415 results for "Engineering"

Citizens and Soldiers The Dilemmas of Military Service

Eliot A. Cohen
In the span of a generation, universal military service, universal military training, selective service, a lottery draft, and an all-volunteer armed force have all been either implemented or contemplated seriously in the United States. Why has the United States, unlike every other twentieth-century world power, failed to settle on a durable system of military service? In this informed and even-handed book, Eliot Cohen studies the enduring problems of America's methods of raising an army, seeking to analyze the nature of the many difficulties and the extent to which they can be overcome. A nation's military service must reflect its political and geographical position in the world as well as its ideology. In the case of the United States, Cohen demonstrates, the attempt to satisfy these two types of requirements faces unique and intractable paradoxes. First, the United States must prepare for two completely different kinds of war, large- and small-scale, which for political and military reasons require two different kinds of armies; second, two important traditions?Anglo-Saxon liberalism and democratic egalitarianism?coexist uneasily in American thought and lead to opposing conceptions of citizens' obligations to serve their country. Cohen's book is a long-needed antidote to the myopic preoccupation with short-term trends and fluctuations in recruiting statistics that characterizes the current manpower debate. Lucidly explaining complex issues, Cohen offers a broad comparative view of the historical events, political exigencies, and theoretical arguments that have shaped the military service systems of various countries. His discussion treats many important and timely issues: How shall we select some men?and possibly women?for service, and not others? How will our methods of recruitment affect our foreign policies, our domestic policies, and our forces' performance in battle? What methods have other countries adopted, how well did they work, and could they work here? His thoughtful and objective answers to these difficult questions will interest anyone concerned with contemporary American military policy today.
Cornell University Press 1990-08 228 pages

Content

Cory Doctorow
Readers will discover how America chose Happy Meal toys over copyright, why Facebook is taking a faceplant, how the Internet is basically just a giant Xerox machine, why Wikipedia is a poor cousin of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, and how to enjoy free e-books. Notice: This Book is published by Historical Books Limited (www.publicdomain.org.uk) as a Public Domain Book, if you have any inquiries, requests or need any help you can just send an email to [email protected] This book is found as a public domain and free book based on various online catalogs, if you think there are any problems regard copyright issues please contact us immediately via [email protected]
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform 2016-04-18 180 pages

Blackfish City

Miller, Sam J.
“One of the most intriguing future cities in years.” —Charlie Jane Anders “Simmers with menace and heartache, suspense and wonder.” —Ann Leckie A Best Book of the Month in Entertainment Weekly The Washington Post Tor.com B&N Sci-Fi Fantasy Blog Amazon After the climate wars, a floating city is constructed in the Arctic Circle, a remarkable feat of mechanical and social engineering, complete with geothermal heating and sustainable energy. The city’s denizens have become accustomed to a roughshod new way of living, however, the city is starting to fray along the edges—crime and corruption have set in, the contradictions of incredible wealth alongside direst poverty are spawning unrest, and a new disease called “the breaks” is ravaging the population. When a strange new visitor arrives—a woman riding an orca, with a polar bear at her side—the city is entranced. The “orcamancer,” as she’s known, very subtly brings together four people—each living on the periphery—to stage unprecedented acts of resistance. By banding together to save their city before it crumbles under the weight of its own decay, they will learn shocking truths about themselves. Blackfish City is a remarkably urgent—and ultimately very hopeful—novel about political corruption, organized crime, technology run amok, the consequences of climate change, gender identity, and the unifying power of human connection.
Ecco Press 2018-10-02 336 pages

If walls could speak: my life in architecture

Safdie, Moshe
"Over more than five decades, legendary architect Moshe Safdie has built some of the world's most influential and memorable structures-from the 1967 modular housing scheme in Montreal known as "Habitat" and the Yad Vashem memorial in Israel, to the Crystal Bridges Museum in Arkansas and the Marina Bay Sands development and extraordinary Jewel Changi airport interior garden and waterfall in Singapore. For Safdie, the way a space functions is fundamental; he is deeply committed to architecture as a social force for good, believing that any challenge, including extreme population density and environmental distress, can be addressed with solutions that enhance community and uplift the human spirit. Safdie always refers to the "silent client" an architect must ultimately serve: the people who live, work in, or experience a building. If Walls Could Speak takes readers behind the veil of an essential yet mysterious profession to explain through Safdie's own experiences how an architect thinks and works-"from the spark of imagination through the design process, the model-making, the politics, the engineering, the materials." Relating memorable stories about what has inspired him-from childhoods in Israel and Montreal to the projects and personalities worldwide that have captured his imagination-Safdie reveals the complex interplay that underpins every project and his vision for the role architecture can and should play in society at large. Illustrated throughout with drawings, sketches, photographs, and documents from his firm's voluminous archives that illuminate his stories, If Walls Could Speak ends with a chapter outlining seven projects Safdie would pursue around the world if resources and will were no issue and the choices were his to make. A book like no other, If Walls Could Speak will forever change the way you look at and appreciate any built structure"--
Atlantic Monthly Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic 2022 352 pages

Eat drink vote: an illustrated guide to food politics

Nestle, Marion
"What's wrong with the US food system? Why is half the world starving while the other half battles obesity? Who decides our food issues, and why can't we do better with labeling, safety, or school food? These are complex questions that are hard to answer in an engaging way for a broad audience. But everybody eats, and food politics affects us all. Marion Nestle, whom Michael Pollan ranked as the #2 most powerful foodie in America (after Michelle Obama) in Forbes, has always used cartoons in her public presentations to communicate how politics shaped by government, corporate marketing, economics, and geography influences food choice. Cartoons do more than entertain; the best get right to the core of complicated concepts and powerfully convey what might otherwise take pages to explain. In Eat, Drink, Vote, Nestle teams up with The Cartoonist Group syndicate to present more than 250 of her favorite cartoons on issues ranging from dietary advice to genetic engineering to childhood obesity. Using the cartoons as illustration and commentary, she engagingly summarizes some of today's most pressing issues in food politics. While encouraging readers to vote with their forks for healthier diets, this book insists that its is also necessary to vote with votes to make it easier for everyone to make healthier dietary choices"--
Rodale 2013-09-03 199 pages

Star spangled security: applying lessons learned over six decades safeguarding America

Brown, Harold,Winslow, Joyce
Harold Brown served as U.S. secretary of defense when the Soviet Union posed an existential threat with superior conventional force capability and a daunting nuclear weapons arsenal. No one could have been better suited to deter the Soviets during that most dangerous period in the Cold War. A physicist, Brown had previously led Livermore Laboratory and its development of the Polaris missile warhead. By age 33 he was director of Defense Research and Engineering, and he later served as secretary of the U.S. Air Force early in the Vietnam War. In the Carter administration, Brown reinvigorated the NATO alliance, promoted AWACs, increased U.S. conventional force capabilities, and developed a new generation of nuclear weapons and delivery systems. As a senior negotiator of SALT II, he also helped set their limits. Brown was the first American secretary of defense to visit China; as principal interlocutor he forged military-to-military relations. During his tenure, the Soviets invaded Afghanistan; the Iranian revolution resulted in the capture of American hostages; President Carter achieved the Camp David Peace Accords; and the Panama Canal Treaties that still protect U.S. interests were rewritten. Brown's role in each was integral. Star Spangled Security provides lessons from the past to inform the future: from Afghanistan to Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons; from international alliances and interests the U.S. needs to consider in a changing world to specific ideas for jumpstarting technological innovation that could boost American security and our economy today. Based on his twelve years of top-tier government service and nearly fifty more as a president of Caltech, a board member of a dozen corporations, the chair of recent, comprehensive studies of Chinese military capability, U.S. Intelligence, and technological innovation, and as the past chair and a current member of the Defense Policy Board that advises sitting secretaries o
Brookings Institution Press 2018 277 pages

˜Theœ imperative of responsibility: in search of an ethics for the technological age

Jonas, Hans
Hans Jonas here rethinks the foundations of ethics in light of the awesome transformations wrought by modern technology: the threat of nuclear war, ecological ravage, genetic engineering, and the like. Though informed by a deep reverence for human life, Jonas's ethics is grounded not in religion but in metaphysics, in a secular doctrine that makes explicit man's duties toward himself, his posterity, and the environment. Jonas offers an assessment of practical goals under present circumstances, ending with a critique of modern utopianism.
˜Theœ University of Chicago Press 1984 255 pages

Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and symbol

Trachtenberg, Alan
Fourteen of Walker Evans's evocative photographs of Brooklyn Bridge, most of which have never been published, appear in this edition of Alan Trachenberg's Brooklyn Bridge: Fact and Symbol. In the new afterword Trachenberg explores the history of Hart Crane's The Bridge, especially the poem's integral relationship with the powerful photography of Evans."[Brooklyn Bridge] is familiar in so many movies, in so many stage sets and, as Mr. Trachtenberg shows in this brilliant . . . book, it is at least as much a symbol as a reality. . . . Mr. Trachtenberg is always exciting and illuminating."—Times Literary Supplement "The book is a skillful and insightful synthesis of materials about Brooklyn Bridge from such diverse fields as history, engineering, literature and art. Essentially it asks the question of why Brooklyn Bridge achieved such great impact on the nineteenth century American imagination and why it has continued to have a significant impact on twentieth century art and literature. In addition to its exploration of the bridge's symbolic significance, which includes perceptive analyses of such particular works as Hart Crane's great poem cycle and the paintings of artists like Joseph Stella, the book also includes a solidly researched account of the conception, planning and construction of the bridge. Trachtenberg's account of the intellectual and cultural sources of the bridge is particularly fascinating in its demonstration of the convergence of many different philosophical and ideological currents of the time around this great engineering enterprise, illustrating as effectively as any discussion I know the complex interplay of ideas and material culture."—John G. Cawelti, University of Chicago"Alan Trachtenberg's Brooklyn Bridge is a fascinating story, the philosophic genesis of the idea in Europe, John Roebling's heroic effort to translate it into masonry and steel, and the meanings that Americans attached to the physical object as an emblem of their aspirations."—Leo Marx, Amherst College, author of The Machine in the Garden
Oxford University Press 1965 192 pages

Bad Ideas? An Arresting History of Our Inventions

Robert Winston,Robert M. L. Winston
We are born with the instinct to create and invent. Indeed our ability to do so is what separates we humans from the rest of the animal world. The moment man first converted a stone to a useful tool set him on a relentless path toward greater control and power over his environment. But have our creative ideas always produced desirable results in line with their original good intention? How many ill-effects and dangers have they brought about along the way? And have they really served us well? Bad Ideas? traces the fascinating history of our attempts at self-improvement but also questions their value. The dubious consequences of the development of weaponry, for example, is self-evident from the primitive but lethal sling to the devastating nuclear bomb. But what of apparently more innocuous inventions such as farming, writing or medicine? All were initiated for the greater good but have nonetheless produced unforeseen fallout that continues to this day. What are their undesirable side-effects, how did they emerge over the years and where will they take us in the future? Written against a huge historical canvas, we join Robert Winston on a thrilling and inspiring journey from our earliest days to the present. We learn about the history of modern science, engineering, IT and much more, following the unexpected twists and turns of their progress. We meet the individuals who played a key role in their development, and share quirky anecdotes about their lives and brainwaves. Inspiring, unusual, and at times controversial, Bad Ideas? enables us by appreciating the past to look forward to the technological opportunities and ethical challenges of the future. In so doing it celebrates man's extraordinary capacity for achievement whilst warning us that his good intentions can sometimes end up as thoroughly bad ideas.
Bantam 2010 417 pages

Big Data Management

Fausto Pedro García Márquez,Benjamin Lev
This book focuses on the analytic principles of business practice and big data. Specifically, it provides an interface between the main disciplines of engineering/technology and the organizational and administrative aspects of management, serving as a complement to books in other disciplines such as economics, finance, marketing and risk analysis. The contributors present their areas of expertise, together with essential case studies that illustrate the successful application of engineering management theories in real-life examples.
Springer International Publishing 2018-06-28 267 pages

The Toilet Papers Recycling Waste and Conserving Water

Sim Van der Ryn
A classic is back in print! One of the favorite books of 1970s back-to-the-landers, The Toilet Papers is an informative, inspiring, and irreverent look at how people have dealt with their wastes through the centuries. In a historical survey, Van der Ryn provides the basic facts concerning human wastes, and describes safe designs for toilets that reduce water consumption and avert the necessity for expensive and unreliable treatment systems. The Toilet Papers provides do-it-yourself plans for a basic compost privy and a variety of graywater systems.
Ecological Design Press 1995 124 pages

Nanowires Building Blocks for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology

Anqi Zhang,Gengfeng Zheng,Charles M. Lieber
This book provides a comprehensive summary of nanowire research in the past decade, from the nanowire synthesis, characterization, assembly, to the device applications. In particular, the developments of complex/modulated nanowire structures, the assembly of hierarchical nanowire arrays, and the applications in the fields of nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, quantum devices, nano-enabled energy, and nano-bio interfaces, are focused. Moreover, novel nanowire building blocks for the future/emerging nanoscience and nanotechnology are also discussed.Semiconducting nanowires represent one of the most interesting research directions in nanoscience and nanotechnology, with capabilities of realizing structural and functional complexity through rational design and synthesis. The exquisite control of chemical composition, morphology, structure, doping and assembly, as well as incorporation with other materials, offer a variety of nanoscale building blocks with unique properties.
Springer International Publishing 2018-05-30 321 pages

Queueing systems

Kleinrock, Leonard
Queueing Systems Volume 1: Theory Leonard Kleinrock This book presents and develops methods from queueing theory in sufficient depth so that students and professionals may apply these methods to many modern engineering problems, as well as conduct creative research in the field. It provides a long-needed alternative both to highly mathematical texts and to those which are simplistic or limited in approach. Written in mathematical language, it avoids the "theorem-proof" technique: instead, it guides the reader through a step-by-step, intuitively motivated yet precise development leading to a natural discovery of results. Queueing Systems, Volume I covers material ranging from a refresher on transform and probability theory through the treatment of advanced queueing systems. It is divided into four sections: 1) preliminaries; 2) elementary queueing theory; 3) intermediate queueing theory; and 4) advanced material. Important features of Queueing Systems, Volume 1: Theory include- * techniques of duality, collective marks * queueing networks * complete appendix on z-transforms and Laplace transforms * an entire appendix on probability theory, providing the notation and main results needed throughout the text * definition and use of a new and convenient graphical notation for describing the arrival and departure of customers to a queueing system * a Venn diagram classification of many common stochastic processes 1975 (0 471-49110-1) 417 pp. Fundamentals of Queueing Theory Second Edition Donald Gross and Carl M. Harris This graduated, meticulous look at queueing fundamentals developed from the authors' lecture notes presents all aspects of the methodology-including Simple Markovian birth-death queueing models; advanced Markovian models; networks, series, and cyclic queues; models with general arrival or service patterns; bounds, approximations, and numerical techniques; and simulation-in a style suitable to courses of study of widely varying depth and duration. This Second Edition features new expansions and abridgements which enhance pedagogical use: new material on numerical solution techniques for both steady-state and transient solutions; changes in simulation language and new results in statistical analysis; and more. Complete with a solutions manual, here is a comprehensive, rigorous introduction to the basics of the discipline. 1985 (0 471-89067-7) 640 pp.
Wiley 1975 549 pages

The prosperous few and the restless many

Chomsky, Noam
A fascinating state-of-the-world report from the man the New York Times called "arguably the most important intellectual alive". Here are a few excerpts:* We now have an international economy and we're moving towards the international state - "creating", to quote the business press, "a new imperial age with a de facto world government".* NAFTA is a secret document whose decisions will override those od Congress, states, localities. It's a real success in the long-term project of depriving democratic structures of any substance.* Biotechnology, genetic engineering, designing animal species, etc. is potentially vastly more important than electronics. In fact, compared to the potential of biotechnology, electronics is sort of a frill.* Much of the disparity between blacks and whites is actually a class difference, and the gap between poor and rich whites is also enormous. But you're not allowed to talk about class in the US. As soon as you say the word, everybody falls down dead.
Odonian Press 1993 95 pages

Advanced business analytics

Fausto Pedro García Márquez,Benjamin Lev
The book describes advanced business analytics and shows how to apply them to many different professional areas of engineering and management. Each chapter of the book is contributed by a different author and covers a different area of business analytics. The book connects the analytic principles with business practice and provides an interface between the main disciplines of engineering/technology and the organizational, administrative and planning abilities of management. It also refers to other disciplines such as economy, finance, marketing, behavioral economics and risk analysis. This book is of special interest to engineers, economists and researchers who are developing new advances in engineering management but also to practitioners working on this subject.
Springer 2015-02-05 243 pages