Engineering on the Edge: The Future of Nanotechnology and Robotics

Book Description

A new age of engineering genesis has begun and it is evident that new technologies and methods are being implemented throughout the world. Two of these technologies are Nanotechnology and Robotics. While current methods are just breaking ground with the individual manipulation of atoms and molecules, the visionary idea fueling nanotechnology enthusiasts is the possibility of building manufacturing machines and robots on the nanometer scale. This book gives fundamental insights into a world of nano-sized machines built one atom at a time with the ability to reason and have intelligence on the level with humans. The challenge is to take control of a wider variety of materials than nature provides. This is the future! This is engineering on the edge!

Customer Reviews:

Good Reading.......2006-02-23

I liked this book - lots of information; good background details; enough wit to be interesting on a dry subject

high school paper.......2005-01-20

This is a high school level paper expanded with large print, wide margins and long citations of an encyclopedia. Why it was ever published I have no idea.

Book Description

Many people think human reproductive cloning should be a crime-some states have even outlawed it and Congress is working to enact a national ban. However, if reproductive cloning soon becomes a reality, it will be impossible to prevent infertile couples and others from choosing the technology, even if they have to break the law. While most books on cloning cover the advantages and disadvantages of cloning technology, Illegal Beings describes the pros and cons of laws against human reproductive cloning. Kerry Lynn Macintosh, an attorney with expertise in the area of law and technology, argues that the most common objections to cloning are false or exaggerated, inspiring laws that stigmatize human clones as subhuman and unworthy of existence. She applies the same reasoning that was used to invalidate racial segregation to show how anti-cloning laws, by reinforcing negative stereotypes, deprive human clones of their equal protection rights under the law. Her book creates a new topic within constitutional law: existential segregation, or the practice of discriminating by preventing the existence of a disfavored group or class. This comprehensive and novel work looks at how anti-cloning laws will hurt human clones in a fresh perspective on this controversial subject. Kerry Lynn Macintosh is a member of the Law and Technology faculty at Santa Clara University School of Law. She is the author of papers, articles, and book chapters on the law and technology and has contributed to the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology, Boston University Journal of Science and Technology Law, and Berkeley Technology Law Journal.

Customer Reviews:

Another breath of fresh air.......2006-03-06

Consider the following scenario: a married couple is told by a government official that they will not be allowed to have sexual intercourse since the woman among them may get pregnant. Sexual reproduction is very hazardous for embryos, fetuses, and gestational mothers they are told, and the statistics supporting the dangers in procreation is presented to them. The couple takes the statistical data to a trained statistician in order to obtain an opinion on the reliability of the data. The statistician informs them that the data is correct, including the statement that up to 75 percent of embryos conceived through sexual intercourse never make it birth. Most of the embryos do not implant in the uterus and are spontaneously aborted. The couple, because of the current legal environment that forbids behavior that leads to these kinds of dangers, is therefore prohibited from procreating using traditional intercourse.

This scenario sounds absurd, and one cannot imagine a society whose government would prohibit procreation because it deemed it too "risky." But human reproduction via nuclear somatic transfer, colloquially known as human cloning, has been prohibited for this reason, among many others. Those who want to outlaw reproductive human cloning frequently point to the supposed dangers in carrying it out. These dangers have not been validated, due mostly to lack of experimental data, but even if they were, this would still not be an acceptable reason for prohibiting reproductive human cloning, given the "dangers" of "ordinary" reproduction. If because of technological advances, reproduction via human cloning resulted in only 10 percent of the embryos failing to reach actual birth, would it then be viewed as a more viable method of reproduction? Probably not, for objections to human cloning are based more on irrational reactions than sound, rational, or scientific thinking.

Scientific and ethical refutations of the arguments against human cloning have appeared in a few excellent books in the past five years. This book includes many of these arguments, and the author refines some of them to make them even better. But she includes arguments that the reader cannot find in these earlier books. Her arguments are both original and fascinating, for they pertain to the legal ramifications of anticloning laws, the latter of which have been aggressively proposed by politicians who neither understand the science of human cloning nor its social, legal, and political ramifications.

The legal argumentation in the book occurs mostly in chapter three of the book, wherein the author attempts to show that anticloning laws will violate the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and will result in an effective discrimination against children that are born as the result of nuclear somatic transfer techniques. She assumes, realistically, that there will be human clones born sometime in the near future, regardless of the status of anticloning laws at that time. These children will subjected to `existential segregation' the author contends. This is a kind of discrimination that is similar to kind experienced in the past by mixed couples who wanted to marry but were prohibited from doing so in some states by `antimiscegenation' laws.

What is most valuable in her discussion of the legal issues involved in anticloning laws is that it educates the reader on various aspects of constitutional law. The insights that the reader will gain from this part of the book will be useful even outside the context of human cloning. The equal protection guarantee she argues is applicable to anticloning laws in that these laws will `classify' human clones. This legal classification she argues will result in `strict scrutiny' and is therefore suspect under the equal protection guarantee.

Indeed there is much in this book that supporters of human cloning will find both interesting and important. It is important to note that the technology is now available to perform human cloning, albeit somewhat risky (but still within the boundaries of what is risky in `ordinary' human reproduction). As technology advances and the possibility of asexual reproduction via cloning or some other technique becomes even more viable, we should be even more attentive to the legal rights of those individuals born in this way. They should be viewed as full-fledged human beings, deserving of every right that all humans possess. They will no doubt have their imperfections or faults as all humans do. Hopefully some of them will work to ending all prejudicial attitudes and any notion of an `illegal being.' These kinds of actions on their part will certainly prove their humanity, if indeed any proof is needed. Hopefully the words in this book will be heeded by more people, and remove the author's status as a minority in rational and coherent thinking on human cloning. But the image of a beautiful newborn (cloned) baby in a crib will no doubt also alleviate much of the remaining skepticism or repugnance towards human cloning.

Defense of the Clones.......2005-11-28

This book is superb. The writing is very clear and the restatement, at convenient intervals, of the points previously established is very useful. It gives a comprehensive, thoughtful and balanced account of the scientific as well as the ethical and legal issues concerning human reproductive cloning.

Those who argue against human cloning often suppose that clones will be identical to those they are cloned from. The absurdity of this position is demonstrated beyond any doubt by Professor Macintosh. The other arguments usually used to show that human reproductive cloning should be illegal and/or that it is unethical are also shown to be defective.

Her further claims that anti-cloning laws conflict with an important principle of egalitarianism and that they are, in American terms, unconstitutional, are very stimulating and supported with erudition and cleverness. Even those who are not convinced by them will find them impressive. Sympathy for her fellow human beings, whatever their ethnic, genetic or reproductive background permeates this powerful, important and inspiring book.

The title- Illegal Beings- is provocative and intriguing. Rape is an illegal act but any consequent babies are not illegal beings. Do laws against rape stigmatise those who are born as a consequence of it? If they did, would that be a reason for repealing them? Could not opponents of cloning - of whom I am not one- condemn cloning without thereby condemning clones? It will be interesting to see how they will respond to Professor Macintosh's arguments.

Although it is set in the context of the United States, of the laws of which Professor Macintosh's knowledge and understanding is vast and deep, the arguments are of interest and relevance to those living in other jurisdictions. Students of law, social sciences, medical ethics and applied philosophy will, in particular, find this book to be invaluable and intellectually illuminating.

A Case Study in Arguing Before a Judge and Jury.......2005-09-11

Prof. Kerry Macintosh of the Santa Clara University Law School, who got her JD from Stanford, provides us with an excellent resource. Her book reads like a scholarly Ph.D. Thesis in addition to being a valuable case study on how to argue persuasively before a judge and jury. She supports her argument that anti reproductive-cloning laws passed in a number of states are unconstitutional and reinforce false stereotypes that stigmatize potential human clones as subhuman or unworthy of existence! Actually, if a clone were born healthy, he/she would really be nothing more than a "temporally displaced identical twin (say, by 40 years)," and twining (both identical and fraternal) is really nothing new in human history, is it? This seeming paradox is related to the "identity fallacy" that assumes that clones are somehow "more" than identical twins (actually they're less, since they had different wombs and maternal mtDNA). Take for example the false logic of the following argument: "It would be unethical to clone King Tut, since the world has changed so much since his day; how could he possibly fit in?" Really, it seems that our evangelical legislators fear that meddling in the "secrets of life," something which is only the proper dominion of God, will unleash unimaginable horrors.
[...]

Excellent Book Demolishes Anticloning Arguments.......2005-08-26

Kerry Lynn Macintosh, the author of "Illegal Beings: Human Clones and the Law," accurately portrays the science of human cloning, while explaining that most arguments against cloning are "false or exaggerated." The author, a lawyer, compares anticloning laws to racism and apartheid, and encourages the reader to renounce inappropriate stereotypes, "existential segregation," and anticloning laws, which are unconstitutional. The author also notes how prejudiced the anticloners are by describing their attitude as "...when it comes to human clones, we do not want their kind around here."

Book Description

An analysis of the causes of extreme poverty and inequality in Peru, of economic deterioration and growing violence in the 1970s and 1980s, and of the effects of the new economic strategy of liberalization adopted in 1990.

“This lucid study is a rare find: an analysis of a developing economy that successfully integrates the full range of development issues, including economic growth, competitiveness, poverty, social equity, agriculture, industry, and external and domestic finance, and places them all within their historical and political context. Moreover, this study accomplishes this feat for an intricate economy that defies easy understanding. I particularly recommend this book for undergraduate and graduate students in development economics: they will find it an inspiring performance.” —Paul Beckerman

As in most of the rest of Latin America, Peruvian economic strategy has gone in something of a circle, from long-established orientation toward an open economy with minimal state intervention to a period of state-led development, then back again to what looks like the starting point. In the 1960s, the Peruvian people had their first real chance to make a democratic choice between continuation of the country's open-economy orientation or change, and they chose change. Using this as his starting point, Sheahan explains how their choice was not provoked by any economic crisis but by other major influences.

The Peruvian economy had been growing well with low inflation and no problem of external financing. Sheahan argues that pressures for change came more from rising antagonism to the long-established domination of the society by a privileged minority, extreme rural poverty combined with high concentration of land ownership, unequal access to education and economic opportunity, structures of production and trade adverse to any adequate growth of opportunities for productive employment, domination of the main export sector—mining—and of the oil industry by foreign firms, and general conviction of being left behind by the modern world. The majority of Peruvians were seeking objectives more fundamental than economic growth. They were, with conflicting visions but with many good reasons, “searching for a better society.”

Sheahan examines the factors involved in these issues and the consequences of the new economic orientation intended to resolve them. While positive accomplishments have been important, enough went wrong to lead Peru back to a more market-determined economic system in 1990. Sheahan addresses the consequences of this return to the earlier economic strategy and what might be done to shape the process of development—in Peru and in Latin America more generally—toward less unfair societies.

Searching for a Better Society is different from the great majority of economic studies of developing countries in its emphasis on the basic role of social dissatisfaction with the country's traditional liberal economic system and on the complexity of social goals involved in evaluation of the choice and consequences of economic policies.

Average customer rating:
Searching for a Better Society: The Peruvian Economy from 1950
John Sheahan
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQZQZO

Average customer rating:
Searching for a Better Society: The Peruvian Economy from 1950
John Sheahan
Manufacturer: Pennsylvania State University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OQY1RI

Book Description

Este libro contiene una serie de conceptos sobre tecnología y negocios para que aquellos que deseen implementar una estrategia de atención al cliente de alta calidad, basada en productos informáticos, tengan más y mejor información para tomar la decisión correcta.

No es un típico manual de referencias, sino que está enfocado como libro de lectura: la idea es que se lea de corrido, de principio a fin, y que, en su conjunto, ofrezca un panorama claro, amplio y completo sobre la actualidad de lo que se conoce como CRM.

Con este objetivo es que, si bien se desarrollan todos los temas en un marco teórico, se ha agregado una buena cantidad de casos prácticos reales utilizados en empresas conocidas por todos.

De esta forma, el lector puede descubrir que se trata de una ayuda general para que su empresa pueda introducirse en una nueva realidad de negocios. Realidad de la que, por otra parte, nadie puede quedar fuera.

Book Description

The Politics of Oil-Producer Cooperation is a comprehensive study of the behavior of political actors in the international oil market since 1971. In this study, Dag Harald Claes seeks to answer the question of what determines the cooperative behavior among oil-producing countries, and he also shows the benefits of approaching an empirical topic from several levels of analysis. Claes provides a case study demonstrating the problems of collective action in international politics, and he discusses multi-level approaches in studies of international relations, or international political economy.

The politics of oil-producer cooperation. (Book Reviews). (book review): An article from: The Energy Journal

Average customer rating:

The politics of oil-producer cooperation. (Book Reviews). (book review): An article from: The Energy Journal
Dermot Gately
Manufacturer: International Association for Energy Economics
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Politics | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Energy Journal, published by International Association for Energy Economics on January 1, 2002. The length of the article is 1062 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: The politics of oil-producer cooperation. (Book Reviews). (book review)
Author: Dermot Gately
Publication: The Energy Journal (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2002
Publisher: International Association for Energy Economics
Volume: 23 Issue: 1 Page: 136(4)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Average customer rating:
Economic Transition in Hungary and East Germany: Gradualism and Shock Therapy in Catch-Up Development (Studies in Economic Transition)
Johannes Stephan
Manufacturer: MacMillan Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Development & Growth | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
International | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0333751434

Average customer rating:
Economic Transition in Hungary and East Germany: Gradualism and Shock Therapy in Catch-Up Development (Studies in Economic Transition)
Johannes Stephan
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OT5X22

Book Description

* Covers business practice and trading opportunities in Slovakia.

Download Description

Originally published in the pre-EU-accession period, this E-Book edition of Doing Business with Slovakia has been updated to take account of the post-accession changes to the legal and fiscal environment. It remains a definitive appraisal of the economic and investment climate, including an examination of the legal structure and business regulation, information on the financial sector and unique best practice on all aspects of trading with and investing in Slovakia. The guide also provides an overview of key sectors of trade and investment.

Slovakia Business Law Handbook (World Business Law Handbook Library)

Average customer rating:

Slovakia Business Law Handbook (World Business Law Handbook Library)
Igor Oleynik
Manufacturer: International Business Publications USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Online Books | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

International Business Publications | By Publisher | e-Docs | Formats | Books
ASIN: B00005R4ZO
Release Date: 2006-01-01

Book Description

Basic business legislation, laws, export-import regulations affecting business, business climate and contacts

Download Description

Basic business legislation, laws, export-import regulations affecting business, business climate and contacts

Average customer rating:

Slovakia Business Law Handbook
USA International Business Publications
Manufacturer: International Business Publications, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 073972052X

Book Description

This law handbook contains information on basic business legislation, laws and regulatoins affecting export-import, business, foreign investments, property rights, taxation and banking. (Updated annually)

Slovakia Investment and Business Guide (World Business Law Handbook Library)

Average customer rating:

Slovakia Investment and Business Guide (World Business Law Handbook Library)

Manufacturer: Intl Business Pubns USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Exports & Imports | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | International | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

General | Investing | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0739772422

Book Description

This investment guide contains basic information on economy, business, export-import and investment climate, opportunities and regulations. Provides strategic information on economy, industrial development, banking, and government. Includes information on the most important business contacts and business travel. Updated annually.

Books:

Books Index

Books Home

Recommended Books