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Author :Dick C. A. Bulterman Publisher :Springer Science & Business Media ISBN 13 :9783540202349 Total Pages :480 pages Book Rating :4.2/5 (23 download)
Download or read book SMIL 2.0 written by Dick C. A. Bulterman and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2004 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: SMIL 2.0 - Interactive multimedia for Web and Mobile Devices gently introduces you to the Web multimedia standard SMIL 2.0. Written by world-renowned SMIL experts who helped to develop the language and software for it, this book covers all aspects of the standard in a knowledgeable yet accessible manner: the overall concepts, the technical details and the many facets of SMIL's current and expected use. It is written to serve as an introduction, a full manual and a detailed technical reference.
Download or read book Feeding the World written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2001-08-24 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A realistic yet encouraging look at how society can change in ways that will allow us to feed an expanding global population. This book addresses the question of how we can best feed the ten billion or so people who will likely inhabit the Earth by the middle of the twenty-first century. He asks whether human ingenuity can produce enough food to support healthy and vigorous lives for all these people without irreparably damaging the integrity of the biosphere. What makes this book different from other books on the world food situation is its consideration of the complete food cycle, from agriculture to post-harvest losses and processing to eating and discarding. Taking a scientific approach, Smil espouses neither the catastrophic view that widespread starvation is imminent nor the cornucopian view that welcomes large population increases as the source of endless human inventiveness. He shows how we can make more effective use of current resources and suggests that if we increase farming efficiency, reduce waste, and transform our diets, future needs may not be as great as we anticipate. Smil's message is that the prospects may not be as bright as we would like, but the outlook is hardly disheartening. Although inaction, late action, or misplaced emphasis may bring future troubles, we have the tools to steer a more efficient course. There are no insurmountable biophysical reasons we cannot feed humanity in the decades to come while easing the burden that modern agriculture puts on the biosphere.
Book Synopsis Energy and Civilization by : Vaclav Smil
Download or read book Energy and Civilization written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2018-11-13 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society throughout history, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. "I wait for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next 'Star Wars' movie. In his latest book, Energy and Civilization: A History, he goes deep and broad to explain how innovations in humans' ability to turn energy into heat, light, and motion have been a driving force behind our cultural and economic progress over the past 10,000 years. —Bill Gates, Gates Notes, Best Books of the Year Energy is the only universal currency; it is necessary for getting anything done. The conversion of energy on Earth ranges from terra-forming forces of plate tectonics to cumulative erosive effects of raindrops. Life on Earth depends on the photosynthetic conversion of solar energy into plant biomass. Humans have come to rely on many more energy flows—ranging from fossil fuels to photovoltaic generation of electricity—for their civilized existence. In this monumental history, Vaclav Smil provides a comprehensive account of how energy has shaped society, from pre-agricultural foraging societies through today's fossil fuel–driven civilization. Humans are the only species that can systematically harness energies outside their bodies, using the power of their intellect and an enormous variety of artifacts—from the simplest tools to internal combustion engines and nuclear reactors. The epochal transition to fossil fuels affected everything: agriculture, industry, transportation, weapons, communication, economics, urbanization, quality of life, politics, and the environment. Smil describes humanity's energy eras in panoramic and interdisciplinary fashion, offering readers a magisterial overview. This book is an extensively updated and expanded version of Smil's Energy in World History (1994). Smil has incorporated an enormous amount of new material, reflecting the dramatic developments in energy studies over the last two decades and his own research over that time.
Book Synopsis Summary of Vaclav Smil's Invention and Innovation by : Milkyway Media
Download or read book Summary of Vaclav Smil's Invention and Innovation written by Milkyway Media and published by Milkyway Media. This book was released on 2024-01-22 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Get the Summary of Vaclav Smil's Invention and Innovation in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Vaclav Smil's "Invention and Innovation" examines the evolution of human inventions across four categories: simple tools, machines and mechanisms, new materials, and production methods. The book contrasts the USSR's failure to innovate with China's successful adoption of foreign technologies. Smil notes an acceleration in patent filings but cautions that not all represent significant innovation...
Book Synopsis You Softly Spoke, You Sweetly Smil'd by : Francis Robinson
Download or read book You Softly Spoke, You Sweetly Smil'd written by Francis Robinson and published by . This book was released on 1830 with total page 8 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis SUMMARY - Making The Modern World: Materials And Dematerialization By Vaclav Smil by : Shortcut Edition
Download or read book SUMMARY - Making The Modern World: Materials And Dematerialization By Vaclav Smil written by Shortcut Edition and published by Shortcut Edition. This book was released on with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: * Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. As you read this summary, you will learn that the increased consumption of materials is the major feature of the modern world. You will also learn that : the invention of the steam engine revolutionized mankind; a long-term dematerialization without radical changes in lifestyle is very unlikely; humanity's material progress is experiencing two successive ages; energy is the most important of all materials; our civilization is at a crossroads in terms of our consumption of materials; the current level of material consumption is very recent if we place it in the long historical period. The consumption of materials is at the heart of economic production, without which it could not exist. Materials of all kinds, be they mineral, vegetable, etc., condition our daily life, modern life, that of industrialized countries whose societies are consumer societies. Their production, use and destruction, once they have become waste, are the subject of this book, which examines the costs of our society's dependence on materials, as well as the possible paths to a progressive dematerialization, which the threatened integrity of the biosphere makes indispensable. *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!
Book Synopsis Summary of Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions by : Everest Media,
Download or read book Summary of Vaclav Smil's Grand Transitions written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-06-13T22:59:00Z with total page 66 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The modern world is a result of several transitions that have changed the way we live our lives. The premodern world was marked by a high degree of inertia and pattern persistence, as different climates and beliefs produced many specific outcomes. #2 There were many differences between everyday diets in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, but they all had one thing in common: they were highly inertial. They produced low population growth, limited food supplies, low-power energy conversions, and barely changing economic performance. #3 The lives of people can be changed dramatically by the effects of grand transitions. For example, the lives of a woman born in a poor French village in the first decade of the 19th century and her son in the Paris of the 1870s could have been completely different. #4 China is a great example of how a grand transition can be covered by the lives of just two generations. A girl born to a poor peasant family in 1945 grew up in a society whose mores and material possessions were near carbon copies of life a century ago. By 1961, she became the only member of her extended family who survived the world’s most devastating famine.
Book Synopsis Summary of Vaclav Smil's Numbers Don't Lie by : Everest Media,
Download or read book Summary of Vaclav Smil's Numbers Don't Lie written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-03-20T22:59:00Z with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 The most obvious physical constraint on fertility is the length of the fertile period, which has been decreasing from about 17 years in preindustrial societies to less than 13 years in today’s Western world. #2 The shift from high to low fertility took about two centuries in Denmark and 170 years in Sweden. No country has been able to stop the fertility decline at the replacement level and achieve a stationary population. #3 The most common measure of human quality of life is the gross domestic product per capita, but this does not take into account economic inequality or the social net available to disadvantaged families. I prefer to use the Human Development Index, which combines life expectancy at birth and educational achievements with the gross national income per capita. #4 The lowest infant mortality rates are found in small, homogeneous societies with very low birth rates. It is difficult to maintain low infant mortalities in larger, heterogeneous societies with high rates of immigration from less affluent countries.
Book Synopsis Summary of Vaclav Smil's Numbers Don't Lie by : Milkyway Media
Download or read book Summary of Vaclav Smil's Numbers Don't Lie written by Milkyway Media and published by Milkyway Media. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 34 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview: #1 The most obvious physical constraint on fertility is the length of the fertile period, which has been decreasing from about 17 years in preindustrial societies to less than 13 years in today’s Western world. #2 The shift from high to low fertility took about two centuries in Denmark and 170 years in Sweden. No country has been able to stop the fertility decline at the replacement level and achieve a stationary population. #3 The most common measure of human quality of life is the gross domestic product per capita, but this does not take into account economic inequality or the social net available to disadvantaged families. I prefer to use the Human Development Index, which combines life expectancy at birth and educational achievements with the gross national income per capita. #4 The lowest infant mortality rates are found in small, homogeneous societies with very low birth rates. It is difficult to maintain low infant mortalities in larger, heterogeneous societies with high rates of immigration from less affluent countries.
Book Synopsis Summary of Vaclav Smil's How the World Really Works by : Everest Media,
Download or read book Summary of Vaclav Smil's How the World Really Works written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-07-22T22:59:00Z with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 A benign science fiction scenario is that an extremely sapient civilization monitors Earth and its inhabitants. The probes make periodic visits to our planet, and only when they detect a previously unknown form of energy conversion or a new physical manifestation dependent on it do they make a second pass. #2 The first microorganisms emerge nearly 4 billion years ago, but passing probes do not register them, as they are rare and remain hidden associated with alkaline hydrothermal vents at the ocean’s floor. #3 The first extrasomatic use of energy is the controlled combustion of plants to create light and heat, which is used for cooking and comfort. The first crop cultivation is recorded about 10 millennia ago. #4 By 1800, the UK is the most interesting country to the alien probe because it is an exceptional early adopter. The country has a early start in coal mining, and begins to use steam engines to power machines.
Download or read book Growth written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2019-09-24 with total page 665 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Growth has been both an unspoken and an explicit aim of our individual and collective striving. It governs the lives of microorganisms and galaxies; it shapes the capabilities of our extraordinarily large brains and the fortunes of our economies. Growth is manifested in annual increments of continental crust, a rising gross domestic product, a child's growth chart, the spread of cancerous cells. In this magisterial book, Vaclav Smil offers systematic investigation of growth in nature and society, from tiny organisms to the trajectories of empires and civilizations. Smil takes readers from bacterial invasions through animal metabolisms to megacities and the global economy. He begins with organisms whose mature sizes range from microscopic to enormous, looking at disease-causing microbes, the cultivation of staple crops, and human growth from infancy to adulthood. He examines the growth of energy conversions and man-made objects that enable economic activities—developments that have been essential to civilization. Finally, he looks at growth in complex systems, beginning with the growth of human populations and proceeding to the growth of cities. He considers the challenges of tracing the growth of empires and civilizations, explaining that we can chart the growth of organisms across individual and evolutionary time, but that the progress of societies and economies, not so linear, encompasses both decline and renewal. The trajectory of modern civilization, driven by competing imperatives of material growth and biospheric limits, Smil tells us, remains uncertain.
Download or read book Energy Transitions written by Vaclav Smil and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2010-05-26 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This bold and controversial argument shows why energy transitions are inherently complex and prolonged affairs, and how ignoring this fact raises unrealistic expectations that the United States and other global economies can be weaned quickly from a primary dependency on fossil fuels. Energy transitions are fundamental processes behind the evolution of human societies: they both drive and are driven by technical, economic, and social changes. In a bold and provocative argument, Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects describes the history of modern society's dependence on fossil fuels and the prospects for the transition to a nonfossil world. Vaclav Smil, who has published more on various aspects of energy than any working scientist, makes it clear that this transition will not be accomplished easily, and that it cannot be accomplished within the timetables established by the Obama administration. The book begins with a survey of the basic properties of modern energy systems. It then offers detailed explanations of universal patterns of energy transitions, the peculiarities of changing energy use in the world's leading economies, and the coming shifts from fossil fuels to renewable conversions. Specific cases of these transitions are analyzed for eight of the world's leading energy consumers. The author closes with perspectives on the nature and pace of the coming energy transition to renewable conversions.
Book Synopsis Making the Modern World by : Vaclav Smil
Download or read book Making the Modern World written by Vaclav Smil and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-12-16 with total page 263 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How much further should the affluent world push its material consumption? Does relative dematerialization lead to absolute decline in demand for materials? These and many other questions are discussed and answered in Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization. Over the course of time, the modern world has become dependent on unprecedented flows of materials. Now even the most efficient production processes and the highest practical rates of recycling may not be enough to result in dematerialization rates that would be high enough to negate the rising demand for materials generated by continuing population growth and rising standards of living. This book explores the costs of this dependence and the potential for substantial dematerialization of modern economies. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization considers the principal materials used throughout history, from wood and stone, through to metals, alloys, plastics and silicon, describing their extraction and production as well as their dominant applications. The evolving productivities of material extraction, processing, synthesis, finishing and distribution, and the energy costs and environmental impact of rising material consumption are examined in detail. The book concludes with an outlook for the future, discussing the prospects for dematerialization and potential constrains on materials. This interdisciplinary text provides useful perspectives for readers with backgrounds including resource economics, environmental studies, energy analysis, mineral geology, industrial organization, manufacturing and material science.
Book Synopsis Energy at the Crossroads by : Vaclav Smil
Download or read book Energy at the Crossroads written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2005-02-11 with total page 452 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An objective, comprehensive, and accessible examination of today's most crucial problem: preserving the environment in the face of society's insatiable demand for energy. In Energy at the Crossroads, Vaclav Smil considers the twenty-first century's crucial question: how to reconcile the modern world's unceasing demand for energy with the absolute necessity to preserve the integrity of the biosphere. With this book he offers a comprehensive, accessible guide to today's complex energy issues—how to think clearly and logically about what is possible and what is desirable in our energy future. After a century of unprecedented production growth, technical innovation, and expanded consumption, the world faces a number of critical energy challenges arising from unequal resource distribution, changing demand patterns, and environmental limitations. The fundamental message of Energy at the Crossroads is that our dependence on fossil fuels must be reduced not because of any imminent resource shortages but because the widespread burning of oil, coal, and natural gas damages the biosphere and presents increasing economic and security problems as the world relies on more expensive supplies and Middle Eastern crude oil. Smil begins with an overview of the twentieth century's long-term trends and achievements in energy production. He then discusses energy prices, the real cost of energy, and "energy linkages"—the effect energy issues have on the economy, on quality of life, on the environment, and in wartime. He discusses the pitfalls of forecasting, giving many examples of failed predictions and showing that unexpected events can disprove complex models. And he examines the pros and cons not only of fossil fuels but also of alternative fuels such as hydroenergy, biomass energy, wind power, and solar power. Finally, he considers the future, focusing on what really matters, what works, what is realistic, and which outcomes are most desirable.
Download or read book Grand Transitions written by Vaclav Smil and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-12 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What makes the modern world work? The answer to this deceptively simple question lies in four "grand transitions" of civilization--in populations, agriculture, energy, and economics--which have transformed the way we live. Societies that have undergone all four transitions emerge into an era of radically different population dynamics, food surpluses (and waste), abundant energy use, and expanding economic opportunities. Simultaneously, in other parts of the world, hundreds of millions remain largely untouched by these developments. Through erudite storytelling, Vaclav Smil investigates the fascinating and complex interactions of these transitions. He argues that the moral imperative to share modernity's benefits has become more acute with increasing economic inequality, but addressing this imbalance would make it exceedingly difficult to implement the changes necessary for the long-term preservation of the environment. Thus, managing the fifth transition--environmental changes from natural-resource depletion, biodiversity loss, and global warming--will determine the success or eventual failure of the grand transitions that have made the world we live in today.
Download or read book Made in the USA written by Vaclav Smil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-08-21 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An overview of the state of manufacturing in America—both past and present—and how this sector and the jobs it creates are essential to the American economy “There's no author whose books I look forward to more than Vaclav Smil.” —Bill Gates In Made in the USA, Vaclav Smil powerfully rebuts the notion that manufacturing is a relic of predigital history and that the loss of American manufacturing is a desirable evolutionary step toward a pure service economy. Smil argues that no advanced economy can prosper without a strong, innovative manufacturing sector and the jobs it creates. Smil explains how manufacturing became a fundamental force behind America’s economic, strategic, and social dominance. He describes American manufacturing’s rapid rise at the end of the nineteenth century, its consolidation and modernization between the two world wars, its role as an enabler of mass consumption after 1945, and its recent decline. Some economists argue that shipping low-value jobs overseas matters little because the high-value work remains in the United States. But, asks Smil, do we want a society that consists of a small population of workers doing high-value-added work and masses of unemployed? Smil assesses various suggestions for solving America’s manufacturing crisis, including lowering corporate tax rates, promoting research and development, and improving public education. Will America act to preserve and reinvigorate its manufacturing? It is crucial to our social and economic well-being; but, Smil warns, the odds are no better than even.
Download or read book Oil written by Vaclav Smil and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2017-11-02 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: World acclaimed scientist Vaclav Smil reveals everything there is to know about nature's most sought-after resource Oil is the lifeblood of the modern world. Without it, there would be no planes, no plastic, no exotic produce, and a global political landscape few would recognise. Humanity’s dependence upon oil looks set to continue for decades to come, but what is it? Fully updated and packed with fascinating facts to fuel dinner party debate, Professor Vaclav Smil's Oil: A Beginner's Guide explains all matters related to the ‘black stuff’, from its discovery in the earth right through to the controversy that surrounds it today.
