California 2008

Includes information on hotels and resorts, restaurants, beaches, walking and driving tours, nighttime entertainment, shopping, and sights of interest

Fodor's. For Choice Travel Experiences. Fodor's helps you unleash the possibilities of travel by providing the insightful tools you need to experience the trips you want. Although you're at the helm, Fodor's offers the assurance of our expertise, the guarantee of selectivity, and the choice details that truly define a destination. It's like having a friend in Southern California -Updated annually, Fodor's Southern California provides the most accurate and up-to-date information available in a guidebook. -Fodor's Southern California features options for a variety of budgets, interests, and tastes, so you make the choices to plan your trip of a lifetime. -If it's not worth your time, it's not in this book. Fodor's discriminating ratings, including our top tier Fodor's Choice designations, ensure that you'll know about the most interesting and enjoyable places in Southern California. -Experience Southern California like a local Fodor's Southern California includes choices for every traveler, from hiking Death Valley and catching the perfect wave to sampling authentic Mexican cuisine and shopping L.A.'s trendy boutiques, and much more -Indispensable, customized trip planning tools include "Top Reasons to Go," "Word of Mouth" advice from other travelers, and tips to help save money, bypass lines, and avoid common travel pitfalls. -Fodor's Southern California includes a pullout map Visit Fodors.com for more ideas and information, travel deals, vacation planning tips, reviews and to exchange travel advice with other travelers.

Provides information on accommodations, restaurants, sights, shopping, and outdoor activities in Northern California.

Earthquakes represent a major risk to buildings, bridges and other civil infrastructure systems, causing catastrophic loss to modern society. Handbook of seismic risk analysis and management of civil infrastructure systems reviews the state of the art in the seismic risk analysis and management of civil infrastructure systems. Part one reviews research in the quantification of uncertainties in ground motion and seismic hazard assessment. Part twi discusses methodologies in seismic risk analysis and management, whilst parts three and four cover the application of seismic risk assessment to buildings, bridges, pipelines and other civil infrastructure systems. Part five also discusses methods for quantifying dependency between different infrastructure systems. The final part of the book considers ways of assessing financial and other losses from earthquake damage as well as setting insurance rates. Handbook of seismic risk analysis and management of civil infrastructure systems is an invaluable guide for professionals requiring understanding of the impact of earthquakes on buildings and lifelines, and the seismic risk assessment and management of buildings, bridges and transportation. It also provides a comprehensive overview of seismic risk analysis for researchers and engineers within these fields. This important handbook reviews the wealth of recent research in the area of seismic hazard analysis in modern earthquake design code provisions and practices Examines research into the analysis of ground motion and seismic hazard assessment, seismic risk hazard methodologies Addresses the assessment of seismic risks to buildings, bridges, water supply systems and other aspects of civil infrastructure

This SpringerBrief presents information on a wide variety of hazards and the damage potential caused by installation of a photovoltaic (PV) system. The current installation practices for PV systems on roofs create electrical, fire, structural, and weather-related hazards that do not comply to current codes, standards and guidance documents. Potential dangers include structural loading, wind loads, hail, snow, debris accumulation, seismic hazards, firefighting hazards, and electrical hazards. Despite the increased popularity of PV systems after the environmental movement, research shows that the costs of installing PV systems outweigh the benefits. Hazards of PV systems on roofs have caused several incidents in the United States; the most notable in Bakersfield, California, and Mount Holly, North Carolina. Designed for fire engineers and professionals, Best Practices for Commercial Roof-Mounted Photovoltaic System Installation offers recommendations to set up PV systems safely and sustainably.