Aging, shaking, and cracking of infrastructures : From mechanics to concrete dams and nuclear structures
Focuses on the safety assessment of existing structures subjected to multi-hazard scenarios through advanced numerical methods. Whereas the focus is on concrete dams and nuclear containment structures, the presented methodologies can also be applied to other large-scale ones. This book is composed of seven sections: Fundamentals: theoretical coverage of solid mechnics, plasticity, fracture mechanics, creep, / seismology, dynamic analysis, probability and statistics / Damage: that can affect concrete structures, such as cracking of concrete, AAR, chloride ingress, and rebar corrosion, / Finite Element: formulation for both linear and nonlinear analysis including stress, heat and fracture mechanics, / Engineering Models: for soil/fluid-structure interaction, uncertainty quantification, probablilistic and random finite element analysis, machine learning, performance based earthquake engineering, ground motion intensity measures, seismic hazard analysis, capacity/fragility functions and damage indeces, / Applications to dams through potential failure mode analyses, risk-informed decision making, deterministic and probabilistic examples, / Applications to nuclear structures through modeling issues, aging management programs, critical review of some analyses, / Other applications and case studies: massive RC structures and bridges, detailed assessment of a nuclear containment structure evaluation for license renewal.
Advances in Control, Signal Processing and Energy Systems : Select Proceedings of CSPES 2018
Covers topics on both theoretical control systems and their applications across engineering domains such as automatic control, robotics, and adaptive controller design. It discusses several signal processing domains such as image, speech, biomedical signal processing and their applications in IOT, control, robotics, power and energy systems. The book emphasizes both conventional and non-conventional energy, environment, and green processes as related to energy and power systems engineering.
Adapting the built environment for climate change : Design principles for climate emergencies
Adapting the Built Environment for Climate Change: Design Principles for Climate Emergencies analyzes several scenarios and proposes various adaptation strategies for climate emergencies (heat waves, wildfires, floods, and storms). Divided into three themes, the book offers an organized vision of a complex and multi-factor challenge. It covers climatic resilience and building refurbishment, implications for service life prediction and maintainability, and climate adaptation in the maintenance and management of buildings. Sections cover infrastructure materials, climate emergency adaptation and building adaptation to heat waves, wildfires, floods and storms.
Mass Customization : Challenges and Solutions
Mass Customization: Challenges and Solutions defines the parameters of the emerging business strategy, mass customization. The book will cover the main categories of the area with a systematic examination of the following themes: manufacturing systems and mass customization, supply chain management and mass customization, and information systems and mass customization.
Marginality : Addressing the Nexus of poverty, exclusion and ecology
In this volume economists, ecology experts, geographers, agronomists, sociologist, and business experts come together to address marginality. The inter-disciplinary research offers conceptual innovations and presents the dimensions of marginality in developing countries. Economic, political, and environmental drivers are assessed and mapped globally and in detail for countries in Africa and Asia, especially Ethiopia, India, Bangladesh, China, Indonesia. Economic growth especially in rural areas remains and farming communities is central to poverty reduction but needs to be complemented with specific actions to reach those at the margins.
Managing Information Quality : Increasing the Value of Information in Knowledge-intensive Products and Processes
It still holds true: information is not always the answer. Information is often part of the problem. While the main goal of information in the business place is to - able adequate decisions and actions, it can also lead to numerous negative effects: it can confuse, block creativity, or it can lead to hectic activism, stress and fatigue. Information can distract and divert attention, and it may even delay important - cisions – the paralysis by analysis. Strategies to avoid these dysfunctional effects of information can be divided into sender-based strategies and receiver-based strategies.
Managing in the Information Economy : Current Research Issues
Managing in the Information Economy: Current Research Issues presents the recent research directions that address the issue of management in this economy. The contributors include leading researchers with interests in a diverse set of topics. While the volume cannot give a complete and comprehensive picture, it can provide introductions to important areas, and point to some important topics for future research. Therefore the book begins with perspectives at the level of the economy as a whole and then progressively addresses industrial structure, sectors, functions (e-commerce) and business practices. Introductions to the main sections and the papers in each section are provided. The volume is organized around six sections: The Information Economy; Structure and the Organization of the Information Economy; Marketing and Ecommerce
Managing Business Interfaces : Marketing and Engineering Issues in the Supply Chain and Internet Domains
Within companies and organizations there is an increased emphasis on making different functional areas work together seamlessly. These developments have led to an increased emphasis on research and practice in business that integrate the functional areas within and between business entities. The research community has recognized the importance of addressing these different, and often conflicting, business perspectives. This has led to research streams that address issues characterizing the domain of business interfaces. These include the benefits of coordination, new product development, product portfolio management, supply chain coordination, and partnerships and collaboration in the Internet space.
Management of Regulatory Influences on Corporate Strategy and Structure
In many industries, e.g. telecommunications, transportation, energy, chemicals, food and beverages, firm performance is heavily influenced by regulation. Despite this fact, strategic management research has traditionally focused on market strategies and related issues. Questions of how to manage regulatory involvement have been left to separate research streams on corporate political activity and a broader understanding of the complex inter-dependencies and mutual influences between corporate and external actors remains lacking.
Long-Run Growth Forecasting
Explores how to set up an empirical model that helps with forecasting long-term economic growth in a large number of countries. It offers a systematic approach to models of potential GDP that can also be used for forecasts of more than a decade. It is an attempt to fill the wide gap between the high demand for such models by commercial banks, international organizations, central banks and governments on the one hand and the limited supply on the other hand. Frequent forecast failures in the past (e.g. Japan 1990, Asia 1997) and the heavy economic losses they produced motivated the work. The book assesses the large number of different theories of economic growth, the drivers of economic growth, the available datasets and the empirical methods on offer. A preference is shown for evolutionary models and an augmented Kaldor model. The book uses non-stationary panel techniques to find pair-wise cointegration among GDP per capita and its main correlates such as physical capital, human capital and openness.
Logistics Outsourcing Relationships : Measurement, Antecedents, and Effects of Logistics Outsourcing Performance
In recent years, logistics outsourcing has gained increasing importance and today is used by a large number of firms across virtually all industries worldwide. Logistics service providers have developed a wide array of services that are utilized to improve logistics processes - and mainly to cut costs.This book uses state-of-the-art scientific methods to reveal that most firms currently do not realize the full potential of logistics outsourcing. It shows the complexity of outsourcing performance and that its true drivers lie in the relationship between service providers and their customers. Through the results of a large-scale empirical survey, the book also emphasizes the importance of a firm's approach towards outsourcing: solely striving for cost reductions may be a dead end, while the often overlooked increased logistics service levels are equally important for boosting logistics performance. In the light of current outsourcing practices, this indicates substantial room for improvement for most firms.
Location Theory : A Unified Approach
Although modern location theory is now more than 90 years old, the focus of researchers in this area has been mainly problem oriented. However, a common theory, which keeps the essential characteristics of classical location models, is still missing. This monograph addresses this issue. A flexible location problem called the Ordered Median Problem (OMP) is introduced. For all three main subareas of location theory (continuous, network and discrete location) structural properties of the OMP are presented and solution approaches provided. Numerous illustrations and examples help the reader to become familiar with this new location model.
Linear Programming and its Applications
This book presents a unified treatment of linear programming. Without sacrificing mathematical rigor, the main emphasis of the book is on models and applications. The most important classes of problems are surveyed and presented by means of mathematical formulations, followed by solution methods and a discussion of a variety of "what-if" scenarios. Non-simplex based solution methods and newer developments such as interior point methods are covered along with a variety of approaches that incorporate multiple objectives in the model.
Leading Pharmaceutical Innovation : Trends and Drivers for Growth in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Pharmaceutical giants have doubled their investments in drug development in the past decade only to see new drug approvals remain constant. This book investigates and highlights a set of proactive strategies aimed at generating sustainable competitive advantage based on value-generating business practices. We focus on three sources of pharmaceutical innovation: new management methods in the drug development pipeline, new technologies as enablers for cutting-edge R&D, and new forms of cooperation and internationalization, such as open innovation in the early phases of R&D. Our findings are illustrated by cases from Europe, the US, and Asia.
Knowledge and Institutions
Bridges the disciplinary boundaries within the social sciences to explore the role of social institutions in shaping geographical contexts, and in creating new knowledge. It includes theorizations as well as original empirical case studies on the emergence, maintenance and change of institutions as well as on their constraining and enabling effects on innovation, entrepreneurship, art and cultural heritage, often at regional scales across Europe and North America. Rooted in the disciplines of management and organization studies, sociology, geography, political science, and economics the contributors all take comprehensive approaches to carve out the specific contextuality of institutions as well as their impact on societal outcomes. Not only does this book offer detailed insights into current debates in institutional theory, it also provides background for scholars, students, and professionals at the intersection between regional development, policy-making, and regulation.
Key Account Management in Business-to-Business Markets: An Assessment of Its Economic Value
In times of fierce competition in business-to-business markets strong and economically sound business relationships with a company's customers rank among the main success factors. As a well established marketing management conception, key account management is of particular significance in this context. Interestingly enough, empirical research studies have recently proved that relationship marketing, and particularly key account management, does not achieve the economic value originally expected.
Just-in-Time Scheduling : Models and Algorithms for Computer and Manufacturing Systems
As the field of Supply Chain Management has matured, maintaining the precise flow of goods to maintain schedules (hence, minimizing inventories) on a just-in-time basis still remains as a major challenge. This problem or challenge has resulted in a fair amount of quantitative research in the area, producing an array of models and algorithms to help ensure the precise flow of components and final products into inventories to meet just-in-time requirements.The scheduling models and algorithms presented and illustrated in the book will be done so in the context of extensive use of computer systems in a "real time context.
Competence of Top Management Teams and Success of New Technology-Based Firms : A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis Concerning Competencies of Entrepreneurial Teams and the Development of Their Ventures
In his book, Jan Brinckmann develops a comprehensive competence concept for new technology-based firms. It is grounded in competence-related literature combining insights from entrepreneurship and management research. The competence concept comprises three domains: general entrepreneurial competencies, social competencies, and functional competencies in technology, marketing, and financial management. A measurement model is developed to specify the contents of each sub-domain and to facilitate self-assessment of these competencies. In an empirical study, 212 executives of German NTBFs assessed their team’s competencies. This data is analyzed using structural equation modelling to identify the most relevant competencies for new venture success.
Climate Smart Agriculture : Building Resilience to Climate Change
"The book uses an economic lens to identify the main features of climate-smart agriculture (CSA), its likely impact, and the challenges associated with its implementation. This book offers tools and insights for a range of stakeholders to help meet these challenges in the many forms they are manifested."
Cellular Genetic Algorithms
CELLULAR GENETIC ALGORITHMS defines a new class of optimization algorithms based on the concepts of structured populations and Genetic Algorithms (GAs). The authors explain and demonstrate the validity of these cellular genetic algorithms throughout the book. This class of genetic algorithms is shown to produce impressive results on a whole range of domains, including complex problems that are epistatic, multi-modal, deceptive, discrete, continuous, multi-objective, and random in nature. The focus of this book is twofold. On the one hand, the authors present new algorithmic models and extensions to the basic class of Cellular GAs in order to tackle complex problems more efficiently. On the other hand, practical real world tasks are successfully faced by applying Cellular GA methodologies to produce workable solutions of real-world applications.



















