operation of circulatory and suspension-feeding systems. He looks also at the relationships between the properties of biological materials--spider silk, jellyfish jelly, muscle, and more--and their various structural and functional roles.
While written primarily for biology majors and graduate students in biology, this text will be useful for physical scientists and engineers seeking a sense of the state of the art of biomechanics and a guide to its rather scattered literature. For a still wider audience, it establishes the basic biological context for such applied areas as ergonomics, orthopedics, mechanical prosthetics, kinesiology, sports medicine, and biomimetics.
Customer Reviews:
A lot of interesting material.......2007-09-10
I had read one of the author's previous books, 'Life in moving fluids', several years ago as part of a biomechanics course. I liked it, so when I saw this book I had high expectations. After reading it, I was not disappointed.
There is a very nice mix of developing basic concepts (e.g. buoyancy or fluid flow) and how living organisms use these in their daily lives (e.g. a fish's swim bladder or a bird's wing).
These general arguments are obviously important for addressing a great number of questions. From paleobiology, could pterosaurs fly or just glide? How fast could a T-Rex run? Why are there so few surface swimming animals? Some other interesting facts he presented were: how spiders use hydraulic force to extend their legs, why gliders tend to have long thin wings, how cell metabolism rate varies with organism size (I was aware of the mouse-elephant curve, but was quite surprised to hear this), hearts have self-triggering muscles and that some fish have their eyes located in a position such that the pressure does not vary with swimming speed (important so that the focal point does not change).
Some of the physics presented was interesting even outside of its use in biology. In my experience fluid dynamics is not covered much in physics, mainly just Bernoulli's equations and Reynolds number. I think most physicists would improve their understanding and intuition of fluid dynamics by reading this book. The materials topics, like crack propagation, were also interesting.
The book covers the basics of Newtonian mechanics (and things like units and dimensional analysis) used throughout the book. I skipped these chapters so I cannot comment on whether they provided an adequate background for the remainder of the book.
Needless to say, I liked this book a lot. I liked both coverage of the general principles and the specific cases used to illustrate them.
Only an introduction to biomechanics.......2006-02-21
I am a grad student in biology who recently got interested in spider silk biomechanics. I was looking for a good book on biomechanics and my advisor suggested that I get this one. It was so disappointing !
The coverage of the various topics is quite superficial. The chapter on biological materials is especially disappointing to me : since I already knew what were 'stress', 'strain' and 'Young's modulus', I didn't learn anything. I guess you can learn as much by just surfing the web -- and that's for free.
I also think the book lacks equations and formulae. You can go through 10 pages without seeing any equations -- just text. Maybe 'equations' does not mean 'scientific rigor', but I can't help prefering a good old equation to lines and lines of text.
Maybe I was expecting too much from this book. So okay, if you are a biologist, don't like maths and have never heard of biomechanics, you may enjoy that book. But you have to be aware that it is REALLY an introduction.
Best introductory physics textbook ever.......2004-06-25
This book would be a fantastic text for an introductory physics class, eg, mechanics classes aimed at future doctors. It begins with the "simple" problem of walking, which can be understood as an oscillation, with the frequency tuned to the length of your legs. From there, the book proceeds to dimensional analysis, and treats the biomechanical universe as a set of simple tubes, surfaces, flows, beams, and levers, all amenable to simple calculation and estimation. This book contains more real, relevant physics than any introductory physics text (with the possible exception of the Feynman lectures, which are totally unsuited for first-year students). It is the best physics textbook we know. (Review co-written by Dr Sanjoy Mahajan, Department of Physics, University of Cambridge).
Offer from the author..........2003-11-02
An accumulation of instructional materials to accompany the book will be sent as an e-mail attachment to anyone who contacts me at svogel@duke.edu--just tell me a little about who you are. The files (Word and PDF) are freely usable for anything except remunerative republication. If you are using the book in a course and wish to limit local dissemination (I supply answers to the problem sets), tell me and I'll do my best to comply.
Average customer rating:
- Best General Introduction to Biophysics
- A colorful introduction to the subject with
- Good Textbook
- Outstanding Book
- Very good book, ideal for students.
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Biological Physics: Energy, Information, Life
Philip Nelson
Manufacturer: W. H. Freeman
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ASIN: 0716743728 |
Book Description
The first text of its kind, Biological PHysics synthesizes information from the developing field of biological physics. The text focuses on new results in molecular motors, self-assembly and single-molecule manipulation,integrating these topics with classical results. The text also provides foundational material from the emerging field of nanotechnology. Built around a self-contained core, the text is geared toward undergraduate students who have taken one year of calculus-based physics. Additionally, there are "Track-2" sections that contain more advanced material for senior physics majors and graduate students.
Customer Reviews:
Best General Introduction to Biophysics.......2007-07-27
The field of biophysics has experienced a flowering over the last several decades, with new experimental techniques (such as single molecule manipulation) providing quantitative data that allow for true tests of theoretical models. This book provides a wonderful introduction to the ideas and techniques that are now at the forefront of much of biological physics research. The previously available books are either out-of-date (Cantor & Schimmel's classic series on "Biophysical Chemistry") or are better as a reference for researchers (John Howard's useful book "Mechanics of Motor Proteins and the Cytoskeleton"). Other options for an upper level introductory class (such as Duane's book "Molecular Biophysics") are, in my opinion, not as clear or as well-organized as Nelson's book.
This is the textbook that I would in teaching an introductory biophysics class.
A colorful introduction to the subject with .......2007-07-11
some weaknesses in some critical respects. The subtitle of the book is a little misleading because he does not address information theory at all (except by dismissal as discussed below), and confuses entropy with information. Let's look at a few problems.
He makes the standard textbook error of defining entropy as disorder or equivalently lost information. These can be useful teaching tools but physicists trained with this ultimately get into trouble. For instance in the former case, entropy is not always a measure of disorder, such as in crystalizations. Also the phase transformation of solid helium to liquid helium II does not require energy. In the second analogy of lost information, this leads to silly paradoxes like going back in time has increasing information. This is because he agrees that universal entropy increases with time - "the quantity that must increase is the whole world's entropy." If entropy decreases going back in time then he is suggesting information increases. Information to who? While Boltzman confused the situation a century ago, it was Nobel Prize winner Claude Shannon in the 1940's who derived the proper interpretation of information rate being the reduction of uncertainty to a recognizer of signals reeceived. Information begins with life, whereas entropy was increasing long before humans came along. It is a measure of the dispersal of energy and should not be viewed as uncertainty which requires an observer. The mistake is to equate entropy with the negative of information through Boltzman's constant whereas the proper measure of information is a state function difference (uncertainty before and after measurement. It is uncertainty that is the entropy-like formula without Boltzman's constant. This is a popular mistake.)
His biggest mistake is on page 232: "Communications engineers are also interested in the compressibility of streams of data. They refer to the quantity I as the 'information content' per message. This definition has the unintuitive feature that random messages carry the most information! This book will use the word disorder for I; the word information will be used in its everyday sense."
This is false; he is confusing entropy with uncertainty. Rather than a dismissive paragraph like that above, an entire book could be devoted to the subject and while there appears to be no book that gets this right, except Shannon's and Weaver's original treatise, Dr Tom Schneider has written extensively about this with articles available at his website. For instance in a recent published article he writes:
"Information theory was developed by Claude Shannon in the late 1940's to describe movement of information in communications. When applied to biological systems it has proven to be useful. Based on the frequency of each base at each position in a set of aligned [protein] binding sites [on DNA], we can determine the strength of an individual site in bits of information...the units of measure allow direct comparison between different molecular systems...Binding site information is correlated to stability...so the more infomration a binding site has, the larger the number of contacts it can make with the protein and correspondingly the more difficult it becomes for thermal noise to separate the two once they are bound together... The individual information appears to be well correlated to the kinetics of binding." In another article he says "the Second Law of Thermodynamics...is a simplified version of the [Shannon] channel capacity theorem under isothermal conditions."
However the book is well written and some analyses are very good such as on friction, but it is introductory only. There are no higher level subjects like Ising spins or networks and the passages on protein folding are brief; and of course nothing on quantun mechanics. Even these subjects fall short of fully addressing high complexity as R. Santilli points out, classical and quantum mechanics are ideal, local and linear. Instead he has invented a new math, Hadronic Mechanics, and he has a book out on Hadronic Chemistry for the invariant treatment of nonlinear, nonlocal, and nonunitary theories and a new structure model of molecules. However before advancing to that stage one has to understand the shortfalls with the conventional analyses. For instance as he says in a 2005 article available on the net (with a simple google search):
"In chemistry, quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry and special relativity have been unable to provide an exact representation of the binding energy of the simplest molecule, the hydrogen molecule...with larger deviations when passing to more complex molecules such as water...not to forget the embarrassing prediction by quantum chemistry that all molecules are ferromagnetic (a direct consequence of the independence of the electrons in valence bonds, thus permitting the polarization of their orbits under an external magnetic field)...the basic insufficiency...is the impossibility to represent interactions due to ...overlapping wavepackets and/or charge distributions of particles...This limitation is evidently due to the fact that quantum mechanics, quantum chemistry and special relativity are strictly linear local-differential and potential theories. Consequently the interactions...are beyond any hope of representation." [i.e. under those theories!]
Good Textbook.......2007-04-27
This is a good text book for both physicists and biologists.It's very well organized and the literature is clear and understandable.
Outstanding Book.......2006-03-09
Well written. Easy to read, yet very rigorous. Very relevant examples. Top-notch textbook.
Very good book, ideal for students........2005-07-05
I used Nelson's Biological Physics textbook for a graduate level reading course in physics, and found it excellent for my needs. I haven't taken a biology course since high school, and although I have researched biological systems for some time, I have had a very fuzzy view of biological physics until recently. I was skeptical of a book that claims it is appropriate for students from second year undergraduate through graduate studies, but by using the Track 2 option, and following up some of the cited papers and suggested readings I found it to be quite suitable. Also, the text was well written, and easy to follow - which is ideal for independent study.
Nelson's Biological Physics starts humbly, with a brief introduction of energy, and the size range inherent to biological systems. Using statistical and thermal physics principles, Nelson builds upon simple ideas to end the text with elegant descriptions of complex biological entities like molecular motors and ion channels. Under other circumstances such topics would frighten even the bravest physics student who has had no initiation to the biological realm of study! With little to no biology background myself, I was apprehensive about a course on biological physics, but found that Nelson usually described relevant systems and experimental methods in sufficient detail and from a perspective that appealed to me. If a topic were not described in great detail, the text generally cited additional resources - especially for more challenging topics.
The "Your turn" exercises scattered throughout the text alternated between being helpful and annoying. While useful for engaging the reader, they sometimes provide roadblocks to chapter sections and homework problems when particularly tricky. Also, I found the brief section on matrix mathematics and eigenvalues in chapter 9 inadequate. If the author assumes that readers will have a deficiency in this area, then it may prove more useful to either expand more generally on the mathematical tools described, or to develop an alternative approach to the material in this chapter. Perhaps in later editions an appendix on necessary mathematical material will be added to this text. In contrast, I appreciated the use of real experimental data in the figures throughout the text, and in many of the homework exercises as well. It provided an undeniable credibility to the work, and made the exercises seem more worthwhile, as they obviously related to actual experiments and models.
The book covers a lot of statistical and thermal physics, as necessary for a course intended for second year undergraduate and onwards. Although there was a lot of review for an upper level physics student, the examples were still interesting, and the Track 2 option provided a more in depth look at many topics, with both more challenging text sections and homework problems. The flexibility that this option (in combination with aggressive use of the suggested follow-up readings and independent use of related materials) introduces keeps the book accessible for second and third year undergraduates, while maintaining the necessary academic level for a senior undergraduate or graduate course. I would recommend this book to any student or professor, with either a biology or physics background that is interested in knowing more about biological physics.
Book Description
This book summarizes the radiation physics knowledge that professionals working in medical physics need to master for efficient and safe dealings with ionizing radiation. It contains eight chapters, each chapter covering a specific group of subjects related to radiation physics and is intended as a textbook for a course in radiation physics in medical-physics graduate programs. However, the book may also be of interest to the large number of professionals, not only medical physicists, who in their daily occupations deal with various aspects of medical physics and find a need to improve their understanding of radiation physics.
The main target audience for this book is graduate students studying for M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in medical physics, who haveto possess the necessary physics and mathematics background knowledge to be able to follow and master the complete textbook. Medical residents, technology students and biomedical engineering students may find certain sections too challenging or esoteric, yet they will find many sections interesting and useful in their studies.
Candidates preparing for professional certification exams in any of the medical physics subspecialties should find the material useful, and some of the material would also help candidates preparing for certification examinations in medical dosimetry or radiation-related medical specialties.
Numerous textbooks are available covering the various subspecialties of medical physics but they generally make a transition from the elementary basic physics directly into the intricacies of the given medical physics subspecialty. The intent of this textbook is to provide the missing link between the elementary physics on the one hand and the physics of the subspecialties on the other hand.
Average customer rating:
- New edition marred by typos and awkward editing
- Useful general text on radiation protection and safety
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Introduction to Health Physics
Herman Cember
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Medical
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The Health Physics Solutions Manual
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Basic Health Physics: Problems and Solutions
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Radiation Detection and Measurement
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Introduction to Radiological Physics and Radiation Dosimetry
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Atoms, Radiation, and Radiation Protection, 2nd Edition
ASIN: 0071054618 |
Book Description
This edition continues to provide students with a basic understanding of the biophysical bases of radiation, radiation safety standards, and the key factors in radiation protection. Now includes new coverage of non-ionizing radiation-laser and microwaves, computer use in dose calculation and dose limit recommendations. Emphasizes a problem-solving approach that will serve students into their clinical careers.
Customer Reviews:
New edition marred by typos and awkward editing.......1998-11-01
This new edition of the classic text is a disappointment, and it's use as a textbook is not recommended.
For this 3d edition, the list of typographical errors compiled by colleagues and myself stands at four pages and growing. Errors can be found in the text, the chapter problems, and their solutions. Other solutions which are not clearly wrong may inexplicably differ from your own solution at the second significant digit.
Formulae are rarely derived from first principles. One exception is the change in wavelength for a photon undergoing Compton scattering from an electron, but, even here, a crucial equation (the relativistic energy invariant) is conspicuously omitted, without which the final equation cannot be derived. The text does not even mention relativity in discussing Compton scattering. (The index does reference "Relatively effects" (sic) at pp. 4-11.)
Equations and formulae contain, at times, an unnecessary proliferation of multiplication signs and units which obscures the underlying physical principles and the simplicity of the equations themselves. Students are better served by a clear mathematical presentation of the underlying physics, rather than being dropped into the middle of an obscure equation made even more so by the inclusion of several constants whose only purpose is to make the units work out. While any text on this subject must deal with the unavoidability of old and new units, my suggestion is to derive the formulae from first principles and deal with the units issue (which, after all, only amounts to including appropriate conversion factors) separately as examples or chapter problems.
Finally, the multiplication sign, "x", should be reserved for arithmetic and scientific notation, not symbolic mathematical equations. See, e.g., Equations (3.10), (4.31), (10.17), (10.32), etc., as examples where the multiplication sign is unnecessary. The text also uses the multiplication sign even where numerical values are already set off by parentheses. The text's overuse of the multiplication sign gives the text a grade-schoolish flavor.
Useful general text on radiation protection and safety.......1998-01-02
In over 25 years since its first edition, this classic textbook has been used to train countless professionals in the fundamentals of radiation protection and safety. This third edition of Cember's work incorporates several fundamental changes in radiation protection standards and methodologies adopted since publication of the second edition in 1983. The third edition has also been expanded to include more recent safety standards for radiofrequency and microwave exposure.
This textbook is useful for an upper division undergraduate or first graduate course in radiological protection, health physics, or radiation safety. Each chapter is accompanied by a useful set of problems and suggested readings. Unfortunately, many of the readings and references cited are either out of print or difficult to find.
Average customer rating:
- The Physics of Pulsatile Flow
- A work of art, a classic, February 11, 2002
- A very informative book
- An excellent book for moving boundary problems & blood flow
|
The Physics of Pulsatile Flow (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering)
M. Zamir
Manufacturer: American Institute of Physics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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Dynamics of the Vascular System (Series on Bioengineering & Biomedical Engineering - Vol. 1)
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The Physics of Coronary Blood Flow (Biological and Medical Physics, Biomedical Engineering)
ASIN: 0387989250 |
Book Description
The goal of this book is to provide in a single source, and at the level of textbook, a complete treatment of the fluid dynamics of steady and pulsatile flow in tubes with the required mathematics and emphasis on basic mechanics. The style and level of the book will be accessible to students and researchers in biophysics, biology, medicine, bioengineering and applied mathematics, in theoretical or clinical work on the cardiovascular system, as well as in the design of new instrumentation, medical imaging systems and artificial organs. The book includes problems and exercises, with chapters on basic equations, flow in rigid and elastic tubes, vascular trees, and wave reflections.
Customer Reviews:
The Physics of Pulsatile Flow.......2002-02-24
This is a well-written book by an expert in the field of biomathmatics and cardiovascular dynamics. I am impressed by the self-contained contents of the book and the flow of thoughts. The book introduces the fundamental physical principles and fluid mechanics before embarking on the subjects of steady flow in tubes and pulsatile flow in rigid and elastic tubes. The author leads the readers smoothly into the interesting regimes of vascular tree structures and their optimization, and the wave propagation and reflection phenomena. The relevant end-of-chapter problems are good additional sources to recapture the intended message from the text, as well as learning about other applications. Students and professionals in math, science, engineering and cardiovascular dynamics will find this text a good addition to their reading list.
John K-J. Li, Ph.D.
Professor II(distinguished)
Biomedical Engineering at Rutgers
(Author of "Arterial Circulation" and
"Comparative Cardiovascular Dynamics of Mammals")
A work of art, a classic, February 11, 2002.......2002-02-20
Professor Zamir's new book is an exceptionally strong, beautiful and persuasive treatise on the physics of flow through tubes and tree-shaped paths, in steady and unsteady flow. This work is fundamental physics. The mathematical treatment is authoritative and very accessible. The concepts apply not only to blood circulation, for which most of the empirical data are carefully documented, but also to other tree-shaped flows, from physiology and geophysics to optimized piping networks in mechanical and civil engineering.
This book has many strong features, all packed into a concise (no nonsense) and very well illustrated format. The issue of whether blood flow is newtonian or viscoelastic is explained from first principles: each model is valid under specific circumstances, which are identified. Very strong is the treatment of pulsatile flows through elastic tubes. Such flows consist of waves that propagate through the circulatory system, and large numbers of waves that are reflected by flow obstacles (e.g., bifurcations).
Important is that in pulsatile flow through a tree structure, the many wave reflections help the flow. They maximize the overall flow access from the heart to the entire body. This conclusion of "optimization" of flow structure is important in physics and biology in general.
Detailed measurements of the architecture of the arterial tree are condensed in this book. Graphic summaries of this architecture (e.g., Fig. 6.8.5) are so well done that they will become textbook material in the near future.
In sum, this is a masterful and inspiring book on the most important class of flows in physics, biology and engineering-flows with purpose. The structure of such flows is optimized in space and in time.
A very informative book.......2002-01-08
As a researcher with expertise in electrical engineering and specialization in the fields of digital signal and image processing "The Physics of Pulsatile Flow" was a big help in quickly understanding the basics of pulsatile flow in general. In particular, I needed to model the wall velocity of blood vessels as a function of the velocity of a viscous fluid pumped through that vessel and found a good first approach for solving this problem in chapter 5 called "pulsatile flow in an elastic tube". The references given throughout the book are also valuable to gain further insights.
I liked most that after a few minutes (or hours depending on your mathematical level of understanding) of reading, the basic principles and their solution became very clear. As we all know it is easy enough to write complicated things in a complicated manner - much more challenging is the task of using clear and easy to understand formulations. This has been masterly accomplished here by Professor Zamir and I congratulate him on this informative and instructive book. Furthermore, Dr. Zamir very quickly answered my email about a specific question of mine that was still remaining after reading the book. I really appreciated that!
An excellent book for moving boundary problems & blood flow.......2001-07-20
The Physics of Pulsatile Flow is a great introduction to the area of biofluid mechanics. Especially to those who have to solve moving boundary value problems in blood flow. It is extremely well writen so even a beginer will be able to understand fully every concept. It begins with the basic concepts & equations of fluid mechanics(Navier - Stokes, chapters 1-2)it goes on with Poiseuille flow (chapter 3), Pulsatile flowin a Rigid tube (chapter 4) and the most important chapters "Pulsatile flow in an elastic tube" (chapter 5) and "Wave reflections" (chapter 6) which has to do with waves in arterial trees. The book also presents the approach of the solution of blood flow in a rigid tube with an elliptic cross section. I didn't regreted the money I paid for it. It centerly worth it's price.
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