Principles of Chemical and Biological Sensors (Chemical Analysis: A Series of Monographs on Analytical Chemistry and Its Applications)

Book Description

An authoritative review of modern sensor technology-essential information for analytical chemists, biochemists, biotechnologists, spectroscopists, and chemical engineers

As sensors begin to realize their commercial and practical potential in fields ranging from the automobile and semiconductor industries to environmental monitoring and clinical diagnostics, this timely work offers an important survey of the principles, construction, and applications of the most popular types of chemical and biological sensors in use today.

Principles of Chemical and Biological Sensors brings together a wealth of valuable material in a single source, providing scientists and researchers with a basic grasp of the latest developments in this area, as well as information on trends and future directions.

Coverage includes:
* Amperometric, modified, potentiometric, and voltammetric electrodes
* Optrodes and direct spectroscopic methods
* Enzyme and antibody based biosensors
* Processing signals from sensors
* Miniaturization of sensors
* Sensor arrays and intelligent sensing systems

Principles of Chemical and Biological Sensors is an essential reference for scientists in research and industry aiming to make optimum use of these cutting-edge devices in their work.

Spurred by a dramatic increase in R&D support over the last twenty years, sensors are poised for a revolution similar to the one seen in microcomputers in the late 1980s. Matching enhanced performance with lower cost, new generations of sensing devices promise to gain a firm footing in many different areas, from environmental regulation to manufacturing and other industries.

Principles of Chemical and Biological Sensors offers a state-of-the-art look at the principles and applications of the most popular sensors available today, coupled with an exploration of potential directions and developments for the future of this dynamic field. From amperometric, potentiometric, and voltammetric electrodes to smart sensors, digital filtering, and more, this useful volume contains essential information across a range of sensor types and functions. Topics covered include:
* Ion-selective electrodes and optrodes
* Amperometric methods of detection
* Biomaterials for biosensors
* Optical chemical sensors
* Miniaturized chemical sensors
* Sensor signal processing

Expertly balancing breadth and depth of coverage within a single, easy-to-use resource, Principles of Chemical and Biological Sensors is essential reading for analytical chemists, biochemists, chemical engineers, and others who will benefit from the tremendous strides being made in sensor research and technology today.

Book Description

Vertebrate evolution is studied through comparative anatomy and functional morphology of existing vertebrates as well as fossil records. Since the publication of the previous edition of Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates: A History of the Backboned Animals Through Time, there have been significant advances in the knowledge surrounding backboned animals. This latest edition of the classic text is completely revised to offer the most recent discoveries in this continually evolving field of science. Covering the various aspects of vertebrate life, from skeletal system to ecology, behavior, and physiology, the Fifth Edition includes new sections on conodonts, dinosaurs, primates, and the origin of birds, and discusses:

Analysis of morphological and molecular data
Early diversification of vertebrates
The evolution of dinosaurs
The origin of mammals
Early ruling reptiles
Basic adaptation of ungulates

Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates, Fifth Edition carries on its legacy as an invaluable reference for professionals in evolutionary biology and paleontology, as well as an ideal textbook for students in those fields.

Customer Reviews:

Badly dated--should not have been published.......2002-01-16

I knew and liked Ned Colbert, and loved the early editions of this once-classic book. He passed away on November 15, 2001, shortly after this edition appeared, so it makes it even more difficult to be honest and frank. But it is necessary, since this is a clear case of a publisher trying to push an outdated, badly conceived project on the market, and few but professional vertebrate paleontologists will realize how problematic this book has become.
In its first edition (written in 1955), Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates was an excellent non-technical review of vertebrate evolution as it was known almost 50 years ago. The second (1969) edition and third (1980) edition began to become more and more outdated, since Colbert retired in the 1960s, and became less and less connected to the latest developments (both in discoveries and in philosophy) that had occurred in vertebrate paleontology. By the time of the fourth edition (published in 1991), the publisher brought in Mike Morales as a younger co-author, but it made no difference-the book was badly out of date in both its approach and its facts. Most of us hoped that this would be its last edition, since there was little that could be done to salvage it. But in this edition, they have added a third author, Eli Minkoff, a biologist who is not a vertebrate paleontologist and who clearly has not kept up with the important developments that have occurred in the past decades. Consequently, the book is full of errors of both omission and commission in every chapter, and should not have been published, let alone used by anyone to teach a modern course in fossil vertebrates.
The problems are so numerous that I cannot list them all in a brief review, but I will mention a few of the more important ones here. It starts with the authors' ambivalence toward the cladistic revolution, which in the past 20 years has completely transformed the way we think about fossil vertebrates. In places, they attempt to be current by paying lip-service to cladograms, but their fundamentally old-fashioned philosophy is unchanged everywhere else. On page 16, they mention (but never explain) cladistics in one brief paragraph, and then throughout the book they place Colbert's 50-year-old diagrams (with no resolution of phylogenetic relationships) side-by-side with a cladogram of some of the same taxa-or use one of the outdated diagrams with no attempt to show more recent hypotheses at all. Again and again, they make anachronistic statements suggesting that we can't know anything about phylogeny because of a lack of a suitable ancestor, or statements like "no clear indication of relationships among gnathostomous fishes can be determined from their stratigraphic order of occurrence in the rocks" (p. 48)-as if it ever could in a group with such a poor fossil record!
Certainly, they have a right to disagree with the prevailing philosophy in their profession if they so choose, although they end up painting a very unrepresentative and inaccurate picture of what we have learned as a consequence. Even more disturbing is the clear evidence that none of the authors keep up with the new discoveries made in past 20 years. Certainly, I haven't seen any of them at the meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology during that time, and apparently they don't read the journals, either. It is jarring to read, page after page, statements, ideas, or taxonomic concepts that have become grossly outdated, and should have disappeared long ago. Among the numerous examples are: the discredited notion that jaws are derived from gill arches (p. 38); Romer's idea that tetrapods left the water to escape drying pools, or chase prey, when all the recent discoveries of Acanthostega show that the tetrapod limb appeared in fully aquatic animals long before there was any need to crawl out on land (p. 85); the idea that anthracosaurs like Seymouria had anything to do with amniote origins, when recent discoveries like Westlothiana (not even mentioned in this book) have shifted the focus elsewhere (p. 105); the failure to note (p. 154) that the latest fossils show that snakes are descended from mosasaurs; a grossly antiquated approach to Mesozoic mammals and their relationships in Chapter 19, with almost no mention of the last decade of amazing discoveries; a carnivore "phylogeny" (p. 379) that treats "Fissipedia" as a natural group, and fails to show that pinnipeds are clearly descended from bears, not from the carnivoran stem; no mention (p. 394) of Ambulocetus and all the other recent spectacular transitional whale discoveries (all published long before this book went to press); the outdated notion (p. 428) that protoceratids are related to tragulids, rather than camels; the idea that perissodactyls have anything to do with phenacodonts (p. 452), instead of the recent discoveries of Chinese taxa like Radinskya, which point in a whole new direction; the outdated idea (p. 467) that brontotheres survived the Eocene (thanks to revisions of the time scale completed a decade ago), or that chalicotheres dug up roots (p. 469) with their peculiar claws (debunked by Coombs 20 years ago); the complete failure to mention (p. 480) all the new primitive elephants like Numidotherium and Phosphatherium, which push proboscideans back to the Paleocene of North Africa. The list could go on and on, but these are among the more glaring examples of a failure to recognize or incorporate any of the past 20 years of discoveries.
Equally jarring is the repeated use of taxa that were manifestly unnatural even in 1955, and have not been used by vertebrate paleontologists in many years. The examples are too numerous to mention, but it feels like going through a time warp to read about "chondrosteans," "holosteans," "labyrinthodonts," "thecodonts," "Prototheria," "eupantotheres," "condylarths," "palaeodonts," as if anyone still practicing vertebrate paleontology took those taxa seriously. Symptomatic of this problem is the use of the archaic term "mammal-like reptiles," a misnomer that reflects several serious misconceptions. Synapsids (the "mammal-like reptiles") and the true reptiles are two distinct lineages that originated separately and simultaneously in the mid-Carboniferous, so synapsids have never been members of, or descended from reptiles (in even the broadest sense of the word). Call them "protomammals" if you will-but they are not, and have never been, reptiles!
These problems might not matter if this were just a trade book intended for the popular audience, who might not care if it is accurate or up-to-date in every detail. But I know of several institutions where paleontologists (not vertebrate paleontologists) still use this book to teach classes in vertebrate evolution, completely unaware of how grossly outdated this book had become. Nor is it the only choice on the market written at this level. Michael Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology (2nd edition, 2000, Blackwell) is fully up-to-date and much more affordable [...]. Clearly, the editors at Wiley-Liss are trying to extend their franchise long beyond its useful life, and instead of consulting with qualified vertebrate paleontologists who could have made the book up-to-date, they foisted this sad shadow of a former classic on the unsuspecting profession.

Donald R. Prothero
Department of Geology
Occidental College
Los Angeles, CA 90041
[....]

Badly dated--should not have been published.......2002-01-16

I knew and liked Ned Colbert, and loved the early editions of this once-classic book. He passed away on November 15, 2001, shortly after this edition appeared, so it makes it even more difficult to be honest and frank. But it is necessary, since this is a clear case of a publisher trying to push an outdated, badly conceived project on the market, and few but professional vertebrate paleontologists will realize how problematic this book has become.
In its first edition (written in 1955), Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates was an excellent non-technical review of vertebrate evolution as it was known almost 50 years ago. The second (1969) edition and third (1980) edition began to become more and more outdated, since Colbert retired in the 1960s, and became less and less connected to the latest developments (both in discoveries and in philosophy) that had occurred in vertebrate paleontology. By the time of the fourth edition (published in 1991), the publisher brought in Mike Morales as a younger co-author, but it made no difference-the book was badly out of date in both its approach and its facts. Most of us hoped that this would be its last edition, since there was little that could be done to salvage it. But in this edition, they have added a third author, Eli Minkoff, a biologist who is not a vertebrate paleontologist and who clearly has not kept up with the important developments that have occurred in the past decades. Consequently, the book is full of errors of both omission and commission in every chapter, and should not have been published, let alone used by anyone to teach a modern course in fossil vertebrates.
The problems are so numerous that I cannot list them all in a brief review, but I will mention a few of the more important ones here. It starts with the authors' ambivalence toward the cladistic revolution, which in the past 20 years has completely transformed the way we think about fossil vertebrates. In places, they attempt to be current by paying lip-service to cladograms, but their fundamentally old-fashioned philosophy is unchanged everywhere else. On page 16, they mention (but never explain) cladistics in one brief paragraph, and then throughout the book they place Colbert's 50-year-old diagrams (with no resolution of phylogenetic relationships) side-by-side with a cladogram of some of the same taxa-or use one of the outdated diagrams with no attempt to show more recent hypotheses at all. Again and again, they make anachronistic statements suggesting that we can't know anything about phylogeny because of a lack of a suitable ancestor, or statements like "no clear indication of relationships among gnathostomous fishes can be determined from their stratigraphic order of occurrence in the rocks" (p. 48)-as if it ever could in a group with such a poor fossil record!
Certainly, they have a right to disagree with the prevailing philosophy in their profession if they so choose, although they end up painting a very unrepresentative and inaccurate picture of what we have learned as a consequence. Even more disturbing is the clear evidence that none of the authors keep up with the new discoveries made in past 20 years. Certainly, I haven't seen any of them at the meetings of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology during that time, and apparently they don't read the journals, either. It is jarring to read, page after page, statements, ideas, or taxonomic concepts that have become grossly outdated, and should have disappeared long ago. Among the numerous examples are: the discredited notion that jaws are derived from gill arches (p. 38); Romer's idea that tetrapods left the water to escape drying pools, or chase prey, when all the recent discoveries of Acanthostega show that the tetrapod limb appeared in fully aquatic animals long before there was any need to crawl out on land (p. 85); the idea that anthracosaurs like Seymouria had anything to do with amniote origins, when recent discoveries like Westlothiana (not even mentioned in this book) have shifted the focus elsewhere (p. 105); the failure to note (p. 154) that the latest fossils show that snakes are descended from mosasaurs; a grossly antiquated approach to Mesozoic mammals and their relationships in Chapter 19, with almost no mention of the last decade of amazing discoveries; a carnivore "phylogeny" (p. 379) that treats "Fissipedia" as a natural group, and fails to show that pinnipeds are clearly descended from bears, not from the carnivoran stem; no mention (p. 394) of Ambulocetus and all the other recent spectacular transitional whale discoveries (all published long before this book went to press); the outdated notion (p. 428) that protoceratids are related to tragulids, rather than camels; the idea that perissodactyls have anything to do with phenacodonts (p. 452), instead of the recent discoveries of Chinese taxa like Radinskya, which point in a whole new direction; the outdated idea (p. 467) that brontotheres survived the Eocene (thanks to revisions of the time scale completed a decade ago), or that chalicotheres dug up roots (p. 469) with their peculiar claws (debunked by Coombs 20 years ago); the complete failure to mention (p. 480) all the new primitive elephants like Numidotherium and Phosphatherium, which push proboscideans back to the Paleocene of North Africa. The list could go on and on, but these are among the more glaring examples of a failure to recognize or incorporate any of the past 20 years of discoveries.
Equally jarring is the repeated use of taxa that were manifestly unnatural even in 1955, and have not been used by vertebrate paleontologists in many years. The examples are too numerous to mention, but it feels like going through a time warp to read about "chondrosteans," "holosteans," "labyrinthodonts," "thecodonts," "Prototheria," "eupantotheres," "condylarths," "palaeodonts," as if anyone still practicing vertebrate paleontology took those taxa seriously. Symptomatic of this problem is the use of the archaic term "mammal-like reptiles," a misnomer that reflects several serious misconceptions. Synapsids (the "mammal-like reptiles") and the true reptiles are two distinct lineages that originated separately and simultaneously in the mid-Carboniferous, so synapsids have never been members of, or descended from reptiles (in even the broadest sense of the word). Call them "protomammals" if you will-but they are not, and have never been, reptiles!
These problems might not matter if this were just a trade book intended for the popular audience, who might not care if it is accurate or up-to-date in every detail. But I know of several institutions where paleontologists (not vertebrate paleontologists) still use this book to teach classes in vertebrate evolution, completely unaware of how grossly outdated this book had become. Nor is it the only choice on the market written at this level. Michael Benton's Vertebrate Paleontology (2nd edition, 2000, Blackwell) is fully up-to-date and much more affordable (especially since Wiley is charging $145 for this book!). Clearly, the editors at Wiley-Liss are trying to extend their franchise long beyond its useful life, and instead of consulting with qualified vertebrate paleontologists who could have made the book up-to-date, they foisted this sad shadow of a former classic on the unsuspecting profession ...

Clear and Insightful.......2001-11-01

"The book points out very cleary the climatic and geological conditions, and environment that allowed the various taxa of vertebrates to evolve and thrive. The clarity and insightfulness of the authors are highly recommended." --W.H. Tam, University of Western Ontario

Great Book!.......2001-11-01

"Eminently readable and lavishly illustrated (with Lois Darling's classic drawings of reconstructed species plus up-to-date cladograms), Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates is the perfect book for students of vertebrate paleontology. Unlike encyclopedic reference texts which are full of confusing jargon, this is a book that can be read by the non-specialist. Colbert tells--and shows--the fascinating story of vertebrate evolution and diversity, with all of the major groups represented. With thorough yet uncluttered text and well-chosen figures, with complete coverage of paleoecology, stratigraphy, and taphonomy, this book is perfect for anyone who wishes to learn more about our "extended" family tree." --Alexander J. Werth, Ph.D., Hampden-Sydney College

Colbert Evolution of the Vertebrates - a History of the Backboned Animals Through Time 3ed

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Colbert's Evolution of the Vertebrates: A History of the Backboned Animals Through Time, Fifth Edition Set

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Evolution of the Vertebrates A History of the Backboned Animals Through Time

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Evolution of the Vertebrates A History of the Backboned Animals Through Time
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A Free-Flowing Comedy

s. spilka

Funny with good insights into human nature

The funniest of all

Like David Lodge but with more pathos

Straight Man: A Novel
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Amazon.com

First Jane Smiley came out of the comedy closet with Moo, a campus satire par excellence, and now Richard Russo has gotten in on the groves-of-academe game. Straight Man is hilarious sport, with a serious side. William Henry Devereaux Jr., is almost 50 and stuck forever as chair of English at West Central Pennsylvania University. It is April and fear of layoffs--even among the tenured--has reached mock-epic proportions; Hank has yet to receive his department budget and finds himself increasingly offering comments such as "Always understate necrophilia" to his writing students. Then there are his possible prostate problems and the prospect of his father's arrival. Devereaux Sr., "then and now, an academic opportunist," has always been a high-profile professor and a low-profile parent.

Though Hank tries to apply William of Occam's rational approach (choose simplicity) to each increasingly absurd situation, and even has a dog named after the philosopher, he does seem to cause most of his own enormous difficulties. Not least when he grabs a goose and threatens to off a duck (sic) a day until he gets his budget. The fact that he is also wearing a fake nose and glasses and doing so in front of a TV camera complicates matters even further. Hank tries to explain to one class that comedy and tragedy don't go together, but finds the argument "runs contrary to their experience. Indeed it may run contrary to my own." It runs decidedly against Richard Russo's approach in Straight Man, and the result is a hilarious and touching novel.

Book Description

In this uproarious new novel, Richard Russo performs his characteristic high-wire walk between hilarity and heartbreak. Russo's protagonist is William Henry Devereaux, Jr., the reluctant chairman of the English department of a badly underfunded college in the Pennsylvania rust belt. Devereaux's reluctance is partly rooted in his character--he is a born anarchist-- and partly in the fact that his department is more savagely divided than the Balkans.

In the course of a single week, Devereaux will have his nose mangled by an angry colleague, imagine his wife is having an affair with his dean, wonder if a curvaceous adjunct is trying to seduce him with peach pits, and threaten to execute a goose on local television. All this while coming to terms with his philandering father, the dereliction of his youthful promise, and the ominous failure of certain vital body functions. in short, Straight Man is classic Russo--side-splitting and true-to-life, witty, compassionate, and impossible to put down.

Customer Reviews:

A Free-Flowing Comedy.......2007-10-06

Richard Russo (born 1949) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist born on Johnstown, New York. The prize winning novel was Empire Falls from 2001.

Many concentrate on the plot or story of Straight Man, and what are the characters doing and what do they represent? I think it is best for you as a reader to discover this for yourself, and to read the book and skip anything that gives away the plot. Like many works of fiction, the discovery of the story is one of the great pleasures of the book.

It is a humorous book about university professors, and it concentrates on an English professor and the story is one week in his turbulent life. But Russo is not attacking professors. He is trying to write a book with a different approach and in his own words he has no grudge to vent against being an academic. He uses deadpan humor and he uses contrasts between people's self image versus the reality of their situations - or what some might call a mid-life crisis of sorts. And he uses the college setting as more of a metaphor than an attack on institutions of higher learning. As Russo himself has said in interviews, the characters including the protagonist Hank are filled with self-destructive urges, and they talk about serious issues - in many cases - which are cloaked in humor.

As a writer, Russo shows a lot of what one would call a lack of limits or boundaries in his writing. There is a free flowing element to the novel. He makes other writers seem constricted and less interesting. He carries that to the end where we have a very chaotic and unfinished end to the story. Perhaps as an afterthought, he realized this and wrote an epilogue to do the clean up and to explain what has happened to all the characters.

This is my first novel by Russo and I am looking forward to his others, especially Empire Falls.

Interesting novel: Recommend 5 stars.

s. spilka.......2007-09-01

An amazingly observant and psychologically astute writer. The narrative progresses with the robustness of a full river, the grace of a swallow-tailed kite, and the breathless precision of tight-rope walker. As an English professor I can attest to the accuracy of the descriptions of academic life, but the satirical perspective is by necessity limiting. The eloquence and the beauty of great literature are themes nowhere to be found in this book (which itself is great literature). Also if satire it is (and the humor is indeed rollicking)I wish it expressed more scorn for the penetration of the market into academia. But perhaps the book was written too early for that. I was particularly moved by the evident love, resistant to satire, between the narrator and his wife, Lily. I must also say that the book hits you in the stomach, which, as Kafka would probably agree, is the sign of a good book.

Funny with good insights into human nature.......2007-08-13

I enjoyed Straight Man: A Novel and read it after reading some of Russo's other books. My visits through Russo's work started with an interest in the movie, Nobody's Fool (1994) starring Melanie Griffith and Paul Newman. This movie was adapted from the book of the same title by Russo Nobody's Fool. I then read Empire Falls by Russo and enjoyed it as well. I have worked and studied in an academic environment and several institutions of higher education. Russo captures the quirkiness and eccentric nature of academe quite well. The eccentric characters he creates along with the whacky things they do and adventures they get involved with - its subtle - but hilarious at the same time. I believe readers who have experienced ACADEMIA personally, may better appreciate this book and its insights than readers who are not really all that familiar with the goings on in higher education. Not to be a snob about it, but, academe is a world unto itself and Russo captures that world quite well.

The funniest of all.......2007-08-05

I am a huge Richard Russo fan, and this is where I started. Anyone who has experienced academia and doesn't enjoy this book must have no sense of humor. If only I'd been able to crawl around in air ducts when my workaday pals were meeting about me.

Like David Lodge but with more pathos.......2007-07-13

I love David Lodge's novels of academia in the UK (though I thought the recent "Thinks" was subpar) and this was in keeping with that style. I'll not go into the details, as so many other reviews have done a more than adequate job of that. I will say this book has its funny moments and it has an ending that I really enjoyed, redeeming for me what was an otherwise only moderately-satisfying theme.

Loved especially Mr. Purty with his malapropisms. Also loved Hank's description of his daughter's innate lack of curiosity about the world: "You could walk in the door with an aardvark on a leash and she wouldn't ask why". Many cute funny moments like that, and much in the way of believable, not-too-sentimental touching stuff.

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don't read this book.......2000-01-12

There is only one good line in this book where the main character was described as the straight man to fate's comedy. The rest of the book was lackluster. The female author of the book aparently knows little about the real issues that would be on the mind of a middle aged man. I wouldn't reccomend this book unless you are interestred in semi abusive boring relationships.

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