‘My hope is that people can grow to appreciate this sector – its challenges and opportunities, but most importantly, the role agriculture can play in improving South Africa’s rural economy, creating jobs and bringing about much-needed transformation (or inclusive growth).’
Wandile Sihlobo is perfectly positioned to provide a well-rounded, accessible view of agriculture in South Africa. He spent his school holidays in the rural Eastern Cape, studied agricultural economics at university, has worked in private-sector agriculture, consulting with farmers across the country, and has been an adviser to government as part of South African policymaking bodies.

Finding Common Ground is a selection of key articles from Sihlobo’s regular Business Day column, framed with insightful commentary and context. The book covers the broad themes that have marked current discussions and outlines the challenges and opportunities faced by South Africa’s agricultural sector, including:

• The contentious and complex issue of land reform;
• The potential for new leadership to revive the sector;
• How agriculture can drive development and job creation;
• Cannabis as an exportable commodity;
• The urgent need for agricultural policy to address gender equity and youth involvement;
• Technological developments and megatrends that are underpinning agricultural development;
• The importance of trade in growing South Africa’s agriculture; and Key lessons that South Africa and other African countries can learn from one another.

Ultimately, Sihlobo is optimistic about the future of South Africa’s agricultural sector and shows us all – from policymakers to the general public – how much common ground we truly have.

Linear Algebra offers a unified treatment of both matrix-oriented and theoretical approaches to the course, which will be useful for classes with a mix of mathematics, physics, engineering, and computer science students. Major topics include singular value decomposition, the spectral theorem, linear systems of equations, vector spaces, linear maps, matrices, eigenvalues and eigenvectors, linear independence, bases, coordinates, dimension, matrix factorizations, inner products, norms, and determinants.

'Entertaining and insightful' -- Evening Standard 'One of the most important books of the year... Compelling' Jamie Bartlett, Literary Review 'Timely' -- New Statesman As the world becomes better connected and we grow ever more dependent on technology, the risks to our infrastructure are multiplying. Whether it's a hostile state striking the national grid (like Russia did with Ukraine in 2016) or a freak solar storm, our systems have become so interlinked that if one part goes down the rest topple like dominoes. In this groundbreaking book, former government minister Oliver Letwin looks ten years into the future and imagines a UK in which the national grid has collapsed. Reliant on the internet, automated electric cars, voice-over IP, GPS, and the internet of things, law and order would disintegrate. Taking us from high-level government meetings to elderly citizens waiting in vain for their carers, this book is a wake up call for why we should question our unshakeable faith in technology. But it's much more than that: Letwin uses his vast experience in government to outline how businesses and government should respond to catastrophic black swan events that seem distant and implausible - until they occur.

THE CONFIDENCE BOOSTER WORKBOOK is a simple and effective plan to build your confidence using straightforward, scientifically tested systems. Whether you're the type of person who always shys away from speaking in front of a crowd, or finds it difficult believing you deserve that work promotion, help is at hand in this resourseful workbook. At the beginning of the book you will learn the fundamentals of what confidence is - scientifically and psycologically - and then build your own personal confidence profile, and find a confidence-boosting strategy that works for you. With visualization exercises, questions to assess your self-esteem, and motivation goals and strategies, this book is full of helpful techniques to give you the confidence to do anything.

This volume is dedicated to collaborative research across STEM disciplines, the arts and humanities. It includes six sections, framed from a global perspective and exhibits contributions from key experts in the field, emerging scholarly voices, and STEAM practitioners. The added value of STEAM projects in research is highlighted in the first section of this book. Ranging from the spatial, medical and environmental humanities to heritage science, this section discusses the course and paths STEAM projects may evolve to in the near future. The second section features reflective essays by scientists and artists on the development of their research, their professional growth and personal learning experiences that the art/science collaborations have afforded their work and careers. Sections III and IV provides practical guidance and advice on facilitating STEAM teams and describe successful collaborative projects. By presenting the objectives and outcomes of relevant research, the chapters in these sections discuss the various steps taken by different teams to achieve project fruition. Paying particular attention to barriers inhibiting STEAM collaboration, these sections also explore the ways in which research teams were able to work effectively. The fifth section presents a review of policy issues and the potential impacts of STEAM research for administrators, funders and policy makers. In its pursuit for balance and inclusion, the volume concludes with a critical reflection on STEAM that argues a different perspective and will prove food for thought to readers.

This comprehensive and student friendly book dwells on various aspects of technical communication that students of science and engineering should be familiar with. Divided into two parts, Part A of the text describes in detail the planning, designing and drafting of documents for a broad range of situations and applications. The text explores the types of business letters reflecting current practices, and different techniques of drafting them. Since, in the professional settings, executives have to work in teams, the book explains various causes of communication breakdown and ways to overcome them. A separate chapter is devoted to Advertising. Part B elaborates on Group Communication taking into consideration the collective and individual requirements. This part also includes individual chapters on Effective Presentation, Non-Verbal Cues, Speeches, Interviews, and Negotiation Skills so as to orient young professionals towards new challenges. This compact book is intended primarily as a text for undergraduate students of engineering and science. Besides, students of business management would also find the book immensely valuable. In addition, the text would be a handy reference for practicing professionals who wish to hone their communication skills for achieving better results and should prove extremely useful for those involved in everyday communication.

This is an easy to use guide to a wide range of architectural styles, from classical times through to the post-modern era. For each style there is a definition, an introduction to the topic, a list of key architects, keywords, and key works as well as suggestions of other styles you might be interested in. Isms: Understanding Architecture is a must for anyone interested in architecture and wanting to know more - whether they be sightseers, visitors to historic buildings or more knowledgeable connoisseurs. A new edition of the original bestselling title, Isms: Understanding Architecture now includes four brand new chapters covering Performatism, Ornamentalism, Giganticism and Bioclimatism.

Public trust in the institutions that mediate civic life-from governing bodies to newsrooms-is low. In facing this challenge, many organizations assume that ensuring greater efficiency will build trust. As a result, these organizations are quick to adopt new technologies to enhance what they do, whether it's a new app or dashboard. However, efficiency, or charting a path to a goal with the least amount of friction, is not itself always built on a foundation of trust. Meaningful Inefficiencies is about the practices undertaken by civic designers that challenge the normative applications of "smart technologies" in order to build or repair trust with publics. Based on over sixty interviews with change makers in public serving organizations throughout the United States, as well as detailed case studies, this book provides a practical and deeply philosophical picture of civic life in transition. The designers in this book are not professional designers, but practitioners embedded within organizations who have adopted an approach to public engagement Eric Gordon and Gabriel Mugar call "meaningful inefficiencies," or the deliberate design of less efficient over more efficient means of achieving some ends. This book illustrates how civic designers are creating meaningful inefficiencies within public serving organizations. It also encourages a rethinking of how innovation within these organizations is understood, applied, and sought after. Different than market innovation, civic innovation is not just about invention and novelty; it is concerned with building communities around novelty, and cultivating deep and persistent trust. At its core, Meaningful Inefficiencies underlines that good civic innovation will never just involve one single public good, but must instead negotiate a plurality of publics. In doing so, it creates the conditions for those publics to play, resulting in people truly caring for the world. Meaningful Inefficiencies thus presents an emergent and vitally needed approach to creating civic life at a moment when smart and efficient are the dominant forces in social and organizational change.

Engineering history; social history of technology; grand challenges; societal transitions; engineering education

A wry and compelling take on the who, how, and why of near-future colonies in space. From bone-whittling microgravity to eye-popping profits, the risks and rewards of space settlement have never been so close at hand. More than fifty years after the Apollo 11 moon landing, why is there so little human presence in space? Will we ever reach Mars? What will it take to become a multiplanet species, colonizing the solar system and traveling to other stars? Spacefarers meets these questions head on. While many books have speculated on the possibility of living beyond the Earth, few have delved into the practical challenges or plausible motives for leaving the safe confines of our home planet. Christopher Wanjek argues that there is little doubt we will be returning to the Moon and exploring Mars in the coming decades, given the potential scientific and commercial bonanza. Private industry is already taking a leading role and earning profits from human space activity. This can be, Wanjek suggests, a sustainable venture and a natural extension of earthbound science, business, and leisure. He envisions hotels in low-earth orbit and mining, tourism, and science on the Moon. He also proposes the slow, steady development of science bases on Mars, to be followed by settlements if Martian gravity will permit reproduction and healthy child development. An appetite for wonder will take us far, but if we really want to settle new worlds, we'll need the earnest plans of engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. Wanjek introduces us to those planners, who are striving right now to make life in space a reality.

First in the Field: Breaking Ground in Computer Science at Purdue University chronicles the history and development of the first computer science department established at a university in the United States. The backdrop for this groundbreaking academic achievement is Purdue in the 1950s when mathematicians, statisticians, engineers, and scientists from various departments were searching for faster and more efficient ways to conduct their research. These were fertile times, as recognized by Purdue's President Frederick L. Hovde, whose support of what was to become the first "university-centered" computer center in America laid the foundation for the nation's first department of computer science. The book pulls together strands of the story from previously unpublished texts and photographs, as well as published articles and interviews, to provide the first complete historical account of the genesis of the Department of Computer Sciences at Purdue, and its continued growth up to the present. It is a fascinating story with parallels to the "space race," involving many players, some of whose contributions have gone previously unacknowledged in the heat of the race. Filled with unique historical anecdotes detailing the challenges of legitimizing the new academic field, these stories bring to life the strong convictions of a group of pioneering thinkers that continue to resonate for us today. The raw determination required to transform a computing laboratory that offered early programming courses into a full-fledged computer center and a department offering degrees in computer science characterizes this story of interest to anyone intrigued by the pathways creativity takes in scientific endeavors. It is a story that matters because it was, and is, an ongoing achievement of leadership in education and research in a field that has totally revolutionized our society.

What useful changes has feminism brought to science? Feminists have enjoyed success in their efforts to open many fields to women as participants. But the effects of feminism have not been restricted to altering employment and professional opportunities for women. The essays in this volume explore how feminist theory has had a direct impact on research in the biological and social sciences, in medicine, and in technology, often providing the impetus for fundamentally changing the theoretical underpinnings and practices of such research. In archaeology, evidence of women's hunting activities suggested by spears found in women's graves is no longer dismissed; computer scientists have used feminist epistemologies for rethinking the human-interface problems of our growing reliance on computers. Attention to women's movements often tends to reinforce a presumption that feminism changes institutions through critique-from-without. This volume reveals the potent but not always visible transformations feminism has brought to science, technology, and medicine from within. Contributors: Ruth Schwartz Cowan Linda Marie Fedigan Scott Gilbert Evelynn M. Hammonds Evelyn Fox Keller Pamela E. Mack Michael S. Mahoney Emily Martin Ruth Oldenziel Nelly Oudshoorn Carroll Pursell Karen Rader Alison Wylie

Understanding and improving your organization's business processes is vital in today's economy. Using non-technical language, this book describes the importance of these processes and the internal and external forces that shape them. It then explains the kinds of computer software available for improving and managing business processes in a flexible way. Detailed case studies illustrate that successful process management depends on attention to the human, organizational and financial factors involved, as well as the strategic implications. Finally, the book gives even-handed guidance on what to look for in Business Process Management software and discusses current technical trends. With many clear diagrams and footnotes throughout, a glossary of terms and suggestions on further reading, the book enables the non-specialist reader to take a broad and informed view of business processes, free from technical imperatives. Ideal for non-technical managers, this book will also appeal to MBA and business studies students.