Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents.

(At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--compl...

Explore the current state of the production, processing, and manufacturing industries and discover what it will take to achieve re-industrialization of the former industrial powerhouses that can counterbalance the benefits of cheap labor providers dominating the industrial sector. This book explores the potential for the Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS), and Smart Factory technologies to replace the still largely mechanical, people-based systems of offshore loc...

Includes separate chapters that are devoted to each of the principle unit operations, grouped into 4 sections: fluid mechanics, heat transfer, mass transfer and equilibrium stages, and operations involving particulate solids. This book contains its balanced treatment of theory and engineering practice, with many practical, illustrative examples.

Widely known and used throughout the astrodynamics and aerospace engineering communities, this teaching text was developed at the U.S. Air Force Academy. Completely revised and updated 2013 edition.

Sheila Jasanoff charts society’s embrace of technological solutions and technology’s complex interplay with ethics and human rights. She dissects the ways in which we delegate power to technological systems and asks how we might regain control. From GMOs to gene therapy, biomedicine has challenged traditional definitions of life and death and raised difficult questions, such as who owns our genetic information.

The Internet has redefined privacy with social media and search giants operati...

The discipline of soil chemistry examines the chemical and mineralogical characteristics of the soil environment and the chemical processes that distribute matter between the soil solid, solution, and gaseous phases. This book provides a comprehensive treatment of the composition and chemical properties of soils and the processes that govern the

It’s Back! New chapters, examples, and insights; all infused with the timeless concepts and theories that have helped RF engineers for the past 25 years! RF circuit design is now more important than ever as we find ourselves in an increasingly wireless world. Radio is the backbone of today’s wireless industry with protocols such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, WiMax, and ZigBee. Most, if not all, mobile devices have an RF component and this book tells the reader how to design and integrate that comp...

Since publication of the first edition of Fuel Cell Systems Explained, three compelling drivers have supported the continuing development of fuel cell technology. These are: the need to maintain energy security in an energy-hungry world, the desire to move towards zero-emission vehicles and power plants, and the mitigation of climate change by lowering of CO2 emissions. New fuel cell materials, enhanced stack performance and increased lifetimes are leading to the emergence of the first truly ...

Cengel and Cimbala's Fluid Mechanics: Fundamentals and Applications, communicates directly with tomorrow's engineers in a simple yet precise manner, while covering the basic principles and equations of fluid mechanics in the context of numerous and diverse real-world engineering examples. The text helps students develop an intuitive understanding of fluid mechanics by emphasizing the physics, using figures, numerous photographs and visual aids to reinforce the physics. The highly visual appro...