To Forgive Design: Understanding Failure By Henry Petroski
2012 | 432 Pages | ISBN: 0674065840 | PDF | 2 MB
When planes crash, bridges collapse, and automobile gas tanks explode, we are quick to blame poor design. But Henry Petroski says we must look beyond design for causes and corrections. Known for his masterly explanations of engineering successes and failures, Petroski here takes his analysis a step further, to consider the larger context in which accidents occur. In To Forgive Design he surveys some of the most infamous failures of our time, from the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse and the toppling of a massive Shanghai apartment building in 2009 to Boston's prolonged Big Dig and the 2010 Gulf oil spill. These avoidable disasters reveal the interdependency of people and machines within systems whose complex behavior was undreamt of by their designers, until it was too late. Petroski shows that even the simplest technology is embedded in cultural and socioeconomic constraints, complications, and contradictions. Failure to imagine the possibility of failure is the most profound mistake engineers can make. Software developers realized this early on and looked outside their young field, to structural engineering, as they sought a historical perspective to help them identify their own potential mistakes. By explaining the interconnectedness of technology and culture and the dangers that can emerge from complexity, Petroski demonstrates that we would all do well to follow their lead.
Theatre and the Mind By Mick Gordon
2011 | 112 Pages | ISBN: 1840028769 | EPUB | 2 MB
In this collection of seven provocative essays, acclaimed theater director and playwright Mick Gordon argues that the theater represents a physical corollary of the invisible workings of our minds. Gordon draws upon his five years of experience working with leading neurologists and cognitive psychologists.
The Two-Dimensional World within the Solid Figures by General Onologic Soft Corp.
English | March 25, 2020 | ISBN: N/A | ASIN: B086DRQ2QF | 271 pages | EPUB | 47 Mb
The most desirable way to study math is through a series of training processes for discovering the secrets of nature.
Ron Brown, "The Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore: An Illustrated History of Railway Stations in Canada"
English | ISBN: 1459727819 | 2014 | 202 pages | EPUB | 21 MB
Brown celebrates the survival of our railway heritage in stations that have been saved or remain in use.
The Total Inventors Manual (Popular Science): Transform Your Idea into a Top-Selling Product by Weldon Owen
English | January 10, 2017 | ISBN: 1681881586 | 499 pages | PDF | 13 Mb
Contrary to popular wisdom, you don't have to be an ace electrician, a coding prodigy, or a mechanical master to come up with a game-changing invention! You just need curiosity, a strong desire to fix a problem that you see in the world, and the determination to see your ideas become reality-and this book, which will teach you everything you need to go from zero to inventor.
Seif El Rashidi, "The Tentmakers of Cairo: Egypt's Medieval and Modern Appliqué Craft"
English | ISBN: 977416802X | 2018 | 256 pages | EPUB | 23 MB
"An expansive and captivating history of an often overlooked traditional art"―Egyptian Streets
The Silk Road: Connecting Histories and Futures (OXFORD STUDIES IN CULTURE AND POLITICS) by Tim Winter
2022 | ISBN: 0197605060, 0197605052 | English | 280 pages | PDF | 22 MB
From the Great Game to the present, an international cultural and political biography of one of our most evocative, compelling, and poorly understood narratives of history.
Edward Shorter, "The Rise and Fall of the Age of Psychopharmacology"
English | ISBN: 0197574432 | 2021 | 448 pages | PDF | 3 MB
The Age of Psychopharmacology began with a brilliant rise in the 1950s, when for the first time science entered the study of drugs that affect the brain and mind. But, esteemed historian Edward Shorter argues that there has been a recent fall, as the field has seen its drug offerings
The Prokaryotes: Deltaproteobacteria and Epsilonproteobacteria By Eugene Rosenberg, Edward F. DeLong, Stephen Lory, Erko Stackebrandt, Fabiano Thompson (eds.)
2014 | 413 Pages | ISBN: 3642390439 | PDF | 15 MB
The Prokaryotes is a comprehensive, multi-authored, peer reviewed reference work on Bacteria and Achaea. This fourth edition of The Prokaryotes is organized to cover all taxonomic diversity, using the family level to delineate chapters.Different from other resources, this new Springer product includes not only taxonomy, but also prokaryotic biology and technology of taxa in a broad context. Technological aspects highlight the usefulness of prokaryotes in processes and products, including biocontrol agents and as genetics tools.The content of the expanded fourth edition is divided into two parts: Part 1 contains review chapters dealing with the most important general concepts in molecular, applied and general prokaryote biology; Part 2 describes the known properties of specific taxonomic groups.Two completely new sections have been added to Part 1: bacterial communities and human bacteriology. The bacterial communities section reflects the growing realization that studies on pure cultures of bacteria have led to an incomplete picture of the microbial world for two fundamental reasons: the vast majority of bacteria in soil, water and associated with biological tissues are currently not culturable, and that an understanding of microbial ecology requires knowledge on how different bacterial species interact with each other in their natural environment. The new section on human microbiology deals with bacteria associated with healthy humans and bacterial pathogenesis. Each of the major human diseases caused by bacteria is reviewed, from identifying the pathogens by classical clinical and non-culturing techniques to the biochemical mechanisms of the disease process.The 4th edition of The Prokaryotes is the most complete resource on the biology of prokaryotes.The following volumes are published consecutively within the 4th Edition:Prokaryotic Biology and Symbiotic AssociationsProkaryotic Communities and EcophysiologyProkaryotic Physiology and BiochemistryApplied Bacteriology and BiotechnologyHuman MicrobiologyActinobacteriaFirmicutesAlphaproteobacteria and BetaproteobacteriaGammaproteobacteriaDeltaproteobacteria and EpsilonproteobacteriaOther Major Lineages of Bacteria and the Archaea
The Prokaryotes: Alphaproteobacteria and Betaproteobacteria By Eugene Rosenberg, Edward F. DeLong, Stephen Lory, Erko Stackebrandt, Fabiano Thompson (eds.)
2014 | 1012 Pages | ISBN: 3642301967 | PDF | 22 MB
The Prokaryotes is a comprehensive, multi-authored, peer reviewed reference work on Bacteria and Archaea. This fourth edition of The Prokaryotes is organized to cover all taxonomic diversity, using the family level to delineate chapters. Different from other resources, this new Springer product includes not only taxonomy, but also prokaryotic biology and technology of taxa in a broad context. Technological aspects highlight the usefulness of prokaryotes in processes and products, including biocontrol agents and as genetics tools. The content of the expanded fourth edition is divided into two parts: Part 1 contains review chapters dealing with the most important general concepts in molecular, applied and general prokaryote biology; Part 2 describes the known properties of specific taxonomic groups. Two completely new sections have been added to Part 1: bacterial communities and human bacteriology. The bacterial communities section reflects the growing realization that studies on pure cultures of bacteria have led to an incomplete picture of the microbial world for two fundamental reasons: the vast majority of bacteria in soil, water and associated with biological tissues are currently not culturable, and that an understanding of microbial ecology requires knowledge on how different bacterial species interact with each other in their natural environment. The new section on human microbiology deals with bacteria associated with healthy humans and bacterial pathogenesis. Each of the major human diseases caused by bacteria is reviewed, from identifying the pathogens by classical clinical and non-culturing techniques to the biochemical mechanisms of the disease process. The 4th edition of The Prokaryotes is the most complete resource on the biology of prokaryotes.