Knowledge Capturing in Design Briefing Process for Requirement Elicitation and Validation

Knowledge capturing and reusing are major processes of knowledge management that deal with the elicitation of valuable knowledge via some techniques and methods for use in actual and further studies, projects, services, or products. The construction industry, as well, adopts and uses some of these concepts to improve various construction processes and stages. From pre-design to building delivery knowledge management principles and briefing frameworks have been implemented across project stakeholders: client, design teams, construction teams, consultants, and facility management teams. At pre-design and design stages, understanding the client’s needs and users’ knowledge are crucial for identifying and articulating the expected requirements and objectives. Due to underperforming results and missed goals and objectives, many projects finish with highly dissatisfied clients and loss of contracts for some organizations. Knowledge capturing has beneficial effects via its principles and methods on requirement elicitation and validation at the briefing stage between user, client and designer. This paper presents the importance and usage of knowledge capturing and reusing in briefing process at pre-design and design stages especially the involvement of client and user, and explores the techniques and technologies that are usable in briefing process for requirement elicitation

An Investigation on Benefit-Cost Analysis of Greenhouse Structures in Antalya

Significant population increase across the world, loss of cultivable land and increasing demand for food put pressure on agriculture. To meet the demand, greenhouses are built, which are, light structures with transparent cladding material in order to provide controlled microclimatic environment proper for plant production. Conceptually, greenhouses are similar with manufacturing buildings where a controlled environment for manufacturing and production have been provided and proper spaces for standardized production processes have been enabled. Parallel with the trends in the world, particularly in southern regions, greenhouse structures have been increasingly constructed and operated in Turkey. A significant number of greenhouses are located at Antalya. The satellite images demonstrated that for over last three decades, there has been a continuous invasion of greenhouses on all cultivable land. There are various researches and attempts for the improvement of greenhouse design and for increasing food production by decreasing required energy consumption. However, the majority of greenhouses in Turkey are very rudimentary structures where capital required for investment is low, but maintenance requirements are high when compared with new generation greenhouse structures. In this research paper, life-long capital requirements for construction and operation of greenhouse buildings in Antalya has been investigated by using benefit-cost analysis study

Behavioural risk at outdoor music festivals

'Safety is not an intellectual exercise to keep us in work. It is a matter of life and death. It is the sum of our contributions to safety management that determines whether the people we work with live or die.' Sir Brian Appleton, after Piper Alpha (1988). Outdoor music festivals are increasingly common events on the summer entertainment landscape for youth in many countries around the world. Evidence indicates that attendance is associated with an increased risk of injury and death. Crowds are the principal hazard that needs to be dealt with, and without effective management, can become a significant problem with serious consequences. A considerable proportion of the safety risks associated with outdoor music festivals can be attributed to anti-social, irrational and unsafe behaviour by patrons. Encouragement of such behaviour has, to some extent, been a deliberate strategy on the part of music promoters and press agents, resulting in patrons attending music events becoming more aggressive and violent. While there is endorsement in the literature for a risk management approach, risk assessments for music festivals and mass gatherings generally tend to deal with the traditional hazards and risks, without taking into account the dynamics of the crowd or those factors that influence its behaviour. Influences on crowd behaviour are little understood and generally ignored, leaving a significant source of risk at this type of event unaccounted for. When managing risks at outdoor music festivals it is important, therefore, to understand the nature of the crowd demographic attending the event and the factors that impact on and shape the behaviour of the crowd. A number of attempts have been made to develop an appropriate method for assessing crowd safety at mass gatherings. While these approaches provide traditional (albeit contextualised) and contemporary approaches, none address the issue of behavioural risk. This dissertation outlines a model which draws together the various influences on individual behaviour which, mediated by theories of social psychology are translated into collective crowd behaviour and uses the model to ground the development of an instrument to monitor and assess behavioural risk at outdoor music festivals