Punching Tests on Slabs with Alkali-Silica Reaction

Papers - too ‘academic’? The comments by Mr Skinner in our column for 21 April, inspired by Professor W. M. Jenkins ’ paper ‘Structural optimisation with the genetic algorithm’, and followed up by contributions from Professor Jenkins himself and Professor A. W. Beeby (16 June), have brought comments from Mr S. B. Tietz on his reactions to the paper. Mr Teitz also responds to our own invitation, to those who have authored ‘practical papers’ to comment on the ‘challenges and satisfactions’ of so doing: The correspondence has caused me to reexamine Professor Jenkins’ original paper of 17 December 1991. My sympathies lie with Mr Skinner! Any paper which brings in genetic algorithms, combinatories, stochastic processes, crossover, mutation and parameter scaling, all within a 16-line synopsis, surely deserves all our admiration if not our comprehension. Seeing what Professor Jenkins can do with the English language I shall eagerly seize on Professor Goldberg’s work on which this paper is apparently based! Verulam

For many years, business organisations in the USA have looked for ways both to reduce the amount of litigation that takes place there and to achieve savings in time and money in the procedures involved in litigation. The first objective - to try to reduce the amount of litigation - faces major constitutional problems; however, the second - to try to reduce the length, complexity and cost of litigation - has in some cases been achieved by Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) techniques. J.J. Ward

What is a ‘green building’? How do you design it? How do you assess the ‘greenness’ of a building? Few architects, engineers or quantity surveyors have faced the challenge of including ‘green’ in their list of criteria for designing a building. Some see it as being simply another excuse not to care about the quality of architecture, others that it is only a reevaluation of materials and technology on the basis of the latest scientific research. It could be argued, however, that good architecture has always been green - natural ventilation and natural lighting have always been important issues and energy consumption (maintenance costs), as well as health and safety, have always been on architects’ and engineers’ checklists. R. Lutz and N. Billett