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Complex Systems occur in an infinite variety of problems, not only
in the realm of physical sciences and engineering, but encompassing
fields as diverse as economy, the environment, humanities, social
and political sciences. The high level of dynamics of such systems,
which is usually expressed through the frequent occurrence of
unpredictable disruptive events, makes conventional optimizers,
batch schedulers and resource planning systems unworkable. Composed
of selected research papers, this book brings together new
developments and processes for managing complexity. The included
works originate from renowned complexity thinkers, well established
practitioners and new researchers in the field and detail issues of
common interest. This title will particularly appeal to
researchers, developers and users of complex systems from a variety
of disciplines, alongside specialists in modelling complex issues.
Selected paper presented at the 1st International Conference on
Urban Agriculture and City Sustainability are contained in this
book. The research reviews ways in which urban agriculture can
contribute to achieve sustainable cities and considers ways of
reducing the impact in terms of use of natural resources, waste
production and climate change. The increasing number of people in
cities requires new strategies to supply the necessary food with
limited provision of land and decreasing resources. This will
become more challenging unless innovative solutions for growing and
distributing food in urban environments are considered. The scale
of modern food production has created and exacerbated many
vulnerabilities and the feeding of cities is now infinitely more
complex. As such the food system cannot be considered secure,
ethical or sustainable. In the last few years there has been a
rapid expansion in initiatives and projects exploring innovative
methods and processes for sustainable food production. The majority
of these projects are focused on providing alternative models that
shift the power back from the global food system to communities and
farmers improving social cohesion, health and wellbeing. It is
therefore not surprising that more people are looking towards urban
farming initiatives as a potential solution. These initiatives have
demonstrated that urban agriculture has the potential to transform
our living environment towards ecologically sustainable and healthy
cities. Urban agriculture can also contribute to energy, natural
resources, land and water savings, ecological diversity and urban
management cost reductions. The impact urban agriculture can have
on the shape and form of our cities has never been fully addressed.
The studies included in this volume look at how cities embed these
new approaches and initiatives, as part of new urban developments
and show that a city regeneration strategy is critical.
Comprises a collection of papers presented at the 7th International
Conference on Harmonisation between Architecture and Nature, this
volume reviews the challenges and new opportunities of contemporary
architecture. These papers cover the results of advances in design
and new building technologies, as well as the development of new
materials. Many of the changes are motivated by a drive towards
eco-architecture, trying to harmonise architectural products with
nature. Another important issue is the adaptation of the
architectural design to the natural environment, learning from
nature and traditional construction techniques. Never before in
history have architects and engineers had such a range of new
processes and products open to them. In spite of that, the
construction industry lags behind all others in taking advantage of
a wide variety of new technologies. This is understandable, due to
the inherent complexity and uniqueness of each architectural
project. Advances in computer and information systems, including
robotics, offers the possibility of developing new architectural
forms, construction products and building technologies, which are
just now starting to emerge. Changes have also taken place in the
way in which modern society works and lives, due to the impact of
modern technologies. Patterns of work have been disrupted and
changed, affecting transportation and the home environment. The
demand is for a new type of habitat that can respond to the changes
and the consequent requirements in terms of urban environment. The
papers contained in this book deal with topics such as building
technologies, design by passive systems, design with nature,
cultural sensitivity, life cycle assessment, resources and
rehabilitation and many others including case studies from many
different places around the world. They will be of interest to
architects, engineers, planners, physical scientists, sociologists
and economists.
Containing the proceedings from the 41st conference on Boundary
Elements and other Mesh Reduction Methods (BEM/MRM), this book is a
collection of high quality papers that report on advances in
techniques that reduce or eliminate the type of meshes associated
with such methods as finite elements or finite differences. As
design, analysis and manufacture become more integrated the chances
are that the users will be less aware of the capabilities of the
analytical techniques that are at the core of the process. This
reinforces the need to retain expertise in certain specialised
areas of numerical methods, such as BEM/MRM, to ensure that all new
tools perform satisfactorily in the integrated process. The
maturity of BEM since 1978 has resulted in a substantial number of
industrial applications that demonstrate the accuracy, robustness
and easy use of the technique. Their range still needs to be
widened, taking into account the potentialities of the Mesh
Reduction techniques in general. The papers in this volume help to
expand the range of applications as well as the type of materials
in response to industrial and professional requirements.
Containing papers from the 3rd International Conference on Energy
Production and Management: The Quest for Sustainable Energy, this
book discusses the future creation and use of energy resources. It
also examines the issue of converting new sustainable sources of
energy into useful forms, while finding efficient methods of
storage and distribution. An important objective of the book is
discussing ways in which more efficient use can be made of
conventional as well as new energy sources. This relates to savings
in energy consumption, reduction of energy losses, as well as the
implementation of smart devices and the design of intelligent
distribution networks. This volume provides a comparison of
conventional energy sources, particularly hydrocarbons, with a
number of other ways of producing energy, emphasising new
technological developments, based on renewable resources such as
solar, hydro, wind and geothermal. In many cases the challenges lie
as much with production of such renewable energy at an acceptable
cost, including damage to the environment, as with integration of
those resources into the existing infrastructure. The changes
required to progress from an economy based mainly on hydrocarbons
to one taking advantage of sustainable energy resources are massive
and require considerable scientific research as well as the
development of advanced engineering systems. Such progress demands
close collaboration between different disciplines in order to
arrive at optimum solutions.
Corrosion is a degrading material process frequently encountered in
engineering structures and components, which may lead to costly and
catastrophic failures if not properly and timely addressed. This
volume describes a wide spectrum of experimental and analytical
studies, which provide a fairly comprehensive account of corrosion
manifestations and methodologies for addressing them in structural
and industrial design. As such, it is expected to make a valuable
reference publication for engineers and scientists interested in
the protection of structures and components from harmful and
potentially ruinous corrosive action.The collected articles
comprising this volume address issues which can be categorised into
two main areas. The first is concerned with material science
approaches to corrosion, that is, visual or instrumental means of
assessing existing behaviour or effectiveness of corrective
measures and techniques. The second part of the volume comprises
boundary element simulations of cathodic protection schemes for the
purpose of predicting and optimising their performance.A number of
practical problems are analysed such as: the coating condition on a
ballast tank wall; the impressed current cathodic protection of an
offshore platform and minimizing a ship's electric and magnetic
signature. Topics covered include: Elemental identification;
Material loss; Strain fields; Stress corrosion cracking; Corrosion
resistance; Fretting corrosion; Contact surface damage;
Electrochemical testing; Coating conditions; Cathodic protection;
Current density distribution; Pipelines and deep well casings;
Electric and magnetic signatures; Coating damage effects; Galvanic
corrosion.
Waste to Energy deals with the very topical subject of converting
the calorific content of waste material into useful forms of
energy. It complements and, to a certain degree, overlaps with its
companion volume, "Biomass to Biofuels", since a significant
proportion of biomass converted to energy nowadays originates from
various types of waste. The material in the first, more substantial
part of the volume has been arranged according to the type of
process for energy conversion. Biochemical processes are described
in six articles. These relate to the production of methane by
anaerobic digestion; reactor conversion efficiencies;
investigations on ethanol production from biodegradable municipal
solid waste through hydrolysis and fermentation; hydrogen
production from glucose through a hybrid anaerobic and
photosynthetic process; biodiesel production from used cooking oil
through base-catalyzed transesterification. Conversions by
thermochemical processes are discussed in the subsequent eleven
articles of the volume.These cover combustion, the direct use of
heat energy; using the heat produced in thermal power stations for
steam and, ultimately, electricity generation; municipal solid
waste and refuse-derived fuel. In another article, computational
fluid dynamics modelling is applied to assess the influence of
process parameters and to perform optimization studies. A group of
articles deal with more complex thermochemical processes involving
combustion combined with pyrolysis and gasification. Two articles
focus on biofuels as feed for fuel cells. In the last six articles,
the emphasis is on management and policy rather than technical
issues.
Biomass is a continuously renewed source of energy formed from or
by a wide variety of living organisms. Through biochemical and
thermochemical processes, it is converted into gaseous, liquid or
solid biofuels, which already meet a significant share of the
current world energy needs. Because of their contribution to the
sustainability of energy supply, reduction of green house gas
emissions as well as local employment and energy self-reliance,
research interest and activity in enhancing biofuel energy output,
efficiency and performance remain strong. The first part of this
volume comprises five articles mainly concerned with biomass
resource potential and management. More specifically, the reported
investigations assess grass and lawn substrates, rapeseed straw and
microalgae from Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor
effluents as possible sources of biogas, bioethanol and biodiesel,
respectively. The emphasis in the subsequent group of eleven
articles is on biomass conversion processes, aiming at assessing
performance as well as output quality and diversity.Biodiesel, a
fluid biofuel produced from biomass with high lipids such as
rapeseed oil, sunflowers and soy beans, is the focus of two
articles: the first investigates the effect of biodiesel blending
with diesel fuel on diesel engine performance and emissions; the
second assesses the efficiency of catalytic reforming of biodiesel
into a gaseous mixture, used directly as Solid Oxide Fuel Cell
(SOFC) fuel. In the last three articles, the prospects of biofuels
as viable sources of energy are examined within European contexts.
This volume addresses a significant number of important themes and
thus combines subject breadth and density with in-depth study of
biomass resourcing and processing as well as the issue of biofuel
and renewable energy sustainability.
Masonry is a traditional, highly durable mode of construction; many
heritage masonry structures, built at various historical periods,
have survived, to a lesser or greater extent, adverse environmental
conditions, which have reduced, sometimes considerably, their
integrity, strength and durability. Due to the cultural
significance of heritage architecture, resources are today
allocated towards their restoration and conservation. This volume
comprises distinguished contributions from the Transactions of the
Wessex Institute describing research efforts towards achieving
these objectives. Topics covered include: Understanding of
constituent materials, modes of construction and overall mechanical
behaviour; Dynamic behaviour; Sonic pulse velocity tests;
Micro-vibration measurements; Failure mechanisms; Structural
strength assessment; Binding material mixtures; Composition and
properties of ancient mortars; Contemporary repair material;
Infra-red thermography measurements; Mortars, plasters, renders and
grouts. The various issues mentioned above are addressed by the
present collection of scientific papers with considerable insight
and thoroughness.It is thus hoped that this volume will fill a gap
in the literature as a valuable source of information and guidance
to researchers and engineers working in the area of restoration and
conservation of heritage masonry structures.
The preservation of heritage architecture is a cultural objective
rigorously pursued by communities and nations wishing to promote
their history, civilisation and aesthetic achievements. Structures
built in the remote past by traditional methods have suffered the
consequences of extreme loading events, such as earthquakes, over
long time periods. Retrofitting is an approach based on recent
technological developments and scientific knowledge, whereby modern
construction methods and materials are applied to the repair and
strengthening of historical structures. This book aims to inform on
current retrofitting techniques, their application to various types
of historical architecture and their effectiveness to fulfil their
purpose. Retrofitted structural forms covered in the book vary
widely from age old places of worship, such as churches, mosques
and temples, as well as castles and palaces to more modern,
distinguished private residences or public buildings, some of them
designed by well known architects. Their methods of construction
range from traditional, such as stone or brick masonry to more
recent textile block systems and even reinforced concrete
frameworks.Reference is made to detailed visual inspections of
damaged structure providing valuable insight into possible causes
of failure; such inspections are usually combined with material
characterisation which is an essential input to numerical modelling
for assessing the behaviour of the structure before and after
retrofitting. The book describes strengthening techniques for
masonry walls including re-pointing, injection grouting and the use
of steel ties. The use of reinforced concrete is proposed in the
form of cast-in-place walls, jackets or tie-beams; that of carbon
fibre reinforced laminates for strengthening walls and slabs.
Innovative use of materials, such as shape memory alloys,
self-compacting concrete or thin lead layers is also suggested.
Particular attention is given to methods for moderating the
consequences of destructive earthquakes. Seismic energy absorbing
devices and base isolation systems are two effective means of
providing protection against future seismic events although their
application is often met with many technical challenges in
practice.Retrofitting of Heritage Structures: Design and evaluation
of strengthening techniques will be of interest to members of
academic institutions, government or private cultural preservation
establishments and specialist consultant engineers. The book
contains very practical, technical advice on many issues; this
would be of considerable interest to construction companies
specialising in repairs and maintenance of historical structures.
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