Department of Civil Engineering
TECHNION - Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa, Israel

KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN 1-4020-0443-5

Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

Sold and distributed in North, Central and South America
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
101 Philip Drive, Norwell, MA 02061, U.S.A.

In all other countries, sold and distributed
by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
P.O. Box 322, 3300 AH Dordrecht, The Netherlands.

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To my wife, Aira

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to express his appreciation to many graduate students and colleagues who helped in various ways. In particular, the author is indebted to the following Professors, with whom he had the pleasure of working on various research projects during his sabbatical leaves:

Mircea Cohn, the University of Waterloo; Steven Fenves, Carnegie Mellon University; Raphael Haftka, Virginia Tech; Fred Moses, the University of Pittsburgh; Panos Papalambros, the University of Michigan; George Rozvany, Essen University; Moshe Rubinstein, UCLA; Barry Topping, Heriot-Watt University; Jochem Zowe and Michal Kocvara, the University of Erlangen- Nuremberg.

Acknowledgement is due to the following Foundations, Institutes and...