Alan O'Connor – författare

Captures Current Developments in Bridge Design and MaintenanceRecent research in bridge design and maintenance has focused on the serviceability problems of older bridges with aging joints. The favored solution of integral construction and design has produced bridges with fewer joints and bearings that require less maintenance and deliver increased durability. Bridge Deck Analysis, Second Edition outlines this growing development, and covers the structural analysis of most common bridge forms. It introduces reliability analysis, an emergent method that allows bridge engineers to determine risk when maintaining older or damaged bridges. Explains the Background Theory along with Practical ToolsThis book includes practical examples of everyday problems in bridge engineering, and presents real-life examples of the application of reliability analysis. The authors show how reliability analysis can determine structural safety even for bridges which have failed a deterministic assessment. They also update other chapters to reflect the most current advancements towards more sophisticated analysis, and the more widespread use of finite element software.What’s New in this Edition: Incorporates new research on soil-structure interactionA new section with examples of how to analyze for the effects of creepGreatly expands the sections on 3-D brick finite elementsNow consistent with both Eurocodes and AASHTO standards An appropriate resource for senior undergraduates taking an advanced course on bridge engineering, Bridge Deck Analysis is also suitable for practicing engineers, and other professionals involved in the development of bridge design.

This book describes the emergence of DIY punk record labels in the early 1980s. Based on interviews with sixty-one labels, including four in Spain and four in Canada, it describes the social background of those who run these labels. Especially interesting are those operated by dropouts from the middle class. Other respected older labels are often run by people with upper middle-class backgrounds. A third group of labels are operated by working-class and lower middle-class punks who take a serious attitude to the work.Using the ideas of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, this book shows how the field of record labels operates. The choice of independent or corporate distribution is a major dilemma. Other tensions are about signing contracts with bands, expecting extensive touring, and using professional promotion. There are often rivalries between big and small labels over bands that have become popular and have to decide whether to move to a more commercial record label. Unlike approaches to punk that consider it as subcultural style, this book breaks new ground by describing punk as a social activity. One of the surprising findings is how many parents actually support their children's participation in the scene. Rather than attempting to define punk as resistance or as commercial culture, this book shows the dilemmas that actual punks struggle with as they attempt to live up to what the scene means for them.

Raymond Williams_a Welsh media critic and one of the founding thinkers behind the popular field of cultural studies_believed that the traditional focus of biographies on individuals isolated these people from their communities. For this reason, Alan O'Connor looks at Williams and his time period, one of social change and crisis in Wales and England. Williams, the son of a railway worker, would have pursued university studies, an atypical act for a working-class boy, had the Second World War not disrupted his plans. So the unorthodox intellectual executed his work outside the university until 1960, decades after he originally intended to begin his studies. O'Connor then turns to Williams's studies of media, revealing his subject's life-long emphasis on the interchange between culture and democracy. He shows the ways in which these ideas were revolutionary, upsetting conservative thinkers of the time, and concludes with the same message of hope that Williams carried with him daily: In a period dominated by conservative forces, Raymond Williams still thought it worthwhile to struggle for small changes.

Raymond Williams_a Welsh media critic and one of the founding thinkers behind the popular field of cultural studies_believed that the traditional focus of biographies on individuals isolated these people from their communities. For this reason, Alan O'Connor looks at Williams and his time period, one of social change and crisis in Wales and England. Williams, the son of a railway worker, would have pursued university studies, an atypical act for a working-class boy, had the Second World War not disrupted his plans. So the unorthodox intellectual executed his work outside the university until 1960, decades after he originally intended to begin his studies. O'Connor then turns to Williams's studies of media, revealing his subject's life-long emphasis on the interchange between culture and democracy. He shows the ways in which these ideas were revolutionary, upsetting conservative thinkers of the time, and concludes with the same message of hope that Williams carried with him daily: In a period dominated by conservative forces, Raymond Williams still thought it worthwhile to struggle for small changes.

Using tape recordings, videos, and the ideas of Antonio Gramsci and Raymond Williams, this work examines the uses of radio for development, the impact on oral culture, and the use of radio by indigenous people in Ecuador and miners in Bolivia. Few anthropologists have studied radio, and The Voice of the Mountains is unique in its approach to the field. Alan O'Connor is not committed to a single research method—ethnography—but to a question about the relationship between radio and political struggles. This work questions what is the field when studying radio broadcasting? The answer involves challenging the rules of ethnography and asking what does it mean to follow radios?

This book explores the sociology of sailing and yachting. Drawing on original research, and employing a theoretical framework based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the book argues that sailing is, still, an upper-middle-class activity that has much to tell us about the wider sociology of leisure and sport. The book examines the historical foundations of blue-water sailing as established by naval and colonial shipping, to trace the roots of contemporary sailing and yachting culture. It also examines archives of sailing narratives and cruising guides, as well as the children’s books of Arthur Ransome, arguing that this archival material offers a social rather than a psychological interpretation of the ‘bodily investment’ in sailing. The book uses Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘illusio’ – an investment of time, emotion and body into a worthwhile activity – and ‘habitus’, or lifeworld, alongside contemporary data sets, to examine the yacht club as a social institution, including why many boats never go out on the water, the relationship between yacht clubs and the state, and social issues as manifested in yacht clubs, such as sexism, racism and homophobia. Offering a vigorous sociological critique of yachting and sailing, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of leisure and sport, subcultures, social theory, or social issues in wider society.

This book explores the sociology of sailing and yachting. Drawing on original research, and employing a theoretical framework based on the work of Pierre Bourdieu, the book argues that sailing is, still, an upper-middle-class activity that has much to tell us about the wider sociology of leisure and sport. The book examines the historical foundations of blue-water sailing as established by naval and colonial shipping, to trace the roots of contemporary sailing and yachting culture. It also examines archives of sailing narratives and cruising guides, as well as the children’s books of Arthur Ransome, arguing that this archival material offers a social rather than a psychological interpretation of the ‘bodily investment’ in sailing. The book uses Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘illusio’ – an investment of time, emotion and body into a worthwhile activity – and ‘habitus’, or lifeworld, alongside contemporary data sets, to examine the yacht club as a social institution, including why many boats never go out on the water, the relationship between yacht clubs and the state, and social issues as manifested in yacht clubs, such as sexism, racism and homophobia. Offering a vigorous sociological critique of yachting and sailing, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in the sociology of leisure and sport, subcultures, social theory, or social issues in wider society.

Electric drive vehicles (EDVs) are seen on American roads in increasing numbers. Related to this market trend and critical for it to increase are improvements in battery technology. Battery Technology for Electric Vehicles examines in detail at the research support from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) for the development of nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) and lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries used in EDVs. With public support comes accountability of the social outcomes associated with public investments. The book overviews DOE investments in advanced battery technology, documents the adoption of these batteries in EDVs on the road, and calculates the economic benefits associated with these improved technologies. It provides a detailed global evaluation of the net social benefits associated with DOEs investments, the results of the benefit-to-cost ratio of over 3.6-to-1, and the life-cycle approach that allows adopted EDVs to remain on the road over their expected future life, thus generating economic and environmental health benefits into the future.

Captures Current Developments in Bridge Design and MaintenanceRecent research in bridge design and maintenance has focused on the serviceability problems of older bridges with aging joints. The favored solution of integral construction and design has produced bridges with fewer joints and bearings that require less maintenance and deliver increased durability. Bridge Deck Analysis, Second Edition outlines this growing development, and covers the structural analysis of most common bridge forms. It introduces reliability analysis, an emergent method that allows bridge engineers to determine risk when maintaining older or damaged bridges. Explains the Background Theory along with Practical ToolsThis book includes practical examples of everyday problems in bridge engineering, and presents real-life examples of the application of reliability analysis. The authors show how reliability analysis can determine structural safety even for bridges which have failed a deterministic assessment. They also update other chapters to reflect the most current advancements towards more sophisticated analysis, and the more widespread use of finite element software. What’s New in this Edition: Incorporates new research on soil-structure interactionA new section with examples of how to analyze for the effects of creepGreatly expands the sections on 3-D brick finite elementsNow consistent with both Eurocodes and AASHTO standards An appropriate resource for senior undergraduates taking an advanced course on bridge engineering, Bridge Deck Analysis is also suitable for practicing engineers, and other professionals involved in the development of bridge design.

This book argues against the rapidly expanding literature about misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic - and that the real issues are much broader. Mainstream news media, except Fox News, has generally done a good job in educating people about the basic facts and precautions to be taken. Pandemic: A Test of the News identifies the mainframes used to tell the media story. With some exceptions such as long reads in The New Yorker and the Guardian, the media has not included the fundamental factors that caused the pandemic, the seriousness of a medical crisis that will last for several years - and the same factors that will cause the next pandemic.

This reference collects the latest information from the International Conference on Heavy Vehicles, specifically as it relates to Heavy Vehicle Transport Technology. Among the topics detailed are: interactions between heavy vehicles or trains and the infrastructure, environment and other system users; heavy vehicle and road management information-measurements, data quality, data management; freight mobility and safety; vehicle classification, size and weight evaluation, regulations, and enforcement; and traffic and road safety.