Science & Nature - Books

Upconversion Luminescence of Phosphors

Science & Nature

This book highlights various applications of upconversion phosphors mainly for solar cells and in biomedical sciences. The tuning of chemical and physical properties in upconversion phosphors has a strong influence on a number of assorted applications including solid-state lasers, photovoltaic, and bioimaging. This book presents a fundamental understanding of upconversion luminescence, and the theoretical elucidation of spectroscopic properties and luminescence dynamics of photon upconversion in rare-earth-activated phosphors.

L'Évolution d'une science, la chimie

Science & Nature

La notion d’élément s’introduisait déjà dans les premiers essais faits par les peuples de l’Europe occidentale pour rassembler et comprendre les phénomènes de tout genre. Cette notion a été reprise parla chimie, et y a gardé la prépondérance. Thalès, le père de la philosophie en Grèce et en Europe, admettait que tout venait de l’eau : c’était le principe général de sa conception de l’univers. Cette supposition implique que les choses n’ont pas toujours été ce qu’elles sont aujourd’hui, et que leur multiplicité peut se ramener à quelque chose de plus simple.Fruit d’une sélection réalisée au sein des fonds de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, Collection XIX a pour ambition de faire découvrir des textes classiques et moins classiques dans les meilleures éditions du XIXe siècle.

Les dossiers noirs de la pollution

Science & Nature

• En Égypte, l’édification du haut barrage d’Assouan, Saad el Aali, a totalement bouleversé l’éco-système de la vallée du Nil : 40 millions d’êtres humains sont menacés par la famine et la bilharziose. • Le climat de la planète est en train de se transformer. Pollution ou modification volontaire de l’environnement pour instaurer un nouvel ordre économique mondial ? • La Méditerranée est devenue un vaste égout : dans moins de vingt ans, plus aucune vie ne subsistera dans ses eaux. • Empoisonnées par les rejets industriels, les mers se meurent. Nous courons vers une catastrophe planétaire car la perpétuation de l’homme est liée à celle des océans. • Les explosions atomiques souterraines provoquent des tremblements de terre à des milliers de kilomètres du “Point zéro”. • L’atome, clef énergétique de l’avenir ? Déjà on implante des centrales sur des zones dangereuses à haute sismicité. • La publicité est devenue un viol des foules. Dans un futur proche, le “Mind-control” conditionnera nos cerveaux pendant le sommeil et introduira dans notre subconscient des slogans induits. • 300 millions d’animaux sont sacrifiés chaque année dans le monde pour les besoins de la vivisection et de l’expérimentation médicale. La privation de sommeil appliquée aux chats les fait devenir fous. Aujourd’hui l’animal, demain l’homme ?

Product Development Projects

Science & Nature

This book primarily explores two topics: the representation of simultaneous, cooperative work processes in product development projects with the help of statistical models, and the assessment of their emergent complexity using a metric from theoretical physics (Effective Measure Complexity, EMC). It is intended to promote more effective management of development projects by shifting the focus from the structural complexity of the product being developed to the dynamic complexity of the development processes involved.The book is divided into four main parts, the first of which provides an introduction to vector autoregression models, periodic vector autoregression models and linear dynamical systems for modeling cooperative work in product development projects. The second part presents theoretical approaches for assessing complexity in the product development environment, while the third highlights and explains closed-form solutions for the complexity metric EMC for vector autoregression models and linear dynamical systems. Lastly, part four validates the models and methods using a case study from the industry, together with several Monte Carlo experiments.Presenting a truly unique, integrated treatment of statistical approaches for modeling simultaneous, cooperative work processes in product development projects and assessing their complexity, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers in Industrial Engineering, Engineering Management and Project Management, as well as Project Managers seeking to model and evaluate their own development projects.

Odd Patent Requests

Science & Nature

Odd Patent Requests explores the fascinating world of patented inventions that never quite made it into practical use, examining the intersection of technological aspiration and real-world functionality. The book delves into the creativity behind patented inventions and the limitations preventing them from becoming functional or marketable products. One intriguing aspect is how the patent system sometimes protects seemingly absurd ideas, from flying bicycles to self-rocking baby cribs. It highlights the often-tenuous relationship between invention and utility, offering insights valuable to those interested in technology, business, or the history of innovation.The book progresses through three key sections. It begins by introducing the patent system and criteria for patentability. Next, it examines case studies grouped by area of invention, such as transportation, personal care, and automated devices, discussing their technical design and reasons for their lack of adoption. Finally, it analyzes the broader implications of these "odd" patent requests, exploring their cultural significance and lessons for future inventors.The book draws upon real patent filings and historical records, making it unique by focusing on the unusual and often humorous side of innovation and challenging the notion that all patents signify significant technological advancements.

Draci z raja

Science & Nature

Astrofyzik, spisovateľ, popularizátor vedy a kritického myslenia Carl Sagan navždy zmenil naše chápanie vesmíru. Vo svojej vizionárskej knihe Draci z raja jedinečným spôsobom prepája antropológiu, evolučnú biológiu a psychológiu. V roku 1978 za ňu získal Pulitzerovu cenu. Legendárny astronóm a polyhistor v knihe kombinuje poznatky o tom, ako sa vyvíjali ľudské gény a mozog od praveku až po súčasnosť a ako funguje naše myslenie a vnímanie v porovnaní so zvieratami. Text, ktorý od svojho vzniku nestratil nič na aktuálnosti, odhaľuje, ako náš mozog funguje v porovnaní s počítačmi, prečo spíme a snívame alebo ako sa nám ukladajú spomienky. Venuje sa nadčasovým témam ako AI, definícii života a smrti, nášmu vzťahu k prírode, civilizáciám na iných planétach, a vedecké zistenia z rôznych disciplín prepája s mýtmi a legendami, ktoré tvoria súčasť našich dejín a kultúry.

507 Mechanical Movements: Mechanisms and Devices

Science & Nature

This compendium of ingenious mechanisms employs simple drawings to explain 507 of the small components that constitute complex machinery. Left-hand pages feature illustrations, and facing pages offer brief descriptions of use and operation. Ranging from simple to complex, the mechanisms include cranks, pulleys, drills, wheels, and screws.

Climate Change and the Energy Problem

Science & Nature

This important compendium deals with the primary world problems of global warming and the coming energy crisis. In alternating chapters, it lays out the nature of the two interrelated problems, and specifies the various economic considerations. Thus, it describes the coming shortfall of fossil fuel energy in detail and then presents the economic factors governing possible solutions.Written by two world renowned academics — a physicist who writes about the nature of the problem, and an economist who discusses various scenarios and solutions, this unique must-have book highlights the problem from the point of view of a scientist and an economist.Request Inspection CopyContents:IntroductionThe Science of Energy and Global WarmingEnergy Market Structures and Regulatory StructuresThe FutureThe Economics of Global Energy SecurityEnergy Myths and a Brief History of EnergyThe Economics of Energy and Climate ChangeWhere Do We Go from Here?The Future of Energy Based on Technological InnovationSummaryReadership: Undergraduates, graduates, professionals, academics and the general public interested in energy studies, environmental economics, geophysics and public policy.Global Warming;Peak Oil;Climate Change;Energy0

Diatoms and Sustainable Agriculture

Science & Nature

This book highlights the multifaceted role of diatoms in revolutionizing agricultural practices toward sustainability. The introductory chapter of Diatoms and Sustainable Agriculture examines the fundamental role of diatoms in fostering a circular economy within the agricultural sector, discussing the challenges and prospects associated with integrating diatoms into sustainable agricultural practices. Additionally, it reviews the potential of diatoms as natural plant growth promoters, elucidating the mechanisms through which these microorganisms enhance crop productivity while reducing reliance on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides. The chapter also covers the pivotal role of diatoms in agricultural watersheds, serving as indicators of ecosystem health and guiding strategies for maintaining river integrity. Furthermore, the book introduces the potential of diatoms for agricultural wastewater bioremediation and applications of diatom frustules as biosensors for the early detection of plant pathogens. The subsequent chapters explore the current status and future prospects of diatoms as insect control agents, highlighting their potential as environmentally friendly alternatives to conventional pesticides. Toward the end, the text delves into the intersection of artificial intelligence and diatom microalgae-based agriculture. This book serves as an important source for researchers and academicians in phycology, biotechnology, and agricultural sciences.

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS)

Science & Nature

Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) Essential resource covering the field of LIBS, with respect to its fundamentals, established and novel applications, and future prospects Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), presents in two comprehensive volumes a thorough discussion of the basic principles of the method, including important recently available data which can lead to a better characterization of the LIBS plasma. This extensive work contains detailed discussions on the lasers, spectrometers, and detectors that can be used for LIBS apparatuses and describes various instrumentation, ranging from basic setups to more advanced configurations. As a modern resource, the work includes the newest advances and capabilities of LIBS instruments, featuring the recent developments of Dual-Pulse LIBS, Femtosecond LIBS, and Micro-LIBS as well as their applications. Throughout, the contributions discuss the analytical capabilities of the method in terms of detection limits, accuracy, and precision of measurements for a variety of samples. Lastly, an extensive range of applications is presented, including food technology, environmental science, nuclear reactors, nanoscience and nanotechnology, and biological and biomedical developments. Sample topics covered within the work include: iagnostics of laser induced plasma (LIP): LIBS plasma and its characteristics, factors affecting the LIBS plasma, methods of enhancing LIBS sensitivity, and LTE/non-LTE plasmas Instrumental developments in LIBS: light collection system and spectral detection systems, handheld LIBS, deep sea LIBS, and industrial sorters and analyzers Femtosecond laser ablation: laser-matter interaction, laser absorption, energy transport, ablation mechanisms and threshold, and plasma characterization Micro-analysis and LIBS imaging: microjoule laser sources, scaling libs to microjoule energies, micrometer scaling, advanced applications, and future prospects Spectroscopic and analytical scientists working with LIBS will find this wide-ranging reference immensely helpful in developing LIBS instrumentation and applications. Researchers and students in natural sciences and related programs of study will be able to use the work to acquire foundational knowledge on the method and learn about cutting-edge advancements being made in the field.

Understanding Supercomputing

Science & Nature

In this book you'll discover what constitutes a 'supercomputer', how the supercomputers of today function, how you can make your own computer into a super machine - through networking - and what tomorrow holds in store for computer usage in terms of hardware, software and everyday applications.

Summary of Stuart Ritchie's Science Fictions

Science & Nature

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The world learned that undergraduate students have psychic powers. A paper published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal by a top professor found that some unconscious, evolved psychic desire nudged students towards the erotic picture. #2 A paper published in a top psychology journal found that some unconscious, evolved psychic desire nudged students towards the erotic picture. But when three psychologists re-ran the experiment with different undergraduate students, they found nothing. #3 The world learned that some undergraduate students have psychic powers. But when three psychologists re-ran the experiment with different undergraduate students, they found nothing. #4 In 2018, a paper was published in a peer-reviewed psychology journal that found that some unconscious, evolved psychic desire nudged students towards the erotic picture. But when three psychologists re-ran the experiment with different undergraduate students, they found nothing.

Cellular Osmolytes

Science & Nature

The second edition of this book presents the role of osmolytes in human health and diseases. Some of the chapters deal about the possibility of the use of osmolytes as diagnostic biomarkers and potential drug design for neurodegenerative and other human diseases. Other chapters also include reviews on the role of osmolytes in cancer, metastasis, infectious diseases, metabolic disorders, immunological disorders, and tissue regeneration. Importantly, the book also contain recent updates on the role of naturally occurring osmolytes in protein folding pathway, protein stability, and their underlying mechanisms. The book also covers the aspects that osmolytes could promote conformational alterations of transcription factors that favor metastatic behavior. Potential of the osmolytes in the various process of vaccine development, including enhancing the efficacy, production, and purification steps are also succintly described. Towards the end, the book also elucidates the use of specific molecules for the prevention of toxic gain of functions and restoration of function to disease-causing mutant protein. This book is an invaluable asset for the researchers especially working in osmolyte biology and scientists involved in basic and clinical research particularly neurodegeneration, diabetes, cancer, and metabolic disorders.

Working with Your Woodland

Science & Nature

Packed with information and illustrations, Working with Your Woodland has given woodland owners all the basics necessary for making key decisions since it was first published in 1983. The revised edition reflects the fundamental changes in the way private woodlands are viewed. Today they must be seen as part of the whole earth rather than as owner-managed islands. Few owners are aware of the wide spectrum of compatible management objectives--such as encouragement of wildlife, development for recreation, and enhancement of scenic beauty--that can coexist with the more familiar timber and firewood potential of forested areas. Even fewer understand the purpose, techniques, environmental impacts, economics, or legalities of forest management. This edition provides necessary updating of the technological, environmental, tax, and legal concerns associated with woodland management. Three chapters have been completely rewritten, and there is new information on wetlands management, global warming, acid deposition, and rare or endangered species.

LOST Opportunities

Science & Nature

Learning in informal settings is attracting growing attention from policymakers and researchers, yet there remains, at the moment, a dearth of literature on the topic. Thus this volume, which examines how science and mathematics are experienced in everyday and out-of-school-time (OST) settings, makes an important contribution to the field of the learning sciences. Conducting research on OST learning requires us to broaden and deepen our conceptions of learning as well as to better identify the unique and common qualities of different learning settings. We must also find better ways to analyze the interplay between OST and school-based learning.In this volume, scholars develop theoretical structures that are useful not only for understanding learning processes, but also for helping to create and support new opportunities for learning, whether they are in or out of school, or bridging a range of settings. The chapters in this volume include studies of everyday and situated processes that facilitate science and mathematics learning. They also feature new theoretical and empirical frameworks for studying learning pathways that span both in- and out-of-school time and settings. Contributors also examine structured OST programs in which everyday and situated modes of learning are leveraged in support of more disciplined practices and conceptions of science and mathematics. Fortifying much of this work is a leading focus on educational equity—a desire to foster more socially supportive and intellectually engaging science and mathematics learning opportunities for youth from historically non-dominant communities. Full of compelling examples and revealing analysis, this book is a vital addition to the literature on a subject with a fast-rising profile.I believe that the studies represented in this volume will move our work forward as we seek to understand better which social ecologies support -- indeed, ratchet up -- learning and givemeaning for youth, especially those from non-dominant communities. Kris Gutiérrez, University of Colorado at BoulderFor someone who has long been interested in afterschool educational activities as a promising supplement to formal, in-school education, this book provides rich opportunities to think about the promise and the problems that such programs offer to those concerned with the infusion of science into the learning and development of their participants. Mike Cole, University of California, San Diego

Payoff. Ukryta logika kształtująca naszą motywację

Science & Nature

Czy premia przyznana pracownikowi może zaszkodzić jego produktywności? Co ma wspólnego zaufanie z motywacją? Jakie pokutują błędne przekonania o wartości pracy?Bestsellerowy autor Dan Ariely ujawnia fascynujące spojrzenie na motywację i pokazuje, jak bardzo złożony jest to temat. Zajmujemy się nim i we własnym domu, i w sali konferencyjnej, a im bardziej staramy się motywować partnerów i dzieci, przyjaciół i współpracowników, tym wyraźniej widać, że historia motywacji jest o wiele bardziej skomplikowana i fascynująca, niż zakładaliśmy.Ariely sprawdza, jak można wykorzystać wiedzę o motywacji do podejmowania ważnych decyzji w życiu i spróbować odpowiedzieć na zasadnicze pytanie: dlaczego w ogóle cokolwiek robimy?

Dielectric Materials for Energy Storage and Energy Harvesting Devices

Science & Nature

As the demand for energy harvesting and storage devices grows, this book will be valuable for researchers to learn about the most current achievements in this sector.Sustainable development systems are centered on three pillars: economic development, environmental stewardship, and social. One of the ideas established to achieve balance between these pillars is to minimize the usage of nonrenewable energy sources. Harvesting energy from the surrounding environment and converting it into electrical power is one viable solution to this problem. In recent years, there has been a surge in the development of new energy generation technologies such as solar, wind, and thermal energy to replace fossil fuel energy supplies with cleaner renewable ones. Energy harvesting systems have emerged as a key study topic and are rapidly expanding.

Cellular Osmolytes

Science & Nature

This book provides essential insights into improving protein folding/stability, which is a result of the balance between the intra-molecular interactions of protein functional groups and their interactions with the solvent environment.Even a subtle change in the composition of the solvent environment will alter the fidelity of the protein folding process, and hostile environmental stresses represent one of the basic causes of challenges in protein folding or misfolding. Among the strategies employed in a wide range of species and cell types to circumvent the hostile environmental conditions is the elaboration of small organic molecules called osmolytes, and recent advances have revealed that certain specific osmolytes might be key biomarkers of cancer, infectious diseases and are useful in heterologous protein expression and vaccine flocculation. As such a large pool of data has been collected regarding their potential for therapeutic intervention in neurodegenerative diseases and other metabolic disorders caused by protein aggregation or proteiostasis failure.

Adaptive PHY-MAC Design for Broadband Wireless Systems

Science & Nature

The next generation mobile communication networks (4G) have the challenging target of The next generation mobile communication networks (4G) have the challenging target of providing a peak data rate of 1 Gigabit per second local area and 100 Megabit per second wide area. The ability to offer such high data rates in 100MHz bandwidth requires overall a very high spectral efficiency, and hence the need for multi-antenna techniques (MIMO) with spatial multiplexing, fast dynamic link adaptation and packet scheduling, wideband access techniques, and most likely non-contention based spectrum sharing among multiple operators. Many of these required technology components and techniques are well researched and established. Adaptive PHY-MAC Design for Broadband Wireless Systems explains how one can integrate and optimise their use in providing the target cell data rates with high availability. The authors address the ability to cope with interference and enhanced physical layer processing, and simultaneously, the multifaceted system level design. Focus is also on the selection of technology components and techniques, which leads to the highest spectral efficiency and peak data rate availability with reasonable Quality of Service (QoS) support, such as improved outage scenario, reduced delay, guaranteed bit rate, etc.In short, this book will answer questions such as, how individual techniques relate to each other, how can we benefit the gains by suitable combinations of different technologies and how to choose different technological solutions in different scenarios, etc.The next generation mobile communication networks (4G) have the challenging target of The next generation mobile communication networks (4G) have the challenging target of providing a peak data rate of 1 Gigabit per second local area and 100 Megabit per second wide area.

Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs

Science & Nature

Donald R. Prothero's science books combine leading research with first-person narratives of discovery, injecting warmth and familiarity into a profession that has much to offer nonspecialists. Bringing his trademark style and wit to an increasingly relevant subject of concern, Prothero links the climate changes that have occurred over the past 200 million years to their effects on plants and animals. In particular, he contrasts the extinctions that ended the Cretaceous period, which wiped out the dinosaurs, with those of the later Eocene and Oligocene epochs.Prothero begins with the "greenhouse of the dinosaurs," the global-warming episode that dominated the Age of Dinosaurs and the early Age of Mammals. He describes the remarkable creatures that once populated the earth and draws on his experiences collecting fossils in the Big Badlands of South Dakota to sketch their world. Prothero then discusses the growth of the first Antarctic glaciers, which marked the Eocene-Oligocene transition, and shares his own anecdotes of excavations and controversies among colleagues that have shaped our understanding of the contemporary and prehistoric world. The volume concludes with observations about Nisqually Glacier and other locations that show how global warming is happening much quicker than previously predicted, irrevocably changing the balance of the earth's thermostat. Engaging scientists and general readers alike, Greenhouse of the Dinosaurs connects events across thousands of millennia to make clear the human threat to natural climate change.

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