Public Perceptions of the Midwest’s Pavements - Wisconsin - Phase I (Winter Ride)

The Wisconsin Winter Ride Survey was designed to determine the extent to which drivers were tolerant of the rougher ride of pavements on rural two-lane highways in the winter. Survey objectives, as such, were centered around this primary question of winter ride tolerance. A telephone survey was conducted by the Wisconsin Survey Research Laboratory (WSRL), which added questions to its quarterly Wisconsin Opinion Poll for the data collection period of January 15 to March 15, 1997. A similar survey focusing only on the topic of winter driving on rural highways was conducted in Minnesota during the same period. Random digit dial samples were drawn for both states according to accepted sampling procedure. The survey data set provided by WSRL included 417 respondents. Conclusions derived from the Wisconsin Winter Ride Survey included the following. Overall, Wisconsin respondents were predominately tolerant of the pavement’s potentially rougher ride in winter. Three-fourths of the 173 respondents who had noticed a change in the pavement indicated that they were more tolerant of the rough ride in winter than they would be the rest of the year. The extent to which motorists noticed changes in the pavement was influenced by the driving and vehicle characteristics. Respondents who drove more frequently on rural two-lane highways and those driving trucks, full-size vans or sport utility vehicles were more 2 likely to notice changes. The latter finding suggests that differences in suspension and ride entered in for respondents driving cars versus those driving trucks. It follows, therefore, that noticing pavement changes generally increased as ratings of the vehicle’s ride quality declined

SciTech News Volume 71, No. 1 (2017)

Columns and Reports From the Editor 3 Division News Science-Technology Division 5 Chemistry Division 8 Engineering Division Aerospace Section of the Engineering Division 9 Architecture, Building Engineering, Construction and Design Section of the Engineering Division 11 Reviews Sci-Tech Book News Reviews 12 Advertisements IEEE

Reverse engineering in construction

Recently a great deal of research into construction IT has been completed, and this is ongoing to improve efficiency and quality in the construction sector. The new innovation of 3D laser scanning is aimed at being used to improve the efficiency and quality of construction projects, such as maintenance of buildings or group of buildings that are going to be renovated for new services. The 3D laser scanner will be integrated with other VR tools such as GIS solutions and workbench for visualisation, analysis and interaction with a building VR model. An integration strategy is proposed for an Ordnance Survey map of the area and 3D model created by means of the laser scanner. The integrated model will then be transferred to the VR workbench in order to visualise, interact and analyse the interested buildings on purpose

Starting a Construction Engineering Program at Marquette University

Marquette University decided to start a Construction Engineering and Management program during the 2007 academic year. An endowed chair, titled the McShane Chair in Construction Engineering and Management, was funded by Jim and Kelly McShane to run the program. After a national search, Mark Federle, an executive with a large construction firm and previous academic experience at Iowa State University, was hired to start the program. The first class of students were enrolled in the fall of 2008. This paper will present the opportunities/challenges in starting a Construction Engineering and Management program. Lessons learned, comparisons to other programs, and other pertinent information will be shared. The program will be undergoing an ABET evaluation during the fall of 2012, if successful it will result in Marquette University having one of less than 15 such programs across the country. To this time, there have been twelve graduates from the program

Benchmarking of project planning and success in selected industries

Purpose - To identify the industry in which projects are best planned and executed and use it as a benchmark for improving project planning in other industries. Design/methodology/approach - Based on data collected from 280 project managers, project success and quality of project planning were evaluated and analyzed for four industries - construction and engineering, software and communications, services, and production and maintenance. Findings - Quality of project planning was found to be the highest in construction and engineering organizations and the lowest in manufacturing organizations. This is a result of a few factors, among them the intensive organizational support which is offered to project managers working in construction and engineering organizations. The other three industries limit their support mostly to tactical aspects, such as the purchasing of project management software. The high quality of project planning in the construction and engineering organizations resulted in their ability to complete projects by almost half the cost and schedule overruns, as compared to organizations belonging to the other industries. Finally, results of the industries in Israel and Japan are compared and analyzed. Research limitations/implications - Findings are limited to the four industries included in the study. Practical implications - If organizations, not belonging to the construction industry, wish to improve the probability of success in project planning and execution, they should follow methodologies commonly used in the construction industry. Originality/value - This paper introduces a valid field study, exploring project management practices in four industries and identifies the one which may be used as a benchmark for the others. It also identifies specific strengths and weaknesses in project management within the explored industries

Public Perceptions of the Midwest’s Pavements - Minnesota - Phase I (Winter Ride)

The Minnesota Winter Ride Survey was designed to gauge the extent to which motorists were tolerant of the rougher ride of pavements on rural two-lane highways in the winter. Survey objectives, therefore, were centered around this focal question of winter ride tolerance. A telephone survey was conducted during the first quarter of the year (January 15 to March 15, 1997) by the Wisconsin Survey Research Laboratory (WSRL), which simultaneously conducted a similar survey in Wisconsin. Random digit dial samples were drawn for both states according to accepted sampling procedure. The survey data set provided by WSRL included 417 respondents. Analysis of the survey responses, performed by Marquette University, yielded insights into the sample composition and relationships between respondents’ perception/tolerance and their driving and demographic characteristics. In terms of demographics, the sample was evenly split male versus female, with two-thirds of the respondents in the 21-49 age range. Almost half were lifetime residents of Minnesota, and one-third had a college degree or beyond. A majority drove cars, as opposed to minivans, trucks, etc., and very few of the respondents rated the roughness of their vehicle’s ride as less than average. Minnesota Winter Ride Survey findings, on the whole, were reasonably consistent. Minnesota drivers who had noticed a change in the pavement’s ride since the beginning of winter were largely more tolerant of the rough ride than they would be the rest of the year. Based on the analysis, it was apparent that the perception and tolerance of the survey respondents was influenced by particular driving and demographic characteristics

Bioengineering Techniques for Soil Erosion Protection and Slope Stabilization

The use of bio-engineering methods for soil erosion protection and slope stabilization has a long tradition. Old methods with rocks and plants, structures of timber have been used over the past centuries. Recently these old soil conservation and stabilization techniques have been rediscovered and improved. Biotechnical engineering methods have become part of geotechnical and hydraulic engineering and have helped bridge the gap between classical engineering disciplines, land use management, landscape architecture and biological sciences. In this paper the different uses of plants in hydraulic and geotechnical engineering design are presented. The core of this study is a comprehensive overview of the most important biotechnical construction methods used for soil erosion protection and slope stabilization. Methods, construction procedure, and the major advantages and disadvantages of these biotechnical methods are discussed. Considerations about construction and maintenance costs conclude in this paper.

Construction of Minimax Control for Almost Conservative Controlled Dynamic Systems with the Limited Perturbations

The problem is considered for constructing a minimax control for a linear stationary controlled dynamical almost conservative system (a conservative system with a weakly perturbed coefficient matrix) on which an unknown perturbation with bounded energy acts.To find the solution of the Riccati equation, an approach is proposed according to which the matrix-solution is represented as a series expansion in a small parameter and the unknown components of this matrix are determined from an infinite system of matrix equations.A necessary condition for the existence of a solution of the Riccati equation is formulated, as well as theorems on additive operations on definite parametric matrices. A condition is derived for estimating the parameter appearing in the Riccati equation.An example of a solution of the minimax control problem for a gyroscopic system is given. The system of differential equations, which describes the motion of a rotor rotating at a constant angular velocity, is chosen as the basis