GEOMETRIC DIMENSIONING AND TOLERANCING: APPLICATIONS, ANALYSIS & MEASUREMENT. SECOND EDITION
James D. Meadows. ASME Press, Three Park Ave., New York, NY 10016-5990, and James D. Meadows & Associates Inc. 170 E. Main St., D-137, Hendersonville, TN 37075. 2009. 560 pages. Hardcover. ASME members, $103; list, $129. ISBN 978-0-9714401-6-6.

The new Y14.5 standard took almost 15 years to complete and represents a major step forward in the design language of geometric dimensioning and tolerancing. But with so many changes, a good guidebook is important for anyone working with the new standard. James D. Meadows, an ASME Certified Senior Level Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing Professional and a long-time GD&T trainer, has taken on the job in a set of books explaining the Y14.5-2009 standard. This book must certainly be one of the most comprehensive volumes on GD&T written by a single author. It covers all the basics, such as symbols introduced in the revised code and the new terms that are being used for some concepts. But Meadows also delves deep into his topics, taking time to explain the proper conditions for inspecting flexible parts, for instance, and the book is brimming with useful charts and diagrams. To Meadows, GD&T is “a language of linear logic,” and his ultimate goal is to leave one capable of reading a drawing like a native speaker.

TEAMOLOGY: THE CONSTRUCTION AND ORGANIZATION OF EFFECTIVE TEAMS
Douglass J. Wilde. Springer-Verlag London Ltd., Old Portsmouth Road, Ashbourne House, The Guildway, Guildford, Surrey GU3 1LP. 2009. 108 pages. $79.95. ISBN 978-1-84800-387-3.

This book developed from a meeting between the author, an emeritus professor of mechanical engineering at Stanford University, and Anthony Doyle of Springer at an ASME Design Engineering Technical Conference in Las Vegas. “Teamology” is Douglass Wilde’s coinage for a practice that he said has built outstanding student teams in engineering design project courses. It combines the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the psychological questionnaire familiar to many, with cognitive modes identified by the psychoanalyst Carl Jung. They are preferred methods of collecting information and making decisions—that is, of solving problems. No mode is superior to another, and one person can adopt more than one mode. Wilde said he has studied student teams at Stanford for 16 years, and in his experience, teams composed of members with diverse cognitive modes consistently perform at a high level. The goal of team-building, then, is to have as many modes as possible represented on a team—ideally all of them, if it’s possible. The text presents numerous statistical approaches to teamology, in the author’s estimate a “fledgling discipline,” which he said, “lies at the fuzzy interface between engineering, management science, systems analysis, and psychology.” According to the publisher, the book is intended for professors of engineering project courses, and of courses such as business, organizational behavior, biomedical areas, law, and medicine.

ON THE FRONTLINES: DOING BUSINESS IN CHINA
Bob Schapiro, writer and director; Dovar Chen, producer. On the Frontlines Inc., 158 Central Ave., Rochelle Park, N.J. 07662. 2009. Six discs. $199.
 
This publication isn’t a book, but a series of five DVDs and a CD. The work is based on about three years’ worth of interviews with more than 200 people, including executives from General Mills, Procter & Gamble, and other large and small companies, as well as writers, analysts, academics, and Chinese government officials. Four DVDs present a business-oriented documentary of China reported by James Fallows of The Atlantic and Emily Chang, a Chinese American journalist and TV producer. Each program ends with analysis by a New York Times business columnist, Joe Nocera. Disk five has panel discussions and historical films. The CD, called “The China toolkit,” contains reference materials and reports, including a commercial atlas of Chinese provinces, chapters from various books, a list of useful Web sites, and information on groups like the American Chamber of Commerce in the People’s Republic of China and the Committee of 100, which describes itself as “a national, non-profit, non-partisan membership organization that brings a Chinese-American perspective to issues concerning Asian Americans and Sino-U.S. relations.” The CD also carries irreverent podcasts by a business consultant discussing culture shock. On the Frontlines is available through the production company’s Web site, www.chinadoingbusiness.com, which offers previews and background information, and through Amazon.com.

ESHBACH’S HANDBOOK OF ENGINEERING FUNDAMENTALS. FIFTH EDITION
Myer Kutz, Editor. John Wiley & Sons, 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030. 2009. 1,320 pages. $225. ISBN 978-0-470-08578-3.

Almost 20 years have passed since the fourth edition of Eshbach’s Handbook was published. Much has changed since then, and the fifth edition reflects it, the editor says in his preface. Chapters have been updated, and some have been expanded. Others have been dropped, often because of the way people work in the digital age. For instance, more than 250 pages of materials data have been replaced by one chapter, “Sources of Material Data,” which discusses search criteria and includes references to Internet-based sources of information “that provide well-documented searchable property data.” Sources include ASM International and the American Chemical Society’s service, STN International. Forty-six authors contribute 22 chapters on subjects including “Mechanics of Deformable Bodies,” “Nondestructive Inspection,” “Mathematical Models of Dynamic Physical Systems,” and “Engineering Economy,” which deals with cost analysis, cash flow, and other business and financial considerations.

HANDBOOK OF VACUUM TECHNOLOGY
Edited by Karl Jousten. Translated by C. Benjamin Nakhosteen. Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co., Weinheim, Germany, a unit of John Wiley & Sons, 111 River St., Hoboken, NJ 07030. 2008. 1,040 pages. $275. ISBN: 978-3-527-40723-1.

This is the first English translation of Wutz Handbuch Vakuumtechnik, which is in its ninth German-language edition. According to the preface, the English translation follows the current German edition except for chapter five, “Analytical and Numerical Calculations of Rarefied Gas Flows,” which will not appear in German until the tenth edition comes out. According to the editor, who is head of vacuum metrology at the National Institute for Metrology in Berlin, chapters are written by different experts, but edited to present material in a consistent manner, as if they were written by a single author. Chapters begin with a history of vacuum science and technology, and proceed to an overview of applications. Chapters are devoted to gas laws and theories, to different types of condensers and pumps, to seals, to standards, to components—in short, the intention is to be comprehensive, and according to the editor, to serve as either a student’s textbook or as a practitioner’s reference. Appendices contain tables, diagrams, terms, and other useful information. There is also a directory of products and suppliers. The German title refers to Max Wutz, the editor of the first edition, which was published more than 40 years ago.