Can human social evolution be described in terms common to other sciences, most specifically, as an energy process? The Eighth Day reflects a conviction that the human trajectory, for all its uniqueness and indeterminism, will never be satisfactorily understood until it is framed in dynamics that are common to all of nature. The problem in doing this, however, lies in ourselves. The major social theories have failed to treat human social evolution as a component of broader natural processes. The Eighth Day argues that the energy process provides a basis for explaining, comparing, and measuring complex social evolution. Using traditional ecological energy flow studies as background, society is conceived as a self-organization of energy. This perspective enables Adams to analyze society in term of the natural selection of self-organizing energy forms and the trigger processes basic to it. Domestication, civilization, socioeconomic development, and the regulation of contemporary industrial nation-states serve to illustrate the approach. A principal aim is to explore the limitation that energy process imposes on human social evolution as well as to clarify the alternatives that it allows. Richly informed by contemporary anthropological historicism, sociobiology, and Marxism, The Eighth Day avoids simple reductionism and denies facile ideological categorization. Adams builds on work in nonequilibrium thermodynamics and theoretical biology and brings three decades of his own work to an analysis of human society that demands an extreme materialism in which human thought and action find a central place.

The first Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (PCSMGE) was held in Mexico in 1959. Every 4 years since then, PCSMGE has brought together the geotechnical engineering community from all over the world to discuss the problems, solutions and future challenges facing this engineering sector. Sixty years after the first conference, the 2019 edition returns to Mexico. This book, Geotechnical Engineering in the XXI Century: Lessons learned and future challenges, presents the proceedings of the XVI Pan-American Conference on Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (XVI PCSMGE), held in Cancun, Mexico, from 17 – 20 November 2019. Of the 393 full papers submitted, 335 were accepted for publication after peer review. They are included here organized into 19 technical sessions, and cover a wide range of themes related to geotechnical engineering in the 21st century. Topics covered include: laboratory and in-situ testing; analytical and physical modeling in geotechnics; numerical modeling in geotechnics; unsaturated soils; soft soils; foundations and retaining structures; excavations and tunnels; offshore geotechnics; transportation in geotechnics; natural hazards; embankments and tailings dams; soils dynamics and earthquake engineering; ground improvement; sustainability and geo-environment; preservation of historic sites; forensics engineering; rock mechanics; education; and energy geotechnics. Providing a state-of-the-art overview of research into innovative and challenging applications in the field, the book will be of interest to all those working in soil mechanics and geotechnical engineering. In this proceedings, 58% of the contributions are in English, and 42% of the contributions are in Spanish or Portuguese.

This classic title deals presents all one needs to know about pressuremeter test, a soil and rock test used in civil engineering. It consists of placing a cylindrical probe in the ground and expanding the probe to pressurize the soil or the rock horizontally. The pressure on the soil and the relative increase in cavity radius are obtained and give an in situ stress strain curve. The pressuremeter test is repeated at various depths in order to obtain profiles of soil parameters. The design applications of the preboring pressuremeter test include: shallow foundations under vertical loads, deep foundations under vertical and horizontal loads, ground anchors, cantilever drilled shaft walls and anchored bulkheads, pavements, stone columns, ground improvement and compaction control.

This book collects selected full papers presented at the International Symposium on Energy Geotechnics 2018 (SEG-2018), held on 25th – 28th September 2018, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). It covers a wide range of topics in energy geotechnics, including energy geostructures, energy geostorage, thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical behaviour of geomaterials, unconventional resources, hydraulic stimulation, induced seismicity, CO2 geological storage, and nuclear waste disposal as well as topics such as tower and offshore foundations. The book is intended for postgraduate students, researchers and practitioners working on geomechanics and geotechnical engineering for energy-related applications.

Presents information on the retaining structures of foundations. Retaining structures are engineered to retain soil and/or rock. There are several types of retaining structures, including retaining walls, gravity, cantilever, sheet pile, and anchored earth and mechanically stabilized earth (reinforced earth) walls.

Papers cover topics including: physical modelling facilities; experimental advances; seismic experimental advances; education; soil behaviour; offshore systems; cold regions; geo-environment; dynamics; earthquake effects; and strategies for disaster reduction.

Buildings, Soil mechanics, Construction engineering works, Design, Fieldwork