Vulnerability Assessment of Physical Protection Systems will describe the entire vulnerability assessment (VA) process, from the start of planning through final analysis and out brief to senior management. The text will draw heavily on the principles introduced in the author's best-selling Design and Evaluation of Physical Protection Systems and allow readers to apply those principles and conduct a VA that is aligned with system objectives and achievable with existing budget and personnel resources. The book will address the full spectrum of a VA, including negotiating tasks with the customer, project management and planning of the VA, team membership, step-by-step details for performing the VA, data collection and analysis, important notes on how to use the VA to suggest design improvements and generate multiple design options. The text will end with a discussion of how to out brief the results to senior management in order to gain their support and demonstrate the return on investment of their security dollar. Several new tools will be introduced to help readers organize and use the information at their sites and allow them to mix the physical protection system with other risk management measures to reduce risk to an acceptable level at an affordable cost and with the least operational impact.
- Guides the reader through the topic of physical security doing so with a unique, detailed and scientific approach
- Takes the reader from beginning to end and step-by-step through a Vulnerability Assessment
- Over 150 figures and tables to illustrate key concepts

This book describes a new type of computer aided VLSI design tool, called a VLSI System Planning, that is meant to aid designers dur ing the early, or conceptual, state of design. During this stage of design, the objective is to define a general design plan, or approach, that is likely to result in an efficient implementation satisfying the initial specifications, or to determine that the initial specifications are not realizable. A design plan is a collection of high level design decisions. As an example, the conceptual design of digital filters involves choosing the type of algorithm to implement (e. g. , finite impulse response or infinite impulse response), the type of polyno mial approximation (e. g. , Equiripple or Chebyshev), the fabrication technology (e. g. , CMOS or BiCMOS), and so on. Once a particu lar design plan is chosen, the detailed design phase can begin. It is during this phase that various synthesis, simulation, layout, and test activities occur to refine the conceptual design, gradually filling more detail until the design is finally realized. The principal advantage of VLSI System Planning is that the increasingly expensive resources of the detailed design process are more efficiently managed. Costly redesigns are minimized because the detailed design process is guided by a more credible, consistent, and correct design plan.

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.

This book explores the mobile ethnography of Dar es Salaam, where consultants and politicians have planned and implemented a bus rapid transit (BRT) system for two decades. It analyses the dual processes of assembling BRT in the Tanzanian metropolis and establishing BRT as a policy model of and for the Global South. The book elucidates how policy models are constructed and circulated around the globe and depicts the processes by which they are translated between, and materialise within, specific contexts. It presents the case of BRT to demonstrate how technocrats shape these processes through persuasive work aimed at disseminating and stabilising this transport model, and how local actors influence its adaptation in Dar es Salaam. The book adopts a 'double mobility' approach to show how this ethnography follows travelling consultants, circulating policies and moving buses to explore the fluidity of the BRT model. Linking key debates in policy mobility studies and Science and Technology Studies, enriched with postcolonial perspectives and geographies of transport and infrastructure, it offers new insights into the technopolitics of planning and implementing infrastructure systems. This book will appeal to academics and students of human geography, transport studies, science and technology studies, and African and development studies interested in the technopolitics of transport planning.

‘A gripping read that will anger as much as it fascinates’ Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall ‘An incredible journey into the world of rubbish, full of fascinating characters and mind-bending facts’ Oliver Bullough, author of Moneyland   ‘Urgent, probing and endlessly interesting’ Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment 'A fascinating, deeply researched and hugely important exposé of what happens to the stuff we no longer want, and the social and environmental cost of dealing with it' Gaia Vince  ‘Compelling, smart, fair, often funny, always interesting, and just very important’ Mary Roach, author of Stiff 'There are stories in all our discarded things: who made them, what they meant to a person before they were thrown away. In the end, it all ends up in the same place – the endless ingenuity of humanity in one filthy, fascinating mass.'   When we throw things ‘away’, what does that actually mean? Where does it go, and who deals with it when it gets there? In Wasteland, award-winning journalist Oliver Franklin-Wallis takes us on an eye-opening journey through the global waste industry. From the mountainous landfills of New Delhi to Britain’s overflowing sewers, from hollowed-out mining towns in the USA to Ghana’s flooded second-hand markets, we meet the people on the frontline of our waste crisis – both those being exploited, and those determined to make a difference. On the way, we discover the corporate greenwashing that started the recycling movement; the dark truth behind our second-hand donations; and come face to face with the 10,000-year legacy of our nuclear waste.   Both shocking and hopeful, Wasteland is the timely and ultimately human story at the heart of an urgent global issue.  

The noted inventor and futurist’s successor to his landmark book The Singularity Is Near explores how technology will transform the human race in the decades to come.

Since it was first published in 2005, Ray Kurzweil’s The Singularity Is Near and its vision of an exponential future have spawned a worldwide movement. Kurzweil's predictions about technological advancements have largely come true, with concepts like AI, intelligent machines, and biotechnology now widely familiar to the public.

In this entirely new book Ray Kurzweil brings a fresh perspective to advances toward the Singularity—assessing his 1999 prediction that AI will reach human level intelligence by 2029 and examining the exponential growth of technology—that, in the near future, will expand human intelligence a millionfold and change human life forever. Among the topics he discusses are rebuilding the world, atom by atom with devices like nanobots; radical life extension beyond the current age limit of 120; reinventing intelligence by connecting our brains to the cloud; how exponential technologies are propelling innovation forward in all industries and improving all aspects of our well-being such as declining poverty and violence; and the growth of renewable energy and 3-D printing. He also considers the potential perils of biotechnology, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence, including such topics of current controversy as how AI will impact employment and the safety of autonomous cars, and "After Life" technology, which aims to virtually revive deceased individuals through a combination of their data and DNA.

The culmination of six decades of research on artificial intelligence, The Singularity Is Nearer is Ray Kurzweil’s crowning contribution to the story of this science and the revolution that is to come.

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.

Included in BILL GATES's 2023 Holiday Reading List
Included in Lit Hub’s Most Anticipated Books of 2023
Included in The Next Big Idea Club’s February 2023 Must-Read Books

"Every Smil book that I own is marked up with lots of notes that I take while reading. Invention and Innovation is no exception. Even when I disagree with him, I learn a lot from him...he always strengthens my thinking."
—Bill Gates, Gates Notes

The world is never finished catching up with Vaclav Smil. In his latest and perhaps most readable book, Invention and Innovation, the prolific author—a favorite of Bill Gates—pens an insightful and fact-filled jaunt through the history of human invention. Impatient with the hype that so often accompanies innovation, Smil offers in this book a clear-eyed corrective to the overpromises that accompany everything from new cures for diseases to AI. He reminds us that even after we go quite far along the invention-development-application trajectory, we may never get anything real to deploy. Or worse, even after we have succeeded by introducing an invention, its future may be marked by underperformance, disappointment, demise, or outright harm.

Drawing on his vast breadth of scientific and historical knowledge, Smil explains the difference between invention and innovation, and looks not only at inventions that failed to dominate as promised (such as the airship, nuclear fission, and supersonic flight), but also at those that turned disastrous (leaded gasoline, DDT, and chlorofluorocarbons). And finally, most importantly, he offers a “wish list” of inventions that we most urgently need to confront the staggering challenges of the twenty-first century.

Filled with engaging examples and pragmatic approaches, this book is a sobering account of the folly that so often attends human ingenuity—and how we can, and must, better align our expectations with reality.

Zygmunt Zawirski (1882-1948), an eminent and original Polish philosopher, belonged to the Lwow-Warsaw School (LWS) which left an indelible trace in logic, semiotics and philosophy of science. LWS was founded in 1895 by K. Twardowski, a disciple of Brentano, in the spirit of clarity, realism and analytic philosophy. LWS was more than 25 years older than the Vienna Circle (VC). This belies, inter alia, the not infrequently repeated statement that LWS was one of the many centres initiated by VC. The achievements of LWS in logic are well recognized, while those relating to philosophy of science are almost unknown. It is in order to fill this gap that some fragments of Zawirski's papers are presented, dealing mainly with causality, determinism, indeterminism and philosophical implications of relativity and quantum mechanics. His magnum opus "L'Evolution de la Notion du Temps" (Eugenio Rignano Prize, 1933) is devoted to time. Zawirski took into account all the issues which are at present widely discussed. The real value of these achievements can be understood better today than by his contemporaries. This text is suitable for all those interested in philosophy of science and philosophy, and history of ideas.

Silicon technology now allows us to build chips consisting of tens of millions of transistors. This technology not only promises new levels of system integration onto a single chip, but also presents significant challenges to the chip designer. As a result, many ASIC developers and silicon vendors are re-examining their design methodologies, searching for ways to make effective use of the huge numbers of gates now available. These designers see current design tools and methodologies as inadequate for developing million-gate ASICs from scratch. There is considerable pressure to keep design team size and design schedules constant even as design complexities grow. Tools are not providing the productivity gains required to keep pace with the increasing gate counts available from deep submicron technology. Design reuse - the use of pre-designed and pre-verified cores - is the most promising opportunity to bridge the gap between available gate-count and designer productivity. Reuse Methodology Manual for System-On-A-Chip Designs, Second Edition outlines an effective methodology for creating reusable designs for use in a System-on-a-Chip (Soe design methodology. Silicon and tool technologies move so quickly that no single methodology can provide a permanent solution to this highly dynamic problem. Instead, this manual is an attempt to capture and incrementally improve on current best practices in the industry, and to give a coherent, integrated view of the design process. Reuse Methodology Manual for System-On-A-Chip Designs, Second Edition will be updated on a regular basis as a result of changing technology and improved insight into the problems of design reuse and its role in producinghigh-quality SoC designs.

A new edition of the bestselling introduction to design styles and movements in architecture. 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 major works as well as suggestions of other styles you might be interested in. This new edition now includes four brand new chapters covering Performatism, Ornamentalism, Giganticism and Bioclimatism. Understanding Architecture is a must for anyone interested in architecture and wanting to know more - whether you are a sightseer, a visitor of historic buildings or an architecture connoisseur.

An open process of restandardization, conducted by the IEEE, has led to the definitions of the new VHDL standard. The changes make VHDL safer, more portable, and more powerful. VHDL also becomes bigger and more complete. The canonical simulator of VHDL is enriched by new mechanisms, the predefined environment is more complete, and the syntax is more regular and flexible. Discrepancies and known bugs of VHDL'87 have been fixed. However, the new VHDL'92 is compatible with VHDL'87, with some minor exceptions. This book presents the new VHDL'92 for the VHDL designer. New features are explained and classified. Examples are provided, each new feature is given a rationale and its impact on design methodology, and performance is analyzed. Where appropriate, pitfalls and traps are explained. The VHDL designer should quickly be able to find the feature needed to evaluate the benefits it brings, to modify previous VHDL'87 code to make it more efficient, more portable, and more flexible. This text should be a useful update for all VHDL designers and managers involved in electronic design.

This book provides an analysis of the legal and policy dimensions of open access to research, education and public sector information with a focus on Nigeria. Kunle shows how open access has evolved across the world and how such initiatives could be implemented in Nigeria and other countries in the developing world. The author argues for a platform where Nigerians are able to freely connect to the 'global library', through the open access dual platforms of self-archiving and open access publishing, thereby providing access to knowledge. The importance of connecting local works to the 'global library' to increase visibility and impact of such works is also underscored. This book furthers our understanding of open educational resources as alternative avenues to accessing education and seeks to foster citizenry participation, good governance, accountability, democratic values and spur creativity and innovation through open governance and access to public sector information. Providing a framework for open access in developing countries, Open Access to Knowledge in Nigeria is an important read for scholars interested in knowledge production in Africa, development of the knowledge economy and the open access and Access to Knowledge movements.

Written to inspire and cultivate the ability to design and analyse feasible control algorithms for a wide range of engineering applications, this comprehensive text covers the theoretical and practical principles involved in the design and analysis of control systems. This second edition introduces 4IR adoption strategies for traditional intelligent control, including new techniques of implementing control systems. It provides improved coverage of the characteristics of feedback control, root-locus analysis, frequency-response analysis, state space methods, digital control systems and advanced controls, including updated worked examples and problems.

Features:

• Describes very timely applications and contains a good mix of theory, application, and computer simulation.
• Covers all the fundamentals of control systems.
• Takes a transdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary approach.
• Explores updates for 4IR (Industry 4.0) and includes better experiments and illustrations for nonlinear control systems.
• Includes homework problems, case studies, examples, and a solutions manual.

This text describes the advanced concepts and techniques used for ASIC chip synthesis, formal verification and static timing analysis, using the Synopsys suite of tools. In addition, the entire ASIC design flow methodology targeted for VDSM (Very-Deep-Sub-Micron) technologies is covered in detail. The emphasis of this book is on real-time application of Synopsys tools used to combat various problems seen at VDSM geometries. Readers are exposed to an effective design methodology for handling complex, sub-micron ASIC designs. Significance is placed on HDL coding styles, synthesis and optimization, dynamic simulation, formal verification, DFT scan insertion, links to layout, and static timing analysis. At each step, problems related to each phase of the design flow are identified, with solutions and work-arounds described in detail. In addition, crucial issues related to layout, which includes clock tree synthesis and back-end integration (links to layout) are also discussed at length. The book is intended for anyone who is involved in the ASIC design methodology, starting from RTL synthesis to final tape-out. Target audiences for this book are practicing ASIC design engineers and graduate students undertaking advanced courses in ASIC chip design and DFT techniques.

"Key Productivity and Performance Strategies to Advance Your STEM Career" shares valuable knowledge and insight on best practices used by high performing individuals in the STEM fields to enhance their professional endeavors. The strategies contained in this book are based on Lesia L. Crumpton-Young's experience and expertise as a STEM professional and a certified Life and Career Coach.

This book includes real-life examples from STEM professionals of career hurdles and efficient solutions to reaching your career goals. It covers effective goal setting, decision making, and how best to overcome doubt and criticism, as well as practical advice on critical path analysis and resource allocation. "Key Productivity and Performance Strategies to Advance Your STEM Career" also includes a five-year career planning tool along with additional problem statements and exercises, making it a valuable resource those involved in the STEM fields.
Includes a five-year career planning tool, additional problem statements, and exercisesDiscusses topics such as decisive decision making, setting clear and concise goals, objectives, and targets, and how to efficiently allocate resources

The Ising model provides a detailed mathematical description of ferromagnetism and is widely used in statistical physics and condensed matter physics. In this Student's Guide, the author demystifies the mathematical framework of the Ising model and provides students with a clear understanding of both its physical significance, and how to apply it successfully in their calculations. Key topics related to the Ising model are covered, including exact solutions of both finite and infinite systems, series expansions about high and low temperatures, mean-field approximation methods, and renormalization-group calculations. The book also incorporates plots, figures, and tables to highlight the significance of the results. Designed as a supplementary resource for undergraduate and graduate students, each chapter includes a selection of exercises intended to reinforce and extend important concepts, and solutions are also available for all exercises.

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.

Master the fundamentals of thermodynamics and learn how to apply these skills in engineering practice today with Reisel's PRINCIPLES OF ENGINEERING THERMODYNAMICS, SI, 2nd Edition. This edition's informal, first-person writing style helps make abstract concepts easier to understand. In addition to mastering fundamental principles and applications, you explore the impact of different system parameters on the performance of devices and processes. For example, you study how changing outlet pressure in a turbine changes the power produced or how the power requirement of a compressor varies with inlet temperature. This unique approach strengthens your understanding of how different components of thermodynamics interrelate, while demonstrating how you will use thermodynamics in your engineering career. You also learn to develop computer-based models of devices, processes and cycles as well as use internet-based programs and computer apps to find thermodynamic data, exactly like today's practicing engineers.

Codesign for Real-Time Video Applications describes a modern design approach for embedded systems. It combines the design of hardware, software, and algorithms. Traditionally, these design domains are treated separately to reduce the design complexity. Advanced design tools support a codesign of the different domains which opens an opportunity for exploiting synergetic effects. The design approach is illustrated by the design of a video compression system. It is integrated into the video card of a PC. A VLIW processor architecture is used as the basis of the compression system and popular video compression algorithms (MPEG, JPEG, H.261) are analyzed. A complete top-down design flow is presented and the design tools for each of the design steps are explained. The tools are integrated into an HTML-based design framework. The resulting design data can be directly integrated into the WWW. This is a crucial aspect for supporting distributed design groups. The design data can be directly documented an cross referencing in an almost arbitrary way is supported. This provides a platform for information sharing among the different design domains. Codesign for Real-Time Video Applications focuses on the multi-disciplinary aspects of embedded system design. It combines design automation and advanced processor design with an important application domain. A quantitative design approach is emphasized which focuses the design time on the most crucial components. Thus enabling a fast and cost efficient design methodology. This book will be of interest to researchers, designers and managers working in embedded system design.

The Ising model provides a detailed mathematical description of ferromagnetism and is widely used in statistical physics and condensed matter physics. In this Student's Guide, the author demystifies the mathematical framework of the Ising model and provides students with a clear understanding of both its physical significance, and how to apply it successfully in their calculations. Key topics related to the Ising model are covered, including exact solutions of both finite and infinite systems, series expansions about high and low temperatures, mean-field approximation methods, and renormalization-group calculations. The book also incorporates plots, figures, and tables to highlight the significance of the results. Designed as a supplementary resource for undergraduate and graduate students, each chapter includes a selection of exercises intended to reinforce and extend important concepts, and solutions are also available for all exercises.

Industrial Policy and the Transformation of the Colonial Economy in Africa offers an in-depth analysis of the role industrial policy can play in the transformation of African economies. Using examples from Zambia's industrial development experience, this book illustrates that core features of the colonial economy have not just survived six decades of independence in most African countries, but they have continued to shape the nature, scope and pace of economic activities on the continent. The book argues that since the colonial economy in Africa was not intended to serve the interests of Africans, it is imperative that the structures and the underlying rationale of the colonial economy are radically reoriented if economic activities in Africa are to benefit the majority of Africans. Drawing from the Zambian experience, the book shows that the transformation of the colonial economy in Africa is urgently needed. Whilst this has proved to be difficult over the past six decades, it can be done. The book outlines a specific type of industrial policy, Frontier Industrial Policy, as a key instrument for transforming the structure of African economies. At a time when economic growth across Africa is under considerable pressure due to COVID-19, the insights in this book will be of interest to researchers across Economics, Development, Postcolonial Studies, and African Studies.

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.

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the UPOV Convention are increasingly relevant and important. They have technical, social and normative legitimacy and have standardised numerous concepts and practices related to plant varieties and plant breeding. In this book, Jay Sanderson provides the first sustained and detailed account of the Convention. Building upon the idea that it has an open-ended and contingent relationship with scientific, legal, technical, political, social and institutional actors, the author explores the Convention's history, concepts and practices. Part I examines the emergence of the UPOV Convention during the 1950s and its expanding legitimacy in relation to plant variety protection. Part II explores the Convention's key concepts and practices, including plant breeder, plant variety, plant names (denomination), characteristics, protected material, essentially derived varieties (EDV) and farm saved seed (FSS). This book is an invaluable resource for academics, policy makers, agricultural managers and researchers in this field.

The International Union for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) and the UPOV Convention are increasingly relevant and important. They have technical, social and normative legitimacy and have standardised numerous concepts and practices related to plant varieties and plant breeding. In this book, Jay Sanderson provides the first sustained and detailed account of the Convention. Building upon the idea that it has an open-ended and contingent relationship with scientific, legal, technical, political, social and institutional actors, the author explores the Convention's history, concepts and practices. Part I examines the emergence of the UPOV Convention during the 1950s and its expanding legitimacy in relation to plant variety protection. Part II explores the Convention's key concepts and practices, including plant breeder, plant variety, plant names (denomination), characteristics, protected material, essentially derived varieties (EDV) and farm saved seed (FSS). This book is an invaluable resource for academics, policy makers, agricultural managers and researchers in this field.