Hui Lu

Using steel and concrete together utilizes the beneficial material properties of both elements. Concrete filled steel tubes represent a good example of a concrete – steel composite structure, and are particularly useful as columns in high rise buildings and bridge piers. They can be used in a range of fields, from civil and industrial construction through to the mining industry. Several aspects of concrete filled tubes have received little coverage in existing design standards, design guides or relevant books, but are addressed here: construction methods or quality and their effect on performance, confinement, creep effects, pre-load effects, size effects, seismic behaviour and post-fire behaviour, worked examples under practical conditions, numerical simulations, mechanics models, concrete-filled double skin tubes, SCC(self-consolidating concrete)-filled tubes, HPHSC (high performance high strength concrete)-filled tubes, high strength steel and thin-walled tubes filled with concrete, and fiber reinforced polymer strengthening of concrete filled tubes. This book not only summarizes the research performed to date on concrete-filled tubular members and connections but also compares the design rules in various standards (Eurocode 4, AISI-LRFD, ACI, AIJ and Chinese Standard), and provides design examples. An invaluable guide for professionals and a detailed source of information for graduate students and beyond.

Using steel and concrete together utilizes the beneficial material properties of both elements. Concrete filled steel tubes represent a good example of a concrete – steel composite structure, and are particularly useful as columns in high rise buildings and bridge piers. They can be used in a range of fields, from civil and industrial construction through to the mining industry. Several aspects of concrete filled tubes have received little coverage in existing design standards, design guides or relevant books, but are addressed here: construction methods or quality and their effect on performance, confinement, creep effects, pre-load effects, size effects, seismic behaviour and post-fire behaviour, worked examples under practical conditions, numerical simulations, mechanics models, concrete-filled double skin tubes, SCC(self-consolidating concrete)-filled tubes, HPHSC (high performance high strength concrete)-filled tubes, high strength steel and thin-walled tubes filled with concrete, and fiber reinforced polymer strengthening of concrete filled tubes. This book not only summarizes the research performed to date on concrete-filled tubular members and connections but also compares the design rules in various standards (Eurocode 4, AISI-LRFD, ACI, AIJ and Chinese Standard), and provides design examples. An invaluable guide for professionals and a detailed source of information for graduate students and beyond.

The first chapter utilizes seventeen years of comprehensive daily portfolio and trading data to analyze the relative trading performance of the universe of households, all domestic financial institutions, and all foreign institutions, in the Finnish market. I introduce a new methodology, dubbed "holding-period-invariant" portfolios, which is demonstrably superior to the conventional calendar-time methodology.

This Special Issue gathers papers reporting recent advances in the remote sensing of cold regions. It includes contributions presenting improvements in modeling microwave emissions from snow, assessment of satellite-based sea ice concentration products, satellite monitoring of ice jam and glacier lake outburst floods, satellite mapping of snow depth and soil freeze/thaw states, near-nadir interferometric imaging of surface water bodies, and remote sensing-based assessment of high arctic lake environment and vegetation recovery from wildfire disturbances in Alaska. A comprehensive review is presented to summarize the achievements, challenges, and opportunities of cold land remote sensing.