Dean R. Baldwin, associate professor of English and assistant division head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Penn State Erie, is the author of The Riverside Anthology of Short Fiction: Convention and Innovation (Houghton Mifflin, 1998). The volume includes 99 short stories chosen for their ability to spark the sense of stories as essential, various and interrelated. The purpose of this compilation, writes Baldwin, "is to help students understand the richness and vitality of the short fiction genre, to connect with its encompassing pleasures, and to write about stories in an informed and involved way." Questions for discussion and writing appear after each story.
Augustin Banyaga, professor of mathematics, is author of The Structure of Classical Diffeomorphism Groups, published by Kluwer Academic Publisher. The book introduces and explains most of the main techniques and ideas in the study of the structure of diffeomorphism groups and gives complete proofs of the fundamental theorems of Banyaga, Mather and Thurston.
Michael W. Ecker, assistant professor of mathematics at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, has completed two books of test items. They are supplements written for two college-level trigonometry texts -- Trigonometry for College Students, seventh edition, and Essential Trigonometry, third edition, both published by Brooks/Cole. In addition, Ecker continues writing, editing and publishing his own Recreational and Educational Computing (REC) magazine devoted to the interplay of computers, mathematics and recreation.
Alita Kelley, assistant professor of Spanish and French at Penn
State Delaware County, is co-translator (under her pen name C.A.
de Lomellini) with David Tipton of Bradford, England, of Path
Through the Canefields, a book of 45 poems by the contemporary Peruvian
poet José Watanabe (Edinburgh, Scotland: White Adder Press, 1997).
Five of Kelley's own poems, under the name C.A. de Lomellini, have appeared in an anthology, Spirit of Bradford, edited by David Tipton and Nick Toczek (Bradford, Yorkshire: Redbeck Press, 1997). The book is a collection of poems by Bradford authors or related to the Bradford scene.
In a new book published by University of Tennessee Press, scholars in many fields -- including folklore, anthropology, architecture and urban studies -- bring their diverse areas of expertise to bear on the study of vernacular architecture.
Edited by Sally McMurry, associate professor of history at Penn State, and Annmarie Adams, associate professor in the School of Architecture, McGill University, Exploring Everyday Landscapes: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture VII reflects the transformation occurring in this field. Instead of focusing solely on old, largely rural buildings made from everyday materials in traditional styles, scholars of vernacular architecture are now examining a wider variety of forms and landscapes -- from company towns to grand expositions.
The essays in this volume are drawn from two conferences of the Vernacular Architecture Forum and discuss diverse topics ranging from urban cemeteries in New Orleans to agricultural housing in Delaware. Throughout the essays, the scholars discuss critical issues of class, gender and ethnicity.
John J. Metzner, professor of computer science and engineering, has published a textbook titled Reliable Data Communications that addresses the issue of reliable and efficient data communications.
As the data communications field continues to grow, the problems of errors and lost transmissions need to be solved without excessive waste of system capacity. Metzner's book illustrates various techniques for achieving reliable and efficient data communications over noisy channels and all types of data networks.
The book provides problems for beginning and advanced users. It is intended for use in a graduate course for students in electrical engineering or computer science and engineering, as well as for professionals in communications systems design.
Community: A Biography in Honor of the Life and Work of Ken Wilkinson, the first book-length publication designed intentionally for the Web by the Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development, is up and running. The center's Web site can be found at http://www.cas.nercd.psu.edu/. The online publication is a collection of stories from family members, former students and colleagues of Ken Wilkinson, who died in 1993.
Wilkinson was a distinguished professor of rural sociology at Penn State and one of the most prominent scholars on the subject of community. In this biography, family, friends and colleagues describe how Wilkinson fostered community in every phase of his life while influencing the field of rural sociology worldwide. Also included in this work are samplings of Wilkinson's own poetry, diary entries and academic writing.
The Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development is one of four regional rural development centers in the nation conducting integrated programs of research and extension to improve the social and economic well-being of non-metropolitan communities. Most of the center's publications are available free of charge or for a nominal fee. A print copy of Community will be available this month.
Francis T.S. Yu, Evan Pugh Professor of electrical engineering, has published a book titled Introduction to Optical Engineering.
The book, co-authored with Xiangyang Yang of the University of New Orleans, is designed to introduce engineering students to some of the basic concepts in modern optical engineering and provide a foundation for those interested in continuing on with higher-level electro-optics courses.
Introduction to Optical Engineering deals with basic optical principles including reflection, refraction, aberrations, diffraction and interference, and simple optical instruments including photodetectors, spatial light modulators, holography and lasers. The book also contains chapters dealing with linear system transforms and signal processing, as well as fiber optics.