BKMGLSCI.RVW   981022

"Magill's Survey of Science Applied Science Series Supplement", Donald
R. Franceschetti (ed), 1998, 0-89356-934-8
%E   Donald R. Franceschetti
%C   P. O. Box 50062, Pasadena, CA   91115
%D   1998
%G   0-89356-934-8
%I   Salem Press, Inc.
%P   433 p.
%T   "Magill's Survey of Science Applied Science Series Supplement"

This is a seventh volume to extend and update the original six volume
series published in 1993.  The tome at hand adds fifty two articles to
the 382 previously published.

Each article follows a standard format, starting with the type of
science, specific field of study, abstract, and principle terms.  A
substantial overview leads to discussion of uses of the technology,
and concludes with a historical and technological context.  An
annotated bibliography provides a few sentences describing each
reference, and there are cross-references to other articles in the
set.

Topics included in this volume are adaptive optics, aerogels,
aerosols, alternative fuels, amorphous materials, approximation
theory, atomic forces microscopes, biological and chemical weapons,
biopesticides, biosensors, biotechnology, color science, computer
viruses, conducting polymers, controlled nuclear fusion, electronic
music, fax technology, fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, geographical
information systems, graphical user interfaces, ground-penetrating
radar, hearing aids, high-speed rail, image processing, information
theory, the Internet, ion-selective electrodes, lightning protection,
monoclonal antibodies, nanotechnology, neutron activation analysis,
nuclear medicine, numerical analysis, orthopedic implants, pacemakers,
particle accelerators and detectors, photoelectricity, positron
emission tomography, quantitative structure-activity relationships,
smart materials, smart weapons, solvents, sound recording, stealth
technology, supercritical fluid extraction, telegraphy, thermography,
tidal power, transducers, ultrasound, and zeolites.

I found some items to be very interesting, but more so if I knew next
to nothing of the technology under discussion.  For example, I have
never worked closely with colour science, but did take an academic
course that mentioned the topic some years back, and once worked for a
company with one product line that dealt with colour.  In spite of
this tenuous connection I was still dissatisfied in the lack of detail
in the color science piece.  Overall I was bored or annoyed with any
of the articles related to computer science.

In general I found the quality of the articles to be roughly on a par
with, say, an essay in "Scientific American," although definitely less
comprehensive.  I was also disappointed that there was almost no
indication of current or recent work on any topic in the context
discussion.

Of course, it will be obvious to readers of this series which article
I absolutely had to read.  First I read through the list of
contributors to try and guess which of them might have been either a
virus researcher or a security specialist.  None of the names were
familiar, and when I finally determined the identity of the author of
the virus article he was completely unknown to me.  The piece itself
was very uneven.  There was some good, and even fairly sophisticated
advice contained in it, but there was also a lot of text that was
either misleading or in error.  The middle "uses of the technology"
section wasn't too bad, with slightly less than one error per
paragraph.  The overview and context parts were somewhat worse,
averaging roughly one error per two sentences.  References were quite
dated, which might indicate why no mention was made of the now
ubiquitous MS Word macro viruses, even though they have been around
for three years, or the somewhat newer "immune system" detection
packages.

This collection might provide a starting point for an introduction
into a field in which the reader has no background.  Certainly a
number of the topics would not be included in general encyclopedias,
even given the limited information provided.  However, any decently
stocked public library should have material that goes beyond this, and
any determined search on the Internet could, probably within an hour,
turn up resources that went significantly further.

copyright Robert M. Slade, 1998   BKMGLSCI.RVW   981022