Introduction to Infrastructure: An Introduction to Civil and Environmental Engineering breaks new ground in preparing civil and environmental engineers to meet the challenges of the 21st century. The authors use the infrastructure that is all around us to introduce students to civil and environmental engineering, demonstrating how all the parts of civil and environmental engineering are interrelated to help students see the "big picture" in the first or second year of the curriculum. Students learn not only the what of the infrastructure, but also the how and the why of the infrastructure. Readers learn the infrastructure is a system of interrelated physical components, and how those components affect, and are affected by, society, politics, economics, and the environment. Studying infrastructure allows educators and students to develop a valuable link between fundamental knowledge and the ability to apply that knowledge, so students may translate their knowledge to new contexts. The authors' implementation of modern learning pedagogy (learning objectives, concrete examples and cases, and hundreds of photos and illustrations), and chapters that map well to the ABET accreditation requirements AND the ASCE Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge 2nd edition (with recommendations for using this text in a 1, 2, or 3 hour course) make this text a key part of any civil and/or environmental engineering curriculum.

For many decades, IT infrastructure has provided the foundation for successful application deployment. Yet, general knowledge of infrastructures is still not widespread. Experience shows that software developers, system administrators, and project managers often have little knowledge of the big influence IT infrastructures have on the performance, availability and security of software applications. This book explains the concepts, history, and implementation of IT infrastructures. Although many of books can be found on individual infrastructure building blocks, this is the first book to describe all of them: datacenters, servers, networks, storage, virtualization, operating systems, and end user devices. Whether you need an introduction to infrastructure technologies, a refresher course, or a study guide for a computer science class, you will find that the presented building blocks and concepts provide a solid foundation for understanding the complexity of today's IT infrastructures.

Infrastructure resources are the subject of many contentious public policy debates, including what to do about crumbling roads and bridges, whether and how to protect our natural environment, energy policy, even patent law reform, universal health care, network neutrality regulation and the future of the Internet. Each of these involves a battle to control infrastructure resources, to establish the terms and conditions under which the public receives access, and to determine how the infrastructure and various dependent systems evolve over time. Infrastructure: The Social Value of Shared Resources devotes much needed attention to understanding how society benefits from infrastructure resources and how management decisions affect a wide variety of interests. The book links infrastructure, a particular set of resources defined in terms of the manner in which they create value, with commons, a resource management principle by which a resource is shared within a community. The infrastructure commons ideas have broad implications for scholarship and public policy across many fields ranging from traditional infrastructure like roads to environmental economics to intellectual property to Internet policy. Economics has become the methodology of choice for many scholars and policymakers in these areas. The book offers a rigorous economic challenge to the prevailing wisdom, which focuses primarily on problems associated with ensuring adequate supply. The author explores a set of questions that, once asked, seem obvious: what drives the demand side of the equation, and how should demand-side drivers affect public policy? Demand for infrastructure resources involves a range of important considerations that bear on the optimal design of a regime for infrastructure management. The book identifies resource valuation and attendant management problems that recur across many different fields and many different resource types, and it develops a functional economic approach to understanding and analyzing these problems and potential solutions.

In this provocative volume, distinguished authorities on urban policy expose the myths surrounding today's "infrastructure crisis" in urban public works. Five in-depth papers examine the evolution of the public works system, the limitations of urban needs studies, the financing of public works projects, the impact of politics, and how technology is affecting the types of infrastructures needed for tomorrow's cities.

This book explains how water, electricity/power, roads and other infrastructure services are linked together within the general basket of development and how to obtain the optimum use of resources. The emphasis, nowadays, is on multipurpose activities, optimum use of resources, environmental approach, minimum use of energy. This book tries to integrate all of these, by showing the links between the different components of infrastructure and trying to model them. A well articulated, socially attractive and desirable project may fail during the implementation or operation stage, not only from bad design, but also due to inadequate attention paid to the human aspects required for its operation. This book is intended for graduates and practising professionals who are involved in the general development planning of their country/region. It enables better understanding, collaboration and communication with other professionals in relation to their own or different disciplines.

From U.S.-Mexico border walls to Flint's poisoned pipes, there is a new urgency to the politics of infrastructure. Roads, electricity lines, water pipes, and oil installations promise to distribute the resources necessary for everyday life. Yet an attention to their ongoing processes also reveals how infrastructures are made with fragile and often violent relations among people, materials, and institutions. While infrastructures promise modernity and development, their breakdowns and absences reveal the underbelly of progress, liberal equality, and economic growth. This tension, between aspiration and failure, makes infrastructure a productive location for social theory. Contributing to the everyday lives of infrastructure across four continents, some of the leading anthropologists of infrastructure demonstrate in The Promise of Infrastructure how these more-than-human assemblages made over more-than-human lifetimes offer new opportunities to theorize time, politics, and promise in the contemporary moment. Contributors Nikhil Anand, Hannah Appel, Geoffrey C. Bowker, Dominic Boyer, Akhil Gupta, Penny Harvey, Brian Larkin, Christina Schwenkel, Antina von Schnitzler

One thing that mature, developing, or undeveloped nations have incommon in today's global economy is the necessity to construct,repair, refurbish, and modernize their infrastructure. More andmore governments are turning to the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)process to accomplish this expensive and enormously challengingtask--allowing private developers to design, finance, construct,and operate revenue-producing public projects, and then turn themover to the community at the end of an agreed payback period. The first book to explore this innovative approach toprivatization, Build, Operate, Transfer covers the creation of BOTprojects from the ground up. Using a real-world, case-orientedapproach, it provides a comprehensive examination of theengineering, construction, and financial skills required to bringBOT ventures from the planning stage to design, construction, andoperation. From the Channel Tunnel to the Dulles Greenway, the bookexamines both successful projects and troubled ones, extracting keyinformation on what sets them apart--including such crucial factorsas the importance of public support and government control inensuring a positive outcome. You will also find specific coverageof construction techniques and procedures, plus financialcomparisons, demographics, and other statistical data. Whether you are a student or a professional working in engineering,construction, finance, or government, BOT cannot be ignored as aneffective way to build infrastructure projects quickly,efficiently, and at minimal cost. This book equips you with boththe comprehensive information and the practical guidance you needto put this dynamic practice into action. The only book available on the BOT approach to private constructionand maintenance of public projects--complete coverage from theground up Contractors the world over are discovering how to useprivate-public partnerships to build much-needed infrastructureprojects quickly, efficiently, and at minimal cost. This bookthoroughly explores the combination of engineering, construction,and financial skills required to bring these Build-Operate-Transfer(BOT) ventures from the planning stage to design, construction, andoperation. Based on a real-world, case-driven approach, Build,Operate, Transfer examines specific BOT projects, identifying keyfactors necessary to their successful implementation, and offeringimportant guidance on avoiding common pitfalls. This practical bookfeatures: A full introduction to BOT systems, with diagrams ofconstruction techniques and procedures, complete sample contract,and more * Charts and graphs with financial analyses, demographicinformation, and important statistical data * BOT examples from many different countries, including the UnitedStates, Britain, Japan, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, andMexico * A broad spectrum of project types--from tunnel construction tohighways and more * Important guidance on keeping projects on time and on budget