Becoming Leaders: A Practical Handbook for Women in Engineering, Science, and Technology

F. Mary Williams and Carolyn J. Emerson. ASME Press, Three Park Ave., New York, NY 10016-5990. 2008. Softcover, spiral-bound. 200 pages. ASME members, $23; list, $29. ISBN 978-0-7918-0273-1.

Women seeking successful careers in engineering, science, or technology must be prepared not only to work hard, but also to work smart, according to the publisher. F. Mary Williams and Carolyn J. Emerson have gathered significant research in different fields to present what they consider important, timely information, along with practical tips from women who are enjoying successful technical careers. There are chapters appropriate for students and recent graduates, as well as women in mid-career. Some examples: “Women Are Leaders,” “Job Hunting and Gender,” “Personal Networks and Mentors,” “Work-Life Balance,” “Family Support,” “Time Management,” Women in the Public Service,” and “Promoting Women’s Participation.” This volume is published jointly by ASME, the American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Society of Women Engineers.

 
  
Financial Management for Design Professionals

Steve L. Wintner, AIA, and Michael Tardif, Assoc. AIA. Kaplan Publishing, 30 S. Wacker Drive, SWuite 2500, Chicago, IL 60606. 2006 . Softcover. 196 pages. $49.95. ISBN 978-1-4195-8331-5.

Subtitled “The path to profitability,” this book is addressed to design firm principals who are responsible for their firm’s finances, but have little or no financial management education or experience. Using a step-by-step format, the authors show design professionals how to: develop an annual budget and profit plan, calculate the overhead rate for a firm, calculate the break-even rate and hourly billing rate for each employee, establish project fees, use available financial information in successful negotiation, and design and interpret financial reports. The book also provides explanations of the fundamentals of financial management. The authors contend that, given the rapid growth in new firms and the looming retirement of the design industry’s largest age group of employees, there will soon be significant management opportunities for mid-career professionals.

Advanced Fluid Mechanics

W.P. Graebel. Academic Press, an imprint of Elsevier, 30 Corporate Dr., Suite 400, Burlington, MA 01803. 2007. 368 pages. $89.95. ISBN 978-0-12-370885-4.

Fluid mechanics is the study of how fluids behave and interact under various forces and in various applied situations, whether in liquid or gas state, or both. This book covers topics involving fluids in various phases with both elastic and non-elastic qualities, and flowing in complex ways. The text integrates the simple stages of fluid mechanics with those involving more complex parameters, including inviscid flow in multidimensions, viscous flow and turbulence, and an introduction to computational fluid dynamics. This book should be useful for those in companies involved in any sort of systems that encompass fluids and fluid flow analysis, energy generation, or fluid systems and fluid power.

Computational Methods in Multiphase Flow IV

Editors: A.A. Mammoli and C.A. Brebbia. WIT Press, Southampton, England, c/o Computational Mechanics, 25 Bridge St., Billerica, MA 01821. 416 pages. 2007. $265. ISBN 978-1-84564-079-8.

This volume brings together work presented at the Fourth International Conference of Computational and Experimental Methods in Multiphase and Complex Flow, held in Bologna, Italy, in June 2007. The topics include: suspensions, bubble and drop dynamics, flow in porous media, interfaces, turbulent flow, injectors and nozzles, particle image velocimetry, macroscale constitutive models, large eddy simulation, biological flows, environmental multiphase flow, and phase changes and stochastic modeling, among others. This book is Volume 56 in WIT Press’s Transaction and Engineering Sciences.

Space Exploration and Astronaut Safety

Joseph N. Pelton, with Peter Marshall. American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1801 Alexander Bell Dr., Suite 500, Reston, VA 20191-4344. 2006. 404 pages. Members, $34.95; list, $49.95. ISBN 978-1-56347-844-4.

Part history, part technology, and part policy analysis, according to the publisher, this book reviews the history of NASA’s space exploration program. It also covers the agency’s astronaut safety program, the status of the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, and the options and strategic opportunities that present themselves. Written by an expert on space policy, this book discusses space technology, along with the concerns about safety in space exploration as it applies to current and future programs, and whether these issues can be reconciled and translated into a viable future space policy. Former Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart contributes a foreword.

Engineering Analysis of Smart Material Systems

Donald J. Leo. John Wiley & Sons Inc., 111 River St., 4th Floor, Hoboken, NJ 07030. 2007. 562 pages. $150. ISBN 978-0-471-68477-0.

Smart materials have the inherent ability to sense and react to changes in the environment. Their capabilities are being increasingly used by engineers designing intelligent systems that can respond to external events—in applications ranging from automobiles and biomedical devices to “smart” skis and tennis rackets that reduce vibrations and improve comfort. Focusing on the physical processes of smart materials as well as the design and control of engineering systems, the book covers the fundamental physical properties of piezoelectric materials and mathematical representations of the electromechanical coupling in these materials. The author discusses the thermomechanical behavior of shape memory alloys in the context of engineering models for these materials, as well as the uses of smart material systems such as motion control, active vibration control, and passive and semi-active damping.

Risk Management for Design Professionals

William G. Ramroth Jr., AIA. Kaplan Publishing, 1 Liberty Plaza, 24th floor, New York, NY 10006. 2007. Softcover. 304 pages. $39.95. ISBN 978-1-4277-5476-9.

Running a design firm, designing a project, or managing a design team comes with unique risks, no matter the scale of the project or the size of the firm. In this book, William Ramroth Jr. examines the risks associated with architecture, engineering, and planning. He discusses how possible threats or dangers cannot only be identified in advance, but understood, measured, and controlled. Before any project even begins, he urges firms to control the risk with a number of measures. Among them: Make sure to have the right project manager on board; determine the fee for the project as a team; examine the project for unusual scope, budget, and scheduling; analyze the project’s proposed construction contracting method, and sell comprehensive services whenever possible.