Best Selling Books by Michael Brett

One hundred years ago the Maasai ruled over much of East Africa. Their feared warriors, or moran, were renowned for their bravery and cattle-stealing escapades. With the coming of the modern age, the Maasai were restricted to a reservation in southern Kenya and northern Tanzania. They continue to cling tenaciously to their culture and customs, while the pressures of the modern age build up all around them. Their many rites of passage - rituals that transport the participants from one stage of life to the next - give life a meaning and purpose that is often lacking in other cultures.

Higher education institutions in California worked to make the state more prosperous through the science taught and conducted in these institutions during the state''s first three decades. This dissertation examines the role of science in these early California colleges and how they interacted with the state''s political economy. The colleges founded in this period worked to provide an education that students would recognize as leading to good jobs. While many of these schools were religiously affiliated, the institutions needed students regardless of their religious background in order for the schools to survive. These early colleges were able to provide services both to students and to the state in general as they reached the public through various means. These included utilizing scientific equipment for conducting experiments and analyzing mineral ores and illustrating scientific concepts with collections of animals, plants, and minerals. Additionally, lectures and public demonstrations brought science to a wider audience and helped to financially support the schools. Jesuit schools Santa Clara College and St. Ignatius College engaged with areas of mining, agriculture, and electricity. Protestant schools, such as the University of the Pacific and the College of California, also emphasized scientific education, including teaching it to women. The state''s healthcare infrastructure was strengthened by the start of medical education in the state with the University of the Pacific''s medical department and the Toland Medical College. Future teachers of California''s children were taught science in the California State Normal School. The federal Morrill Act''s passage allowed California the financial resources to establish a land grant institution, and the University of California was founded with a curriculum emphasizing mining, mechanic arts, agriculture, and engineering. The dissertation relies on archival sources-such as catalogues, diaries, and board meeting minutes-that are generally located on the present-day campuses of these institutions. Analysis of these documents provides evidence of how these institutions, through their science education, helped California''s economy to prosper.

According to September 2011 information from the U.S. Census Bureau, the construction industry in the United States is valued at nearly eight hundred billion dollars annually. A 2004 collaborative study by Construction Industry Institute and Lean Construction Institute suggests that as much as fifty seven percent of time, effort, and material investment in construction projects do not add value to the final product. When compared with twenty six percent wastes in the manufacturing industry, it becomes obvious that the construction industry has a problem. Construction projects that come in over budget and behind schedule have become the rule rather than the exception, leading to contentious business relationships and costly litigation. This study will strive to identify and analyze the primary sources of these problems. Research and industry experience point to a lack of communication and cooperation among the various entities required to complete a construction project as the leading causes of waste in the industry. Further analysis suggests that traditional forms of construction contracts encourage adversarial and non-cooperative behavior between parties. Additionally, poor communication between various contributors opens the door for additional wasted cost. Fortunately, the development of tools such as Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) present new options to construction professionals that are proving to help address some of the challenges the industry faces today. IPD as a project delivery method creates a culture of collaboration and teamwork, where a culture of risk avoidance and conflict once stood, while BIM provides a platform for better communication among parties. When used together, these tools can reduce or eliminate many of the major sources of waste within the industry. This thesis will provide descriptions, analysis, and case studies that demonstrate the use of these tools and the potential they have to make a positive impact on the construction industry.

Dimensional tolerance requirements for high-speed-machined aluminum products continue totighten due to strong demand for automated assembly of complex monolithic aluminum parts inaerospace and other industries. Understanding the contribution of inherent residual stress inwrought aluminum 7050-T7451 plate, a common alloy in aircraft manufacture, in the distortionof high-aspect-ratio machined monolithic parts is critical but remains problematic. The difficultystems from the alloy0́9s low magnitude of residual stress, distributed over relatively largegeometries. The numerous prior studies aimed at investigating residual stress effects onmachined part distortion, however, suffer from inadequate characterization of the inherent stressfield within the wrought material0́4because of low fidelity issues due to slitting methods ofresidual stress measurement, confounding effects from machined-layer removal methods, orbecause of small number of measurements when using neutron diffraction (ND). In this work,inherent residual stress is measured using ND at over 860 locations throughout the volume of a90.5 mm thick 7050-T7454 aluminum plate having dimensions 399 mm in the longitudinal(rolling) direction and 335 mm in the transverse direction. Unlike prior studies, the ND residualstress field is reconstructed using an iterative stress reconstruction algorithm to ensure a fullycompatible and equilibrated 3D field prior to examining its effect on the distortion of a high-aspect-ratio monolithic part. Validation of the equilibrated stress field is accomplished bycomparison of corresponding aggregate fields generated by both experimental and simulatedslitting techniques. To isolate and study the potential contribution of residual stress on partdistortion, an element deletion technique to simulate material removal is performed to avoidconfounding with any machining-induced effects. The findings reveal that the inherent residualstress is not negligible, and alone is sufficient to distort a high-aspect-ratio part beyondtolerances necessary to meet current aerospace industry manufacturing requirements (u003e0.75 mmdistortion over 400 mm span). Moreover, the work reveals that a residual stress field developedonly from slitting data, per the literature, underrepresents both residual stress and part distortion.The results show that parts created from different locations within the plate thickness can lead toreversed distortion patterns due to the corresponding residual stress induced effects. Theresearch gives insight into fixturing and shimming to compensate for distortion as well asprovides an algorithm to further address distortion of the finished part by applying weights to inaccordance with industry practices. The electronic version of this dissertation is accessible from https://utd-ir.tdl.org/handle/10735.1/9901