Books in the Synthesis Lectures on Engineering, Science, and Technology series

This book captures the author's 35+ years of learning & experience in the semiconductor chip industry to provide a proven roadmap for successful, new product introduction process, tailored specifically to the semiconductor industry. The content includes a simplified process flow, success metrics, execution guidelines, checklists & calculators. The presentation is based on a product engineering centric "e;NPI hub"e; and the author guides readers through the complete process of semiconductor new product introduction, ensuring a successful plan execution.

This book covers the new field of straintronics, using strain switched nanomagnets for extremely energy-efficient computing, information processing, communication, and signal generation. Based on well-established CMOS technology, traditional electronics have two significant shortcomings: excessive energy dissipation and volatility, which is the inability to retain information after power has been switched off. Straintronics is more energy-efficient and non-volatile (but also more error-prone), allowing it to eclipse traditional electronics in niche areas that are increasingly attracting attention, such as image processing and probabilistic computing, computer vision, machine learning, neuromorphic networks, probabilistic computing, and belief networks. Magnetic Straintronics: An Energy-Efficient Hardware Paradigm for Digital and Analog Information Processing introduces straintronics and the technology's myriad applications for researchers, engineers, and scientists in electrical engineering, physics, and computer engineering.

This book introduces the concept of approximate computing for software and hardware designs and its impact on the reliability of embedded systems. It presents approximate computing methods and proposes approximate fault tolerance techniques applied to programmable hardware and embedded software to provide reliability at low computational costs. The book also presents fault tolerance techniques based on approximate computing, thus presenting how approximate computing can be applied to safety-critical systems.

This book is a comprehensive, all-in-one source on design of monolithic GaN power ICs. It is written in handbook style with systematic guidelines and includes implementation examples. It covers the full range from technology fundamentals to implementation details including design techniques specific for GaN technology. It provides a detailed loss analysis based on comparative measurements between silicon and GaN based converters to provide an understanding of the relations between design choices and results which can be transferred to other power converter systems.

This book addresses the pursuit and further investigation of experimental results by analyzing classic examples from physics. The authors concentrate on the investigation of experimental results by examining case studies from the history of 20th and 21st century physics. Discussions on the discovery of parity nonconservation, the rise and fall of the Fifth Force, the search for neutrinoless double decay, supersymmetry and the expansion of the Standard Model, and measurements of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muons are provided. Experimental results may achieve acceptance to the point that even well known principles, such as conservation of energy and quantization, lose their status as accepted. Such principles and their options are treated on an equal footing as being pursuit worthy even though there is no plausible explanation as to why and how they might have failed.

This book discusses the Versatile Video Coding (VVC), the ISO and ITU state-of-the-art video coding standard. VVC reaches a compression efficiency significantly higher than its predecessor standard (HEVC) and it has a high versatility for efficient use in a broad range of applications and different types of video content, including Ultra-High Definition (UHD), High-Dynamic Range (HDR), screen content, 360 videos, and resolution adaptivity. The authors introduce the novel VVC tools for block partitioning, intra-frame and inter-frames predictions, transforms, quantization, entropy coding, and in-loop filtering. The authors also present some solutions exploring VVC encoding behavior at different levels to accelerate the intra-frame prediction, applying statistical-based heuristics and machine learning (ML) techniques.

This book shows readers a new way of thinking about the engineering design process, as well as how to expand their understanding of the role of technical designers in society, whether working with international communities or user populations from their own hometown. As readers build an understanding of Contextual Engineering, this book will challenge them to think about the applicability of the concept more broadly, not only in terms of technical design but in personal and professional interactions with others as well. At the same time, readers will learn techniques to explore their own predispositions and the biases they may not be aware they have, equipping them to interact with others more impartially. This self-reflection process also assists the designer in working with and accepting the uncertainty that is inherent in exploring context.

This book helps readers understand the basic concepts of electronic circuits. The emphasis is on amplifiers, filters and audio circuits. Other applications such as oscillators, multivibrators, logic and control circuits are also included. Although basic concepts are presented with the necessary theoretical background, the author uses descriptions of basic electronic circuits in a very compact form and the circuit functions are described in a very accessible manner.

This book explains and focuses on analysis of electric circuits using an up-to-date software package. The book is filled with examples that students will see throughout a standard electric circuit course. This book is a good source to accompany and complete theoretical work of professors. The author provides a single-source for anyone who needs to analyse an electric circuit.

Pragmatism attends to the practical outcomes of what we think and do, the social community in which we practice, and the bases of experience to inform our ideas and practices. Practice theories help explain what we do as complex systems of activity. Together, pragmatism and practice theories help broaden our understanding of the nature of engineering work as a social practice having important consequences for individuals and society. The practical nature of engineering embedded in our complex social and community systems is emphasized. Of all the pragmatists John Dewey's influence on education has been the most profound.He promoted social democracy in education. Although he founded experimental schools with this as their goal of major interest, to engineering educators his promotion of problem solving through a form of inquiry is his major attraction. Its modern embodiment is problem-based learning. It requires teachers to become facilitators of learning rather than transmitters of knowledge. How, within the framework of a traditionally oriented curriculum Dewey's epistemology of inquiry-based learning might be introduced is discussed. Lonergan's basic method of the human mind underlying specialized methods offers a basis for a unified theory and pedagogy of engineering. It also provides for a conception of engineering that gives due recognition to its ethical character and to the need for engineering virtues. This knowing-based view of engineering, focused on "e;engineering insight,"e; provides the basis for a core, discipline-neutral approach to engineering.It proposes an engineering education centered on norms inherent to the knowing process, specifically attentiveness and intentionality. These norms in turn provide a source for defining and developing engineering virtues and character.

The intention of this book is to demonstrate that curriculum design is a profoundly philosophical exercise that stems from perceptions of the mission of higher education. Since the curriculum is the formal mechanism through which intended aims are achieved, philosophy has a profound role to play in the determination of aims. It is argued that the curriculum is far more than a list of subjects and syllabi, or that it is the addition, and subtraction, of items from a syllabus, or whether this subject should be added and that subject taken away. This book explores how curricular aims and objectives are developed by re-examining the curriculum of higher education and how it is structured in the light of its increasing costs, rapidly changing technology, and the utilitarian philosophy that currently governs the direction of higher education. It is concluded that higher education should be a preparation for and continuing support for life and work, a consequence of which is that it has to equip graduates with skill in independent learning (and its planning), and reflective practice. A transdisciplinary curriculum with technology at its core is deduced that serves the four realities of the person, the job, technology, and society.

As long as humans have existed on the planet, they have looked at the world around them and wondered about much of what they saw. This book covers 21 different phenomena that have been observed in nature and puzzled about for decades.Only recently, with the development of the microscopes and other tools that allow us to study, evaluate, and test these observed phenomena at the molecular and atomic scale, have researchers been able to understand the science behind these observations. From the strength of a marine sponge found at the depths of the oceans, to the insect-hydroplaning surface of the edge of a plant, to the intricacies of the eyes of a moth, nanotechnology has allowed science to define and understand these amazing capabilities. In many cases, this new understanding has been applied to products and applications that benefit humans and the environment. For each of the five ecosystems- the ocean, insects, flora, fauna, and humans-the observations, study and understanding, and applications will be covered. The relationship between the more easily observed macro level and understanding what is found at the nanoscale will also be discussed.

This book is aimed to help instructional designers, science game designers, science faculty, lab designers, and content developers in designing interactive learning experiences using emerging technologies and cyberlearning. The proposed solutions are for undergraduate and graduate scientific communication, engineering courses, scientific research communication, and workforce training.Reviewing across the science education literature reveals various aspects of unresolved challenges or inabilities in the visualization of scientific concepts. Visuospatial thinking is the fundamental part of learning sciences; however, promoting spatial thinking has not been emphasized enough in the educational system (Hegarty, 2014). Cognitive scientists distinguish between the multiple aspects of spatial ability and stresse that various problems or disciplines require different types of spatial skills. For example, the spatial ability to visualize anatomy cross-sections is significantly associated with mental rotation skills. The same is true for physical problems that often deal with spatial representations. However, most of the physics problems are marked by dynamicity, and visualizing dynamicity is inferred by the integrations of different participating components in the system. Therefore, what is needed for learning dynamicity is visualizing the mental animation of static episodes.This book is a leap into designing framework for using mixed reality (XR) technologies and cyberlearning in communicating advanced scientific concepts. The intention is to flesh out the cognitive infrastructure and visuospatial demands of complex systems and compare them in various contexts and disciplines. The practical implementation of emerging technology can be achieved by foreseeing each XR technology's affordances and mapping those out to the cognitive infrastructure and visuospatial demands of the content under development.

As the existence of all life forms on our planet is currently in grave danger from the climate emergency caused by Homo sapiens, the words "e;sustainability"e; and "e;eco-responsibility"e; have entered the daily-use vocabularies of scientists, engineers, economists, business managers, industrialists, capitalists, and policy makers. Normal activities undertaken for the design of products and systems in industrialisms must be revamped. As the bioworld is a great resource for eco-responsible design activities, an overview of biologically inspired design is presented in this book in simple terms for anyone with even high-school education.Beginning with an introduction to the process of design in industry, the book presents the bioworld as a design resource along with the rationale for biologically inspired design. Problem-driven and solution-driven approaches for biologically inspired design are described next. The last chapter is focused on biologically inspired design for environment.

While more and more undergraduate engineering programs are moving toward a multi-disciplinary capstone experience, there remains a need for a suitable textbook. The present text seeks to meet that need by providing a student friendly step by step template for this important and culminating academic journey beginning with the student design team's first meeting with the client to the final report and presentation. The text provides a wide range of design tools, a discussion of various design methodologies, a brief history of modern engineering, and a substantive consideration of engineering ethics. In addition, chapters are included on communication, team building and dealing with the inevitable obstacles that students encounter. Throughout the text, emphasis is placed upon the issues of environmental impact and the importance of diversity.

This book presents a comprehensive optimization-based theory and framework that exploits the synergistic interactions and tradeoffs between process design and operational decisions that span different time scales. Conventional methods in the process industry often isolate decision making mechanisms with a hierarchical information flow to achieve tractable problems, risking suboptimal, even infeasible operations. In this book, foundations of a systematic model-based strategy for simultaneous process design, scheduling, and control optimization is detailed to achieve reduced cost and improved energy consumption in process systems. The material covered in this book is well suited for the use of industrial practitioners, academics, and researchers.In Chapter 1, a historical perspective on the milestones in model-based design optimization techniques is presented along with an overview of the state-of-the-art mathematical tools to solve the resulting complex problems. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss two fundamental concepts that are essential for the reader. These concepts are (i) mixed integer dynamic optimization problems and two algorithms to solve this class of optimization problems, and (ii) developing a model based multiparametric programming model predictive control. These tools are used to systematically evaluate the tradeoffs between different time-scale decisions based on a single high-fidelity model, as demonstrated on (i) design and control, (ii) scheduling and control, and (iii) design, scheduling, and control problems. We present illustrative examples on chemical processing units, including continuous stirred tank reactors, distillation columns, and combined heat and power regeneration units, along with discussions of other relevant work in the literature for each class of problems.

The characterization of cultural heritage objects becomes increasingly important for conservation, restoration, dating, and authentication purposes. The use of scientific methods in archaeometry and conservation science has led to a significant broadening of the field. Scientific analysis of these objects is a challenging task due to their complex composition, artistic and historical values requiring the use of minimally invasive and nondestructive analytical procedures. This textbook summarizes scientific methods that are currently used to characterize objects of cultural heritage and archaeological artifacts.This book provides a brief description of the structure of matter at the molecular, atomic, and nuclear levels. Furthermore, it discusses the chemical and physical nature of materials from the molecular to the atomic and nuclear level as determined by the principles of quantum mechanics. Important aspects of natural and anthropogenic radioactivity that play a critical role for some of the analytical techniques are also emphasized. The textbook also provides principals and applications of spectroscopic methods for characterization of cultural heritage objects. It describes the technologies with specific examples for utilization of spectroscopic techniques in the characterization of paintings, books, coins, ceramics, and other objects. Analytic approaches that employ isotopes and determination of isotope ratios will be reviewed. General principles of imaging techniques and specific examples for utilization of these methods will also be summarized. In the later part of the book, a number of scientific techniques for the age determination of cultural heritage material and archaeological artifacts will be presented and discussed with specific examples.

This book focuses on a forensics-style re-examination of several historical events. The purpose of these studies is to afford readers the opportunity to apply basic principles of physics to unsolved mysteries and controversial events in order to settle the historical debate. We identify nine advantages of using case studies as a pedagogical approach to understanding forensic physics. Each of these nine advantages is the focus of a chapter of this book. Within each chapter, we show how a cascade of unlikely events resulted in an unpredictable catastrophe and use introductory-level physics to analyze the outcome. Armed with the tools of a good forensic physicist, the reader will realize that the historical record is far from being a set of agreed upon immutable facts; instead, it is a living, changing thing that is open to re-visitation, re-examination, and re-interpretation.

Nanoscience and nanotechnology, the application of the research-based nanoscale science, have changed significantly over the last three and a half decades. The "e;bucky"e; ball, 60 carbon atoms arranged like a soccer ball, and an often-used symbol of nanotechnology, was discovered in 1985 and 4 years later scientists at IBM were able to manipulate xenon atoms on a surface. In the intervening years, nanotechnology has evolved from a singly focused research topic to an understanding that infiltrates every aspect of science and engineering disciplines. In addition, nanotechnology, and both naturally occurring and engineered nanomaterials, have become the focus of legal, environmental, and application and regulation disciplines. The first portion of this text serves as an introduction to nanotechnology: the history, mathematical concepts, and instruments required to study and manipulate the world at the atomic scale. The later portion of the text discusses the connectivity of nanotechnology to the more traditional scientific disciplines as well as emerging technologies.This text can serve as an introduction to the nanoscale for science, computer science, and engineering disciplines. It can also provide a valuable foundation for disciplines such as industrial hygiene, architecture, sociology, ethics, and the humanities. There does not exist an educational discipline, market segment, or career avenue which will not be impacted by nanotechnology.

Undergraduate and first-year graduate students engaging in engineering research need more than technical skills and tools to be successful. From finding a research position and funding, to getting the mentoring needed to be successful while conducting research responsibly, to learning how to do the other aspects of research associated with project management and communication, this book provides novice researchers with the guidance they need to begin developing mastery. Awareness and deeper understanding of the broader context of research reduces barriers to success, increases capacity to contribute to a research team, and enhances ability to work both independently and collaboratively. Being prepared for what's to come and knowing the questions to ask along the way allows those entering researcher to become more comfortable engaging with not only the research itself but also their colleagues and mentors.

The theory of electromagnetic beams is presented in a simple and physical way, with all necessary mathematics explained in the text. The topics covered are in free-space classical electrodynamics, but contact is made with quantum theory in proofs that causal beams of various kinds can be viewed as superpositions of photons. This follows from explicit expressions for the energy, momentum and angular momentum per unit length for each type of beam. The properties of beams in the focal region, of special experimental and theoretical interest, are discussed in detail.There are eight chapters: on Fundamentals, Beam-like solutions of the Helmholtz equation, Electromagnetic beams, Polarization, Chirality, Comparison of electromagnetic beams, a chapter on Sound beams and particle beams (to show the similarities to and differences from the vector electromagnetic beams), and a final chapter on Measures of focal extent. Ten Appendices cover mathematical or associated physical topics.

This book presents classical relativistic mechanics and electrodynamics in the Feynman-Stueckelberg event-oriented framework formalized by Horwitz and Piron. The full apparatus of classical analytical mechanics is generalized to relativistic form by replacing Galilean covariance with manifest Lorentz covariance and introducing a coordinate-independent parameter ,,,, to play the role of Newton's universal and monotonically advancing time. Fundamental physics is described by the ,,,,-evolution of a system point through an unconstrained 8D phase space, with mass a dynamical quantity conserved under particular interactions. Classical gauge invariance leads to an electrodynamics derived from five ,,,,-dependent potentials described by 5D pre-Maxwell field equations. Events trace out worldlines as ,,,, advances monotonically, inducing pre-Maxwell fields by their motions, and moving under the influence of these fields. The dynamics are governed canonically by a scalar Hamiltonian that generates evolution of a 4D block universe defined at ,,,, to an infinitesimally close 4D block universe defined at ,,,,+,,,,,,,,. This electrodynamics, and its extension to curved space and non-Abelian gauge symmetry, is well-posed and integrable, providing a clear resolution to grandfather paradoxes. Examples include classical Coulomb scattering, electrostatics, plane waves, radiation from a simple antenna, classical pair production, classical CPT, and dynamical solutions in weak field gravitation. This classical framework will be of interest to workers in quantum theory and general relativity, as well as those interested in the classical foundations of gauge theory.

Blending physics with the study of ancient Chinese science, technology, and culture is a unique and highly effective way to present the fundamentals of physics to non-science majors. Based on the author¿s course at Mercer University (Georgia, U.S.), The Art of Teaching Physics with Ancient Chinese Science and Technology exposes a wide range of students to the scientific method and techniques of experimental analysis through the eyes and discoveries of ancient Chinese ¿polymaths¿ long before the European concept of the scientific method was even considered. No other book so deftly makes the connections from ancient China to Ben Franklin to Michael Faraday while teaching physics at the same time.A distinctive characteristic of this book is the detailed hands-on laboratory experiments. This first includes making a simple magnetic compass and magnetometer. Students then use the compass/magnetometer to measure the strength of the magnetic field produced by a long straight wire. The second experiment covers two different methods of mining copper to introduce students to simple chemical principles such as displacement reactions, oxidation, reduction, and electronegativity.Originally developed for non-science students in an Asian studies environment, this book provides a valuable resource for science teachers who wish to explore the historical connections largely ignored in traditional texts. When paired with Teaching Physics through Ancient Chinese Science and Technology (Marone, 2019), these two texts provide a unique means of studying selected topics traditionally found in a two-semester Physics course.

A brief overview of astronomy and cosmology is presented in five different ways, through the lenses of space, time, evolution, process, and structure. Specific topics are chosen for their contribution to a "big picture" understanding of the interconnectedness of knowledge in astronomy and cosmology. Thus, many topics (stellar astronomy for example) are treated in multiple sections, but from different viewpoints¿for example, sizes and distances of stars (space); when stars appeared in the history of the universe (time); stellar evolution (evolution); hydrostatic equilibrium and stellar spectra (process); and stellar structure (structure). Some topics traditional to the introductory astronomy curriculum¿eclipses and lunar phases, for example¿are omitted altogether as they are inessential for the big-picture goals of the book, and excellent summaries are easily available elsewhere. On the other hand, the book treats some topics not usually covered in an introductory astronomy course, forexample the roles played by equilibrium processes and symmetry in our understanding of the universe. The level is for the beginning undergraduate, with only basic skills in rudimentary algebra assumed. But more advanced students and teachers will also find the book useful as both a set of practical tools and a point of departure for taking stock (in five different ways) of the current state of knowledge in astronomy and cosmology.

History and archaeology tell us that when our far ancestors began to settle in localized groups, they codified their lives and experiences, and formed a collective for mutual support. This proto-civilization would have arisen from each individual¿s questions about the world, and their attempt to understand themselves and their place in the world. These groups, or tribes, evolved rules of conduct to facilitate communal living, and made a calendar for the group¿s celebration of harvests, and other events upon which the group was utterly dependent.This process of social evolution is the origin of religion, and of a magical way of looking at Nature. Eventually, this developing worldview was also the origin of science, which is our investigation of Nature to understand something of what is happening around us, and to use this knowledge to ensure our survival in a violent, indifferent Universe. After all, science and religion seek to answer the same question: Why and how isthe natural world the way it is? This book seeks to show how science evolved from religion and magic, in response to a need to understand Nature.