This book illustrates, in detail, the state of the art in the multidisciplinary science of multi-physics optimization. In a context of the perpetual search for improved industrial competitiveness, the evolution of product design and optimization methods and tools appears to be a strategic necessity in view of the imperative to reduce costs. In the aeronautics sector, resources are mainly focused on forecasting and controlling the costs incurred by failures that occur at commissioning, duri...

First-person accounts by scholars and journalists of the Arab Spring and the revolution that ended Mubarak's presidency.On January 25, 2011, the world's eyes were on Egypt's Tahrir Square as millions of people poured into the city center to call for the resignation of president Hosni Mubarak. Since then, few scholars or journalists have been given the opportunity to reflect on the nationwide moment of transformation and the hope that was embodied by the Egyptian Rev...

Probabilistic modeling of system performance, built primarily on the foundation of reliability theory, is referred to as reliability-based modeling.This book progressively builds up the functional complexity of system modeling. It starts by modeling the simplest system that can be designed, and then moves to the functional modeling of the multi-state system, step-by-step.Reliability-based Modeling of System Performance deals with modeling the funct...

This book investigates the interplay between media, politics, religion, and culture in shaping Arabs' quest for more stable and democratic governance models in the aftermath of the “Arab Spring” uprisings. It focuses on online mediated public debates, specifically user comments on online Arab news sites, and their potential to re-engage citizens in politics. Contributors systematically explore and critique these online communities and spaces in the context of the Arab uprisings, with case ...

This book provides systematic, integrated analyses of emergent social and cultural dynamics in the wake of the so-called Arab Spring, and looks closely at the narratives and experiences of a people as they confront crisis during a critical moment of transition. Providing an interdisciplinary approach to interconnections across regional and communal boundaries, this volume situates itself at the intersection of political science, cultural studies, media and film studies, and Middle Eastern ...

Beneficial properties of graphitic carbon nitride (gCN) have been discovered in recent years during the promotion of its visible‐light‐driven photocatalytic activity for water splitting. Applications of gCN have flourished in such fields as renewable energy production and environmental remediation, while gCNs have been explored to serve as electrocatalysts, electronic and photoelectronic devices, non-volatile memory devices, anodes in lithium‐ion batteries, and platinum supports in polymer...

An exploration of gender, the Arab Spring, and women's experiences of revolution, including firsthand accounts.In Women of the Midan, Sherine Hafez demonstrates how women were a central part of revolutionary process of the Arab Spring. Women not only protested in the streets of Cairo, they demanded democracy, social justice, and renegotiation of a variety of sociocultural structures. Women's resistance to state control, Islamism, neoliberal market changes,...

"Thoughtful, highly relevant, and frequently brilliant essays on the contemporary ideas, organization, activities, and agency of Muslim women" (Nikki Keddie, author of Women in the Middle East: Past and Present).The world has drastically changed in recent years due to armed conflict, economic issues, and cultural revolutions both positive and negative. Nowhere have those changes been felt more than in the Middle East and Muslim worlds. And no one within th...

The purpose of this book is to present the main methods of static and dynamic optimization. It has been written within the framework of the European Union project – ERRIC (Empowering Romanian Research on Intelligent Information Technologies), funded by the EU’s FP7 Research Potential program and developed in cooperation between French and Romanian teaching researchers.Through the principles of various proposed algorithms (with additional references) this book allows the interested ...

This book takes predominant crowd theory to task, questioning received ideas about ‘mob psychology’ that remain prevalent today. It is a synchronic study of crowds, crowd dynamics and the relationships of crowds to political power in Tunisia, Libya and Algeria (2011-2013) that has far reaching implications embedded in its thesis.One central theme of the book is gender, providing an in-depth look at women’s participation in the recent uprisings and crowds of 2011-2013 and the subseq...

Uncertainty and Optimization in Structural MechanicsOptimization is generally a reduction operation of a definite quantity. This process naturally takes place in our environment and through our activities. For example, many natural systems evolve, in order to minimize their potential energy. Modeling these phenomena then largely relies on our capacity to artificially reproduce these processes. In parallel, optimization problems have quickly emerged from hu...

The sociology of the Middle East has been an expanding field of inquiry since the aftermath of World War II when the Middle East became central in key sociological debates on modernization theory and their critical responses. The Oxford Handbook of the Sociology of the Middle East connects this historical trajectory with the emergence of the sociology of Islam, inspired by Max Weber. It explores how within the global community, the Middle East has become a terrain of heightened co...