Money well spent

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Pierluigi Ciocca and Giangiacomo Nardozzi

This elegantly written book argues against the conventional wisdom that prevails in academic and official circles. According to this essentially neo-classical theory, the rate of interest depends solely on the amount of savings with respect to investment needs. It is implied that the high level of interest rates is not an economic policy problem but a fact of 'nature' - unpleasant, perhaps, but unalterable in the short term without heavy costs. The alternative perspective offered in this book is a Keynesian one, in which the explanation of economic facts can never be separated from the role of economic policy. This view posits interest rates as a 'conventional' phenomenon, rooted in the perceptions and expectations of a now global financial market. That is, they are self-fulfilling rather than inescapable costs. The essential economic facts of the last twenty years bear out the truth of this Keynesian approach to interest rates, and are at odds with neo-classical (Fisher-Wicksell) theory. The implication, then, is that the world is not condemned to a high rate of interest, with the risk of low investment, rising public indebtedness, stagnation, and unemployment. Conscious economic policies, coordinated at the international level, are capable of turning this largely conventional price towards non-inflationary growth.

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Blake Watson

If you're a programmer, don't limit yourself to Windows, Mac OS, and UNIX. On thousands of PCs -- especially those in large corporations -- IBM's OS/2 Warp is running happily. Now, in OS/2 Warp Programming For Dummies, you can discover how to create applications to run on all those OS/2 Warp platforms -- and how to port existing applications to OS/2 Warp. With programmer and best-selling author Blake Watson to guide you, you'll quickly get up to speed on everything from OS/2 Warp's object-oriented graphical user interface to preemptive multitasking. Plus, you'll find how-to information on the WorkPlace Shell (WPS), as well as multithreading, windows, messages, and controls.

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Norman Foo (ed

The 12th Australian Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AI'QQ) held in Sydney, Australia, 6-10 December 1999, is the latest in a series of annual re­ gional meetings at which advances in artificial intelligence are reported. This series now attracts many international papers, and indeed the constitution of the program committee reflects this geographical diversity. Besides the usual tutorials and workshops, this year the conference included a companion sympo­ sium at which papers on industrial appUcations were presented. The symposium papers have been published in a separate volume edited by Eric Tsui. Ar99 is organized by the University of New South Wales, and sponsored by the Aus­ tralian Computer Society, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Computer Sciences Corporation, the KRRU group at Griffith University, the Australian Artificial Intelligence Institute, and Neuron- Works Ltd. Ar99 received over 120 conference paper submissions, of which about o- third were from outside Australia. Prom these, 39 were accepted for regular presentation, and a further 15 for poster display. These proceedings contain the full regular papers and extended summaries of the poster papers. All papers were refereed, mostly by two or three reviewers selected by members of the program committee, and a list of these reviewers appears later. The technical program comprised two days of workshops and tutorials, fol­ lowed by three days of conference and symposium plenary and paper sessions.

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Richard H. Yahner

"From the East Coast to the Mississippi River, from southern Canada to northern Florida, the eastern deciduous forest of North Americas is home to a wonderfully diverse range of wildlife and ecosystems. Richard H. Yahner integrates basic biological principles into an account of the ecological consequences of society's actions. As Yahner traces the history of conservation of the forest, he discusses relevant issues such as the loss of biodiversity, acid deposition, ozone depletion, and global climatic change. This new edition includes the most up-to-date information on the forest and its wildlife, with special attention given to contemporary conservation issues."--BOOK JACKET.