World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement
World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement

Author: Robert P. Crease

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2011-10-24

Total Pages: 344

ISBN-13: 0393082040

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“Shows that the story of metrology . . . can in the right hands make for a riveting read.”—The Economist Millions of transactions each day depend on a reliable network of weights and measures. But achieving such a network was anything but easy, as Robert P. Crease, physicist and philosopher, demonstrates in this endlessly fascinating, always entertaining look at just how this international system evolved. From the link between musical pitch and distance in the dynasties of ancient China and the use of figurines to measure gold in West Africa to the creation of the French metric and British imperial systems, Crease takes readers along on one of history’s greatest philosophical and scientific adventures.

World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement
World in the Balance: The Historic Quest for an Absolute System of Measurement

Author: Robert P. Crease

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company

Published: 2011-10-24

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 0393072983

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Millions of transactions each day depend on a reliable network of weights and measures. Crease traces the evolution of this international system from the use of flutes to measure distance in the dynasties of ancient China and figurines to weigh gold in West Africa to the creation of the French metric and British imperial systems.

Author:

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published:

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1608194752

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Language at the Boundaries
Language at the Boundaries

Author: Peter Carravetta

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-04-08

Total Pages: 216

ISBN-13: 1501363670

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Is poetry still relevant today, or is it merely a dwindling historical art? How have poets of the recent past dealt with challenges to poetics? Seeking to chart the poetic act in a period not so much hostile as indifferent to poetry, Language at the Boundaries outlines spaces where poetry and poetics emerge in migration, translation, world literature, canon formation, and the history of science and technology. One can only come so close to fully possessing or explaining everything about the poetic act, and this book grapples with these limits by perusing, analyzing, deconstructing, and reconstructing creativity, implementing different approaches in doing so. Peter Carravetta consolidates historical epistemological positions that have accrued over the last several decades, some spurred by the modernism/postmodernism debate, and unpacks their differences--juxtaposing Vico with Heidegger and applying the approaches of translation studies, decolonization, indigeneity, committed literature, and critical race theory, among others. What emerges is a defense and theory of poetics in the contemporary world, engaging the topic in a dialectic mode and seeking grounds of agreement.

Fundamental Principles of Engineering Nanometrology
Fundamental Principles of Engineering Nanometrology

Author: Richard Leach

Publisher: Elsevier

Published: 2014-05-17

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1455777501

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Working at the nano-scale demands an understanding of the high-precision measurement techniques that make nanotechnology and advanced manufacturing possible. Richard Leach introduces these techniques to a broad audience of engineers and scientists involved in nanotechnology and manufacturing applications and research. He also provides a routemap and toolkit for metrologists engaging with the rigor of measurement and data analysis at the nano-scale. Starting from the fundamentals of precision measurement, the author progresses into different measurement and characterization techniques. The focus on nanometrology in engineering contexts makes this book an essential guide for the emerging nanomanufacturing / nanofabrication sector, where measurement and standardization requirements are paramount both in product specification and quality assurance. This book provides engineers and scientists with the methods and understanding needed to design and produce high-performance, long-lived products while ensuring that compliance and public health requirements are met. Updated to cover new and emerging technologies, and recent developments in standards and regulatory frameworks, this second edition includes many new sections, e.g. new technologies in scanning probe and e-beam microscopy, recent developments in interferometry and advances in co-ordinate metrology. - Demystifies nanometrology for a wide audience of engineers, scientists, and students involved in nanotech and advanced manufacturing applications and research - Introduces metrologists to the specific techniques and equipment involved in measuring at the nano-scale or to nano-scale uncertainty - Fully updated to cover the latest technological developments, standards, and regulations

Re-examining Language Testing
Re-examining Language Testing

Author: Glenn Fulcher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-06-12

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 1317443187

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Winner of the SAGE/ILTA Book Award 2016 Re-examining Language Testing explores ideas that form the foundations of language testing and assessment. The discussion is framed within the philosophical and social beliefs that have forged the practices endemic in language education and policy today. From historical and cultural perspectives, Glenn Fulcher considers the evolution of language assessment, and contrasting claims made about the nature of language and human communication, how we acquire knowledge of language abilities, and the ethics of test use. The book investigates why societies use tests, and the values that have driven changes in practice over time. The discussion is presented within an argument that an Enlightenment inspired view of human nature and advancement is most suited to a progressive, tolerant, and principled theory of language testing and validation. Covering key topics such as measurement, validity, accountability and values, Re-examining Language Testing provides a unique and innovative analysis of the ideas and social forces that shape the practice of language testing. It is an essential read for advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students of Applied Linguistics and Education. Professionals working in language testing and language teachers will also find this book invaluable.

The Dynamic Interplay between Context and the Language Learner
The Dynamic Interplay between Context and the Language Learner

Author: Jim King

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-01-26

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1137457139

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This edited volume offers a series of state-of-the-art conceptual papers and empirical research studies which consider how contextual factors at multiple levels dynamically interact with individuals to influence how they go about the complex business of learning and using a second language.

The Nature of the Future
The Nature of the Future

Author: Marina Gorbis

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2013-04-09

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1451641184

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A leading futurist offers an inspiring portrayal of how new technologies are giving individuals so much power to connect and share resources that networks of individuals, not big organizations, will solve a host of problems by reinventing business, education, medicine, banking, government, and scientific research.

Proxies
Proxies

Author: Dylan Mulvin

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-08-17

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 0262045141

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How those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included--and who is excluded--in the future. Our world is built on an array of standards we are compelled to share. In Proxies, Dylan Mulvin examines how we arrive at those standards, asking, "To whom and to what do we delegate the power to stand in for the world?" Mulvin shows how those with the power to design technology, in the very moment of design, are allowed to imagine who is included--and who is excluded--in the future. For designers of technology, some bits of the world end up standing in for other bits, standards with which they build and calibrate. These "proxies" carry specific values, even as they disappear from view. Mulvin explores the ways technologies, standards, and infrastructures inescapably reflect the cultural milieus of their bureaucratic homes. Drawing on archival research, he investigates some of the basic building-blocks of our shared infrastructures. He tells the history of technology through the labor and communal practices of, among others, the people who clean kilograms to make the metric system run, the women who pose as test images, and the actors who embody disease and disability for medical students. Each case maps the ways standards and infrastructure rely on prototypical ideas of whiteness, able-bodiedness, and purity to control and contain the messiness of reality. Standards and infrastructures, Mulvin argues, shape and distort the possibilities of representation, the meaning of difference, and the levers of change and social justice.

Experimental Methods in Biomechanics
Experimental Methods in Biomechanics

Author: John H. Challis

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-12-08

Total Pages: 308

ISBN-13: 3030522563

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This is the first textbook to comprehensively cover the experimental methods used in biomechanics. Designed for graduate students and researchers studying human biomechanics at the whole-body level, the book introduces readers to the theory behind the primary data collection methods and primary methods of data processing and analysis used in biomechanics. Each individual chapter covers a different aspect of data collection or data processing, presenting an overview of the topic at hand and explaining the math required for understanding the topic. A series of appendices provide the specific math that is required for understanding the chapter contents. Each chapter leads readers through the techniques used for data collection and processing, providing sufficient theoretical background to understand both the how and why of these techniques. Chapters end with a set of review questions, and then a bibliography which is divided into three sections (cited references, specific references, and useful references). Provides a comprehensive and in depth presentation on methods in whole-body human biomechanics; First textbook to cover both collection and processing in a single volume; Appendices provide the math needed for the main chapters.