Month: March 2013

Editors: Somasundaram Gnanasundaram and Alok Shrivastava Publisher: EMC Education Services, John Wiley & Sons – 489 pages Book Review by: Venkat Subramaniam This book on storing and managing digital (electronic or computer-based) information is quite extensive in scope. The three principal storage platforms it covers are: Traditional or classic storage devices such as internal (within a desktop computer for example) or external hard drives, located outside a computer. Virtualized information storage systems: not actual but versions of a hardware platform, operating system, a storage device or network resource. Cloud information storage environments. Cloud computing is a general term used...

Editors: Catherine Spoors and Kevin Kiff; Series Editor: Matthew D. Gardiner Publisher: Oxford University Press –  621 pages Book Review by Nano Khilnani Anesthesiology (also spelled as anaesthesiology) is one of the most critically important specialties in medicine. A drug known as an anesthetic is usually administered in vapor form to patients before surgery so they become temporarily unconscious and do not feel pain, or minimally at best, while being operated on. Some drugs are also administered locally through injection to numb specific areas or parts of the body prior to certain procedures. For trainees in this field, an...

Authors: Matthew Smallman-Raynor and Andrew Cliff Publisher: Oxford University Press Book Review by: Nano Khilnani A book that covers epidemics in Britain for an entire century from 1901 to 2000, this is a unique look into history with large maps detailing which major diseases spread, and when, where, how and why they did. The word ‘epidemic’ comes from two Greek words: ‘demos’ meaning ‘people’ and ‘epi’ meaning ‘close to’. An epidemic in the medical field refers to an unusually high incidence of a particular disease. What is disease? The word ‘disease’ literally means ‘dis-ease’ or the absence of ease,...