This upper-level open access textbook uses an interdisciplinary perspective to discuss the 'what and why' of public procurement, providing insight into the 'how' of contemporary procurement in the public sector. The authors use theories and exemplary practices to show the next generation of public procurement professionals how public value can be created via the acquisition of works, supplies, or services by organizations operating in the public domain. Perfectly tailored to university studen...

This engaging and clearly written textbook/reference provides a must-have introduction to the rapidly emerging interdisciplinary field of data science. It focuses on the principles fundamental to becoming a good data scientist and the key skills needed to build systems for collecting, analyzing, and interpreting data. The Data Science Design Manual is a source of practical insights that highlights what really matters in analyzing data, and provides an intuitive understanding of how these core...

Buckling of Ship Structures presents a comprehensive analysis of the buckling problem of ship structural members. A full analysis of the various types of loadings and stresses imposed on ship plating and primary and secondary structural members is given. The main causes and consequences of the buckling mode of failure of ship structure and the methods commonly used to control buckling failure are clarified.

This book contains the main equations required to determine the critical buckling stre...

Over a century ago, psychologists who were fascinated with religion began to study and write about it. People with a background in psychology often lack a solid understanding of the religious traditions they wish to study, and theologians may not be up to date on the latest developments in psychology.

This textbook on Python 3 explains concepts such as variables and what they represent, how data is held in memory, how a for loop works and what a string is. It also introduces key concepts such as functions, modules and packages as well as object orientation and functional programming. Each section is prefaced with an introductory chapter, before continuing with how these ideas work in Python.

Topics such as generators and coroutines are often misunderstood and these are explained in detail,...

This book offers a practical guide for policy advisors and their managers, grounded in the author’s extensive experience as a senior policy practitioner in New Zealand’s Westminster-style system of government. A key message is that effective policy advising is less about cycles, stages and steps, and more about relationships, integrity and communication. Policy making is incremental social problem solving. Policy advising is mostly learned on the job, like an apprenticeship. It starts wit...

This book presents a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the theory (physical principles), design, and practical implementations of various sensors for scientific, industrial, and consumer applications. This latest edition focuses on the sensing technologies driven by the expanding use of sensors in mobile devices. These new miniature sensors will be described, with an emphasis on smart sensors which have embedded processing systems.

The chapter on chemical sensors has also been expanded ...

This textbook presents hands-on training material for medical students. The style reflects the need for practice-based teaching with a modern edge in daily clinical routine; accordingly, it also employs online material and pocket cards. Each chapter begins with specific learning objectives, which are cross-referenced with the European curriculum for undergraduate medical education released by the European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS) together with the European Union Geriatric Medicine ...

This book introduces readers to the basic principles of bioinformatics and the practical application and utilization of computational tools, without assuming any prior background in programming or informatics. It provides a coherent overview of the complex field and focuses on the implementation of online tools, genome databases and software that can benefit scientists and students in the life sciences. Training tutorials with practical bioinformatics exercises and solutions facilitate the un...

Confidence is good, but to be in control is better! Our journey to write a general introduction to control and feedback started with the realisation that in our chosen field of study the proponents have taken little time to project the main ideas outside the community of the initiated. We are constantly - minded of the fact that there is no general awareness of control engineering, or c- trol technology, despite its ubiquity when we try to introduce ourselves as control engineers. Invariably ...