Учебное пособие Кривцова, Кочетова. Учебное пособие для обучающихся по техническим и экономическим направлениям подготовки бакалавров
 Скачать 1.91 Mb.
|
|
Economic Systems Different economic systems answer the "what", "how" and "for whom" questions differently. The main economic systems today are capitalism, socialism, communism, mixed economies and traditional economies. Capitalism - is an economic system characterized by private ownership of most resources, goods and services. Capitalism relies on the market system to allocate resources, goods and services to their most highly used value. In capitalist economy what to produce is determined by consumers, how to produce is determined by profit seeking entrepreneurs, who maximize profit by producing in the most sufficient manner, and for whom to produce is determined by income and prices. In a capitalist system workers are generally paid according to how productive they are, and the distribution of income is unequal because people differ in their abilities. Socialism - is an economic system characterized by government ownership of resources other than labour and centralized economic decision making. Under the socialist system the government authorities answer the "what", "how" and "for whom" questions. In socialist system government planners set wages and though wages are not equal for all workers, incomes tend to be more evenly distributed than in capitalist countries. In centrally planned economies government planners decide what goods will be produced and set the prices at which they are sold. Communism - is an economic system in which all resources (including labour) are commonly owned and economic decisions making is centrally planned. According to communist theory, people contribute what they are able to the economy but receive what they need. In theory, this means that goods are produced for use rather than to earn profits and that everyone's needs are met. Utility and Prices Our basic needs are simple, but our additional individual wants are often very complex. Commodities of different kinds satisfy our wants in different ways. A banana, a bottle of medicine and a Textbook satisfy very different wants. The banana cannot satisfy the same wants as the Textbook. This characteristic of satisfying a want is known in economics as its utility. Utility, however, should not be confused with usefulness. For example, a submarine may or may not be useful in time of peace, but it satisfies a want. Many nations want submarines. Economists say that utility determines "the relationship between a consumer and a commodity. Utility varies between different people and between different nations. A vegetarian does not want meat, but may rate the utility of bananas very highly, while a meat-eater may prefer steak. A mountain-republic like Switzerland has little interest in submarines, while marine nations rate them highly. Utility varies not only in relation to individual tastes and to geography, but also in relation to time. In wartime, the utility of bombs is high, and the utility of pianos is low. Utility is therefore related to our decisions about priorities in production. The production of pianos falls sharply in wartime. The utility of a commodity is also related to the quantity which is available to the consumer. If paper is freely available, people will not be so interested in buying too much of it. If there is an excess of paper, the relative demand for paper will go down. We can say that the utility of a commodity therefore decreases as the consumer's stock of that commodity increases. A special relationship exists between goods and services on the one hand, and a consumer and his money, on the other. The consumer's desire for a commodity tends to diminish as he buys more units of that commodity. Economists call this tendency the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility. Architecture, Construction, Ecology: Its forms and Functions Architecture is the art or science of planning, building and structures. Without consideration of structural principles, materials, social and economic requirements a building cannot take form. But without aesthetical quality inherent in its form a building cannot be considered as a work of architecture as well. Architecture is an art. Its nowadays expression should be creative and consequently new. The heritage of the past cannot be ignored, but it must be expressed in modern terms. Architecture is also a style or manner of building in a particular country or period of history. There are widely known examples of Gothic architecture all round the globe. During many centuries mankind admires the architecture of ancient Greece or Roman Empire as well. Nearly two thousand years ago the Roman architect Vitruvius listed three basic factors and architecture. They are convenience, strength and beauty. These three factors have been present and are always interrelated in the best constructions till the 21st century. This triple nature of architectural design is one of the reasons why architecture is a difficult art. It needs some unique type of imagination as well as long years of training and experience to make a designer capable of getting requite in the light of these three factors – use, construction and esthetic effect – simultaneously. The designer must have a good knowledge as of engineering as of building materials. The designer, in addition, must possess the creative imagination, which will enable him to integrate the plan and the construction into the harmonies whole. The architect’s feeling of satisfaction in achieving such integration is one of his/her/their greatest rewards. A Few Tips of Marketing in General It is not enough to have a great idea or new building technique as the basis of your construction business; you must also have a market that is sufficiently large, accessible and responsive. If you can’t reach your market, or it isn’t ready for you, your business will fail. Consider the automatic teller machine (ATM) now seen on virtually every street corner. It was invented more than 10 years before it became popular, but the company that initially marketed the ATM was unsuccessful – people weren’t yet willing to trust their banking to machines. Market readiness is one of the most difficult and most unpredictable aspects to measure when examining your market. That is why companies spend substantial amounts of money on market research before launching a product. Even if you are not creating an entirely new product, service or technology, you should attempt to determine if your market is ready for you. For instance, if you are opening a flower shop in a neighborhood where none currently exists, what indications are there that the neighborhood residents are interested in buying flowers? Do they currently purchase flowers at a nearby supermarket? Does the national demographic data on flower purchasers coincide with neighborhood demographics? Perhaps, you should conduct a survey of the neighborhood’s residents, asking about their flower - buying habits and preferences. You may not have the funds to undertake extensive market research, but even a small amount of analysis can help you gauge the receptivity of a particular market to your idea. In addition to market readiness, key market factors will influence your choice of marketing strategy and help you make realistic financial projections. When gathering information for your business plan, spend considerable time learning about your market. The more thoroughly you understand the various factors that affect your market, the more likely you are to succeed. Once you have clarified what you want to tell customers about your construction company, you must describe how you disseminate that information. How do you reach potential customers? Do you advertise? If so, where? Do you send direct mail? If so, to what mailing list? Do you participate in trade shows? If so, which ones and how frequently? Ancient Wonders of the World The Great Pyramid is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that still stands. It was built by order of the Pharaoh Cheops, who once ruled Egypt. More than 100,000 slaves had been laboring for twenty years to build it. They had no machines, not even carts – all the work was done by human strength alone. Yet each huge block was so well laid that the Pyramid has stood for 5,000 years. Near the Great Pyramid in Egypt there is a huge sculptured rock called the Sphynx. The face is that of a man, perhaps the Pharaoh Khafre who built it almost 5,000 years ago. But the body is that of a lion, and between its great stone paws there is a small temple. In Babylon, one of the great cities of the Ancient World, there was a famous garden which amazed visitors for hundreds of years. It was called the Hanging Gardens, because it was built along arches and towers and looked like a wall of flowers and green shrubs. The garden was kept alive by a hidden pool on a highest terrace, from which the water was drawn to appear in a series of fountains. The gardens were built by King Nebuchodnozzor, who is mentioned in the Bible as a cruel conqueror of Jerusalem. The greatest god of the ancient Greeks was Zeus, for whom the Roman name was Jupiter. The greatest statue of Zeus was at Olympia, where the famous Olympic Games were held in nits honor. The statue was 40 feet high – about seven times a man’s height – and was made of marble, decorated with pure gold and ivory. After 1,000 years, an earthquake tumbled it down. The Temple of Artemis is one of the most famous temples of the ancient world. It stood for 600 years in Ephesus, a great city of Syria. The temple was sacred to Artemis, also called Diana, goddess of the moon. The finest sculptors and painters of Greece decorated this beautiful building, which was destroyed by barbaric Goths. Only a few pieces of statues columns remained. They were dug up by modern scientists. Few remember the tiny kingdom of Caria, which once flourished in what is now southwestern Turkey. But the name of its king, Mausolus, is known because of the word “mausoleum” – a massive tomb. The original Mausoleum, built in memory of this king by his widow, Queen Artemisia, was so magnificent that it was one of the Wonders of the Ancient World. Rhodes, an inland near Greece, was one of the richest and busiest towns of the ancient world. Standing across the entrance to its big harbor, was a huge statue of the sun god Helios, famous as the Colossus of Rhodes. Although ships sailed beneath these giant feet, the Colossus was not as large as the American Statue of Liberty. The Lighthouse of Alexandria, sometimes called the Pharos of Alexandria was a tower built by the Ptolemaic Kingdom between 280 and 247 BC which was between 393 and 450 ft (120 and 137 m) tall. It was one of the tallest man-made structures in the world for many centuries, and was regarded as one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Pharos was a small island just off the coast of the Nile Delta's western edge. In 332 BC when Alexander the Great founded the city of Alexandria on an isthmus opposite to Pharos, he caused the island to be united to the coast by a mole more than three-quarters of a mile long (1260 m/4,100+ feet) called the Heptastadion The Moscow Kremlin The Moscow Kremlin is the chief architectural ensemble of the capital. It has few rivals in the number of unique masterpieces of architecture and other art concentrated within its walls. The might of these walls, its ridge-roofed towers and the three-dimensional expressiveness of the buildings clustered on its grounds offer panoramas of rare beauty. The triangle of the Kremlin walls, repeating the outline of Borovitsky Hill, encloses an area of 27.5 hectares. The maximum height of the hill above the level of the Moskva river is about 25 meters. The ensemble of the Moscow Kremlin is the result of the efforts of many generations. Signs of a Slavic settlement here date to no later than the end of the 11th century. At the time the fortress on the top of Borovitsky Hill covered an area of about 5 hectares. The first Moscow fortifications consisted of a moat, a rampart and a palisade. The city built here on the orders of Prince Yuri Dolgoruky in the 12th century was 5 to 6 times as large as the initial area. By the end of the 15th century the unification of the Russian feudal principalities was completed and a United Russian State had been formed. Ivan the III the grand prince of all Russia launched reconstruction of the Kremlin on the large scale, having invited a number of master builders from Italy for the purpose. So the Italian architect and military engineer Aristotel Fioravanti arrived in Moscow to work there for many years. The new Cathedral of the Dormition (1475-1479) was the first to be built. In 1484-1489 the festive Cathedral of Annuciation was erected next to it. They were joined by the Cathedral of the Archangel in 1505-1508. For a whole decade starting from 1485 old walls and towers were replaced with new ones. It was then that the Kremlin acquired its present-day outlines. The fortress walls forming an irregular triangle are of 2.235 m long, from 3.5to 6.5m thick and from 5 to 19 m high. Atop the walls stand 1,045 bifurcated merlons from 2 to 2.5 m long in height and fitted with narrow embrasures. Along the east a moat 12 m deep and 32 m high surrounded kremlin walls. On its northwest side Borovitsky Hill was protected by the Neglinnaya river and on its south side by the Moskva river. The Kremlin was a superb example of the fortification art of the period. Air-Conditioning Air-conditioning is the bringing of air in a building to a desired temperature, purity and humidity throughout the year to maintain healthy and comfortable atmosphere. Air-conditioning may be divided into two main sections: one for the processing of materials in industry; the other for human comfort. It has been found that there is an optimum condition of temperature and humidity at which the processing of different materials may be carried out with the minimum of wastage and the maximum of goods of specification quality. The system is therefore designed to produce air of predetermined temperature and moisture content and to keep it so despite all external influences. Such air is filtered free of foreign material. Conditioning air for human comfort mat also be divided into two main sections – winter and summer. Frequently, the systems installed in office buildings provide control during both seasons. Complete air-conditioning provides the following services. First, filtration of the air both in winter and summer to remove dust. Second, calculation of the air at low velocity and with proper diffusion to prevent draughts and maintain a uniform temperature and humidity at all parts of the inhabited space. Third, introduction of enough fresh air from the outside atmosphere. Fourth, heating of the air in winter. Fifth, cooling of the air in summer below the outside atmosphere. Sixth, humidifying the air in winter to a relative humidity of at least 20-25 per cent. Seventh, dehumidifying the air in summer to a relative humidity not exceeding 55 per cent. Modern Building Materials Concrete is perhaps the most widely spread building material used nowadays. Concrete is an artificial stone, made by thoroughly mixing such natural ingredients or aggregates as cement, sand and gravel or broken stone together with sufficient water to produce a mixture of the proper consistency. It has many valuable properties. It sets under water, can be poured into moulds so as to get almost any desirable form, and together with steel in reinforced concrete it has very high strength, and also resist fire. Prestressed concrete is most widely used at present while prefabricated blocks are employed on vast scale for skeleton structures. Aggregate for concrete By the simple definition from the dictionary “aggregates are the materials, such as sand and small stones, that are mixed with cement to form concrete. Aggregates have three principle functions in the concrete: they provide a relatively cheap filler for the concreting material, or binder, they provide a mass of particles which are suitable for resisting the action of applied loads, of abrasion, of percolation of moisture through the mass, and of climate factors, they reduce volume changes resulting from the action of the setting and hardening of the concrete mass. All aggregates, both natural and artificial, which nave sufficient strength and resistance to weathering, and which do not contain harmful impurities may be used for making concrete. As aggregates such natural materials as sand, pebbles, broken stone, broken brick, gravel, slag, cinder, pumice and others can be used. Prestressed concrete Prestressed concrete is not a new material. Its successful use has been developed rapidly during the last two decades, chiefly because steel of a more suitable character has been produced. Concrete is strong in compression but weak when used for tensile stresses. If, therefore, we consider a beam made of plain concrete, and spanning a certain distance, it will at once be realized that the beam’s own weight will cause the beam to ‘sag’ or bend. This sagging at once puts the lower edge of the beam in tension, and if the cross-sectional are is small, causes it to break, especially if the span is relatively large. If , on the other hand, we use the similar cross-section, but incorporate steel bars in the lower portion, the steel will resist the tensile stress derived from the sagof the beam, and thus assist in preventing it from breaking. Key vocabulary Bend – v сгибаться; гнуться; изгибаться Crack – n 1.треск 2.трещина Desire- желание; просьба, требование Gravel - гравий Load – n груз; нагрузка Sag – v оседать; падать Store – n запас; склад Tensile – растяжимый |