This book covers a wide range of issues in fire safety engineering in tunnels, describes the phenomena related to tunnel fire dynamics, presents state-of-the-art research, and gives detailed solutions to these major issues. Examples for calculations are provided. The aim is to significantly improve the understanding of fire safety engineering in tunnels. Chapters on fuel and ventilation control…
This book focuses on civil and structural engineering and construction management applications. The contributions constitute modified, extended and improved versions of research presented at the minisymposium organized by the editors at the ECCOMAS conference on this topic in Barcelona 2014.
This thesis provides a new approach to the Ethiopian Land Law debate. The basic argument made in this thesis is that even if the Ethiopian Constitution provides and guarantees common ownership of land (together with the state) to the people, this right has not been fully realized whether in terms of land accessibility, enjoyability, and payment of fair compensation in the event of expropriation…
This timely book deals with a current topic, i.e. the applications of metaheuristic algorithms, with a primary focus on optimization problems in civil engineering. The first chapter offers a concise overview of different kinds of metaheuristic algorithms, explaining their advantages in solving complex engineering problems that cannot be effectively tackled by traditional methods, and citing the…
This SpringerBrief offers careful assessments of the appropriateness and effectiveness of currently available methodologies for fire flow. It explains the water supply requirements for firefighting including rate of flow, the residual pressure required at that flow, and the duration that is necessary to control a major fire in a specific structure. First reviewing existing fire flow calculation…
This book presents an overview of modeling definitions and concepts, theory on human behavior and human performance data, available tools and simulation approaches, model development, and application and validation methods. It considers the data and research efforts needed to develop and incorporate functions for the different parameters into comprehensive escape and evacuation simulations, wit…
This anthology highlights the theoretical foundations as well as the various applications of Behavioural Law and Economics in European legal culture. By the same token, it fosters the dialogue between European and American Law and Economics scholars. The traditional neo-classical microeconomic theory explains human behaviour by using Rational Choice. According to this model, people tend to m…
Given the increasing global interest in Chinese culture, this book uses case studies to describe and interpret Chinese cultivation in contemporary Taiwanese schools. Cultivation is a concept unique to Chinese culture and is characterized by different attitudes towards teaching and learning compared to Western models of education. The book starts with a discussion of human nature in Chinese scho…
Biobank research and genomic information are changing the way we look at health and medicine. Genomics challenges our values and has always been controversial and difficult to regulate. In the future lies the promise of tailored medical treatments and pharmacogenomics but the borders between medical research and clinical practice are becoming blurred. We see sequencing platforms for research th…
The chapters which appear in this volume are selected studies presented at the First International Conference on Engineering and Applied Sciences Optimization (OPT-i), Kos, Greece, 4-6 June 2014 and works written by friends, former colleagues and students of the late Professor M. G. Karlaftis; all in the area of optimization that he loved and published so much in himself. The subject areas repr…