Evaluation, repair and rehabilitation of bridges are increasingly important topics in the effort to deal with the deteriorating infrastructure. For example, in the United States about 40 percent of the nation's 570,000 bridges are classified, according to the Federal Highway Administra tion's (FHW A) criteria, as deficient and in need of rehabilitation and replacement. In other countries the situation is similar. FHW A estimates the cost of a bridge replacement and reha bilitation program at 50 billion dollars. The major factors that have contributed to the present situation are: the age, inadequate maintenance, increasing load spectra and environmental contamination. The deficient bridges are posted, repaired or replaced. The disposition of bridges involves clear economical and safety implications. To avoid high costs of replacement or repair, the evaluation must accurately reveal the present load carrying capacity of the struc ture and predict loads and any further changes in the capacity (deterioration) in the applicable time span. Accuracy of bridge evaluation can be improved by using the recent developments in bridge diagnostics, structural tests, material tests, structural analysis and probabilistic methods. There is a need for an international exchange of advanced experience to increase the research effi ciency. The Workshop is organized on the premise that the exchange of existing American and European experience in the area of bridge evaluation, repair and rehabilitation is beneficial for both parties involved."

At a time of unprecedented expansion in the life sciences, evolution is the one theory that transcends all of biology. Any observation of a living system must ultimately be interpreted in the context of its evolution. Evolutionary change is the consequence of mutation and natural selection, which are two concepts that can be described by mathematical equations."Evolutionary Dynamics" is concerned with these equations of life. In this book, Martin Nowak draws on the languages of biology and mathematics to outline the mathematical principles according to which life evolves. His work introduces readers to the powerful yet simple laws that govern the evolution of living systems, no matter how complicated they might seem.

Evolution has become a mathematical theory, Nowak suggests, and any idea of an evolutionary process or mechanism should be studied in the context of the mathematical equations of evolutionary dynamics. His book presents a range of analytical tools that can be used to this end: fitness landscapes, mutation matrices, genomic sequence space, random drift, quasispecies, replicators, the Prisoner's Dilemma, games in finite and infinite populations, evolutionary graph theory, games on grids, evolutionary kaleidoscopes, fractals, and spatial chaos. Nowak then shows how evolutionary dynamics applies to critical real-world problems, including the progression of viral diseases such as AIDS, the virulence of infectious agents, the unpredictable mutations that lead to cancer, the evolution of altruism, and even the evolution of human language. His book makes a clear and compelling case for understanding every living system--and everything that arises as a consequence of livingsystems--in terms of evolutionary dynamics.

Evaluation, repair and rehabilitation of bridges are increasingly important topics in the effort to deal with the deteriorating infrastructure. For example, in the United States about 40 percent of the nation's 570,000 bridges are classified, according to the Federal Highway Administra tion's (FHW A) criteria, as deficient and in need of rehabilitation and replacement. In other countries the situation is similar. FHW A estimates the cost of a bridge replacement and reha bilitation program at 50 billion dollars. The major factors that have contributed to the present situation are: the age, inadequate maintenance, increasing load spectra and environmental contamination. The deficient bridges are posted, repaired or replaced. The disposition of bridges involves clear economical and safety implications. To avoid high costs of replacement or repair, the evaluation must accurately reveal the present load carrying capacity of the struc ture and predict loads and any further changes in the capacity (deterioration) in the applicable time span. Accuracy of bridge evaluation can be improved by using the recent developments in bridge diagnostics, structural tests, material tests, structural analysis and probabilistic methods. There is a need for an international exchange of advanced experience to increase the research effi ciency. The Workshop is organized on the premise that the exchange of existing American and European experience in the area of bridge evaluation, repair and rehabilitation is beneficial for both parties involved."

The human hand can take on a huge variety of shapes and functions, providing its owner with a powerful hammer at one time or a delicate pair of forceps at another. The universal utility of the hand is even more enhanced by the ability to amplify the function of the hand by using tools. To understand and appreciate how the human brain controls movements of the hand, it is important to investigate both the healthy motor behaviour and dysfunction during everyday manipulative tasks. This book provides a contemporary summary of the physiology and pathophysiology of the manipulative and exploratory functions of the human hand. With contributions from scientists and clinical researchers of biomechanics, kinesiology, neurophysiology, psychology, physical medicine and rehabilitation, it covers the development of healthy human grasping over the lifespan, the wide spectrum of disability in the pathological state and links basic motor research with modern brain sciences.

According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism's reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors-rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics. Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms "cooperation" and "altruism." Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation-a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another-arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism-cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good-as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning. The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.