Critical issues in soft rocks

This paper discusses several efforts made to study and investigate soft rocks, as well as their physico- mechanical characteristics recognized up to now, the problems in their sampling and testing, and the possibility of its reproduction through artificially made soft rocks, The problems in utilizing current and widespread classification systems to some types of weak rocks are also discussed, as well as other problems related to them. Some examples of engineering works in soft rock or in soft ground are added, with emphasis on their types of problems and solutions.     

A Computer Modeling of the China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing

This paper deals with the computer modeling of structures starting from a point cloud. The CCTV （China Central Television） tower headquarters is the case for study because the shape of this building is non-stellar, concave and multi-connected. It is composed of sowns and chains. The sown is the representation of a horizontal plane formed by dense points. The chain is a planar path modeled by rare points. The CCTV structure is defined only by the three orthogonal Cartesian coordinates of the points. The proposed computer modeling uses a sequence of procedures and the desired outputted 3D model is consistent. The first procedure is devoted to attributing points to their voxel and to estimating three values needed afterwards. The second procedure is devoted to analyzing clusters vertically and horizontally, to preliminarily distinguishing chains from sowns and to generating relational matching. The third procedure is devoted to building closed paths between all chains and all their projections on sowns. The fourth procedure is devoted to connecting points with triangles. The fifth procedure, still being implemented, is devoted to interpolating triangles with triangular splines. The results show it is possible to achieve the 3D model using the above mentioned procedures. These procedures are written, implemented and tested and they form a library of people＇s own software. The code is written using Matlab. It is not possible to obtain the required 3D model if the procedures are applied in the wrong order or one step is skipped. To conclude, it is possible to obtain the computer model of the CCTV using the provided sequence of procedures.     

About the Speqkers

The Interior Design Association (HK) is pleased to welcome seven distinguished speakers topresent selected topics related to their individual professional expertise. These world expertsfrom major corporations, design practices and research institutes will project to the industry,their visions of the office of the future that might well be reality by the next century. With a range of professional backgrounds including interior design, facilitymanagement, technology and telecommunications, these key players willbe examining global trends, conveying their experience of thechanging office environment and looking to the future.     

The Protection of the East Tombs of the Qing Dynasty and the Restoration of Historic Environment

The general planning is aimed to protect the historic relics and their environ-ment while paying attention to the overall restoration of historic environment onthe basis of historic and present characteristics of the East Tombs of the Qing Dyn-asty.Attention should also be paid to the coordinated development in other as-pects of socio-economic and tourist constructions.     

On“Amphibious Population”

Ⅰ.The Emergence of AmphibiousPopulation“Amphibian” is a terminology in biolo-gy.“Amphibious population” mentionedhere refers to those rural labourers whotravel across boundaries of towns and vil-lages to export their labour and services     

Speed Profile as a Tool to Estimate Traffic Calming Measures Efficiency

TCMs （traffic calming measures） are commonly installed in order to reduce speeds and volumes of traffic to acceptable levels and, thus, improve traffic safety as well as environmental impact when designed appropriately as a corridor or aerial implementation with proper spacing. Hence in many previous studies, their impact was mainly evaluated in scope of average and 85th percentile speed reduction. This paper presents and appraises the efficiency of calming measures of various types used in the city of Bialystok, Poland in terms of their influence zone. The assessment is based on speed profiles derived from individual test rides conducted with test vehicle equipped with GPS （global positioning system） data logger to obtain vehicle trajectory data. Speed measurements were conducted in vicinity of most commonly installed calming measures such as speed cameras, raised pedestrian crossing, raised intersection, speed bumps and speed cushion. The results reveal great differences within analysed devices and the usefulness of speed profiles in evaluation of their effectiveness. Speed bumps, most frequently used device in practice due to their low cost installation and speed reduction effectiveness, demonstrate lowest usefulness when influence zone is considered.     

A Brief Introduction to the Information System for the City Planning and Construction Management of Suzhou

This article—“The Research and Development of the Information System for City Planning and ConstructionManagement of Suzhou City”was written to expand the scope of research and to strengthen management and controlso as to provide a basis for policy-making,to bring both in-denth analysis and to combine qualitative and quantita-tive determination.The article introduces the basic structure and functions of the information system,including theinformation flow,division of sub-systems,hardware-model selection,the content of data base and their classifica-tion and coding,etc.The article also introduces the functions of treatment of graphic information,word numericalvalue information and its uniqueness in combining graphical and non-graphical information.This information sys-tem is comparatively low cost simple in operation,and there is a basic guarantee of source of information.A pre-limirary use of the system has proved its practivability,which forms the basic condition for the extended applicationof the system.     

The Mega-Cities in China: Development, Problems and Prospect

The existence of large and very large cities is a worldwide phenomenon. and has beena subject of much research and concern, The potentiai difficulty in tackling the issue isnow well understood. The number of large and very large cities is the greatest in China: there aretwenty-eight cities of 50,000 to one million population, and thirty of over one million, thelatter being regarded as meg-citics. There are nine of over two million population,amongst which Beijing has 10.4 million(1990)and Shanghai has 12.8 million(1990).Planning and research of the mega-cities tend to be locally specific and what is lackingseems to be an overview of the common and general issues in their development.     

房屋租购：租房与购房的最佳结合？

In recent years, many governments have become interested in leasing programmes. The essence of leasing is to combine the advantages of renting and owning. Instead of tenants ‘losing‘all of their rent to the landlord, part of their monthly payment goes toward the eventual purchase of the house. This arrangement satisfies the need for some families to rent at the beginning of their lives, but who want one day to become homeowners. It is particularly suitable for families with a regular income who lack the savings to put down a deposit on a house.Leasing programmes have been taken up in several Latin American countries, notably in Brazil, Chile and Colombia. The case study looks briefly at all three but concentrates on the most recent initiative, that of Colombia.     

Acknowledgments

The contributions of the following reviewers are highly acknowledged for their hard work and kind supports to JRMGE.Editorial Office of JRMGE。