Download or read book Computer Applications in Production and Engineering written by Frank Plonka and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-06-05 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the latter half of the 20th century, forces have conspired to make the human community, at last, global. The easing of tensions between major nations, the expansion of trade to worldwide markets, widespread travel and cultural exchange, pervasive high-speed communications and automation, the explosion of knowledge, the streamlining of business, and the adoption of flexible methods have changed the face of manufacturing itself, and of research and education in manufacturing. The acceptance of the continuous improvement process as a means for organizations to respond quickly and effectively to swings in the global market has led to the demand for individuals educated in a broad range of cultural, organizational, and technical fields and capable of absorbing and adapting required knowledge and training throughout their careers. No longer will manufacturing research and education focus on an industrial sector or follow a national trend, but rather will aim at enabling international teams of companies to cooperate in rapidly designing, prototyping, and manufacturing products. The successful enterprise of the 21st century will be characterized by an organizational structure that efficiently responds to customer demands and changing global circumstances, a corporate culture that empowers employees at all levels and encourages constant communication among related groups, and a technological infrastructure that fully supports process improvement and integration. In changing itself to keep abreast of the broader transformation in manufacturing, the enterprise must look first at its organization and culture, and thereafter at supporting technologies.
Download or read book Biomimicry written by Janine M. Benyus and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-08-11 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Repackaged with a new afterword, this "valuable and entertaining" (New York Times Book Review) book explores how scientists are adapting nature's best ideas to solve tough 21st century problems. Biomimicry is rapidly transforming life on earth. Biomimics study nature's most successful ideas over the past 3.5 million years, and adapt them for human use. The results are revolutionizing how materials are invented and how we compute, heal ourselves, repair the environment, and feed the world. Janine Benyus takes readers into the lab and in the field with maverick thinkers as they: discover miracle drugs by watching what chimps eat when they're sick; learn how to create by watching spiders weave fibers; harness energy by examining how a leaf converts sunlight into fuel in trillionths of a second; and many more examples. Composed of stories of vision and invention, personalities and pipe dreams, Biomimicry is must reading for anyone interested in the shape of our future.
Download or read book The Bukavu Series written by Aymar Nyenyezi and published by Presses universitaires de Louvain. This book was released on 2020-11-10 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They are qualified, experienced, motivated, academically accomplished. They work tirelessly, collecting invaluable data in the field under conditions that are always challenging, and at times dangerous. And yet, their voices are unheard, and their names go unacknowledged in published research. Such is the lot of far too many research assistants from the Global South – people upon whose work an entire industry of knowledge production has been built. They are shut out of discussions on project design and left in the dark about the modalities of research funding. Later, the results of their research are published in journals to which they often have no access. Much of this is due to a certain omertà surrounding power imbalances, as well as research assistants' working conditions, financial difficulties, psychological traumas, and vulnerabilities. It also stems from the persistence of colonial mentalities in the research world – within universities, governments, foundations, aid institutions, and NGO’s. The Bukavu Series is a vibrant blog series about the experiences of research assistants in the Global South. Driven primarily by these silent voices, the series yields a mosaic depiction of fieldwork that mixes humor, realism, and incisive critique. This book offers a unique entry point into a critical debate, leading us toward concrete reforms, and setting us on the course toward a decolonisation of research.
Download or read book Field Research in Africa written by An Ansoms and published by Boydell & Brewer. This book was released on 2021 with total page 191 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An essential exploration of and guide to research ethics in the field.
Download or read book Urban Wastelands written by Francesca Di Pietro and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-10-18 with total page 380 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Faced with the growing demand for nature in cities, informal greenspaces are gaining the interest of various stakeholders - residents, associations, public authorities - as well as scientists. This book provides a cross-sectorial overview of the advantages and disadvantages of urban wastelands in meeting this social demand of urban nature, spanning from the social sciences and urban planning to ecology and soil sciences. It shows the potential of urban wastelands with respect to city dwellers’ well-being, environmental education, urban biodiversity and urban green networks as well as concerns regarding urban wastelands’ in relation to conflicts, and urban marketing. The authors provide a global insight through case studies in nine countries, mainly located in Europe, Asia and America, thus offering a broad perspective.
Download or read book Thickening Fat written by May Friedman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-08-30 with total page 360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thickening Fat: Fat Bodies, Intersectionality, and Social Justice seeks to explore the multiple, variable, and embodied experiences of fat oppression and fat activisms. Moving beyond an analysis of fat oppression as singular, this book will aim to unpack the volatility of fat—the mutability of fat embodiments as they correlate with other embodied subjectivities, and the threshold where fat begins to be reviled, celebrated, or amended. In addition, Thickening Fat explores the full range of intersectional and liminal analyses that push beyond the simple addition of two or more subjectivities, looking instead at the complex alchemy of layered and unstable markers of difference and privilege. Cognizant that the concept of intersectionality has been filled out in a plurality of ways, Thickening Fat poses critical questions around how to render analysis of fatness intersectional and to thicken up intersectionality, where intersectionality is attenuated to the shifting and composite and material dimensions to identity, rather than reduced to an “add difference and stir” approach. The chapters in this collection ask what happens when we operationalize intersectionality in fat scholarship and politics, and we position difference at the centre and start of inquiry.