(a) My most engaged and competent technical reviewer this time around was Sheshagiri Haniyur. He read several of these chapters very carefully indeed, made great comments, and very appropriately even asked me on one occasion to completely rewrite the culprit (Chapter 14), which I promptly did.

(b) I had absolutely great technical feedback from two very smart readers of mine, who contacted me by e-mail over the years, and then proceeded to literally microscopically examine almost every equation in every chapter of my previous edition. They really helped me improve important sections of this edition. I must thank Chee How from Malaysia and Meroni Silvano from Italy, listed in the order they came into the picture. Thanks guys or gals, I have never met you but I loved your attitude, technical skills, and sheer diligence. You caught my mistakes quite a few times too, and I have kept all you told me in mind for this edition. So let me know if I got it right and if it is easy to understand too.

(c) A favorite reviewer of mine in the last edition helped me out again on several chapters this time. He is Harry Holt. Thanks to upright and brutally honest Harry as always. You make it better every time. Some new, and very engaged reviewers plus supporters this time include an ex-colleague of mine, Dipak Patel. Many thanks guys.

(d) Other key readers/reviewers who made this book possible are Ken Coffman, Gautam (Tom) Nath, and Inder Dhingra.

(e) Not to forget the best PR person I ever knew: Mike He, who literally turned me into a known author years ago at National, and is still a great friend of mine.

(f) Elsevier folks are always great people to work with, as I have discovered. I have not forgotten my first commissioning editor, the wonderful Chuck Glaser. This time around, the commissioning editor was the equally likeable and encouraging Tim Pitts. You should understand that Tim is the primary reason for the existence of this second edition. He also gave me extraordinary support through his wonderful staff, namely Miss Charlotte (“Charlie”) Kent and Sally Mortimore.

(g) My wife said it is a cliché to thank her every time, and that this time I shouldn’t bother. But it is really true. For 9 months I was only seemingly present in her life. But she chugged along stoically, being extremely understanding and supportive. As did my wonderful daughter Aartika. And as for my two furry little four-legged friends, Munchi and Cookie, they were the two Maltipoos who kept me thoughtfully hydrated (from the outside), as I toiled away almost unaware.

(h) We should not forget this book is an extension of Doctor G.T. Murthy’s work and undying influence on many of us across the world today. He was not only my mentor but also gave me a life and career when I needed it the most. He was certainly one of the most progressive, ethical, and also “human” managers I ever knew. He could, and often would, use his considerable influence to fight for his men and also for what he strongly believed in. He was not the one who strived merely to sound politically correct, make the right sounds, and appear “good” in an unfortunate modern, stereotypical corporate sense. I also remember he always seemed to uncannily understand me far better than my very own blood. So I am still very proud to know him, and wish him health and a very long life.

(i) A lot of readers write in to me with sincere thanks and encouragement. They have taken the extra, genuine effort to make authors like me feel it was worth it, and are the real reason why we return with a new edition. So, I must thank some of them equally sincerely here: Gheorghe (Gigi) Plaesoianu, Mark MarKell, Chris Themelis, Roberto Zanzottera, Mirza Kolakovic, Rajan Darekar, Sanjay Agrawal, Gene Krzywinski, Ramesh Tirumala, Stephen Blake, Xiaohong Zhu, Charles Potter, Robert Haugum, Xia Heng, Eric Wen, Roc Zhu, Cyril Aloysius Quinto, Sridhar Gurram, Alex Byrley, Meng (Mark) Jianhui, Bingbing Song, Michael Chang, Wei Guan, Ronald Moradkhan, Amalendu Iyer, Georg Glock, besides several more that I may have forgotten to mention. They are all part of the very reason for this book.

(j) I also sincerely wanted to thank Debbie Clark, Production supervisor of Elsevier, for her tremendous patience getting this book right eventually, and looking so presentable in my opinion.