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Books > Science & Mathematics > Science: general issues
Learning from Science and Technology Policy Evaluation presents US
and European experiences and insights on the evaluation of policies
and programs to foster research, innovation, and technology (RIT).
In recent years, policymakers have promoted RIT policies to
accelerate scientific and technological development in emerging
fields, encourage new patterns of research collaboration and
commercialization, and enhance national and regional economic
competitiveness. At the same time, budgetary pressures and new
public management approaches have strengthened demands for RIT
performance measurement and evaluation. The contributors - leading
experts in science and technology policy and evaluation - analyze
and contrast the need and demand for RIT performance measurement
and evaluation within the US and European innovation and policy
making systems. They assess current US and European RIT evaluation
practices and methods in key areas, discuss applications of new
evaluative approaches and consider strategies that could lead to
improvements in RIT evaluation design and policies. This up-to-date
volume examining current and leading-edge evaluation methodologies
will make a valuable addition to the libraries of research and
innovation policymakers and analysts, educators and students of
science and technology policy.
Help your kids explore the wonders of science with over 100 easy
and accessible experiments Science in Seconds for Kids: Over 100
Experiments You Can Do in Ten Minutes or Less, 2nd Edition makes
learning science with your children fun and practical. Using
ingredients and components found mostly in your home or classroom,
Science in Seconds for Kids instructs caregivers and educators on
how to create dazzling and enlightening experiments from scratch.
This book utilizes bright and colorful illustrations and diagrams
throughout, making the simple experiments even more accessible.
Guide your kids through experiments including: Making rainbows on
the floor Popping balloons with light Bending water from a faucet
Making lightning in a room Keeping paper dry underwater The
experiments will fascinate youngsters of all ages and encourage a
love of science and learning that could last a lifetime. Science in
Seconds for Kids is perfect for elementary, traditional, and
homeschool educators, as well as parents, grandparents, and other
caregivers.
'Bored and Brilliant is full of easy steps to make each day more
effective' Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit It's time
to move `doing nothing' to the top of your to-do list Have you ever
noticed how you have your best ideas when doing the dishes or
staring out the window? It's because when your body goes on
autopilot, your brain gets busy connecting ideas and solving
problems. However in the modern world it often feels as though we
have completely removed boredom from our lives; we are addicted to
our phones, we reply to our emails twenty-four hours a day, tweet
as we watch TV, watch TV as we commute, check Facebook as we walk
and Instagram while we eat. Constant stimulation has become our
default mode. In this easy to follow, practical book, award-winning
journalist Manoush Zomorodi explores the connection between boredom
and original thinking, and will show you how to ditch your screens
and start embracing time spent doing nothing. Bored and Brilliant
will help you unlock the way to becoming your most productive and
creative self.
This outstanding collection charts the work of Jan Fagerberg on the
relationship between technology, growth and international
competitiveness. With an original introduction and a mix of
previously published and unpublished material, the book covers all
the main issues including: the technology gap and differences of
growth and welfare; structural factors in the growth of exports and
production, and the relationship between growth of GDP and trade
performance. The final chapter presents a comprehensive overview of
the theoretical and applied work on technology and competitiveness.
Rewind Your Biology and Live Like a 20-Year-Old! Edit Your Genes to
Live Disease-Free! Find a Parking Space with Your
Internet-Connected Brain! Advances in longevity, genetics,
nanotech, and robotics will make all this possible! This is not
science fiction. This is your future. Right now, pioneering
scientists and technologists are transforming what it means to be
human by overcoming biological limits that have existed since our
ancestors swung out of the trees...and into the suburbs. With
incredible inspiration and perseverance, these visionaries are
solving deep problems of human health and longevity-and their
progress is accelerating. Super You takes you inside their labs,
companies, and minds...to show how you can reap the benefits of a
stronger, longer, better, life. You'll learn how to start hacking
your life today, to become more super, every day. Discover what's
possible when yesterday's human limits are gone! Learn how
evolution became obsolete-and why it's time to start hacking
yourself Save your life with whirring "jet engine" hearts, printed
organs, and other medical miracles Rewire and turbo-boost your ape
brain Become a mega-mind by connecting your brain directly to the
Internet to use Google's synthetic neocortex Become superhuman with
cyborg technology Design and mold your looks Genetically engineer
your baby to be a tennis star (and other true stories) Prepare for
the political and religious backlash against the future Discover
how scientists will make death obsolete by treating it like a
curable disease-and how to live until they do
When is international patent law cooperation and harmonization
welfare-enhancing? What is the role of international institutions -
WIPO and the WTO - in furthering such harmonization? This book
explores these questions from a global welfarist, rationalist
perspective. It grounds its analysis in innovation theory and a
examination of patent law and prosecution, incorporating the
uncertainty of patent law's impact on welfare at a detailed level,
dynamic changes, the skewed nature of patent value and the
difficulty of textually capturing patent concepts. Using tools from
new institutional economics, it explores future design implications
for international institutions, analyzing grounds for international
cooperation as collective action problems and applying historical,
political and transaction cost analyses. Academics, students and
practitioners interested in international economic law,
specifically in respect of patents, innovation and intellectual
property, the TRIPs Agreement, the WTO and WIPO will find this book
essential. It will also prove insightful for researchers whose
primary background is in international relations or international
political economy, but are seeking an introduction to the patent
and intellectual property field. Contents: Introduction Part I:
Welfare-Enhancing Harmonization 1. Domestic Patent Law, Autarchic
Analysis 2. The Value of Diversity: Relaxed Autarchy 3. Bases for
Harmonization Part II: International Patent Law Institutions 4.
History 5. International Patent Cooperation as Collective Action 6.
Institutional Analysis: WIPO and the WTO Conclusions and
Implications References
A GUARDIAN, ECONOMIST AND PROSPECT BOOK OF THE YEAR 'A superb book'
Simon Sebag Montefiore 'An empowering story of human ingenuity'
Economist 'Full of curious facts' The Times Causes of death have
changed irrevocably across time. In the course of a few centuries
we have gone from a world where disease or violence were likely to
strike anyone at any age, and where famine could be just one bad
harvest away, to one where in many countries excess food is more of
a problem than a lack of it. Why have the reasons we die changed so
much? How is it that a century ago people died mainly from
infectious disease, while today the leading causes of death in
industrialised nations are heart disease and stroke? And what do
changing causes of death reveal about how previous generations have
lived? University of Manchester Professor Andrew Doig provides an
eye-opening portrait of death throughout history, looking at
particular causes - from infectious disease to genetic disease,
violence to diet - who they affected, and the people who made it
possible to overcome them. Along the way we hear about the long and
torturous story of the discovery of vitamin C and its role in
preventing scurvy; the Irish immigrant who opened the first
washhouse for the poor of Liverpool, and in so doing educated the
public on the importance of cleanliness in combating disease; and
the Church of England curate who, finding his new church equipped
with a telephone, started the Samaritans to assist those in
emotional distress. This Mortal Coil is a thrilling story of
growing medical knowledge and social organisation, of achievement
and, looking to the future, of promise.
Object Lessons is a series of short, beautifully designed books
about the hidden lives of ordinary things. Air conditioning aspires
to be unnoticed. Yet, by manipulating the air around us, it quietly
conditions the baseline conditions of our physical, mental, and
emotional experience. From offices and libraries to contemporary
art museums and shopping malls, climate control systems shore up
the fantasy of a comfortable, self-contained body that does not
have to reckon with temperature. At the same time that air
conditioning makes temperature a non-issue in (some) people’s
daily lives, thermoception—or the sensory perception of
temperature—is being carefully studied and exploited as a tool of
marketing, social control, and labor management. Yet air
conditioning isn’t for everybody: its reliance on carbon fuels
divides the world into habitable, climate-controlled bubbles and
increasingly uninhabitable environments where AC is unavailable.
Hsuan Hsu's Air Conditioning explores questions about culture,
ethics, ecology, and social justice raised by the history and
uneven distribution of climate controlling technologies. Object
Lessons is published in partnership with an essay series in The
Atlantic.
The World Perspectives series presented short books written by some
of the most eminent thinkers of the 20th Century. Each volume
discusses the interrelation of the changing religious, scientific,
artistic, political, economic and social influences on the human
experience. This set reissues 9/10 of the volumes originally
published between 1957 and 1965 and presents the thought and belief
of its author and discuss: The role of architecture on social
well-being and democracy The problems of international cooperation
The impact of increased technology on global society The
philosophies of logical positivism and materialism The meaning and
function of language.
All of the Earth's ocean, from the equator to the poles, is a
single engine powered by sunlight - a blue machine. Human history
has been dictated by the ocean: the location of cities, access to
resources and the gateways to new lands have all revolved around
water. We live inside the weather the ocean generates and breathe
in what it breathes out. Yet despite our dependence, our awareness
of its totality is minimal. In a book that will recalibrate our
view of this defining feature of our planet, physicist Helen
Czerski dives deep to illuminate the murky depths of the ocean
engine, examining the messengers, passengers and voyagers that live
in it, travel over it, and survive because of it. From the ancient
Polynesians who navigated the Pacific by reading the waves to
permanent residents of the deep such as the Greenland shark that
can live for hundreds of years, she explains the vast currents,
invisible ocean walls and underwater waterfalls that all have their
place in the ocean's complex, interlinked system. Timely, elegant
and passionately argued, The Blue Machine is one of the biggest
stories ever told. The understanding it offers is crucial to our
future. Drawing on years of experience at the forefront of marine
science, Helen Czerski captures the magnitude and subtlety of this
complex force, showing us the thrilling extent to which we are at
the mercy of this great engine.
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