Development of a building information modelling (BIM) migration path model for construction professionals

The construction professionals have the notion that by implementing Building Information Modelling (BIM) in construction could overcome problems such as delay, cost overrun, clashes in project design and undesirable quality in construction. However, they failed to take the advantages of the BIM benefit as they are still trying to find the best way to take on board the BIM into current practices. Most of the professionals do not know ‘when’ and ‘how’ to apply BIM throughout the construction lifecycle. Several research models related to BIM has been developed to improve and encourage BIM implementation. Nevertheless, the developed models have limitations in highlighting the steps involved that could assist the construction professionals in implementing BIM effectively in Malaysia. Therefore, this research is aimed to develop a model that would be able to assist Malaysian construction professionals in implementing BIM in a structured way. A semi-structured interview was carried out with respondents that have various experienced and currently involved in BIM projects in the Malaysian construction industry. Findings show that the construction professionals are lacking in knowledge and experience in using BIM in various stages of construction. Thus, they were unable to fully capitalise the benefit of 3D models. Migration path model was proposed and evaluated as a strategic approach for BIM implementation in the Malaysian construction industry. The identification of five (5) activities (BIM Awareness, Develop BIM Strategy, Implement BIM, Monitor BIM and Expand BIM Implementation) with the three (3) enablers (BIM work contract, BIM work process and BIM technology) in the model is expected to be able to assist construction professionals to implement BIM with the right BIM concept and later, the benefit could be obtained for improving construction project. The proposed model could be as a guideline for construction professionals in implementing BIM, specifically in countries that new in BIM. The model is also expected to be able to fill the gap in BIM implementation by supporting the initiatives by the Malaysian government for increasing productivity in construction projects by using new technology like BIM

Congestion control in multi-serviced heterogeneous wireless networks using dynamic pricing

Includes bibliographical references.Service providers, (or operators) employ pricing schemes to help provide desired QoS to subscribers and to maintain profitability among competitors. An economically efficient pricing scheme, which will seamlessly integrate users’ preferences as well as service providers’ preferences, is therefore needed. Else, pricing schemes can be viewed as promoting social unfairness in the dynamically priced network. However, earlier investigations have shown that the existing dynamic pricing schemes do not consider the users’ willingness to pay (WTP) before the price of services is determined. WTP is the amount a user is willing to pay based on the worth attached to the service requested. There are different WTP levels for different subscribers due to the differences in the value attached to the services requested and demographics. This research has addressed congestion control in the heterogeneous wireless network (HWN) by developing a dynamic pricing scheme that efficiently incentivises users to utilize radio resources. The proposed Collaborative Dynamic Pricing Scheme (CDPS), which identifies the users and operators’ preference in determining the price of services, uses an intelligent approach for controlling congestion and enhancing both the users’ and operators’ utility. Thus, the CDPS addresses the congestion problem by firstly obtaining the users WTP from users’ historical response to price changes and incorporating the WTP factor to evaluate the service price. Secondly, it uses a reinforcement learning technique to illustrate how a price policy can be obtained for the enhancement of both users and operators’ utility, as total utility reward obtained increases towards a defined ‘goal state’

Dynamic Pricing in Heterogeneous Wireless Cellular Networks

Smart communications devices are giving users instant access to applications that consume large amounts of data. These applications have different requirements on the network for delivery of data. In order to support these different applications, operators are required to support multiple service classes. Given the regulatory and technology constraints and the relatively high cost associated with wireless spectrum licensing and utilization, demand will exceed supply leading to congestion and overload conditions. In addition to new broadband radio technologies offering higher data rates, operators are looking at deploying alternate heterogeneous technologies, such as WLAN, to provide additional bandwidth for serving customers. It is expected that this will still fall short of providing enough network resources to meet the ITU requirement for 1% new call blocking probability. An economic mechanism that offers incentives to individuals for rational behavior is required in order in order to reduce the demand for network resources and resolve the congestion problem. The research in this dissertation demonstrates that the integration of a dynamic pricing with connection admission control mechanism for an operator deploying cooperative heterogeneous networks (e.g., LTE and WLAN) offering multiple QoS service classes reduces the new call blocking probability to the required 1% level. The experimental design consisted, first, of an analytical model of the CAC algorithm with dynamic pricing in a heterogeneous environment. The analytical model was subsequently validated through discrete-event simulation using Matlab