Thirty-eight papers presented at the Sixth International Conference, held April 2010, in A Coru簽a, Spain are organized in sections on planning, development and management; landscape planning
and design; the community and the city; urban strategies; urban-rural relationship; architectural issues; cultural heritage issues; waste management; case studies; environmental management; and
energy issues. The subject draws the interest and efforts of professionals in many fields dealing directly or indirectly with the complexities of managing human activities in city environments,
and the wildly diverse topics under consideration at the conference are an indication of the broad scope of current thinking. Underlying and inspiring the conference series (and also an award
given in his name) are the ideas of Ilya Prigogine (deceased) whose insights in the field of non-linear thermodynamics have "powerful consequences for understanding biological and ecological
systems" (from the editors' introduction). A sampling of topics: the government and urban structure unsustainability in Iran; transition factors analysis of human settlement; strategies in arid
zones (case studies from Egypt); modeling skin temperature of a human exercising in an outdoor environment; the influence of the neighborhood on social mobility; urban flood mitigation; and
eco-cities--a global survey. A subject index would have given some orderly access points to the contents, but it's possible that the online version is searchable. The US office of WIT Press is
Computational Mechanics. Annotation 穢2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
