Book Review: “Classifying Reality,” by David S. Oderberg (ed.) (2013)

Book Review: “Classifying Reality,” by David S. Oderberg (ed.) (2013)

Classifying reality is an ancient and fundamental ability. Even the most basic living creatures classify their world as do social collectives of living things, most noticeably, human beings through psychological processes. An example of the rudimentary nature of classification exists in the behavior of slime molds. When food is abundant many of the more than 900 types of slime molds exist not a...

Book Review David Banister Transport Planning

Book Review: Clinical Research Design. 4th ed.

Although this is a comprehensive textbook on clinical research design, it takes the reader in a truly step by step manner in designing a clinical research. It starts with explaining what a clinical research is made of the “anatomy” and how it works the “physiology.” It then covers how to conceive a research question, writing research proposals and ends with explaining not commonly discussed sub...

Book Review: Urodynamics Made Easy. 3rd ed.

Urodynamics is an exam that brings out the “physiologist” in the person trying to solve and help a patient with lower urinary tract problems. It involves pressures, contractions, relaxations, electromyeolograms, and more that can often be confusing and difficult to understand. A worrisome trend worldwide is the decreasing amount of time spent by residents learning to perform and interpret the e...

Book Review: Stochastic Modeling: Theory and Reality

For decades, actuaries have historically used statistical and financial models that were inherently considered deterministic in the sense that random fluctuations are often ignored, although some type of sensitivity of the parameter and model assumptions have been employed to have a sense of the possible variation in the results. Today, such sensitivity analysis is unacceptably appropriate when...