Biomedical Optical Imaging
James G. Fujimoto, Daniel L. Farkas, eds.
Oxford University Press, 2009; $83.26 (hardcover).
Each of the 15 seemingly unrelated articles in this book present some aspect of optical imaging in
biomedicine. Broadly speaking, the content falls into two categories: Imaging techniques (optical coherence tomography, spectral imaging, confocal microscopy, fluorescence) and bioscience (use of imaging
techniques in oncology, brain activity research and genetics). In that respect, the book cannot be
regarded as a comprehensive introduction to biomedical imaging. Rather, it presents a broad overview
of this not-so-precisely-defined subject. Experienced researchers will certainly find something useful
and interesting here. However, a novice could be confused by the broadness of the subject. As usual,
references are numerous and up-to-date, and the index is comprehensive. There is an unusual number
of typographic errors.
Review by Dejan Pantelic, Institute of Physics, Zemun, Belgrade, Serbia.
Solid-State
Gas Sensing
E. Comini, G. Faglia and G. Sberveglieri, eds.
Springer, 2008; hardcover ($129.00).
Everyone knows that smoke detectors are easily to find, and carbon monoxide detectors are now commercially available as well. However, most people probably do not know that gas sensing is becoming a
special new field.
This book offers insight into the principles, applications and new trends in gas sensor technology.
Developments in this area are rapidly advancing, so the timing of this book’s publication is perfect. It
covers sensors based on many different approaches, making it useful to a wide variety of people.
Review by Hsuing Hsu, professor emeritus, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, U.S.A.
Max Planck:
Annalen Papers
Dieter Hoffmann, ed.
Wiley-VCH, 2008; $200.00 (hardcover).
This book contains the German facsimiles of Planck’s 43 papers published in Annalen der Physik
and 31 book reviews published in Annalen supplements. While the Annalen papers are historically
important, they only constitute 34 percent of Planck’s publications. These papers are divided into the
categories of entropy and irreversibility, thermodynamic equilibria and electrical transport, statistical
thermodynamics and stochastic systems, theory of radiation and electrodynamics, quantum theory
and book reviews. Although contributors wrote English introductions for each section, readers must be
able to read German in order to understand the papers themselves. A future edition should contain the
English translations of these important papers as well as a fuller historical contextual analysis.
Review by Barry R. Masters, Fellow of OSA, SPIE and AAAS, department of biological engineering, Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A.
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