Few if any 20th century warships were more justly acclaimed than the destroyers of the US Navy's Fletcher class. Admired as they were for their advanced and rakish design, it was their record as workhorses of the Pacific War that placed them among the most battle-tested and successful fighting ships of all time. This title describes the Fletchers and their Allen M. Sumner- and Gearing-class derivatives, their machinery, armament, and construction, with a listing of all 343 ships by hull number and builder. It features an operational history of the 287 ships commissioned during World War II, which traces the evolution of night surface action tactics in the Solomon Islands and the parallel development of the Combat Information Center; the drive across the Pacific and liberation of the Philippines with tables showing the rapid introduction of new squadrons; and the radar pickets' climactic stand against kamikaze aircraft at Okinawa. With summaries of losses and decorations and specially commissioned artwork, this is a definitive book on the wartime US destroyer classes.

Semantics in Business Systems begins with a description of what semantics are and how they affect business systems. It examines four main aspects of the application of semantics to systems, specifically: How do we infer meaning from unstructured information, how do application systems make meaning as they operate, how do practitioners uncover meaning in business settings, and how do we understand and communicate what we have deduced? This book illustrates how this applies to the future of application system development, especially how it informs and affects Web services and business rule- based approaches, and how semantics will play out with XML and the semantic Web. The book also contains a quick reference guide to related terms and technologies. It is part of Morgan Kaufmann's series of Savvy Manager's Guides.
* Presents an easy and enjoyable introduction to semantics in the context of business IT systems.
* Articulates the business value of semantics, while providing relevant introductory technical background.
* Describes the semantic underpinnings of data modeling, business rules, enterprise integration, and Web services.
* Contains a handy quick-reference guide to technologies and terminology.
* For more information, links, and discussions, go to www.savvymanagers.com.