Books on the topic 'RSM modelling'

<p>Society expects that buildings and other structures are safe for the people who use them or who are near them. The failure of a building or structure is expected to be an extremely rare event. Thus, society implicitly relies on the expertise of the professionals involved in the planning, design, construction, operation and maintenance of the structures it uses.<p>Structural engineers devote all their effort to meeting society’s expectations effi ciently. Engineers and scientists work together to develop solutions to structural problems. Given that nothing is absolutely and eternally safe, the goal is to attain an acceptably small probability of failure for a structure, a facility, or a situation. Reliability analysis is part of the science and practice of engineering today, not only with respect to the safety of structures, but also for questions of serviceability and other requirements of technical systems that might be impacted by some probability.<p>The present volume takes a rather broad approach to safety and reliability in Structural Engineering. It treats the underlying concepts of safety, reliability and risk and introduces the reader in a fi rst chapter to the main concepts and strategies for dealing with hazards. The next chapter is devoted to the processing of data into information that is relevant for applying reliability theory. Two following chapters deal with the modelling of structures and with methods of reliability analysis. Another chapter focuses on problems related to establishing target reliabilities, assessing existing structures, and on effective strategies against human error. The last chapter presents an outlook to more advanced applications. The Appendix supports the application of the methods proposed and refers readers to a number of related computer programs.<p>This book is aimed at both students and practicing engineers. It presents the concepts and procedures of reliability analysis in a straightforward, understandable way, making use of simple examples, rather than extended theoretical discussion. It is hoped that this approach serves to advance the application of safety and reliability analysis in engineering practice.<p>The book is amended with a free access to an educational version of a Variables Processor computer program. FreeVaP can be downloaded free of charge and supports the understanding of the subjects treated in this book.

The book explains the key notions and fundamental processes in the dynamics of the fluid envelopes of the Earth (transposable to other planets), and methods of their analysis, from the unifying viewpoint of rotating shallow-water model (RSW). The model, in its one- or two-layer versions, plays a distinguished role in geophysical fluid dynamics, having been used for around a century for conceptual understanding of various phenomena, for elaboration of approaches and methods, to be applied later in more complete models, for development and testing of numerical codes and schemes of data assimilations, and many other purposes. Principles of modelling of large-scale atmospheric and oceanic flows, and corresponding approximations, are explained and it is shown how single- and multi-layer versions of RSW arise from the primitive equations by vertical averaging, and how further time-averaging produces celebrated quasi-geostrophic reductions of the model. Key concepts of geophysical fluid dynamics are exposed and interpreted in RSW terms, and fundamentals of vortex and wave dynamics are explained in Part 1 of the book, which is supplied with exercises and can be used as a textbook. Solutions of the problems are available at Editorial Office by request. In-depth treatment of dynamical processes, with special accent on the primordial process of geostrophic adjustment, on instabilities in geophysical flows, vortex and wave turbulence and on nonlinear wave interactions follows in Part 2. Recently arisen new approaches in, and applications of RSW, including moist-convective processes constitute Part 3.

Most Geographic Information Systems started as a substitute for loose paper maps. These paper maps did not have a built-in time dimension and could only represent history indirectly as a sequence of physically separate images. This was in fact imitated by these first generation systems. The time dimension could only be represented by means of separate files. A minority of Geographic Information Systems however, started their life as a substitute for ordered lists and tables with a link to paper maps. In these lists, the inclusion of a time com-ponent in the form of a data field was quite usual. This method too was copied by the systems that replaced these paper tables. The current trend in the development of Geographic Information Systems is towards the inte-gration of the classical map-oriented concepts with the table-oriented concepts. This often leads to the explicit embedding of the time component in the GIS environment. The Subcommission Geo-Information Models of the Netherlands Geodetic Commission has organized a workshop to discuss the theory and practice of time and history in GIS on 18 May 2000. This publication contains 6 articles prepared for the workshop. The first paper, written by Donna Peuquet, gives a bird’s-eye view of the current state of the art in spatio-temporal database technology and methodology. She is a well-known expert in the field of spatio-temporal information systems and the author of many articles in this field. The second article is written by Monica Wachowicz. She describes what you can do with a GIS once it contains a historical dimension and how you can detect changes in geographic phenomena. Furthermore, her article suggests how geographic visualisation and knowledge discovery techniques can be integrated in a spatio-temporal database. How to record the time dimension in a database is one thing, how to show this dimension to users is another one. In his contribution, Menno-Jan Kraak first tells about the techniques, which were used in the age of paper maps and the limitations these methods had. He goes on to explain what kind of cartographic techniques have been developed since the mass introduc-tion of the computer. Finally he describes the powerful animation methods which currently exist and can be used on CD-ROM and Internet applications. Peter van Oosterom describes how the time dimension is represented in the information sys-tems of the Cadastre and how this is used to publish updates. The Cadastre has a very long tradition in incorporating the time component, which has always been an inherent component of the cadastral registration. In former times this was translated in very precise procedures about how to update the paper maps and registers. Today it is translated in spatio-temporal database design. The article of Luc Heres tells about the time component in the National Road Database, origi-nally designed for traffic accident registration. This is one of the systems with ''table'' roots and with quite a long tradition in handling the time dimension. He elucidates first the core objects in the conceptual model and how time is added. Next, how this model is translated in a logical design and finally how this is technically implemented. Geologists and geophysicians also have a respectable tradition in handling the time dimension in the data they collect. This is illustrated in the last paper, which is written by Ipo Ritsema. He outlines how time is handled in geological and geophysical databases maintained by TNO. By means of some practical cases he illustrates which problems can be encountered and how these can be solved.