A Practical Guide to the Study of Calcium in Living Cells, Volume 40 (Methods in Cell Biology)

Book Description

A Practical Guide to the Study of Calcium in Living Cells describes popular techniques along with helpful do's and don't's and computer programs. The volume enables investigators to evaluate confocal images, use the latest dyes, and design Calcium buffers appropriate to their research needs. This book is designed for laboratory use by graduate students, technicians, and researchers in many disciplines, ranging from molecular to cellular levels of investigation.

Key Features
* Describes techniques for detection of [Ca ²⁺]I: Ca ²⁺ - sensitive microelectrodes
* Fluorescent dyes
* Luminescent proteins
* Includes techniques for perturbing intracellular Ca ²⁺
* Covers detailed methodology plus problems and pitfalls of each technique
* Contains a practical guide to preparing Ca ²⁺ buffers with an easy-to-use computer program
* Color plates illustrate techniques such as
* Confocal ratio-imaging
* Use of aequorin

Book Description

Once thought to be a likely replacement for copper wires, electronic conductive polymers are beginning to find applications in a variety of electronic devices. Applications under development include plastic displays, transistors, photodiodes, plastic fuel cells, light-emitting printable plastic inks, and chemical and biological sensors. This book examines the most recent developments in electronic conductive polymers and includes work from many of the leaders in the field. A comprehensive volume, it covers properties, applications, synthesis, processing and device fabrication for semiconducting polymers. It includes a number of chapters on ionic and carbon-filled conductive polymers with important industrial uses. It concludes with a look at future developments and suggestions for future research.

Book Description

Instead of emphasizing mathematics, this work spotlights the practical application of systems analysis and modeling in the real-world environment. Working from an integrated case study of a municipal solid waste management problem, it clearly demonstrates the validity of using systems analysis and modeling to successfully provide solutions. The computer programs include focus on model formulation, planning and design issues. Traditional systems analysis and modeling topics are also covered and graphics, charts and diagrams aid in comprehension.

Fundamental Principles of Systems Analysis & Decision-Making Tm

Average customer rating:

Fundamental Principles of Systems Analysis & Decision-Making Tm
P.J. Ossenbruggen
Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Amazon.com

"'No, I don't believe in ghosts, but I'm afraid of them,' is much more than the cheap paradox it seems to many. To 'believe,' in that sense, is a conscious act of the intellect, and it is in the warm darkness of the prenatal fluid far below our conscious reason that the faculty dwells with which we apprehend ghosts." Edith Wharton, known for her keen observations of an emotionally stifling upper-class social world, was so afraid of ghosts that for many years she couldn't even sleep in a room with a book containing a ghost story. As horror scholar Jack Sullivan writes, "It is this sharply felt sensation of supernatural dread filtered through a skeptical sensibility that made Wharton a master of the ghost story." This collection contains 11 of her elegant, chilling tales, including "Afterword," "The Triumph of Night," and "Pomegranate Seed," plus Wharton's 1937 preface and an autobiographical postscript.

Book Description

One might not expect a woman of Edith Wharton's literary stature to be a believer of ghost stories, much less be frightened by them, but as she admits in her postscript to this spine-tingling collection, "...till I was twenty-seven or -eight, I could not sleep in the room with a book containing a ghost story." Once her fear was overcome, however, she took to writing tales of the supernatural for publication in the magazines of the day. These eleven finely wrought pieces showcase her mastery of the traditional New England ghost story and her fascination with spirits, hauntings, and other supernatural phenomena. Called "flawlessly eerie" by Ms. magazine, this collection includes "Pomegranate Seed," "The Eyes," "All Souls'," "The Looking Glass," and "The Triumph of Night."

Customer Reviews:

Don't Miss "Afterward," a Great Ghost Story.......2007-06-15

I read "Afterward," a 40-page story, in another collection and wrote "Good!" by it in the table of contents. Another great story of the supernatural is the "Willows," by Algernon Blackwood (not in this collection, of course). Both of these stories are highly recommended, but I won't ruin the stories by saying much about them (they are "short stories," after all).

Check out my other longer reviews. Your comments--positive or negative--are appreciated. Read the "Willows" wherever you can find it. Thanks.

A timeless treasure of tales.......2003-12-29

The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton. Highly recommended.

I was unaware that Edith Wharton, known for such insightful novels as The Age of Innocence, The House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome (as well as the popular movies these novels inspired), had indulged in writing ghost stories other than "Afterward" until I found this collection. In Ghost Stories, Wharton reveals her mastery of the psychology of horror-where ghosts terrify through their oblique influence on the human mind and emotion-and where these human foibles create their own horrors.

Wharton's ghosts take many forms-from the loyal retainer in "The Lady's Maid's Bell" to the loyal retainers of a different sort in "Kerfol"; from the guilt behind "The Eyes" to the guilt recognised "Afterward"; from the mysterious "Mr. Jones" to the ghostly and ghastly "Miss Mary Pask." Some of these visitations are not seen, or, in the case of "Kerfol," even heard. They fulfill various functions: To protect the secrets of the past, to bring the secrets of the past to light, to warn the present about the future, and to remind the living of the dead.

Like the best ghost story writers, Wharton begins each tale with a scenario that seems ordinary enough. Early on, she drops subtle clues that build from a feeling that something is somewhat amiss up to a sense of fractured reality that shatters one's assumptions. Wharton masterfully creates ironic twists ("Miss Mary Pask"), innocent victims (the wife in "Afterward"), and nontraditional ghosts ("The Eyes," "Kerfol"). In many cases, the reader is one step ahead of the narrator or protagonist (Hitchcock's definition of suspense), creating a delicious sense of inevitable, unavoidable doom.

If you are looking for the gore and thrills of today's tale of horror, you will not find them in Wharton's work. If, on the other hand, you appreciate the subtle, growing sense of terror that M. R. James insinuates into The Ghost Stories of an Antiquary, you'll discover the same feeling of the fine line between this world and another that can manifest itself at any time and in any way when the need arises. These are stories to be read, savored, and read again-alone, of course.

Diane L. Schirf, 28 December 2003.

Not your average ghost stories.......2003-09-24

When I saw this collection in the book store, I was intrigued because, although I'm not a fan of Edith Wharton's, I do admire her skills as a writer. The stories themselves are good, well plotted, have good characterizations, are compelling, etc.; however, they aren't typical ghost stories. Some of them don't even involve ghosts, and still others offer little explination to the nature of the ghost, i.e. why they are still around. While they are creepy at times, they didn't really scare me. Some might argue that I, as a 24 year-old young woman, exposed to countless graphic horror films, such as the Scream series, might simply be desensitized to the subtleness of Wharton's stories (as some of the other reviewers have described them), but I'd have to disagree because I scare very easily - the Harry Potter books gave me a fright, so you can just imagine. So if you are looking for a good scare, I'd look elsewhere. But if you're looking for good stories and/or you're an Edith Wharton fan, then I recommend this book.

Delayed Impact.......2000-07-01

The impact of these stories may hit you long after you've read them. These are stories you don't forget, yet you're compelled to reread them. Edith Wharton has given us one of the most delightful ghost story collections I've ever read. It is the characters that make an impression. Long after you've put the book down, they come back to you...

Classic Tales.......2000-03-04

Edith Wharton was a master of the ghost story, and these stories linger in the mind long after the book is over. Above all, the stories are incredibly rich in atmosphere: Wharton is not writing to give thrills but rather chills, and the subtle, nuanced dread evoked in so many of these stories testifies to her immense talent as a writer. These are supernatural tales of the highest quality, and the book is absolutely essential for anyone who loves the classic ghost story.

Average customer rating:

The Custom of the Country
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Aegypan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

ASIN: 1598184016

Book Description

The Custom of the Country may well be have been the lynchpin that made Edith Wharton's career become the phenomenon that comes so easily to memory across so many decades. Oh, it's of a cloth with all her work -- there's no mistaking that a page of her writing came from her and not someone else -- but on a certain level, this novel is a mean book, and the meanness is warranted. The heroine (a woman named Undine Spragg, of all things!) is a spoiled heiress who makes her way in life by conquering one man after another after another, moving from the American heartland eastward first to New York, and ultimately to Paris.

Book Description

The Touchstone was Edith Wharton's first published novella, and it's spare, perhaps even underwritten. Even so, this Faustian tale of a man who stoops to publish love letters for money has mesmerizing, even dangerous qualities -- it has betrayals, greed, and consequences faced: hidden meanings emerge in places where we do not expect to find them. Perhaps, like Stephen Glennard in The Touchstone, we will go mad with guilt, proving we do after all have a conscience. . . .

Download Description

It pressed against him at every turn. He told himself that this was because there was no escape from the visible evidences of his act. The "Letters" confronted him everywhere. People who had never opened a book discussed them with critical reservations; to have read them had become a social obligation in circles to which literature never penetrates except in a personal guise.

Customer Reviews:

Surprisingly Contemporary - 100 years ahead of its time.......1998-09-04

Because I am adapting this novella for Warner Bros as a feature film, I'm interested in hearing what readers have to say about it. This is Wharton's first novella, written at a time when she was still developing her craft as a writer; the story can appear woefully underwritten. Still, the story is mesmerizing and dangerous, a Faustian tale of betrayal, greed and the consequences paid, and the more often I read through it, the more hidden meanings emerge. When you read it, think of the lover who sold Princess Diana's first secrets of their affair to the tabloids, and the consequences since. What ever happened to that man? Perhaps, like Stephen Glennard in "The Touchstone", he has gone mad from guilt, which, ironically enough, might prove he has a conscious after all.

Average customer rating:

Summer
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Aegypan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | Fantasy | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1598183761

Book Description

This is the story of Charity Royall, a child of mountain moonshiners adopted into a family from a poor New England town. Charity has a passionate love affair with Lucius Harney, a young, educated man from the city. Edith Wharton's Summer deals frankly -- honestly -- with the sexual awakening of a young woman. Not surprisingly, when the book was first published (in 1917), that stirred a commotion. Deservedly so! Wharton had a very real gift; it's for good cause she's so well-remembered.

Average customer rating:

The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Aegypan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Romance | Subjects | Books
Similar Items:

ASIN: 1598183680

Book Description

Newland Archer and May Welland have just announced their engagement to New York society, and the match seems perfect -- until Archer meets Countess Olenska, a sharp, beautiful woman in the midst of a divorce . . . it's for good reason this book won Edith Wharton Pulitzer Prize.

"Is it -- in this world -- vulgar to ask for more? To entreat a little wildness, a dark place or two in the soul?"

-- Katherine Mansfield

"There is no woman in American literature as fascinating as the doomed Madame Olenska. . . . Traditionally, Henry James has always been placed slightly higher up the slope of Parnassus than Edith Wharton. But now that the prejudice against the female writer is on the wane, they look to be exactly what they are: giants, equals, the tutelary and benign gods of our American literature."

-- Gore Vidal

"Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition?"

Book Description

"Edith Wharton's finest achievement."

-- Elizabeth Hardwick

Customer Reviews:

Birth of the modern........2007-06-14

Pre-flapper Undine Spragg flaps her mouth and metaphorical wings into infamy in this elegantly written novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald included "The Custom of the Country" on his College of One (the one being girlfriend Sheilah Graham) reading list. One can detect why -- Undine was Daisy Buchanan (see "The Great Gatsby") before Daisy Buchanan was Daisy Buchanan. Actually, Undine shows much more daring in swinging from man to man (but with a net of money -- old, new, her father's, always somebody else's -- always underneath).
Daisy's loyalty to old money makes her a conservative (Ann Coulter variety) compared to Undine.
Wharton delivers a great meditation on the endlessness of appetite and its first cousin -- boredom. "She had everything she wanted, but she still felt, at times, that there were other things she might want if she knew about them."
Undine's life foreshadowed the shallow culture of "busy-ness" and "going out" that's everywhere around us today. Her emotionalism is also very modern. Undine probably represents to Europeans and others the prototype of the piggish and priggish wealthy American. Edith Wharton cleverly drew a character of her present, the future and one of timelessness.

Average customer rating:

The Age of Innocence
Edith Wharton
Manufacturer: Aegypan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Romance | Subjects | Books

General | Contemporary | Romance | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 1598184024

Book Description

"Is it -- in this world -- vulgar to ask for more? To entreat a little wildness, a dark place or two in the soul?"
-- Katherine Mansfield

"Will writers ever recover that peculiar blend of security and alertness which characterizes Mrs. Wharton and her tradition?"
-- E.M. Forster

Book Description

"Or, rather," Ned answered, in the same strain, "why, amid so much that's ghostly, it can never affirm its separate existence as THE ghost." And thereupon their invisible housemate had finally dropped out of their references, which were numerous enough to make them promptly unaware of the loss.

Download Description

Or, rather, Ned answered, in the same strain, "why, amid so much that's ghostly, it can never affirm its separate existence as THE ghost." And thereupon their invisible housemate had finally dropped out of their references, which were numerous enough to make them promptly unaware of the loss.

Average customer rating:

BEST GHOST STORIES
Anne (editor) H.G. Wells, Algernon Blackwood, Guy De Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, Edith Wharton, Rudyard Kipling, E.F. Benson, Saki, Walter De La Mare, William Harvey, George MacDonald, Elizabeth Bowen et al Riddler
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000P0VN3I

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books