Fiber Reinforced Polymers (FRPs) offer higher durability and better performance than steel in strengthening and repairing existing structures, as externally bonded systems and as internal reinforcement for concrete elements, and can increase the life cycle of concrete elements. Nevertheless, FRP reinforced/strengthened concrete (FRP-RSC) elements need to be inspected regularly for effective maintenance and to ensure safety.This book addresses the absence of inspection guide and pro...

This book is a bifurcated journey through fifteen years of the architecture practice OODA, designed as a "dream state" inner dialogue between Some Kind of Romance and Any Kind of Existence: mirrored reflections of past and future projects that reflects the practice's work and exploring path from Porto to the world. Read together, these two parts are less about buildings than about a way of being in the world, offering an open narrative where architecture is presented as if in a chronicle, ...

One of the bloodiest and longest lasting revolutionary movements in Latin America described in graphic form.Rupay, in Quechua, means ardor, fire. On May 17th, 1980, the Shining Path, a Maoist group in Peru, burned the electoral records in a small town in the Ayacucho region to ignite the revolution that would set all of Peru aflame. This graphic novel retells the events relating to the start of the conflict, between 1980 and 1984, and the political violenc...

Biochar: Fueling a New Economy in the Developing World reveals how biochar is emerging as a powerful tool for climate change mitigation, economic resilience, and sustainable development. Written for entrepreneurs, project developers, policymakers, farmers, and sustainability leaders, this book bridges peer-reviewed science with real-world industry experience. Across agriculture, carbon markets, policy, and innovation, it presents practical pathways to turn biochar into scalable, f...

First published as opinion pieces, the essays in Divining Duterte provide contemporaneous commentaries on the context, course and consequences of the policies Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte pursued after his 2016 election.Duterte became the first president in seventy years to come from Mindanao and the first to vault from a city mayor’s office to Malacañang Palace. Exploiting the potential of social media, Duterte was an Asian example of the elected “populist strongman,” like Brazil’...

It happened more than 450,000 years ago. Beings from outer space came to planet Earth in search of resources: fuel for a distant planet.It all began in Sumer, in ancient Mesopotamia. You may think this is an outlandish story by someone who has not slept for some days, but everything you will read is well documented in the most ancient writings known to mankind: the Enuma Elish, Atrahasis, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and many more.These writings, made in cuneiform on clay, have served as a sourc...

Mastering the ultimate superpower of adaptability in the worlds where words mean life or death.

In this monumental treatise, Jesús Fernández-Pedrera takes on the methodological challenge of rescuing Mariology from its conceptual isolation and reintegrating it into the heart of dogmatic theology and the history of salvation.The work precisely dismantles the prejudices of the theology that emerged from the Reformation—which considered Mariology a pathological "excrescence" of the faith—demonstrating that each prerogative of the Mother of God is an indispensable...

Summa Mariologica: Biblical Mariology in the Economy of Salvation (Volume I).Fundamenta Biblica et Typologia Mariana.Is the truth about the Virgin Mary being deliberately silenced in our time?When marian doctrines face institutional minimization and systematic watering down under the guise of pastoral diplomacy, this monumental treatise stands as an uncompromising, intellectually rigorous defense of the Blessed Virgin Mary'...

For nearly two millennia, history has hidden its most important woman behind the label of "prostitute." The Cult of Mary Magdalene strips away fourteen centuries of deliberate distortion to reveal the real woman: the wealthy patroness, the intellectual equal of Jesus, and the undisputed Apostola Apostolorum (Apostle to the Apostles).The devastating "penitent whore" myth was born in 591 CE when Pope Gregory the Great fused Mary's identity with an anonymous sinner to consoli...

Separated by borders, sustained by hope, and forged in the heat of survival.

A Motivational Guide to Navigating the Real World from a Completely Blank Slate