Navigating Information Literacy captures a range of skills and topics essential for students who intend positioning themselves in academic or workplace environments that are globally connected and competitive.

The clear, well-structured and informative text leads the reader through all aspects of information literacy and provides practical advice and relevant examples from a variety of international contexts.

This edition of management for engineers, technologists and scientists is an introductory-level management textbook written specifically for those studying and working in an engineering discipline. It will be an invaluable tool for the existing or aspirant engineer and engineering manager. The text introduces the reader to management and related issues (for example law and economics), which are essential when dealing with customers, suppliers, contractors, accountants, lawyers, economists and managers, either inside or outside an organisation. This new edition has been substantially revised; it includes a new chapter on engineering ethics and professionalism as well as a workbook on CD.

Nothing is more inspiring than a big vision that becomes a triumphant, new reality. Think of how Apple’s iPod went from a project with a single employee to an enormously successful product launch in eleven months. But they are the exception. Consider how London’s Crossrail project delivered five years late and billions overbudget. More modest endeavours, whether launching a small business, organizing a conference, or just finishing a work project on time, also commonly fail. Why?

Understanding what distinguishes the triumphs from the failures has been the life’s work of Oxford professor Bent Flyvbjerg.

In How Big Things Get Done, he identifies the errors that lead projects to fail, and the research-based principles that will make yours a success:

• Understand your odds. If you don't know them, you won't win.
• Plan slow, act fast. Getting to the action quick feels right. But it's wrong.
• Think right to left. Start with your goal, then identify the steps to get there.
• Find your Lego. Big is best built from small.
• Master the unknown unknowns. Most think they can't, so they fail. Flyvbjerg shows how you can.

Full of vivid examples ranging from the building of the Sydney Opera House to the making of the latest Pixar blockbusters, How Big Things Get Done reveals how to get any ambitious project done — on time and on budget.

An eye-opening account of the tech arms race shaping out planet, from an award-winning journalist and AI insider to the world of Sam Altman and OpenAI

When longtime AI expert and journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined as its core mission, it was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against more purely market forces.

But the core truth of this massively disruptive sector is that it requires an unprecedented amount of proprietary resources: the ‘compute’ power of scarce high-end chips, the sheer volume of data that needs to be amassed at scale, the humans on the ground ‘cleaning it up’ for sweatshop wages throughout the Global South, and a truly alarming spike in the need for energy and water underlying everything. We have entered a new, ominous age of empire with OpenAI setting a breakneck pace, as a small group of the most valuable companies in human history try to chase it down.

In exhilarating prose and with unparalleled access to those closest to Sam Altman, Hao recounts the meteoric rise of OpenAI and shows us the sinister impact that this industry is having on society.

A vital perspective is missing from the discussions we're having about Artificial Intelligence: what does it mean for our identity?

Our fascination with AI stems from the perceived uniqueness of human intelligence. We believe it's what differentiates us. Fears of AI not only concern how it invades our digital lives, but also the implied threat of an intelligence that displaces us from our position at the centre of the world.

Neil D. Lawrence's visionary book shows why these fears may be misplaced. Atomism, proposed by Democritus, suggested it was impossible to continue dividing matter down into ever smaller components: eventually we reach a point where a cut cannot be made (the Greek for uncuttable is 'atom'). In the same way, by slicing away at the facets of human intelligence that can be replaced by machines, AI uncovers what is left: an indivisible core that is the essence of humanity.

By contrasting our own (evolved, locked-in, embodied) intelligence with the capabilities of machine intelligence through history, The Atomic Human reveals the technical origins, capabilities and limitations of AI systems, and how they should be wielded. Not just by the experts, but ordinary people. Either AI is a tool for us, or we become a tool of AI. Understanding this will enable readers to choose the future we want.

Over the last few decades, space exploration has revolutionised our understanding of our place in the cosmos. We now know that there are many habitable environments within our solar system. Yet a profound question remains: are we alone in the universe?

Nathalie A. Cabrol, leading astrobiologist and director of the Carl Sagan Center at the SETI Institute, takes us to the frontiers of the search for life. This book’s odyssey begins by searching for how life began on Earth in order to understand what’s necessary for life to exist elsewhere. What role did our moon play? And could life on Mars, or another world, have seeded life on Earth?

Cabrol continues this dazzling interplanetary tour, illuminating the likeliest places for life in our neighbourhood: Venus, Mars, the icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn, and Pluto. Finally, we seek life beyond our solar system, looking at the recent revolution in the night sky: the realisation that there are millions of exoplanets within our galaxy that could support life.

The Secret Life of the Universe is both a comprehensive and authoritative guide to the latest discoveries and an awe-inspiring exploration of what this means for us as humans on Earth today. It’s an exhilarating journey, perfect for anyone who has ever looked up at the stars and wondered what might be out there.

The hardcover edition includes integrated black and white illustrations throughout, and a 16-page colour plate section.

In the present book, to give more experimental data using the phytochemical techniques and medicinal plants, research papers, lead articles and review papers contributed by several researchers are included. This book contains 35 s from various experts covering medicinal plants and the experimental data using the methods of identification using physical characteristics and spectroscopy which includes UV, IR, NIR, Mass and NMR. In various s, antioxidant potentials of mushrooms, seaweeds and medicinal plants, isolation of compounds from plants and their biological activities, novel near infra red application in natural products, in silico studies of anti-inflammatory compounds, molecular docking of natural products, CNS depressant activity of medicinal plants, isolation of antifungal proteins from medicinal plants, plant tissue culture, in vitro cell line selection for enhanced production of secondary metabolites, isolation of compounds from cell suspension cultures, X-ray crystal structure analysis of compounds from medicinal plants, synthesis and bioactivity of polycyclic spiroheterocyclic compounds are given in details. This book will prove useful to the students, scientists, researchers, professionals in the field of Plant Science, Pharmaceutical, Chemical Engineering, Biotechnology, Medicinal and Aromatic Plants, Forestry and Horticulture.

The book entitled 'Evaluation and Impact Assessment of Technologies and Developmental Activities in Agriculture, Fisheries and Allied Fields' is aimed to cater to the growing demand of Impact Evaluation IE studies as the primary purpose of Impact Assessment IA is to estimate the magnitude and distribution of changes in outcome and impact indicators among the target population and to assess the extent to which these changes can be attributed to the interventions being evaluated. The book, probably first of its kind in the country spreads over twenty s contributed by the subject matter specialist and practitioners working in various fields contain both methodology and analytical issues of IA. s on basis impact assessment methodologies like PRA techniques, logical framework approach for project monitoring, evaluation and impact analysis with latest available economic, financial, social, environmental, and MDG indicators are also highlighted. Case studies on technological impact on agro-ecosystem, pulse production, crop diversification on agricultural output and integrated rehabilitation of Tsunami affected people in Andaman and Nicobar Islands are also available. Most importantly socio-economic impact of cashew production, shrimp farming, aquaculture production, conservation of ecology of coastal zone vegetation with reference to Mangroves and water hyacinth are contributed by renewed experts. Case studies on assessment of ICT, remote sensing fluxomics and agricultural insurance on future crop production in India are of significance. Programme evaluation of Swarnjayanti Gram Swarozgar Yogana SGSY is of important for those involved in such projects. The book contains complete list glossary on IA, list of IA studies conducted in India by Programme Evaluation Organization of Planning Commission, sector wide priority indicators for agriculture and rural development which will serve as a ready references."

This book is an attempt to document the National Policy on ICTs in agricultural extension, ICT infrastructure scenario and related issues, case studies on innovative ICTs for agricultural extension initiatives Village knowledge centres, information kiosks, mobile ICT units, web portals, digital data base and networks, rural tele centres, farmer call centres, mobile telephony, video conference, offline multimedia CDs, decision support systems, expert systems, innovative community radio and television programmes, open distance learning etc. The agricultural extension students, academicians, scientists, practitioners, administrators and policy makers will find this compilation of the "ICTs for Agricultural Extension: Global Experiments, Innovations and Experiences" from twenty eight countries relevant to providing a framework for the design and implementation of sustainable ICT-enabled extension services for the agricultural development.

'Light' from low level laser therapy, through a process called photobiomodulation (PBM), has been in existence in supportive care in cancer, in particular in the management of oral mucositis (OM) in patients undergoing chemotherapy, radiation therapy and haematopoietic stem cell transplantation. In this book the authors attempt to portray the current status of the supportive care interventions that are possible with PBM using low level laser therapy (LLLT) in patients undergoing cancer treatment for solid tumours, harmatological malignancies, and head and neck cancers.

From the award-winning science writer, a new history of the development of nuclear power and the extraordinary minds behind it

Henry Becquerel’s accidental discovery, in Paris in 1896, of a faint smudge on a photographic plate sparked a chain of discoveries which would unleash the atomic age.

Destroyer of Worlds is the story of how pursuit of this hidden source of nuclear power, which began innocently and collaboratively, was overwhelmed by the politics of the 1930s, and following devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki opened the way to a still more terrible possibility: a thermonuclear bomb, the so-called “backyard weapon”, that could destroy all life on earth – from anywhere.

The story spans decades and continents, moving from Becquerel to Ernest Rutherford, the Cambridge-based, New Zealand scientist who first split the atom, expands to include Enrico Fermi in Rome, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner in Berlin and the Joliot-Curies in Paris, leading to the appearance of Robert Oppenheimer before climaxing with increasingly horrifying developments in the USA and USSR. The roles of three remarkable women – Lise Meitner, Ida Noddack and Irene Curie – are re-evaluated, and there are new insights into the work of Ettore Majorana, Fermi’s mercurial but brilliant assistant, who mysteriously disappeared in 1938, possibly after foreseeing the explosive power of nuclear energy. Above all, this is a story of how knowledge is often advanced by personal convictions and relationships, an indeed by chance, in a remarkable way.

One of the key challenges current biomaterials researchers face is identifying which of the dizzying number of highly specialized characterization tools can be gainfully applied to different materials and biomedical devices. Since this diverse marketplace of tools and techniques can be used for numerous applications, choosing the proper characterization tool is highly important, saving both time and resources. Characterization of Biomaterials is a detailed and multidisciplinary discussion of the physical, chemical, mechanical, surface, in vitro and in vivo characterization tools and techniques of increasing importance to fundamental biomaterials research. Characterization of Biomaterials will serve as a comprehensive resource for biomaterials researchers requiring detailed information on physical, chemical, mechanical, surface, and in vitro or in vivo characterization. The book is designed for materials scientists, bioengineers, biologists, clinicians and biomedical device researchers seeking input on planning on how to test their novel materials, structures or biomedical devices to a specific application. Chapters are developed considering the need for industrial researchers as well as academics.