Impact of Commercial Search Engines and International Databases on Engineering Teaching and Research

For the last three decades, the engineering higher education and professional environments have been completely transformed by the "electronic/digital information revolution" that has included the introduction of personal computer, the development of email and world wide web, and broadband Internet connections at home. Herein the writer compares the performances of several digital tools with traditional library resources. While new specialised search engines and open access digital repositories may fill a gap between conventional search engines and traditional references, these should be not be confused with real libraries and international scientific databases that encompass textbooks and peer-reviewed scholarly works. An absence of listing in some Internet search listings, databases and repositories is not an indication of standing. Researchers, engineers and academics should remember these key differences in assessing the quality of bibliographic "research" based solely upon Internet searches

Soil Dynamic Models: Predicting the Behavior of Fertilizers in the Soil

This chapter provides an overview of the most dominant processes for the situation where organic biobased derivatives are added to the soil, with emphasis on decomposition, production of mineral nutrients, and losses to the environment. Organic compounds in the soil (organic matter, organic fertilizers, biobased derivatives, soil biomass) are subject to microbiological conversion reaction. Decomposition of organic matter usually occurs relatively quickly as long as enough molecular oxygen is present. Two major models can be distinguished in modeling mineralization of organic matter: multi‐pool models with a constant decomposition rate factor and models with a time‐dependent decomposition rate factor. Leaching is the loss of nutrients via draining of water as a result of excess rainfall or irrigation. It is of environmental concern as it contributes to the contamination of the groundwater and surface‐water systems. The chapter presents an overview of processes for some selected soil dynamic models.<br/

Creating order: a quantitative analysis of psychiatric practice at the Swiss mental institutions of Burghölzli and Rheinau between 1870 and 1970

This paper analyses the concepts of order and normality underlying the daily psychiatric practice of two Swiss mental health institutions between 1870 and 1970, based on a representative random sample of 1330 patient records from the two state institutions in the Canton of Zurich. The quantitative analysis covers the types of psychiatric measure taken in these cases, as well as the rationales behind them. It is concluded that the order of the institution, of society and, above all, the order of gender played an important role in the choice and implementation of various measures