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| By: Erick Cantu-Paz ISBN: 0792372212 Publisher: Springer Release Date: 15 December, 2000 Bioscience book rank: 978714 | I think the previous reviewer got it wrong: It is very clear from the editorial introduction and from the table of contents that this book is about the ANALYSIS of parallel genetic algorithms, not about their implementation. The problem here is that implementing these algorithms is relatively easy, but configuring them is very complicated because there are many parameters. The work of Cantu-Paz---excellently summarized in this little book---is the best analysis available for the different types of parallel genetic algorithms. <p>I recommend this book wholeheartedly. One would have thought from the title of the book that it would contain "... Parallel Genetic Algorithms", however it does not. The book covers statistical analyses of algorithms. The reader is meant to find other references that contain algorithms. It is expensive for such a small book. The author talks 'around' the algorithms, without going into the necessary details to write your own parallel genetic algorithms. There are many plots of evolution, so the author must of had access to the algorithms. This book could have been so much more valuable if it contained the algorithms, rather than just talk about them. Genetic algorithms are easy to parallelize, but they are difficult to control. In a very concise manner, this book presents some theoretical results derived by the author that show how to make parallel genetic algoritms work for many problems and different architectures.<p>The book has a lot of new theory that is easy to follow and gives recommendations to make parallel genetic algorithms work well in many circumstances. Although the theory makes many simplyfying assumptions, the examples in the book demonstrate that the models are very accurate and the recommendations made in the book seem very reasonable. | |
| By: Paul L. Kimmelman, David J. Kroeze ISBN: 1929024452 Publisher: Christopher-Gordon Pub Release Date: March, 2002 Bioscience book rank: 852763 | ||
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| By: Scott Barbour ISBN: 0737732237 Publisher: Greenhaven Press Release Date: 16 September, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 1008755 | ||
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| By: Lisabeth F. Dilalla, Irving I. Gottesman ISBN: 1591470838 Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA) Release Date: February, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 909673 | Knowledgeably compiled and professionally edited by psychologist and academician Lisabeth DiLalla (Associate Professor, School of Medicine, Southern Illinois University) Behavior Genetics Principles: Perspectives In Development, Personality, And Psychopathology is a compilation of contributions by experts in the field of behavior genetic research. Behavior Genetics Principles is a superbly organized and presented introduction to the cause/effect connections between genes, personality development, and the frontiers of research into genetically based psychopathologies. Behavior Genetics Principles is a seminal work and strongly recommended for academic library collections and supplemental reading lists in the fields of genetics and human behavior. "A certain mother habitually rewards her small son with ice cream after he eats his spinach. What additional information would you need to be able to predict whether the child will: a. Come to love or hate spinach, b. Love or hate ice cream, or c. Love or hate mother?"<p>This quote from Gregory Bateson's preface to his Steps to An Ecology of Mind (1972) returns to haunt a fine chapter by Eric Turkheimer, Spinach and Ice cream: Why Social Science is So Difficult. The chapter is one of fourteen that summarize the current status of behavioral genetic research in development, personality, and psychopathology as they celebrate the career of one of the truly outstanding psychologists of our time, Irving I. Gottesman.<p>If any career can be said to be the defining touchstone of research into the genetics of mental disorder, especially schizophrenia, over the past half-century, it is that of Gottesman. Mention the genetics of schizophrenia to informed behavioral scientists anywhere on the globe, and Irv Gottesman is the first name that will come to mind. Since the publication of his Schizophrenia Genesis (1991), now dated because of its publisher's indolence in supporting a revision, the same can be said of many thousands of educated laypersons.<p>These chapters were initially prepared as presentations for a gathering of his colleagues and former students who are now themselves accomplished investigators in the field of behavior genetics, organized by the book's editor, Lisabeth DiLalla, in Minneapolis in June, 2001, on the occasion of Gottesman's retirement from the University of Virginia, and his return to his doctoral alma mater, the University of Minnesota (UM), after a forty year (and counting) career.<p>It is a tribute to Gottesman's influence that the contributions DiLalla invited and assembled here are much longer on the meat of good thinking, research, news, and informed outlook than on the soft flesh of praise and genteel honorifics. And for the nonspecialist reader like myself, there are some big surprises. <p>For example, Thomas Bouchard, et al. report and summarize research on the genetics of social attitudes. (Recall that Bouchard is the principal investigator of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart [MISTRA], a study that commanded worldwide attention in news reports of amazing similarities of twins separated at birth or shortly after and reunited as adults at UM. For example, the Jim twins, reunited 39 years after their separation at 4 weeks: both men had performed well at school at math but struggled with spelling, enjoyed mechanical drawing and carpentry, had first wives named "Linda" and second wives named "Betty," named their sons "James Allan," owned dogs names "Toy," got headaches at the same time of the day, drove the same color and model of Chevrolet, chain smoked Salem cigarettes, bit their fingernails, and vacationed in the same spot each year.) Of course, the heritability of things like IQ and personality traits such as introversion-extroversion have been known for some time, but social attitudes? The things one learns at mother's knee? Yes. Such attitudes as authoritarianism, religiousness, even political conservatism are shown to be strongly influenced by genetic factors. And there are other surprises that await the reader.<p>The book closes on a brief warm note by Gottesman himself, reflecting on his career, a few of his influences and colleagues, behavioral genetics and human rights, and the future.<p>A perfect book? No. I would have liked to have had a complete list of Gottesman's publications included. However, given their number, such a list would have added considerably to the length of the book. "A certain mother habitually rewards her small son with ice cream after he eats his spinach. What additional information would you need to be able to predict whether the child will: a. Come to love or hate spinach, b. Love or hate ice cream, or c. Love or hate mother?"<p>This quote from Gregory Bateson's preface to his Steps to An Ecology of Mind (1972) returns to haunt a fine chapter by Eric Turkheimer, Spinach and Ice cream: Why Social Science is So Difficult. The chapter is one of fourteen that summarize the current status of behavioral genetic research in development, personality, and psychopathology as they celebrate the career of one of the truly outstanding psychologists of our time, Irving I. Gottesman.<p>If any career can be said to be the defining touchstone of research into the genetics of mental disorder, especially schizophrenia, over the past half-century, it is that of Gottesman. Mention the genetics of schizophrenia to informed behavioral scientists anywhere on the globe, and Irv Gottesman is the first name that will come to mind. Since the publication of his Schizophrenia Genesis (1990), now dated because of its publisher's indolence in supporting a revision, the same can be said of many thousands of educated laypersons.<p>These chapters were initially prepared as presentations for a gathering of his colleagues and former students who are now themselves accomplished investigators in the field of behavior genetics, organized by the book's editor, Lisabeth DiLalla, in Minneapolis in June, 2001, on the occasion of Gottesman's retirement from the University of Virginia, and his return to his doctoral alma mater, the University of Minnesota (UM), after a forty year (and counting) career.<p>It is a tribute to Gottesman's influence that the contributions DiLalla invited and assembled here are much longer on the meat of good thinking, research, news, and informed outlook than on the soft flesh of praise and genteel honorifics. And for the nonspecialist reader like myself, there are some big surprises. <p>For example, Thomas Bouchard, et al. report and summarize research on the genetics of social attitudes. (Recall that Bouchard, is the principal investigator of the Minnesota Study of Twins Reared Apart [MISTRA], a study that commanded worldwide attention in news reports of amazing similities of twins separated at birth or shortly after and reunited as adults at UM. For example, the Jim twins, reunited 39 years after their separation at 4 weeks: both men had performed well at school at math but struggled with spelling, enjoyed mechanical drawing and carpentry, had first wives named "Linda" and second wives named "Betty," named their sons "James Allan," owned dogs names "Toy," got headaches at the same time of the day, drove the same color and model of Chevrolet, chain smoked Salem cigarettes, bit their fingernails, and vacationed in the same spot each year.) Of course, the heritability of things like IQ and personality traits such as introversion-extroversion have been known for some time, but social attitudes? The things one learns at mother's knee? Yes. Such attitudes as authoritarianism, religiousness, even political conservatism are shown to be strongly influenced by genetic factors. And there are other surprises that await the reader.<p>The book closes on a brief warm note by Gottesman himself, reflecting on his career, a few of his influences and colleagues, behavioral genetics and human rights, and the future.<p>A perfect book? No. I would have liked to have had a complete list of of Gottesman's publications included. However, given their number, such a list would have added considerably to the length of the book. | |
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| By: Robert Ehrlich ISBN: 0691124043 Publisher: Princeton University Press Release Date: 25 July, 2005 Bioscience book rank: 869264 | Physicist Robert Ehrlich returns with another survey of interesting but unproven ideas, and "8 Preposterous Propositions" is considerably more daring, politically, than his first venture, "9 Crazy Ideas in Science."
<br />The eight ideas, all posed as questions, are: Is homosexuality primarily innate, is intelligent design a scientific alternative to evolution, are people getting smarter, can we influence matter by thought alone, should we worry about global warming, is complex life in the universe very rare, can a sugar pill cure us and should we worry about cholesterol?
<br />After reviewing the evidence, Ehrlich finds only one of the eight to be complete moonshine -- four flakes in his rating system.
<br />Two of the other seven he finds not flaky at all (zero flakes), and the rest somewhere in between.
<br />"This is not a debunking book," writes Ehrlich.
<br />Nor does he seem to have chosen his subjects with any agenda in mind. Every one of the eight is something that shows up from time to time in the letters to the editor, but his selection is impartial as between left/right or conservative/liberal politics.
<br />"It sometimes seems that nothing is too strange to be true," he writes.
<br />On the other hand, just because something is strange does not make it valid. The problem is, with so many unsettled ideas out there, how does a person form a solid opinion about all of them -- or should he?
<br />The late sociologist Aaron Wildavsky proposed that almost all public issues, no matter how complex they seemed, were within the understanding of an ordinary careful citizen. Of course, his definition of ordinary citizen was a Berkeley grad student with a year to spend investigating one question.
<br />Ehrlich is neither so certain nor so hardnosed as Wildavsky, but he still sets a pretty high standard. "If the uncertainties are simply a matter of our laziness in not looking into an issue deeply enough, then relying on our instincts is very unfortunate."
<br />True, but who has time to track down and read a hundred reports, as Ehrlich did in investigating cholesterol, which is the most curious and most interesting of his eight latest questions.
<br />That chapter includes lengthy discussions of statistical analysis of medical experiments and why and whether "negative" results of experiments should be published (few are). These ideas apply to most medical decisions, not just whether to take cholesterol lowering drugs or eat that hamburger.
<br />Ehrlich's books are not really about what we know, but how we know we know it.
<br />Some psychologists have contended that only a few people (one in eight, they suggest) are capable of questioning their own beliefs, even when asked to do so.
<br />Ehrlich is in the minority. While reading up on cholesterol, "I ended up changing my mind at least three times," he writes.
<br />Postscript: This review was written when the book was published in 2003. At the time, I chose not to say anything about global warming, but time passes, and the particular way Ehrlich phrased his question -- should we worry about global warming? -- has now been answered definitively. This winter of 2006 was the coldest ever measured in Antarctica. You are welcome to your own opinion about the other seven questions, but the book is closed on warming. Don't worry about it.
<br /> 8 Preposterous Propositions by Robert Ehrlich, the sequel to Nine Crazy Ideas In Science, takes on eight newsworthy issues in science and evaluates them for their flakiness factor. As with the original book, Ehrlich lays out the evidence evenhandedly for each issue and then at the end of each chapter assigns each issue 0 to 5 flakes. Like the first book, 8 Preposterous Propositions is an excellent exercise in scientific thinking and would be a good way to lure a nonscientist towards the joys of scientific thinking. I look forward to 7 Scintillating Suggestions or 10 Titillating and Tenuous Thoughts or whatever the next book will be called. Robert Ehrlich tackles eight interesting and often timely topics including the possibility of homosexuality being genetic and the possible "benefits" of global warming. The book does an excellent job of giving each proposition the benefit of the doubt and carefully examines the evidence for and against. <br /> <br />In the chapter "Can Sugar Pills Cure You?" Ehrlich not only addresses the proposition that placebo's actually work in helping with pain (not a surprise) but also discusses how easy it is for a drug that is essentially a placebo to get FDA approval. The FDA doesn't require double blind tests to use "active" placebo's i.e. placebo's that mimic a drugs side effect. This can easily cause the test to become unblinded. Since a drug only needs to be a small fraction more effective than the placebo, unblinding can easily give a false positive. This is only one way in which FDA approval is flawed. A drug like Prozac shows little effectiveness beyond the placebo effect yet has a 225,000 percent markup over manufacturers cost. <br /> <br />The chapter on Global Warming presented a lot of information for and against the dangers of Global Warming. The end result seemed to be that Global Warming is more than likely occuring but he gave one flake for the proposition that we shouldn't worry about it. Based on the information in the chapter the flakiness of not worrying about Global Warming would seem to be specific to the individual. A teenager should probably be more worried than a seventy year old. Someone living on the coast should be more worried than someone living inland and someone living in a third world country should be more worried than someone living in the United States. It seems odd that Ehrlich gave a universal one flake. <br /> <br />The final subject on high cholesterol being perfectly safe played off like a tennis match. Does high cholesterol increase the risk of congenital heart failure or not? The evidence seemed to go back and forth but in the end Ehrlich sided with the evidence that lowering your cholesterol is healthy for your heart. However he does once again take a deserved swipe at the FDA with respect to some cholesterol reducing drugs such as gemfrobrizil, lovastatin and clofibrate. Many healthy people are being encouraged to take these statins and Ehrlich has concerns that the people taking these drugs are essentially guinea pigs similar to the women who had hormone replacement therapy and discovered that the cure was worse than the disease. These drugs may be carcinogenic and raise the risk of cancer. <br /> <br />Although the book is about specific topics it's a great guide for learning scientific analysis in general. Understanding terms like "regression to the mean" can actually be applied to real world problems. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to increase their analysis and decision making abilities. <br /> | |
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| By: Cynthia Garcia Coll, Elaine L. Bearer ISBN: 0805843876 Publisher: Lawrence Erlbaum Release Date: 01 December, 2003 Bioscience book rank: 911703 | ||
| By: Robin L. Bennett ISBN: 0470040726 Publisher: Wiley-Liss Release Date: 08 February, 2008 Bioscience book rank: 1066043 | This book is an excellent and thorough reference on the topic of the genetic family history. It is well-organized with a comprehensive index and references. It was not intended to be, and is not, a primer on all genetics disorders (see review above). I would recommend this book to all health care professionals wishing to increase their knowledge of genetics and the importance of the family history as a medical tool. this book is out of date and does not reference autoimmune diseases in relation to rheumatologic disorders such as lupus and leaves out any family genetics in hispanic disorders. | |
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| By: Nicolas C. Dracopoli, Jonathan L. Haines, Bruce R., MD, PhD Korf, Cynthia C. Morton, Christine E. Seidman, Anthony Rosenzweig, J. G. Seidman, Douglas R. Smith ISBN: 0471694185 Publisher: Wiley Release Date: 13 October, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 1006467 | ||
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| By: Donald Voet, Judith G. Voet ISBN: 0471250899 Publisher: Wiley Release Date: 23 January, 2004 Bioscience book rank: 813352 | ||
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| By: Leonard Pinsky, Robert P. Erickson, R. Neil Schimke ISBN: 0195109074 Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Release Date: 17 June, 1999 Bioscience book rank: 1052821 | ||
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