Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this Articles: Preventable Disasters: Why Governments Fail, Frederick L. Shiels, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc., Savage, Maryland (1991), 204 pp. Somalia: The Missed Opportunities, Mohammed Sahnoun, United States Institute of Peace, Washington, DC (1994), 89 pp. Prison Riots in Britain and the USA, Robert Adams, St. Martin's Press, New York (1992), 268 pp. A New Species of Trouble: Explorations in Disaster, Trauma and Community, Kai T. Erikson, W.W. Norton and Company, London (1994), 263 pp. Breaking the Vicious Circle: Toward Effective Risk Regulation, Stephen Breyer, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1993), 127 pp. Globalisation, Social Theory and Global Culture, Roland Robertson, Sage Publications, London (1992), 211 pp.     

What Role to Play? Intermediaries in International Conflict as Negotiators and Facilitators

Mediating Conflict: Decision-making and Western Intervention in Namibia, V. Jabri, Manchester University Press, Manchester (1990), 198 pp. Intermediaries in International Conflict, T. Princen, Princeton University Press, Princeton (1992) (paperback edition 1995), 263 pp. Ending Mozambique's War: The Role of Mediation and Good Offices, C. Hume, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington DC (1994), 162 pp.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this Articles: No breathing room: The Aftermath of Chernobyl, Grigori Medvedev, Basic Books, New York (1993), 213 pp. Preventing Chaos in a Crisis, Patrick Lagadec, McGraw-Hill, London (1993), 368 pp. Risks: Reading Corporate Signals, Haig J. Boyadjian and James F. Warren, John Wiley and Sons, Chichester (1992), 406 pp. Industrial Sociology and Economic Crisis, John Eldridge, Peter Cressey and John MacInnes, Harvester Wheatsheaf, Brighton (1991), 236 pp. Paths of Change: Strategic Choices for Organizations and Society, Will McWhinney, Sage Publications, Newbury Park (1992), 273 pp.     

A Dialogue about Risk

But Is It True?: On the Relationship Between Knowledge and Action in the Great Environmental and Safety Issues of Our Time, Aaron Wildavsky, Harvard University Press, Cambridge (1994) (in press). Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity, Ulrich Beck, Sage Publications, Newbury Park (19921, 249 pp. (translated by Mark Ritter). Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory, Mary Douglas, Routledge, London and New York (1992), 313 pp. Organizations, Uncertainties, and Risk, James F. Short, Jr. and Lee Clarke (Eds.), Westview Press, Boulder (1992), 355 pp.     

The New Business Currency

Abstract

Thomas H. Davenport and John C. Beck, The Attention Economy: Understanding the New Currency of Business, Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press (2001), 253 pp.

Brad Hansen, The Dictionary of Computing and Digital Media: Terms and Acronyms, Wilsonville, OR: Franklin, Beedle, and Associates (1999), 543 pp.

Piotr Jankowski and Timothy Nyerges, Geographic Information Systems for Group Decision Making: Towards a Participatory Geographic Information Science, New York: Taylor and Francis (2001), 273 pp.

Jeffrey A. Rohlfs, Bandwagon Effects in High Technology Industries, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (2001), 256 pp.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this Articles: The AIDS Disaster: The Failure of Organizations in New York and the Nation, Charles Perrow and Mauro F Guillén, Yale University Press, New Haven and London (1990) 206 pp. Too Many Cooks? The Response of the Health-related Services to Major Incidents in London (Research Report No. 15), Bill New, King's Fund Institute, London (1992) 44 pp. Shaping Strategic Change: Making Change in Large Scale Organisations, Andrew Pettigrew, Ewan Ferlie and Lorna McKee, Sage, London (1992) 326 pp. Avoiding War: Problems of Crisis Management. Alexander L George (Ed.), Westview Boulder (1991) 590 pp.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this Articles: Disasters, Collective Behavior and Social Organization, Russell R. Dynes and Kathleen J. Tierney (Eds), University of Delaware Press, Newark (1994), 378 pp. Risk: A Sociological Theory, Niklas Luhmann, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin and New York (1993), 236 pp. The Future of Warfare, Bevin Alexander, WW Norton and Company, New York (1995), 235 pp.     

Book Reviews

Abstract

Fraud Auditing and Forensic Accounting: New Tools and Techniques, by G. Jack Bologna and Robert J. Lindquist. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1987, 240 pp, $42.50.

Auditing the Maintenance of Software by S. Rao Vallabhaneni. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987, 261 pp, $35.00.

Nations at Risk: The Impact of the Computer Revolution by Edward Yourdon. New York: Yourdon Press, 1986, 616 pp, $19.95. Reviewed by Jon William Toigo     

Rapid-Development Application Approaches to Design

Abstract

Thomas W. Davenport. Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers. Harvard Business School Press, 2005, 227 pp.

Erran Carmel and Paul Tjia. Offshoring Information Technology: Out-sourcing to a Global Workforce. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 282 pp.

Wayne W. Eckerson. Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley &; Sons, 2006, 301 pp.

Murray E. Jennex (ed.). Case Studies in Knowledge Management. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, 2005, 372 pp.     

Book reviews

Laver, Murray Information Technology: Agent of Change. 189 pages, hardcopy 39.50, paperback 14.95, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1989 ISBN 0 521 35035 2 (hbk.), ISBN 0 521 35955 2

Edited by Long, John and Whitefield, Andy. Cambridge Series on Human‐Computer Interaction 1: Cognitive Ergonomics and Human‐Computer Interaction, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (1989), pp. 259. $49.50, ISBN O‐521–37179–1.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this Articles: Media, Crisis and Democracy: Mass Communication and the Disruption of Social Order, Marc Raboy and Bernard Dagenais, Sage, London (1992), 224 pp. Terrorism and the Media, David L. Paletz and Alex P. Schmid (Eds), Sage, London (1992), 320 pp. Terrorism and the Media, David L. Paletz and Alex P. Schmid (Eds), Sage, London (1992), 320 pp. Total Contingency Planning for Disasters, Kenneth N. Myers, John Wiley and Sons, New York (1993), 270 pp. Organizations, Uncertainties and Risk, F.F. Short Jr. and L. Clarke (Eds), Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado (1992), 381 pp. Minorities at Risk: A Global View of Ethno-political Conflicts, T.R. Gurr, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington DC (1993), 427 pp. Global Alert: The Ozone Pollution Alert, J. Fishman and R. Kalish, Plenum, New York (1990), 304 pp. Perspectives on Environmental Conflict and International Politics, J. Kakonen (Ed.), Pinter Publishers, London (1992), 143 pp.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this Articles: Managing Chaos: Dynamic Business Strategies in an Unpredictable World, Ralph D. Stacey, Kogan Page, London (1992), 216 pp. Groupthink in Government: A Study of Small Groups and Policy Failure, Paul 't Hart, Swets and Zeitlinger B.V., Amsterdam/Lisse (1990), 318 pp. Transforming the Crisis-Prone Organization: Preventing Individual, Organizational and Environmental Tragedies, Thierry C. Pauchant and Ian I. Mitroff, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco (1992), 255 pp.     

Toxic Waste and Risk Prevention: Rating US Policy

Ecological Politics in an Age of Risk, Ulrich Beck, Polity Press, Cambridge (1995), 216 pp. EcoPopulism: Toxic Waste and the Movement for Environmental Justice, Andrew Szasz, University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis (1994), 216 pp. Toxic Debts and the Superfund Dilemma, Harold Barnett, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill (1994), 334 pp. Beyond Superfailure: America's Toxics Policy for the 1990s, Daniel Mazmanian and David Morell, Westview Press, Boulder (1992), 278 pp.     

Book reviews

Foley, James D., van Dam, Andrles, Feiner, Steven K., and Hughes, John. Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice (2nd Ed.), Reading, MA: Addison‐Wesley (1990), pp. 1774. $59.95 (U.S. dollars), ISBN 0–201–12110–7.

Berry, Dianne and Hart, Anna (Eds.). Expert Systems: Human Issues. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press (1990), pp. 263. $35.00 (U.S. dollars), ISBN 0–262–02307–5.     

Terrorism in the 1990s

Terrorism: A Reference Handbook, Stephen Atkins, Santa Barbara, ABC-CLIO (1992), 199 pp. Terrorism: Roots, Impact, Responses, Lawrence Howard (Ed.), Prager, New York (1992), 193 pp. Hostage-Taking Terrorism: Incident Response Strategy, Alastair MacWillson, St Martins, New York (1992), 263 pp.     

Book reviews

Monk, A., Diaper, D., and Harrison, M. D. (1992). People and Computers VII. 534 pages, US$69.96: Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 0–521–44591–4)

Duffy, T. M., Palmer, J. E., and Mehlenbacher, B. (1992). Online Help: Design and Evaluation. 260 pages, US$55.00 (cloth) US$26.50 (paper): Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp. (ISBN 0–89391–848–2)     

On local convergence of a Newton-type method in Banach space

In this study we are concerned with the local convergence of a Newton-type method introduced by us [I.K. Argyros and D. Chen, On the midpoint iterative method for solving nonlinear equations in Banach spaces, Appl. Math. Lett. 5 (1992), pp. 7–9.] for approximating a solution of a nonlinear equation in a Banach space setting. This method has also been studied by Homeier [H.H.H. Homeier, A modified Newton method for rootfinding with cubic convergence, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 157 (2003), pp. 227–230.] and Özban [A.Y. Özban, Some new variants of Newton's method, Appl. Math. Lett. 17 (2004), pp. 677–682.] in real or complex space. The benefits of using this method over other methods using the same information have been explained in [I.K. Argyros, Computational theory of iterative methods, in Studies in Computational Mathematics, Vol. 15, C.K. Chui and L. Wuytack, eds., Elsevier Science Inc., New York, USA, 2007.; I.K. Argyros and D. Chen, On the midpoint iterative method for solving nonlinear equations in Banach spaces, Appl. Math. Lett. 5 (1992), pp. 7–9.; H.H.H. Homeier, A modified Newton method for rootfinding with cubic convergence, J. Comput. Appl. Math. 157 (2003), pp. 227–230.; A.Y. Özban, Some new variants of Newton's method, Appl. Math. Lett. 17 (2004), pp. 677–682.]. Here, we give the convergence radii for this method under a type of weak Lipschitz conditions proven to be fruitful by Wang in the case of Newton's method [X. Wang, Convergence of Newton's method and inverse function in Banach space, Math. Comput. 68 (1999), pp. 169–186 and X. Wang, Convergence of Newton's method and uniqueness of the solution of equations in Banach space, IMA J. Numer. Anal. 20 (2000), pp. 123–134.]. Numerical examples are also provided.     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this Articles: Learning from Disaster: Risk Management After Bhopal, Sheila Jasanoff (ed.), University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia (1994), 289pp.     

Little is New Under the Sun But …

Thomas W. Davenport. Thinking for a Living: How to Get Better Performance and Results from Knowledge Workers. Harvard Business School Press, 2005, 227 pp.

Erran Carmel and Paul Tjia. Offshoring Information Technology: Out-sourcing to a Global Workforce. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 282 pp.

Wayne W. Eckerson. Performance Dashboards: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Your Business. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006, 301 pp.

Murray E. Jennex (ed.). Case Studies in Knowledge Management. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing, 2005, 372 pp.     

Product Risks and Reputation: Opportunities and Challenges

Product Risk Management, Howard Abbott, Pitman Publishing, London (1992), 276 pp. Managing Product Recall, Howard Abbott, Pitman Publishing, London (1992), 274 pp. Reputation Risk Management, Peter Sheldon Green, Pitman Publishing, London (1992), 204 pp.