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Books > Professional & Technical > Technology: general issues > History of engineering & technology
Machines have always gone hand-in-hand with the cultural
development of m- kind throughout time. A book on the history of
machines is nothing more than a specific way of bringing light to
human events as a whole in order to highlight some significant
milestones in the progress of knowledge by a complementary persp-
tive into a general historical overview. This book is the result of
common efforts and interests by several scholars, teachers, and
students on subjects that are connected with the theory of machines
and mechanisms. In fact, in this book there is a certain teaching
aim in addition to a general historical view that is more addressed
to the achievements by "homo faber" than to those by "homo
sapiens," since the proposed history survey has been developed with
an engineering approach. The brevity of the text added to the fact
that the authors are probably not com- tent to tackle historical
studies with the necessary rigor, means the content of the book is
inevitably incomplete, but it nevertheless attempts to fulfil three
basic aims: First, it is hoped that this book may provide a
stimulus to promote interest in the study of technical history
within a mechanical engineering context. Few are the co- tries
where anything significant is done in this area, which means there
is a general lack of knowledge of this common cultural heritage.
This book demonstrates that American agricultural development was
far more dynamic than generally portrayed. In the two centuries
before World War II, a stream of biological innovations
revolutionized the crop and livestock sectors, increasing both land
and labor productivity. Biological innovations were essential for
the movement of agriculture onto new lands with more extreme
climates, for maintaining production in the face of evolving
threats from pests, and for the creation of the modern livestock
sector. These innovations established the foundation for the
subsequent Green and Genetic Revolutions. The book challenges the
misconceptions that, before the advent of hybrid corn, American
farmers single-mindedly invested in labor-saving mechanical
technologies and that biological technologies were static.
This book demonstrates that American agricultural development was
far more dynamic than generally portrayed. In the two centuries
before World War II, a stream of biological innovations
revolutionized the crop and livestock sectors, increasing both land
and labor productivity. Biological innovations were essential for
the movement of agriculture onto new lands with more extreme
climates, for maintaining production in the face of evolving
threats from pests, and for the creation of the modern livestock
sector. These innovations established the foundation for the
subsequent Green and Genetic Revolutions. The book challenges the
misconceptions that, before the advent of hybrid corn, American
farmers single-mindedly invested in labor-saving mechanical
technologies and that biological technologies were static.
At the University of Rhode Island over 25% of engineering
undergraduates simultaneously complete a second degree in German,
French, Spanish, or Chinese. They furthermore spend an entire year
abroad, one semester as exchange students at a partner university
and six months as professional engineering interns at a cooperating
company. With a close-to 100% placement rate, over 400 graduates,
and numerous national awards, the URI International Engineering
Program (IEP) is a proven path of preparation for young engineers
in today's global workplace. The author of this volume, John
Grandin, is an emeritus professor of German who developed and led
the IEP for twenty-three years. In these pages, he provides a
two-pronged approach to explain the origin and history of this
program rooted in such an unusual merger of two traditionally
distinct higher education disciplines. He looks first at himself to
explain how and why he became an international educator and what
led him to his lasting passion for the IEP. He then provides an
historical overview of the program's origin and growth, including
looks at the bumps and bruises and ups and downs along the way.
Grandin hopes that this story will be of use and value to other
educators determined to reform higher education and align it with
the needs of the 21st Century. Table of Contents: How I became a
Professor of German / My Unexpected Path to Engineering / Building
a Network of Support / Sidetracked by a Stint in the Dean's Office
/ Reshaping the Language Mission / Struggling to Institutionalize /
Partnering with Universities Abroad / Going into the Hotel and
Restaurant Business / Taking the Lead Nationally / Building the
Chinese IEP / Staying Involved after Retirement / The Broader
Message for Higher Education / Conclusions
The creation of physical and material infrastructure is the
cornerstone of human development; not surprisingly, engineers and
designers are often motivated and inspired in their practice to
improve the world around them, to make things better for others,
and to apply their knowledge for the good of mankind. These
aspirations often get translated into engineering and design
curricula where students and faculty work on development related
projects usually under the category of community or service
learning. This book presents an overview of such an education and
outreach program designed to empower stakeholders to improve their
lives. The project described here was an international
multi-institutional undertaking that included academic
institutions, non-governmental organizations, and private firms.
Within the academic setting, an interdisciplinary set of actors
that included engineering and industrial design students and
faculty worked on the project. We concretize our work by presenting
a design case study that illustrates how different approaches can
help guide the works of engineers and designers as they create
global infrastructures and localized artifacts. We emphasize the
importance of developing long term relationships with organizations
on the ground in order to ensure appropriate design as well as
successful transfer and long term use of designed artifacts. We
discuss the life trajectories of the authors to provide a grounded
perspective on what motivated us to undertake this work and shaped
our approach with the intention to demonstrate that there are
multiple paths toward this goal. Table of Contents: Introduction /
Development of the Program: Personal Trajectories Meet Professional
Opportunities / Intellectual Positioning of the Program:
Sociomaterial Infrastructures and Capable and Convivial Design /
Case Study: Quick Response (QR) Code Based Immunization Solution /
Design for Development Course and Outreach Initiative / Conclusion:
Lessons Learned
This work derives from a conference discussing the history of
computing in education. This conference is the first of hopefully a
series of conferences that will take place within the International
Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and hence, we describe
it as the First Conference on the History of Computing in Education
(HCE1). These proceedings represent a collection of works presented
at the HCE1 Conference held in association with the IFIP 2004 World
Computer Congress held in Toulouse, France. Contributions to this
volume range from a wide variety of educational perspectives and
represent activities from four continents. The HCE1 conference
represents a joint effort of the IFIP Working Group 9.7 on the
History of Computing and the IFIP Technical Committee 3 on
Education. The HCE1 Conference brings to light a broad spectrum of
issues and spans fourcontinents. It illustrates topics in computing
education as they occurred in the "early days" of computing whose
ramifications or overtones remain with us today. Indeed, many of
the early challenges remain part of our educational tapestry; most
likely, many will evolve into future challenges. Therefore, this
work provides additional value to the reader as it will reflect in
part the future development of computing in education to stimulate
new ideas and models in educational development.
CSX Transportation Railroad Heritage is a photographic essay of
this major railroad that was formed in 1980 by a merger of the
Seaboard Coast Line with the Chessie System, providing a history
that goes back to its beginning with the opening in 1830 of the
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, which was the first common carrier
railroad in the United States. An early predecessor railroad was
the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway which introduced the figure of a
sleeping kitten Chessie in 1933 that became a well-recognized
advertisement for passenger service and later for freight service.
Each of the railroads that were merged contributed to CSX reaching
important population, energy, and manufacturing markets. The CSX
Pride in Service program resulted in three special painted
locomotives (shown in this book) honoring the nation's veterans,
active military personnel, and first responders.
This volume provides a concise, historical review of the methods of
structural analysis and design - from Galileo in the seventeenth
century, to the present day. Through it, students in structural
engineering and professional engineers will gain a deeper
understanding of the theory behind the modern software packages
they use daily in structural design. This book also offers the
reader a lucid examination of the process of structural analysis
and how it relates to modern design. The first three chapters cover
questions about the strength of materials, and how to calculate
local effects. An account is then given of the development of the
equations of elastic flexure and buckling, followed by a separate
chapter on masonry arches. Three chapters on the overall behaviour
of elastic structures lead to a discussion of plastic behaviour,
and a final chapter indicates that there are still problems needing
solution.
The International Symposium on the History of Machines and
Mechanisms is the main activity of the Permanent Commission (PC)
for the History of Mechanism and Machine Science (HMM) of the
International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine
Science (IFToMM). The first symposium, HMM2000, was initiated by
Dr. Marco Ceccarelli and was held at the University of Cassino
(Cassino, Italy) on May 11-13, 2000. The second symposium, HMM2004,
was chaired by Dr. Marco Ceccarelli and held at the same venue on
May 12-15, 2004. The third symposium, HMM2008, was chaired by Dr.
Hong-Sen Yan and held at the National Cheng Kung University
(Tainan, Taiwan) on November 11-14, 2008. The mission of IFToMM is
to promote research and development in the field of machines and
mechanisms by theoretical and experimental methods, along with
their practical applications. The aim of HMM2008 is to establish an
international forum for presenting and discussing historical
developments in the field of Mechanism and Machine Science (MMS).
The subject area covers all aspects of the development of HMM, such
as machine, mechanism, kinematics, design method, etc., that are
related to people, events, objects, anything that assisted in the
development of the HMM, and presented in the forms of reasoning and
ar- ments, demonstration and identification, and description and
evaluation.
This is a cross-cultural study of the political economy of war in
South Asia. Randolf G. S. Cooper combines an overview of Maratha
military culture with a battle-by-battle analysis of the 1803
Anglo-Maratha Campaigns. Building on that foundation he challenges
ethnocentric assumptions about British superiority in discipline,
drill and technology. He argues that these campaigns, in which
Arthur Wellesley served with distinction, represent the military
high-water mark of the Marathas who posed the last serious
opposition to the formation of the British Raj. Dr Cooper asserts
that the real contest for India was never a single decisive battle
for the subcontinent. Rather it turned on a complex social and
political struggle for control of the South Asian military economy.
The author shows that victory in 1803 hinged as much on finance,
diplomacy, politics and intelligence as it did on battlefield
manoeuvre and war itself.
Along with the Bf 109, the Fw 190 was a stalwart of the Luftwaffe
and one of the top fighters of WWII.
Scientific change is often a function of technological innovation -
new instruments show us new things we could not see before and we
then need new theories to explain them. One of the results of this
process is that what counts as scientific evidence changes, and how
we do our science changes. Hitherto the technologies which make
contemporary science possible have been ignored. This book aims to
correct that omission and to spell out the consequences of taking
the technologies behind the doing of science seriously.
These proceedings derive from an international conference on the
history of computing and education. This conference is the second
of hopefully a series of conferences that will take place within
the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) and
hence, we describe it as the "Second IFIP Conference on the History
of Computing and Education" or simply "History of Computing and
Education 2" (HCE2). This volume consists of a collection of
articles presented at the HCE2 conference held in association with
the IFIP 2006 World Computer Congress in Santiago, Chile. Articles
range from a wide variety of educational and computing perspectives
and represent activities from five continents. The HCE2 conference
represents a joint effort of the IFIP Working Group 9. 7 on the
History of Computing and the IFIP Technical Committee 3 on
Education. The HCE2 conference brings to light a broad spectrum of
issues. It illustrates topics in computing as they occurred in the
"early days" of computing whose ramifications or overtones remain
with us today. Indeed, many of the early challenges remain part of
our educational tapestry; most likely, many will evolve into future
challenges. Therefore, these proceedings provide additional value
to the reader as it will reflect in part the future development of
computing and education to stimulate new ideas and models in
educational development. These proceedings provide a spectrum of
interesting articles spanning many topics of historical interest.
Global engineering offers the seductive image of engineers figuring
out how to optimize work through collaboration and mobility. Its
biggest challenge to engineers, however, is more fundamental and
difficult: to better understand what they know and value qua
engineers and why. This volume reports an experimental effort to
help sixteen engineering educators produce ""personal geographies""
describing what led them to make risky career commitments to
international and global engineering education. The contents of
their diverse trajectories stand out in extending far beyond the
narrower image of producing globally-competent engineers. Their
personal geographies repeatedly highlight experiences of
incongruence beyond home countries that provoked them to see
themselves and understand their knowledge differently. The
experiences were sufficiently profound to motivate them to design
educational experiences that could provoke engineering students in
similar ways. For nine engineers, gaining new international
knowledge challenged assumptions that engineering work and life are
limited to purely technical practices, compelling explicit
attention to broader value commitments. For five non-engineers and
two hybrids, gaining new international knowledge fueled ambitions
to help engineering students better recognize and critically
examine the broader value commitments in their work. A background
chapter examines the historical emergence of international
engineering education in the United States, and an epilogue
explores what it might take to integrate practices of critical
self-analysis more systematically in the education and training of
engineers. Two appendices and two online supplements describe the
unique research process that generated these personal geographies,
especially the workshop at the U.S. National Academy of Engineering
in which authors were prohibited from participating in discussions
of their manuscripts. Table of Contents: Communicating Across
Cultures: Humanities in the International Education of Engineers
(Bernd Widdig) / Linking Language Proficiency and the Professions
(Michael Nugent) / Language, Life, and Pathways to Global
Competency for Engineers (and Everyone Else) (Phil McKnight) /
Bridging Two worlds (John M. Grandin) / Opened Eyes: From Moving Up
to Helping Students See (Gayle G. Elliott) / What is Engineering
for? A Search for Engineering beyond Militarism and Free-markets
(Juan Lucena) / Location, Knowledge, and Desire: From Two
Conservatisms to Engineering Cultures and Countries (Gary Lee
Downey) / Epilogue - Beyond Global Competence: Implications for
Engineering Pedagogy (Gary Lee Downey)
Global engineering offers the seductive image of engineers figuring
out how to optimize work through collaboration and mobility. Its
biggest challenge to engineers, however, is more fundamental and
difficult: to better understand what they know and value qua
engineers and why. This volume reports an experimental effort to
help sixteen engineering educators produce ""personal geographies""
describing what led them to make risky career commitments to
international and global engineering education. The contents of
their diverse trajectories stand out in extending far beyond the
narrower image of producing globally-competent engineers. Their
personal geographies repeatedly highlight experiences of
incongruence beyond home countries that provoked them to see
themselves and understand their knowledge differently. The
experiences were sufficiently profound to motivate them to design
educational experiences that could challenge engineering students
in similar ways. For nine engineers, gaining new international
knowledge challenged assumptions that engineering work and life are
limited to purely technical practices, compelling explicit
attention to broader value commitments. For five non-engineers and
two hybrids, gaining new international knowledge fueled ambitions
to help engineering students better recognize and critically
examine the broader value commitments in their work. A background
chapter examines the historical emergence of international
engineering education in the United States, and an epilogue
explores what it might take to integrate practices of critical
self-analysis more systematically in the education and training of
engineers. Two appendices and two online supplements describe the
unique research process that generated these personal geographies,
especially the workshop at the U.S. National Academy of Engineering
in which authors were prohibited from participating in discussions
of their manuscripts. Table of Contents: The Border Crossers:
Personal Geographies of International and Global Engineering
Educators (Gary Lee Downey) / From Diplomacy and Development to
Competitiveness and Globalization: Historical Perspectives on the
Internationalization of Engineering Education (Brent Jesiek and
Kacey Beddoes) / Crossing Borders: My Journey at WPI (Rick Vaz) /
Education of Global Engineers and Global Citizens (E. Dan Hirleman)
/ In Search of Something More: My Path Towards International
Service-Learning in Engineering Education (Margaret F. Pinnell) /
International Engineering Education: The Transition from
Engineering Faculty Member to True Believer (D. Joseph Mook) /
Finding and Educating Self and Others Across Multiple Domains:
Crossing Cultures, Disciplines, Research Modalities, and Scales
(Anu Ramaswami) / If You Don't Go, You Don't Know (Linda D.
Phillips) / A Lifetime of Touches of an Elusive ""Virtual
Elephant"": Global Engineering Education (Lester A. Gerhardt) /
Developing Global Awareness in a College of Engineering (Alan
Parkinson) / The Right Thing to Do: Graduate Education and Research
in a Global and Human Context (James R. Mihelcic) / Author
Biographies
Die sieben Weltwunder wurden bereits in der Antike beschrieben,
etwa zur selben Zeit wie die mechanische Rechenhilfe Abacus, ein
Zahlrahmen mit Holz- oder Glasperlen. Dieses Buch beschreibt und
diskutiert die sieben Weltwunder der IT, ohne die unsere digitale
Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft kaum uberlebensfahig scheint:
Computermaus, Datenbanken, Kryptografie, Graphgrammatiken,
Internet, Blockchain und Soft Computing. Jedes Weltwunder der IT
wird kurz charakterisiert, bevor Anwendungsoptionen fur Wirtschaft
und Gesellschaft exemplarisch aufgezeigt und gewurdigt werden. Das
Werk richtet sich an alle, die sich mit der digitalen
Transformation auseinandersetzen. Es soll helfen, digitale
Entwicklungen im eigenen Unternehmen, in der Verwaltung oder im
oeffentlichen wie im privaten Leben zu positionieren und zu
reflektieren.
Focusing on one of the last untold chapters in the history of human
flight, Dictatorship of the Air is the first book to explain the
true story behind twentieth-century Russia's quest for aviation
prominence. Based on nearly a decade of scholarly research, but
written with general readers in mind, this is the only account to
answer the question 'What is 'Russian' about Russian aviation?'
From the 1909 arrival of machine-powered flight in the 'land of the
tsars' to the USSR's victory over Hitler in 1945, Dictatorship of
the Air describes why the airplane became the preeminent symbol of
industrial progress and international power for generations of
Russian statesmen and citizens, The book reveals how, behind a
facade of daredevil pilots, record-setting flights, and gargantuan
airplanes, Russia's long-standing legacies of industrial
backwardness, cultural xenophobia, and state-directed modernization
prolonged the nation's dependence on western technology and
ultimately ensured the USSR's demise.
In Internet for the People, leading tech writer Ben Tarnoff offers
an answer. The internet is broken, he argues, because it is owned
by private firms and run for profit. Google annihilates your
privacy and Facebook amplifies right-wing propaganda because it is
profitable to do so. But the internet wasn't always like this-it
had to be remade for the purposes of profit maximization, through a
years-long process of privatization that turned a small research
network into a powerhouse of global capitalism. Tarnoff tells the
story of the privatization that made the modern internet, and which
set in motion the crises that consume it today. The solution to
those crises is straightforward: deprivatize the internet.
Deprivatization aims at creating an internet where people, and not
profit, rule. It calls for shrinking the space of the market and
diminishing the power of the profit motive. It calls for abolishing
the walled gardens of Google, Facebook, and the other giants that
dominate our digital lives and developing publicly and
cooperatively owned alternatives that encode real democratic
control. To build a better internet, we need to change how it is
owned and organized. Not with an eye towards making markets work
better, but towards making them less dominant. Not in order to
create a more competitive or more rule-bound version of
privatization, but to overturn it. Otherwise, a small number of
executives and investors will continue to make choices on
everyone's behalf, and these choices will remain tightly bound by
the demands of the market. It's time to demand an internet by, and
for, the people now.
The Triumph of Technology is taken from Lord Alec Broers' 2005 BBC
Reith Lectures on the role and importance of technology in our
lives. The lectures discuss the way technology has shaped life
since the beginnings of civilization, explaining how we owe to
technologists most of what drives our world today, how technologies
develop, and the excitement of the modern creative process. There
are some who believe that technology's future development should be
controlled, and that it may already have gone too far, especially
in areas such as the use of energy - something which has the
potential to permanently harm our environment. Alec Broers argues
that although we need to understand such dangers, and use
technology wisely, it can improve our lives - that we must look to
technology to solve many of the problems that threaten our planet.
Included here are the complete lectures plus a new introduction and
conclusion.
Using the examples of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory and the Royal
Medical Manufactory, the study examines working and power
relationships in large centralised production units before and
during industrialisation in Prussia. The focus is on the division
of employers into "Officiants" (state officials and salaried
employees) and "Ouvriers" (workers). It is shown how such
production units formed the basis for the formation of important
groups which influence social structures right up to the present
day. The development of the two state manufactories points to the
potential for social, economic and technical innovation which
marked the organisational form of the manufactory around 1800.
Using extensive archive materials, it has been possible to provide
a more exact analysis of the social and power structures in
manufacturing, particularly in the period up to 1850, than has been
possible in previous social histories of companies.
Der erste funktionsfahige Computer wurde von Konrad Zuse gebaut. Er
war 1941 betriebsbereit. Der Erfinder dieser ersten
vollautomatischen, programmgesteuerten, frei programmierbaren, in
binarer Gleitpunktzahlrechnung arbeitenden Rechenanlage ware am 22.
Juni 2010 hundert Jahre alt geworden. In diesem Buch erzahlt er die
Geschichte seines Lebens, das wie kaum ein anderes mit der
Geschichte der bedeutendsten technischen Entwicklung seines
Jahrhunderts verbunden ist - einer Entwicklung, die mit der
"Abneigung" des Bauingenieurstudenten Zuse gegen die statischen
Rechnungen begonnen hat... "Von der ersten bis zur letzten Seite
ist diese Autobiographie eine faszinierende Lekture, weil aus jeder
Zeile das personliche Erleben des Autors spricht. Diese
Unmittelbarkeit macht Buch und Autor sympathisch." (ntz
Nachrichtentechnische Zeitschrift) ..".Fur entspannende und
erholsame Stunden, informativ und allgemeinbildend, eigentlich
genau das, was im Zusammenhang mit dem Thema Computer sehr oft
gefragt und verlangt wird... Unser Tipp: Sehr empfehlenswert
(PASCAL)"
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