Historical Dictionary of United States-Latin American Relations (Historical Dictionaries of U.S. Diplomacy)

Historical Dictionary of United States-Latin American Relations (Historical Dictionaries of U.S. Diplomacy)
Joseph Smith | 2006-12-05 00:00:00 | The Scarecrow Press, Inc. | 328 | Central America

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Ethnocentrism and the English Dictionary (Routledge Studies in the History of Linguistics)

Ethnocentrism and the English Dictionary (Routledge Studies in the History of Linguistics)
Phil Benson | 2001-02-28 00:00:00 | Routledge | 240 | Economics
This unique work challenges the assumption that dictionaries act as objective records of our language, and instead argues that the English dictionarl is a fundamentally ethnocentric work.

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Analog Circuits and Devices (Principles and Applications in Engineering, 6)

Analog Circuits and Devices (Principles and Applications in Engineering, 6)
Wai-Kai Chen | 1900-01-01 00:00:00 | CRC; 1 edition (March 26, 2003) | 512 | Electrical Engineering
The Principles and Application in Engineering Series is a new series of convenient, economical references sharply focused on particular engineering topics and subspecialties. Each volume in this series comprises chapters carefully selected from CRC's bestselling handbooks, logically organized for optimum convenience, and thoughtfully priced to fit every budget. Extracted from the best-selling VLSI Handbook, Analog Circuits and Devices provides a comprehensive resource covering the spectrum of devices and their models. In addition to practical discussions on amplifiers, circuits and filters, and compound semiconductor digital integrated circuit technology, it also includes chapters on design automation, design languages, and algorithms and architectures.
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Christianity's Impact on World Politics: Not by Might, Nor by Power (Major Concepts in Politics and Political Theory, V. 24)

Christianity's Impact on World Politics: Not by Might, Nor by Power (Major Concepts in Politics and Political Theory, V. 24)
Kurt W. Jefferson | 1900-01-01 00:00:00 | Peter Lang Publishing | 212 | Politics

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Computational Fluid Dynamics for Engineers: From Panel to Navier-Stokes Methods with Computer Programs

Computational Fluid Dynamics for Engineers: From Panel to Navier-Stokes Methods with Computer Programs
Tuncer Cebeci,Jian P. Shao,Fassi Kafyeke,Eric Laurendeau | 2005-06-01 00:00:00 | Springer | 396 | Engineering

This introduction to computational fluid dynamics serves as a unique advanced-undergraduate text that brings together Cebeci's lifelong experience as a teacher at the University of California and a senior scientist for Boeing Company. Conservation equations for compressible and incompressible flows are the prime theme. The text concentrates on finite difference and finite volume methods and mostly treats two-dimensional flows, while it also keeps key arguments general enough to apply to the three-dimensional case as well. It also provides methods for solving model parabolic, elliptic and hyperbolic equations, and two chapters address boundary-layer equations. The treatment of the transition from laminar to turbulent flow makes use of the eⁿ method. Further topics are grid generation methods and extensive discussions of the Euler and the Navier-Stokes equations. The book is accompanied by a CD including computer programs that have been tested in many practical applications in industrial fluid mechanics engineering.

Reviews
This is a well written book. The only problem I have with it is that it has a misleading title: Computational Fluid Dynamics for Engineers: From Panel to Navier-Stokes Methods WITH COMPUTER PROGRAMS. While the book does come with SOME computer programs (ie, FORTRAN source), there are many chapters that don't contain the source code with the included CD. This is pretty bad, especially if you'd like to write your own code. At first I thought that the publisher somehow forgot to write some of the files to the CD, so I contacted one the authors asking if he could send me some of the missing source files. It turns out that I would have to pay an extra $90 to have access to the remaining source code! No way, I'm not doing it (I'm a poor student). This was definitely a frustrating. With $50 you can get yourself a copy of the Fluent student version to validate you're own code!
Reviews
I am an aerospace engineer but have been working in experimental research for the last year when my interest in CFD came along.



This book was my first book ever bought in CFD; I went through many others from the library, but I bought this one because of its practical, and still precise and in-depth analysis of numerical methods applied to fluid dynamics.



It also dedicate a chapter to the Hess-Smith panel method applied to 2D aerodynamic bodies and it clearely gives enough details and practical steps to develop and write your own panel method code.



Every chapter has excercices at the end, but mostly, the author accompanies the expemples with codes written in fortran and reported in the CD.



The only thing that sometimes might be noticed (very lightly), are some typos or missing explanations on how he changed the notation.



A book to have for a beginner who is willing to intensevly learn CFD and computation.

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Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space

Rocketeers: How a Visionary Band of Business Leaders, Engineers, and Pilots is Boldly Privatizing Space
Michael Belfiore | 2008-08-01 00:00:00 | Harper Paperbacks | 320 | Transportation

On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne, built by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, entered space and ushered in the commercial space age. Investment capital began to pour into the new commercial spaceflight industry. Richard Branson's VirginGalactic will begin ferrying space tourists out of the atmosphere in 2010. Las Vegas hotelier Robert Bigelow is developing the world's first commercial space station (i.e., space hotel). These space entrepreneurs, including Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, now see space as the next big thing.

In Rocketeers, Michael Belfiore goes behind the scenes of this nascent industry, capturing its wild-west, anything-goes flavor. Likening his research to "hanging out in the Wright brothers' barn," Belfiore offers an inspiring and entertaining look at the people who are not afraid to make their bold dreams a reality.

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I found the book informative and the topic definitely interesting, but the way the story is told leaves me with an oddly disjointed feeling which I suppose reflects the state of the private space industry. There is no denying the author's interest and enthusiasm, but the book tries to navigate a middle path between detail and characters, and ends up slighting both.




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This book is a rather basic introduction to NewSpace ideas and people. Private space flight is an exciting subject and if you are new to it, you will probably enjoy the book. Covered in some depth are: the history of XPrize and Peter Diamandis, SpaceShipOne / Scaled Composites / Burt Rutan, Richard Branson / Virgin Galactic, NASA and private spaceflight, SpaceX / Falcon / Elon Musk, Rocketplane, XCOR, Bigelow's orbital hotels, commercial spaceports. However, the author seems to be more interested in telling amusing stories ("...Suddenly Burt Rutan was wide awake, staring into the blackness of his bedroom ceiling. Out of the blackness came a spaceship in free fall... "I've got it" he said aloud...") than in the technical/scientific aspects of spaceflight. It was also disappointing to me that there are very few pictures in the book and those present are not very relevant (e.g. I'd prefer a cross-section drawing of a hybrid rocket motor to the photo of Tim Pickens riding his rocket bicycle). The book was written in 2007, so naturally you won't find there any of the newest advances in the field: the Lunar Landing Challenge (and its participants), the Space Elevator games, the first successful flight of SpaceX's Falcon 1, SpaceX's Dragon capsule, Google's Lunar Challenge. You will find much more detailed and up-to-date information just reading various NewSpace-related news sites, blogs and Wikipedia articles.
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As someone who works for one of the companies highlighted in "Rockeeteers" I find that it's not always easy explaining what we are doing to privatize Space. Michael has accurately captured the entire New Space Industry with this book. The following sentences sum up the efforts of those of us working in this field, "I could think of few things more satisfying in an uncertain world than the whoosh-BOOM! of an igniting rocket engine pouring out enough power to hurl a payload into outer space. In sharp contrast to so much of life, no hedging, equivocating, or hand-waving was possible. Rocket engineering worked or it didn't, and the mere talkers go separated from the doers in that split second between spark and fire." I frequently reference Michael's book whenever I need to portray what we do in brief.
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Michael's overview provides a sound foundation on the beginnings of the NewSpace movement. Required reading for anyone that dreams of space exploration!
Reviews

Rocketeers provides a quick introduction to the people making the current boom in private space flight happen. It is a well written book that covers the people involved in an accessible way. The advent of private space flight that may be available to ordinary people makes this an exciting time for anyone interested in space.



The author is a journalist and writer, not an engineer or technologist. This shows in the writing of Rocketeers. It is a smooth flowing easy read that focuses on personalities with only the briefest mention of the technology involved and little discussion of the economics. This makes the book entertaining and approachable, but it leaves much of the story untold. I would have liked to read more about the competing technologies and how the different companies have chosen them. The whole topic of whether these companies can possibly be economically viable is not really examined at all. That left the book feeling a little light weight to me.



Rocketeers does succeed in providing a snap shot of an interesting time. Its broad overview and focus on the personalities will be helpful to readers who have not been following these events.

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Concrete Folded Plate Roofs

Concrete Folded Plate Roofs
C. Wilby | 1998-01-01 00:00:00 | Butterworth-Heinemann | 308 | Mathematics
Concrete folded plate roofs used to cover large open expanses of space can pose complex design problems soluble only through detailed mathematical analysis. This book introduces the engineer to practical schemes and practicalities, and goes on to provide multitudes of useful design tables, which allow linear interpolation, for a large range of various schemes of folded plate roofs to help the engineer with his designs. Design examples using both SI and USA (British Imperial) units are provided using these tables.
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