David C. Brown

Contrary to popular mythology, the designs of favorable products and successful systems do not appear suddenly, or magically. This second edition of Engineering Design demonstrates that symbolic representation and related problem-solving methods, offer significant opportunities to clarify and articulate concepts of design to lay a better framework for design research and design education. Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides a substantial body of material concerned with understanding and modeling cognitive processes. This book adopts the vocabulary and a paradigm of AI to enhance the presentation and explanation of design. It includes concepts from AI because of their explanatory power and their utility as possible ingredients of practical design activity. This second edition has been enriched by the inclusion of recent work on design reasoning, computational design, AI in design, and design cognition, with pointers to a wide cross section of the current literature.

This book includes much of the verse in traditional styles on Christian subjects that I have written. By "traditional styles" I mean those that have a regular rhythm and, generally, rhyme. Some of them, the judgment being in the mind of the reader, may be poetry. They include numerous sonnets and other set forms. Some are very brief, while others are prolonged considerations of Christian truth. "Progress" relates the journey of Israel from Egypt to the setting up of the temple and the insight it gives on Christian. May the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit be glorified in all things "Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another, in psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to God."

The Devil's Spawn The Devil's Spawn is Captain Al Belcher's faithful account of the Zircon Army's campaign to win Uneeda and seize a three-ton hoard of gold.The Uneeda battle was one of many in a bitter war for supremacy that had raged for a century between races. The hemocyanin creatures, Ichneumons, want to rule the planet, Erden. To accomplish their goal, the devils wagged genocide on humans and war on the Zircon Empire.The empire has recently forced the Ichneumons from the strategic important Erie River valley, but the cat-eyed devils still control the inland sea and valuable western gold mines around Uneeda. The Zircon army orders Captain Belcher and his men to harass that Ichneumon garrison and stop their enslavement and murder of ranchers, farmers, and the Indigenous tribes. The twisted Ichneumon religion of blood sacrifices, and human greed for gold and slaves, exacerbates the brutality of the Uneeda campaign.Covetous aristocrats, rare otters, murderous chiefs, and friendly females complicate Al's mission.

Rex Knight is a survivor and intends to make a life for himself in the quasi-civilized Erden where he was mysteriously teleported. Opportunities and hazards exist for a modern man in a nineteenth century world of Civil War era technology, slavery, drugs, cotton, and competing colonial empires. With Rex's help, the indigenous Wapitis have prevailed in their confrontation with warlord James Donnelly. Unfortunately, that success has earned him the odium of the not-quite-human Ichneumon emperor who has much gold and a predilection for hiring bounty hunters to collect his enemies' heads. Rex figured an alien emperor couldn't be any worse than the Afghanistan Taliban and focused on making a living in an alien world. He believed the new river steamboats and hauling cargos offered an opportunity to build a business, if their boilers would stop exploding. A young female slave claims to have solutions to that problem and Rex's Ichneumon predicament. She's willing to barter. He's not sure either of them can afford her price for helping him.

Nitro Wild continues the chronicle of a modern man endeavoring to survive on an alternate earth of 19th century technology, slavery, and competing colonial empires. Rex Knight, an Afghan War veteran, has been mysteriously teleported from a peaceful surveying project in West Virginia to the semi-lawless Appalachia on Erden where the Prussian and Ichneumon Empires are vying for dominance. Endangered by the clashing empires are Rex's friends, the indigenous Wapiti and an escaped slave, Amy Caroom, who is, among other things, his partner in a river steamboat and a machine shop. The non-human Ichneumon army is poised to ravage the Wapiti homeland when the winter ends. The Prussians are willing to help the Wapiti, but lack the means to stop the Ichneumon armored riverboats. Complicating matters for the Prussian army is the threat of rebellion by the slave owners in their territories over the emperor's edict outlawing slavery. Rumors of a coup d' tat in Berlin are rampant. The Mongol Empire on Prussia's eastern border is furious over the stopping of the slave trade and threaten war. The Ichneumons sense opportunity to deal their rival a knockout blow. Their army will help the rebellious plantation owners seize control of the Prussian territories along with the Wapiti homeland. Rex will need all his wits, shrewdness, audacity, and even duplicity to survive and protect his partner and friends.

Rex Knight, a native West Virginian and Afghan War vet, is mysteriously teleported from a peaceful surveying job to the semi-lawless frontier of an alternate Appalachia world of Civil War era technology, slavery, drugs, cotton, and competing colonial empires. The world straddling Prussian Empire, whose emperor claims to have descended from God, is vying with the sinister Ichneumon Empire for control of the North American continent. Endangered by the clashing empires are the indigenous Wapitis. Rex is appalled by the oppression and murder inflicted on the Wapitis by James Donnelly, a warlord employed by the Ichneumons. Azure blood and social structure mark the Ichneumons as not quite human. The Wapitis, locked in a deadly struggle to avoid slavery and extinction, appeal to Rex, who looks like a Prussian, to help them obtain rifles and ammunition. Aware the Prussians hang people caught selling firearms to the Wapitis, Rex . . .

Contrary to popular mythology, the designs of favorable products and successful systems do not appear suddenly, or magically. This second edition of Engineering Design demonstrates that symbolic representation and related problem-solving methods, offer significant opportunities to clarify and articulate concepts of design to lay a better framework for design research and design education. Artificial Intelligence (AI) provides a substantial body of material concerned with understanding and modeling cognitive processes. This book adopts the vocabulary and a paradigm of AI to enhance the presentation and explanation of design. It includes concepts from AI because of their explanatory power and their utility as possible ingredients of practical design activity. This second edition has been enriched by the inclusion of recent work on design reasoning, computational design, AI in design, and design cognition, with pointers to a wide cross section of the current literature.