MATLAB

If you need a reference for various numerical methods then this book may be of use to you, but do not expect to learn anything from it. You will not be taught 'why' these methods work, or 'how' they came about--it simply lists a bunch of formulas with a few meager attempts at derivations here and there. If you want to actually understand this stuff you'll have to go elsewhere. If you just want a reference...I would still go elsewhere.

I used this book in a college level course, and let me tell you it is close to worthless. I gave it two stars because someone might be able to use this for some kind of whimpy reference book. Don't buy this expecting to learn much from it though. The first few chapters are ok, but later on it just glosses over many things you need in order to understand stuff.

This book is exactly as the title says. There are a lot of great sources on applied mathematics and it covers a lot of good material ranging from iterative methods to PDE's. Matlab is the software of choice and the book does a good job of making use of Matlab. The detraction to this book is the lack of rigor. The book operates under the misconceptiong that applied math doesn't have to be very analytical. As a reference book it is good resource, but as a textbook a little bit more analysis needs to be put in. This is a nice fresh idea for what Numerical Analysis should be, but could use a bit more beefing up in the analysis side. Hopefully this will come with later editions.

The book is well written but not very extensive. It points to the applications right from the beggining and it is certainly of great value for students and engineers already engagged with Balanis Book on antenna theory. I strongly recommend Makarov's book for training students with a strong numerical methods background on electromagnetics, as a prerequisite before taking the course.

By way of this book, an in-depth knowledge of digital and signal processing can be obtained. This book will greatly increase ones repertoire of signal analysis methods. What more is there to say but viva fourier!

I've looked at most of the DSP texts and personally find Ambardar's (2nd edition) textbook about the best. It will train you to use DSP as a tool, both in pen and paper analysis and in practice (e.g., using MATLAB). Some books will only make you a philosopher of DSP, this one will help you master the skills so you can actually do DSP.

Somehow Ambardar manages to discuss and provide examples on nearly every topic of interest to DSP with the exception of the very latest (see below). The sections are brief and to the point with many worked examples. The problems at the end of the chapter are actually do-able without having a Ph.D! Graphical approaches and shortcuts enrich the presentation and make the text fun to read.

On the downside, multirate signal processing is briefly explored and wavelets are only mentioned. Perhaps these topics will be enlarged upon in a future edition.

The author walks you through the material one small step at at a time.This text is as close to painless learning as learning wil ever get (if I may be forgiven a colloquilism). You don't need answers in the back because he works several examples for you on every page.
If I ever had to teach this I would use this book.

The review of the Clean Air Act is well done. Absorption tower examples are very dated - saddles are stated to be the preferred tower packing, so the tower designed is grossly oversized with enormous pressure drop compared to what is possible with a modern packing. If you need a reference work with practical examples to pollution control towers keep looking.

If you need a reference work that summarizes the Clean Air Act then this is a good source. It is also has technically sound theoretical explanations of air pollution control. However it is a poor source if you seek suggestions for any type of current air pollution control project. The examples in the text are extremely dated and hence grossly oversized. The authors recommend that saddles be used to pack towers and then design the tower to have over 40 ft of packing. As a result their towers are much to big, much too tall and have enormously high pressure drop. Unfortunately the authors ignore (or are simply unaware of) several generations of mass transfer packing development that allow for much more practical and far less costly designs than per their examples.