The key to opening the hearts, minds and wallets of Quebecers Most Quebecers come from a French culture, live in an English society and have an American lifestyle. Who are Quebecers exactly? What do they want? What are their aspirations? This book paints a surprising, sometimes unsettling, and consistently uncompromising portrait of the Quebec personality. During the last 30 years, the Leger survey firm has collected the most intimate secrets, deepest fears and greatest hopes of Quebecers and Canadians, in order to redefine what constitutes the Quebec difference. Using a scientific approach, this book unveils the seven character traits that make Quebecers unique – not better or worse, but different.

Analyses the discourse of Wired magazine from 1993 to 1998 to discuss ideas central to much of digital culture today using the methodology of gender discourse analysis.

Unleash the design potential in codes Building codes and standards are often seen as obstacles to design excellence. Not any more! With the help of this down-to-earth guide, architecture professionals and students can stop dreading these rules and start using them to their advantage. Cracking the Codes makes codes and standards accessible by promoting a sound understanding of regulatory issues --without getting caught up in the minutiae. The book works the way projects do, moving through each stage of the planning process to identify and consolidate the basic regulatory requirements that must be addressed at every step along the way. It equips readers not only to recognize issues that call for regulatory research and to work effectively with appropriate consultants, but also to suggest strategic directions that are compatible with regulatory requirements and to make informed decisions in response to consultants' advice. In addition to the model building codes, including the forthcoming International Building Code, this book covers zoning ordinances and covenants, as well as rules related to accessibility, historic preservation, environmental quality, consumer protection, and a host of other critical issues. Information is extensively cross-referenced to make topics simple to find, and the uniform methodology applied to each regulatory issue makes the book both easy to follow and design-friendly. No project team should ever be held hostage by lack of familiarity with codes and standards. Cracking the Codes gives architects the freedom they need to break the rules without breaking the regulations.

Everything you need to know about the most important trend in the history of the world Within most people's lifetimes, the developments in the biotechnology sector will allow us to live increasingly long and healthy lives, as well as provide us with technological innovations that will transform the way we live. But these innovations offer more than just hope for a better life, but hope for better returns too. Financial returns of incredible magnitude await savvy investors and businesspeople who can see the massive changes on the horizon. This book details these fast-moving trends and innovations and offers extensive advice on how to profit from them in business and investing.

The thrilling true story of Agent A12, the earliest enemy of the Nazis, and the first spy to crack Hitler’s deadliest secret code: the framework of the Final Solution. In public life, Dr. Winthrop Bell was a Harvard philosophy professor and wealthy businessman. As an MI6 spy—known as secret agent A12—in Berlin in 1919, he evaded gunfire and shook off pursuers to break open the emerging Nazi conspiracy. His reports, the first warning of the Nazi plot for World War II, went directly to the man known as C, the mysterious founder of MI6, as well as to various prime ministers. But a powerful fascist politician quietly worked to suppress his alerts. Nevertheless, Dr. Bell's intelligence sabotaged the Nazis, in ways only now revealed in Cracking the Nazi Code. As World War II approached, Bell became a spy once again. In 1939, he was the first to crack Hitler’s deadliest secret code: Germany’s plan for the Holocaust. At that time, the führer was a popular politician who said he wanted peace. Could anyone believe Bell’s shocking warning? Fighting an epic intelligence war from Eastern Europe and Russia to France, Canada, and finally Washington, DC, agent A12 was a real-life 007, waging a single-handed struggle against fascists bent on destroying the Western world. Without Bell’s astounding courage, the Nazis just might have won the war.

fib Bulletin 69 illustrates and compares major buildings seismic codes applied in the different Continents, namely U.S., Japan, New Zealand, Europe, Canada, Chile and Mexico. Bulletin 69 was prepared by Task Group 7.6 of fib Commission 7, under the leadership of the late Professor Robert (Bob) Park which, in tandem with Professor Paulay, had developed in the seventies new fundamental design concepts, most notably capacity design approach and structural design for ductility, that had made the NZ seismic Code the most advanced one of the time. This new approach has highly influenced the development of Eurocode 8, to which Bob Park has significantly contributed. Bob Park was also well informed of the situation in Japan, USA, Canada and South America. Such a wide view is reflected in Bulletin 69 showing similarities and differences among the major seismic codes, accompanied as far as possible by comments, hopefully useful for fostering international harmonization. A comprehensive summary of the major codes is provided in the first chapter of the bulletin. All codes are separately presented according to a common framework: an introduction section, which describes the history, the philosophy, the process development, the performance-based criteria, the strength of materials and the incorporation of strength reduction factors of each code; a second section devoted to the demand side, which specify the seismic design actions and associated criteria of each code for areas of different seismicity and for structures with different ductility properties/requirements; a third section devoted to the capacity side, which describes the capacities of members and joints and associated criteria of each code, including member strengths in flexure, shear and bars anchorage, desirable hierarchies of strength attainment, deformation capacities of mechanisms of inelastic deformation, detailing of beams, columns and structural walls, detailing of beam-column joints for shear and the detailing of diaphragms. The second chapter is devoted to the comparison of the more significant issues dealt in the considered codes. This includes: seismic design actions and associated criteria, capacity design practice, beams, columns, confinement, structural walls and joints. It is felt that fib Bulletin 69 represents a useful, unique instrument for rapidly gaining an overview of the distinguishing features of the major world codes, under both their conceptual framework and application rules.

Fatigue failure is a multi-stage process. It begins with the initiation of cracks, and with continued cyclic loading the cracks propagate, finally leading to the rupture of a component or specimen. The demarcation between the above stages is not well-defined. Depending upon the scale of interest, the variation may span three orders of magnitude. For example, to a material scientist an initiated crack may be of the order of a micron, whereas for an engineer it can be of the order of a millimetre. It is not surprising therefore to see that investigation of the fatigue process has followed different paths depending upon the scale of phenomenon under investigation. Interest in the study of fatigue failure increased with the advent of industrial ization. Because of the urgent need to design against fatigue failure, early investiga tors focused on prototype testing and proposed failure criteria similar to design formulae. Thus, a methodology developed whereby the fatigue theories were proposed based on experimental observations, albeit at times with limited scope. This type of phenomenological approach progressed rapidly during the past four decades as closed-loop testing machines became available.