Intended for those who already know the Java language, this book will help programmers get the most out of Javas capabilities. Topics covered include: good Java style for reusable components, using Java beans, the JDBC, optimizing and testing code, using the IFC tools, and the new JFC. It also explores the significant and exciting developments in Java and covers techniques that will be fundamental to programmers developing significant applications in Java.

"Post is a pioneer in the field of political-personality profiling. He may be the only psychiatrist who has specialized in the self-esteem problems of both Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein." The New Yorker "Policy specialists and academic scholars have long agreed that for U.S. leaders to deal effectively with other actors in the international arena, they need images of their adversaries. Leaders must try to see events, and, indeed, their own behavior, from the perspective of opponents. . . . Faulty images are a source of misperceptions and miscalculations that have often led to major errors in policy, avoidable catastrophes, and missed opportunities. History supplies all too many examples." from the ForewordWhat impels leaders to lead and followers to follow? How did Osama bin Laden, the son of a multibillionaire construction magnate in Saudi Arabia, become the world's number-one terrorist? What are the psychological foundations of man's inhumanity to man, ethnic cleansing, and genocide? Jerrold M. Post contends that such questions can be answered only through an understanding of the psychological foundations of leader personality and political behavior.Post was founding director of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior for the CIA. He developed the political personality profiles of Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat for President Jimmy Carter's use at the Camp David talks and initiated the U.S. government's research program on the psychology of political terrorism. He was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit in 1979 for his leadership of the center.In this book, he draws on psychological and personality theories, as well as interviews with individual terrorists and those who have interacted with particular leaders, to discuss a range of issues: the effects of illness and age on a leader's political behavior; narcissism and the relationship between followers and a charismatic leader; the impact of crisis-induced stress on policymakers; the mind of the terrorist, with a consideration of "killing in the name of God"; and the need for enemies and the rise of ethnic conflict and terrorism in the post-Cold War environment. The leaders he discusses include Fidel Castro, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and Slobodan Milosevic."

A touchstone of the Enlightenment dispute between rationality and religious belief, David Hume's essay "Of Miracles" has elicited much commentary from proponents and critics ever since it was published over 250 years ago. Alexander George's lucid and sustained interpretation of Hume's essay provides fresh insights into this provocative, occasionally elusive, and always subtle text. The Everlasting Check will be read with interest by both students new to Hume and seasoned scholars. George does justice to the letter and spirit of Hume's essay, explaining the concepts and claims involved, making intelligible the essay's structure, and clarifying remarks that have long puzzled readers. Properly interpreted, the essay's central philosophical argument proves to be much hardier than Hume's detractors suggest. George considers a range of objections to Hume-some recent, some perennial-and shows why most fail, either because they are based on misinterpretations or because the larger body of Hume's philosophy answers them. Beyond an analysis and defense of Hume's essay, George also offers a critique of his own, appealing to Ludwig Wittgenstein's thoughts on magic and ritual to demonstrate that Hume misconstrues the character of religious belief and its relationship to evidence and confirmation. Raising a host of important questions about the connection between religious and empirically verified beliefs, George discusses why Hume's master argument can fail to engage with committed religious thought and why philosophical argumentation in general often proves ineffective in shaking people's deeply held beliefs.

Dieses Buch blickt in eine bedeutende Epoche der Philosophie der Mathematik zuruck, deren Stroemungen die heutige Gestalt der Mathematik pragten. In der Wende vom 19. zum 20. Jahrhundert befand sich die Mathematik in einem fundamentalen Umbruch, der die Mathematiker dieser Zeit herausforderte. Sie mussten Stellung beziehen. Die Grundsatze und Wege der philosophischen Richtungen, die dieses Buch verstandlich, kritisch und anerkennend beschreibt, wurden von Mathematikern formuliert. Eine Zeit gravierender Disharmonien begann, die bis in Streit und Feindschaften mundeten und zugleich faszinierende und fruchtbare Ergebnisse hervorbrachten, mathematisch wie philosophisch. Es war ein aufregendes, intellektuelles Abenteuer zu Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts auf einem aussergewoehnlich scharfsinnigen und kreativen Niveau. Die Debatte uber die unversoehnlichen Ansichten versiegte allmahlich und inzwischen ist wieder relative Ruhe in die Gemeinde der Mathematiker eingekehrt. Zentrale philosophische Fragen aber, die damals die Protagonisten spalteten, sind nach wie vor unbeantwortet. Die Suche nach dem Wesen der Mathematik geht weiter und greift auf die Ideen dieser Kontroversen zuruck.