Just how smart can computers get? Science journalist Julian Brown takes a hard look at the spooky world of quantum computation in Minds, Machines, and the Multiverse--and his report is optimistic. Based in large part on the groundbreaking work of David Deutsch, the book mostly sidesteps the shouting matches of the AI debate and...
Smart distribution networks are one of the key research topics of countries looking to modernise electric power networks. Smart Electricity Distributions Networks aims to provide a basic discussion of the smart distribution concept and new technologies related to it, including distributed energy resources (DERs), demand side...
Get the brutal truth about coding, testing, and project management—from a Microsoft insider who tells it like it is. I. M. Wright's deliberately provocative column "Hard Code" has been sparking debate amongst thousands of engineers at Microsoft for years. And now (despite our better instincts), we're making...
Our love of art, writes John Barrow, is the end product of millions of years of evolution. How we react to a beautiful painting or symphony draws upon instincts laid down long before humans existed. Now, in this enhanced edition of the highly popular The Artful Universe, Barrow further explores the close ties between our aesthetic appreciation and...
The last decade we have witnessed a major change in the
development of new techniques and agents for the treatment of cancer in
general, and for soft tissue sarcomas in particular. The important
achievements of molecular biology research have changed the landscape
markedly. Increasingly subtypes of soft tissue sarcomas are shown...
This book analyzes the European Great Recession of 2008-12, its economic and social causes, its historical roots, and the policies adopted by the European Union to find a way out of it. It contains explicit debates with several economists and analysts on some of the most controversial questions about the causes of the crisis and the policies...
This is a timely and comparative assessment of initiatives to promote renewable electricity sources (RES) in eight European countries. Carried out by the ProSus research programme at the University of Oslo in cooperation with leading research institutions in each country, the study focuses on the promotional schemes used to foster RES in Austria,...
Due to the use of new technologies, coupled with the fact that there is an increasing amount of work being done online, whether on the Internet, intranets, LANs or other networks, extensive employee monitoring by employers is inexpensive and easy. Employers have legitimate concerns about the efficiency of their employees and the quality of the...
Central America was the only part of the far-reaching Spanish Empire in continental America not to experience destructive independence wars in the period between 1810 and 1824. The essays in this volume draw on new historical research to explain why, and to delve into what did happen during the independence period in Central...
Building a web application that attracts and retains regular visitors is tricky enough, but creating a social application that encourages visitors to interact with one another requires careful planning. This book provides practical solutions to the tough questions you'll face when building an effective community site -- one that makes visitors feel...
As a child, when my family traveled outside Alaska for vacations, I often met other children who asked, “Wow, you live in Alaska? What’s it like?” I never did well with that question. To me, the place I was visiting was far simpler and easier to describe than the one I was from. The Lower 48 seemed a fairly homogeneous land...
The emergence of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) during the Syrian civil war as a military and political force has elicited interest and debate among observers and analysts of the Middle East. Long considered as irrevocably marginalized by decades of prohibition and persecution, the SSNP has over the last decade re-asserted itself as...
