"This book aims to bridge the gap in the current literature by addressing the overall problems present in major infrastructure in society, and the technologies that may be applied to overcome these problems"--Provided by publisher.

Ruth A. Miller excavates a centuries-old history of nonhuman and nonbiological constitutional engagement and outlines a robust mechanical democracy that challenges existing theories of liberal and human political participation. Drawing on an eclectic set of legal, political, and automotive texts from France, Turkey, and the United States, she proposes a radical mechanical re-articulation of three of the most basic principles of democracy: vitality, mobility, and liberty. Rather than defending a grand theory of materialist or posthumanist politics, or addressing abstract concepts or “things” writ large, Miller invites readers into a self-contained history of constitutionalism situated in a focused discussion of automobile traffic congestion in Paris, Istanbul, and Boston. Within the mechanical public sphere created by automotive space, Snarl finds a model of democratic politics that transforms our most fundamental assumptions about the nature, and constitutional potential, of life, movement, and freedom.

Biopolitics and posthumanism have been passé theories in the academy for a while now, standing on the unfashionable side of the fault line between biology and liberal thought. These days, if people invoke them, they do so a bit apologetically. But, as Ruth Miller argues, we should not be so quick to relegate these terms to the scholarly dustbin. This is because they can help to explain an increasingly important (and contested) influence in modern democratic politics-that of nostalgia. Nostalgia is another somewhat embarrassing concept for the academy. It is that wistful sense of longing for an imaginary and unitary past that leads to an impossible future. And, moreover for this book, it is ordinarily considered "bad" for democracy. But, again, Miller says, not so fast. As she argues in this book, nostalgia is the mode of engagement with the world that allows thought and life to coexist, productively, within democratic politics. Miller demonstrates her theory by looking at nostalgia as a nonhuman mode of "thought" embedded in biopolitical reproduction. To put this another way, she looks at mass democracy as a classically nonhuman affair and nostalgic, nonhuman reproduction as the political activity that makes this democracy happen. To illustrate, Miller draws on the politics surrounding embryos and the modernization of the Turkish alphabet. Situating this argument in feminist theories of biopolitics, this unusual and erudite book demonstrates that nostalgia is not as detrimental to democratic engagement as scholars have claimed.

Includes entries for maps and atlases.

Maintenance, Safety, Risk, Management and Life-Cycle Performance of Bridges contains lectures and papers presented at the Ninth International Conference on Bridge Maintenance, Safety and Management (IABMAS 2018), held in Melbourne, Australia, 9-13 July 2018. This volume consists of a book of extended abstracts and a USB card containing the full papers of 393 contributions presented at IABMAS 2018, including the T.Y. Lin Lecture, 10 Keynote Lectures, and 382 technical papers from 40 countries. The contributions presented at IABMAS 2018 deal with the state of the art as well as emerging concepts and innovative applications related to the main aspects of bridge maintenance, safety, risk, management and life-cycle performance. Major topics include: new design methods, bridge codes, heavy vehicle and load models, bridge management systems, prediction of future traffic models, service life prediction, residual service life, sustainability and life-cycle assessments, maintenance strategies, bridge diagnostics, health monitoring, non-destructive testing, field testing, safety and serviceability, assessment and evaluation, damage identification, deterioration modelling, repair and retrofitting strategies, bridge reliability, fatigue and corrosion, extreme loads, advanced experimental simulations, and advanced computer simulations, among others. This volume provides both an up-to-date overview of the field of bridge engineering and significant contributions to the process of more rational decision-making on bridge maintenance, safety, risk, management and life-cycle performance of bridges for the purpose of enhancing the welfare of society. The Editors hope that these Proceedings will serve as a valuable reference to all concerned with bridge structure and infrastructure systems, including students, researchers and engineers from all areas of bridge engineering.