The Blast Mitigation for Structures Program (BMSP) is a research and development activity conducted by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to improve the performance of buildings that are targets of terrorist attack. The primary goal of the BMSP is to reduce loss of life and injuries to the occupants of these buildings through the development of innovative techniques for new structures and retrofitting existing facilities. The committee's findings and recommendations are contained in this initial assessment report.

An innovative dialogue between street culture and contemporary art featuring some of the most internationally renowned artists and photographers. Future/Memory is a book about the exhibition with the same name, organized in Dresden, Germany at HELLE- RAU - European Center for the Arts Dresden, during the summer of 2013. Future/Memory shows the nature of the work of artists like Boogie, Martha Cooper, Cody Hudson and Horfee - artists that all stems from, and get their inspiration from street culture and urban environment. Wasted objects in the street are turned into sculptures; images of children playing in the Bronx are transformed into timeless testimonies of the 1980s. Graffiti is convert- ed into abstract and conceptual art, and a blank wooden wall becomes a contemporary vision of an archaic altar. Future/Memory condenses images of the past and the future taken from human urban surroundings and enlightens the importance of the artistic dialogues, their gestures and energy of street life. The artists featured in Future/Memory are Boogie, Martha Cooper, Horfee, Cody Hudson, HuskMitNavn, Cleon Peterson, Jay "One" Ramier, Skki and SuperBlast."

A beautifully photographed, poetic and original perspective on the Italian contemporary urban landscape Luca Blast Forlani leads the reader through a range of urban spaces, places that, notwithstanding passing of time, have still retained their own identity. Although on the surface apparently empty and desolate, they each have a history and a story to tell; the details of identity caught in the lens, the clues of a life discarded but not entirely forgotten. These images are poignant, emotive and thought-provoking; the use of light and shadows, close-up details and wide-angle shots, footprints of the past, captured in the silence and the dust, like a long-forgotten conversation, a whisper of lives remembered.

This book provides a brief overview of worldwide terrorist activity and reviews technologies and methods for designing blast resistant buildings. These techniques, primarily developed by the military, have applicability and relevance to the design of civilian structures. The volume recommends that a program of applied research and technology transfer be undertaken to hasten the availability and utility of these techniques to the civilian building community. Table of Contents Front Matter Executive Summary 1 Introduction 2 Terrorism: Its Motives, Methods, and Immediate Results 3 Review of Existing Knowledge for Blast-Effects Mitigation and Protective Design Technologies 4 Blast-Effects Mitigation Potential for Commercial Buildings 5 Findings and Recommendations Appendix A: Financial Performance of a Commercial Office Building Appendix B: Computer Code Abstracts Provided by Code Developers Appendix C: Committee Briefings Appendix D: Biographical Sketches of Committee Members