TO THE GERMAN EDITION This book is addressed to those engineering students who are prepared to work-not to such as are content to refurbish existing designs without taking the trouble to understand the trains of thought and the considerations which are needed in true design work. It is a well-established fact that the beginner, confronted by the simplest of design problems, and lacking a pattern or model to suggest a solution, loses his way in endless trial and error unless given positive ...

This book provides senior undergraduate students, master students and structural engineers who do not have a background in the field with core knowledge of structural earthquake engineering that will be invaluable in their professional lives. The basics of seismotectonics, including the causes, magnitude, and intensity of earthquakes, are first explained. Then the book introduces basic elements of seismic hazard analysis and presents the concept of a seismic hazard map for use in seismic d...

A new high-level book for professionals from Atlantis Press providing an overview of nanotechnologies now and their applications in a broad variety of fields, including information and communication technologies, environmental sciences and engineering, societal life, and medicine, with provision of customized treatments.The book shows where nanotechnology is now - a fascinating time when the science is transitioning into complex systems with impact on new products. Present and futu...

The dilemma facing Cyprus—that of limited water supplies (both in terms of quantity and quality) in the face of steadily increasing water demand, coupled with a fragmented institutional structure of the water sector—is characteristic of most arid and semi-arid countries all over the world. Another common characteristic of Cyprus is that the water management administrative boundaries there do not coincide with the hydrological ones, while the ongoing political problem of the island creates ...

Describing a new optimization algorithm, the “Teaching-Learning-Based Optimization (TLBO),” in a clear and lucid style, this book maximizes reader insights into how the TLBO algorithm can be used to solve continuous and discrete optimization problems involving single or multiple objectives.As the algorithm operates on the principle of teaching and learning, where teachers influence the quality of learners’ results, the elitist version of TLBO algorithm (ETLBO) is described along wi...

This book provides a synthesis of recent developments in Axiomatic Design theory and its application in large complex systems. Introductory chapters provide concise tutorial materials for graduate students and new practitioners, presenting the fundamentals of Axiomatic Design and relating its key concepts to those of model-based systems engineering. A mathematical exposition of design axioms is also provided.The main body of the book, which represents a concentrated treatment of se...

Soil reinforcement is a very useful technique to construct several cost-effective soil structures in an environmentally friendly and sustainable manner. The most commonly used reinforcement materials are galvanised steel strips, geosynthetics in the form of woven geotextiles, geogrids and geocomposites, and fibres from natural and waste products. In recent years, there have been advances in the area of soil reinforcement, especially in the utilization of the technique in field projects. Th...

These proceedings present the latest information on regulations and standards for medical and non-medical devices, including wearable robots for gait training and support, design of exoskeletons for the elderly, innovations in assistive robotics, and analysis of human–machine interactions taking into account ergonomic considerations. The rapid development of key mechatronics technologies in recent years has shown that human living standards have significantly improved, and the Internationa...

This book provides a useful overall guide to the state of the art in theory and practice of services. It can also serve as a reference book for researchers in various fields, including engineering, marketing, economics, and other disciplines. Advanced works presented here were selected from the proceedings of the Second International Conference on Serviceology (ICServ2014), held September 14–16, 2014. This book helps readers to understand serviceology, which tackles with a broad range of s...

Design is a conceptive activity which is usually presented as a sensible, sequential process and action. This book claims that design cannot be reduced to the rational, effective planning and organization that most models (such as design thinking) present. The author suggests another type of rationality which is based on what the humanities call aesthetics, writing, composition, and style: a rationality based in imaginary elaboration and coherence. The chapters, therefore, demonstrate that...

This volume includes a collection of technical papers covering two important research topics in geotechnical engineering: (1) the behavior and treatment of expansive soils, and (2) the characterization of rock properties. The twelve studies on expansive soils include investigations into novel stabilization techniques for expansive soils using different admixtures or mechanical consolidation techniques, as well as new experimental approaches to evaluate the behavior of expansive soils. They...

This book showcases over 100 cutting-edge research papers from the 4th International Conference on Research into Design (ICoRD’13) – the largest in India in this area – written by eminent researchers from over 20 countries, on the design process, methods and tools, for supporting global product development (GPD). The special features of the book are the variety of insights into the GPD process, and the host of methods and tools at the cutting edge of all major areas of design research for ...