"Outstanding…classicclear illustrations aboundan exceedingly thorough, accurate, and up-to-date volume." (The Quarterly Review of Biology)

"A delightful book to read…I would recommend this book highlyfor any who seek to understand the biochemical basis of disease" (Annals of Clinical Biochemistry)

"…I believe this text fills an important niche, and in that niche it is very well done…a very useful text for those going into medicine.” (Biochemistry and Molecular Education, July-August 2002)

"a comprehensive biochemistry booknew material in key areas justifies the new edition" (Doody's Health, April 19, 2002)

"There are numerous good textbooks available for general biochemistry, but medical, pharmacy, and other health professional students often question the relevance of the extensive coverage given tosimpler organismsDevlin's textbook fills the needs of these students, with its strong emphasis on human biochemistryan excellent choice for a pharmaceutical or medical biochemistry course." (Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, Vol. 45, No. 11)

"This is a welcome and relatively inexpensive volume for students of biochemistry and especially those involved with clinical biochemistry".(Cell Biochemistry & Function, June 2003) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Annals of Clinical Biochemistry
"A delightful book to read. I would recommend this book highlyfor any who seek to understand the biochemical basis of disease" --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

• The applications version features a wide variety of interesting, contemporary applications.
• Clear, accessible, step-by-step explanations make the material crystal clear.
• Established the intricate thread of relationships between systems of equations, matrices, determinants, vectors, linear transformations and eigenvalues.

Rapidly evolving computer and communications technologies have achieved data transmission rates and data storage capacities high enough for digital video. But video involves much more than just pushing bits! Achieving the best possible image quality, accurate color, and smooth motion requires understanding many aspects of image acquisition, coding, processing, and display that are outside the usual realm of computer graphics. At the same time, video system designers are facing new demands to interface with film and computer system that require techniques outside conventional video engineering.

Charles Poynton's 1996 book A technical Introduction to Digital Video became an industry favorite for its succinct, accurate, and accessible treatment of standard definition television (SDTV). In Digital Video and HDTV, Poynton augments that book with coverage of high definition television (HDTV) and compression systems.

With the help of hundreds of high quality technical illustrations, this book presents the following topics:

* Basic concepts of digitization, sampling, quantization, gamma, and filtering
* Principles of color science as applied to image capture and display
* Scanning and coding of SDTV and HDTV
* Video color coding: luma, chroma (4:2:2 component video, 4fSC composite video)
* Analog NTSC and PAL
* Studio systems and interfaces
* Compression technology, including M-JPEG and MPEG-2
* Broadcast standards and consumer video equipment

Back Cover Copy
"This is the "Gamma Sutra" a guide to the pleasures of understanding electronic pictures. It's like having the world's best teacher giving you a private seminar on whatever you need to know."
Mark Schubin, multiple Emmy Award-winning Fellow of the Society of
Motion Picture and Television Engineers


"We are all looking forward to the benefits that will result from the convergence/collision between digital television and computers. This book is an invaluable reference in how digital video is done, both for TV people and for computer graphics people, and it will go a long way toward accelerating the convergence and in minimizing the damage it may cause to either party."
From the Foreword by Jim Blinn, microsoft Research

Rapidly evolving computer and communications technologies have achieved data transmission rates and data storage capacities high enough for digital video. But video involves much more than just pushing bits! Achieving accurate color, smooth motion, and the best possible image quality requires understanding many aspects of image acquisition, coding, processing, and display that are outside the usual realm of computer graphics. At the same time, video system designers are facing increasing demands to interface with film and computer systems, and they therefore need to understand many of the techniques of computer graphics.

Digital Video and HDTV Algorithms and Interfaces covers the theory and engineering of digital video systems in a manner that is equally accessible to video engineers and computer graphics practitioners. It provides succinct and accurate treatment of standard-definition television (SDTV), high-definition television (HDTV), and compression systems. With the help of hundreds of high-quality technical illustrations and an extensive glossary, this book details the following topics:

*Basic concepts of digitization, sampling, quantization, gamma, and filtering

*Principles of color science as applied to image capture and display

*Scanning and coding of SDTV and HDTV

*Video color coding: luma, chroma (4:2:2 component video, 4fSC composite video)

*Analog NTSC and PAL

*Studio systems and interfaces, including SDI, IEEE 1394, and DV-over-1394

*Digital videotape recording

*Compression technology, including M-JPEG, DV, and MPEG-2

*Broadcast standards (including digital television, DTV) and consumer video equipment

The best thing about Mastering Algorithms in Perl is the scope at which it covers the universe of algorithms while refraining from getting bogged down in academic detail. Besides basic data structures--a lynchpin of books on algorithms--the authors provide dozens and dozens of algorithms for sorting, searching, and doing mathematical computations of all kinds. While they discuss "Big-O" notation and assume a general familiarity with math, they don't overwhelm the reader. (You can even borrow the code without needing a math degree to understand it.) The focus is on efficient, reusable Perl subroutines written and compiled by three Perl experts.

Standout chapters include extending Perl's already powerful string processing abilities, game programming, and cryptography. Generally, the authors achieve a good mix of more advanced (and less well-known) algorithms, along with the basics. Chances are you won't need to use all the dozen or so sorting algorithms presented here, but the authors include them all, just in case. As a reference and tutorial, readers can pick and choose what they need for real-world Perl development.

There hasn't been a book dedicated exclusively to Perl algorithms prior to the publication of this one. In all, Mastering Algorithms in Perl fills a useful niche by compiling a powerful library of Perl algorithms that will be useful for anyone who works with this programming language, whether in business or academic computing. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered: Perl data types, Big-O notation, data structures, queues, deques, linked lists, binary trees, sorting and searching algorithms, game and dynamic programming, sets and multisets, matrices and graphs, string matching and parsing, 2-D geometry, number systems, cryptography (including DES and RSA), probability, statistics, and numerical analysis.

From Library Journal
Perl is very similar to C in syntax, and while Perl doesn't have the speed of complied C, it has been getting much faster. It also is one of the most portable languages, available for most hardware with no changes in code. It is free, which makes it very attractive to developers. This guide covers everything from data structures, sorting and searching, to sets and matrices, to cryptography, probability, and statistics. Readers must already know Perl, so this is recommended for advanced programming collections.
Copyright 1999 Reed business Information, Inc.