Integrating BIM and GIS for design collaboration in railway projects

Collaboration is essential to achieve project targets and minimising rework in any project including railway projects. The railway project is considered as a megaproject that requires effective collaboration in order to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. To ensure that the railway continues to provide safe, reliable, cost-effective services, and remains environmentally friendly while driving economic growth, engaging new technologies and new types of work models are required. Among these technologies, Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are recent technologies that support collaboration. However, using these technologies to achieve effective collaboration is challenging, especially in railway projects as they are amongst the most complicated projects and often numerous parties are involved in making important decisions. Currently, there is a lack of evidence-based guidelines or processes for effective collaboration in railway projects throughout their design stage. Therefore, this thesis has focused on developing a process model to improve collaboration in the design stage of railway projects using BIM and GIS. This research adopted a mixed-methods approach to examine and identify the issues that hinder collaboration in railway projects to assist in developing theBIM and GIS-enabled collaboration process model. An online questionnaire was designed and distributed to professionals to assess the state-of-the-art in BIM and GIS followed by two rounds of in-depth interviews with experts. The first round aimed to identify collaboration issues and consisted of 15 in-depth, face to face and videoconference/telephone interviews; while the second round consisted of 10 in-depth interviews to identify the process model components of the collaborative process using IDEF technique.The questionnaire data were analysed using descriptive statistics and statistical tests (for example, Regression analysis, Wilcoxon Signed Ranks and Kruskal-Wallis Test). The results showed a lack of training in BIM and GIS and identified collaboration as a significant factor for railway projects, but there were many challenges to achieve effective collaboration. These challenges have been further investigated during the first round of interviews using content and thematic analysis. The results revealed that the most common challenges were getting the right information at the right time for the right purposes followed by resistance to change. Furthermore, the findings indicated that developing a process model, based on a clear plan of work demonstrating the collaboration process, is a potential solution to tackle these challenges. Thus, a Collaborative Plan of Work (CPW) has been developed through combining the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Plan of Work and the GRIP (Governance for Railway Investment Projects) stages. This CPW will be the basis to develop a process model for BIM and GIS-enabled collaboration. The results from the second round of the interviews identified the process model components which are: key players’ roles and responsibilities, tasks (BIM and GIS Uses), BIM and GIS-based deliverables, and critical decision points for collaborative process design. Moreover, this process model was formulated utilising Integrated DEFinition (IDEF) structured diagramming techniques (IDEF0 and IDEF3).In conclusion, the process model of the collaboration process and the integrated implementation of BIM and GIS sets out role and responsibilities, deliverables, and key decision points. Finally, the research outcomes have been validated through a focus group and interviews with professionals in the biggest Railway company where the proposed process model was operationalised using a commercial Common Data Environment platform (viewpoint 4project). From their discussion, feedback and recommendations the IDEF processes model have been refined. It is concluded that such a process is crucial for effective collaboration in railway projects as it enables the management of the design process in terms of technologies used, activities, deliverables, and decision points. Therefore, the research findings support the notion that BIM and GIS can help to achieve effective collaboration by delivering the right information at the right time for the right purposes. As a result, they help to achieve the projects’ objectives efficiently in terms of time, cost and effort.</div

Bringing social reality to multiagent and service architectures : practical reductions for monitoring of deontic-logic and constitutive norms

As distributed systems grow in complexity, the interactions among individuals (agents, services) of such systems become increasingly more complex and therefore more difficult to constrain and monitor. We propose to view such systems as socio-technical systems, in which organisational and institutional concepts, such as norms, can be applied to improve not only control on the components but also their autonomy by the definition of soft rather than hard constraints. Norms can be described as rules that guide the behavior of individual agents pertaining to groups that abide to them, either by explicit or implicit support. The study of norms, and regulatory systems in general, in their many forms -e.g. social norms, conventions, laws, regulations- has been of interest since the beginning of philosophy, but has seen a lot of evolution during the 20th century due to the progress in the philosophy of language, especially concerning speech acts and deontic logic. Although there is a myriad of definitions and related terminologies about the concept of norm, and as such there are many perspectives on how to analyse their impact, a common denominator is that norms constrain the behaviour of groups of agents in a way that each individual agent can build, with a fair degree of confidence, expectations on how each of their counterparts will behave in the situations that the norms are meant to cover. For example, on a road each driver expects everybody else to drive on only one side of the road (right or left, depending on the country). Therefore, normative contexts, usually wrapped in the form of institutions, are effective mechanisms to ensure the stability of a complex system such as an organisation, a society, or even of electronic systems. The latter has been an object of interest in the field of Artificial Intelligence, and it has been seen as a paradigm of coordination among electronic agents either in multi-agent systems or in service-oriented architectures. In order to apply norms to electronic systems, research has come up with abstractions of normative systems. In some cases these abstractions are based on regimented systems with flexible definitions of the notion of norm, in order to include meanings of the concept with a coarse-grained level of logic formality such as conventions. Other approaches, on the other hand, propose the use of deontic logic for describing, from a more theoretical perspective, norm-governed interaction environments. In both cases, the purpose is to enable the monitoring and enforcement of norms on systems that include -although not limited to- electronic agents. In the present dissertation we will focus on the latter type, focusing on preserving the deontic aspect of norms. Monitoring in norm-governed systems requires making agents aware of: 1) what their normative context is, i.e. which obligations, permissions and prohibitions are applicable to each of them and how they are updated and triggered; and 2) what their current normative status is, i.e. which norms are active, and in what instances they are being fullfilled or violated, in order words, what their social -institutional- reality is. The current challenge is on designing systems that allow computational components to infer both the normative context and social reality in real-time, based on a theoretical formalism that makes such inferences sound and correct from a philosophical perspective. In the scope of multi-agent systems, many are the approaches proposed and implemented that full these requirements up to this date. However, the literature is still lacking a proposal that is suited to the current state-of-the-art in service-oriented architectures, more focused nowadays on automatically scalable, polyglot amalgams of lightweight services with extremely simple communication and coordination mechanisms- a trend that is being called “microservices”. This dissertation tackles this issue, by 1) studying what properties we can infer from distributed systems that allow us to treat them as part of a socio-technical system, and 2) analysing which mechanisms we can provide to distributed systems so that they can properly act as socio-technical systems. The main product of the thesis is therefore a collection of computational elements required for formally grounded and real-time e¬fficient understanding and monitoring of normative contexts, more specially: 1. An ontology of events to properly model the inputs from the external world and convert them into brute facts or institutional events; 2. A lightweight language for norms, suitable for its use in distributed systems; 3. An especially tailored formalism for the detection of social reality, based on and reducible to deontic logic with support for constitutive norms; 4. A reduction of such formalism to production rule systems; and 5. One or more implementations of this reduction, proven to e¬fficiently work on several scenarios. This document presents the related work, the rationale and the design/implementation of each one of these elements. By combining them, we are able to present novel, relevant work that enables the application of normative reasoning mechanisms in realworld systems in the form of a practical reasoner. Of special relevance is the fact that the work presented in this dissertation simplifies, while preserving formal soundness, theoretically complex forms of reasoning. Nonetheless, the use of production systems as the implementation-level materialisation of normative monitoring allows our work to be applied in any language and/or platform available, either in the form of rule engines, ECA rules or even if-then-else patterns. The work presented has been tested and successfully used in a wide range of domains and actual applications. The thesis also describes how our mechanisms have been applied to practical use cases based on their integration into distributed eldercare management and to commercial games.Con el incremento en la complejidad de los sistemas distribuidos, las interacciones entre los individuos (agentes, servicios) de dichos sistemas se vuelven más y más complejas y, por ello, más difíciles de restringir y monitorizar. Proponemos ver a estos sistemas como sistemas socio-técnicos, en los que conceptos organizacionales e institucionales (como las normas) pueden aplicarse para mejorar no solo el control sobre los componentes sino también su autonomía mediante la definición de restricciones débiles (en vez de fuertes). Las Normas se pueden describir como reglas que guían el comportamiento de agentes individuales que pertenecen a grupos que las siguen, ya sea con un apoyo explícito o implícito. El estudio de las normas y de los sistemas regulatorios en general y en sus formas diversas -normas sociales, convenciones, leyes, reglamentos- ha sido de interés para los eruditos desde los inicios de la filosofía, pero ha sufrido una evolución mayor durante el siglo 20 debido a los avances en filosofía del lenguaje, en especial los relacionados con los actos del habla -speech acts en inglés- y formas deónticas de la lógica modal. Aunque hay una gran variedad de definiciones y terminología asociadas al concepto de norma, y por ello existen varios puntos de vista sobre como analizar su impacto, el denominador común es que las normas restringen el comportamiento de grupos de agentes de forma que cada agente individual puede construir, con un buen nivel de confianza, expectativas sobre cómo cada uno de los otros actores se comportará en las situaciones que las normas han de cubrir. Por ejemplo, en una carretera cada conductor espera que los demás conduzcan solo en un lado de la carretera (derecha o izquierda, dependiendo del país). Por lo tanto, los contextos normativos, normalmente envueltos en la forma de instituciones, constituyen mecanismos efectivos para asegurar la estabilidad de un sistema complejo como una organización, una sociedad o incluso un sistema electrónico. Lo último ha sido objeto de estudio en el campo de la Inteligencia Artificial, y se ha visto como paradigma de coordinación entre agentes electrónicos, tanto en sistemas multiagentes como en arquitecturas orientadas a servicios. Para aplicar normas en sistemas electrónicos, los investigadores han creado abstracciones de sistemas normativos. En algunos casos estas abstracciones se basan en sistemas regimentados con definiciones flexibles del concepto de norma para poder influir algunos significados del concepto con un menor nivel de granularidad formal como es el caso de las convenciones. Otras aproximaciones proponen el uso de lógica deóntica para describir, desde un punto de vista más teórico, entornos de interacción gobernados por normas. En ambos casos el propósito es el permitir la monitorización y la aplicación de las normas en sistemas que incluyen -aunque no están limitados a- agentes electrónicos. En el presente documento nos centraremos en el segundo tipo, teniendo cuidado en mantener el aspecto deóntico de las normas. La monitorización en sistemas gobernados por normas requiere el hacer a los agentes conscientes de: 1) cual es su contexto normativo, es decir, que obligaciones permisos y prohibiciones se aplican a cada uno de ellos y cómo se actualizan y activan; y 2) cual es su estado normativo actual, esto es, que normas están activas, y que instancias están siendo cumplidas o violadas, en definitiva, cual es su realidad social -o institucional-. En la actualidad el reto consiste en diseñar sistemas que permiten inferir a componentes computacionales tanto el contexto normativo como la realidad social en tiempo real, basándose en un formalismo teórico que haga que dichas inferencias sean correctas y bien fundamentadas desde el punto de vista filosófico. En el ámbito de los sistemas multiagente existen muchas aproximaciones propuestas e implementadas que cubren estos requisitos. Sin embargo, esta literatura aun carece de una propuesta que sea adecuada para la tecnología de las arquitecturas orientadas a servicios, que están más centradas en amalgamas políglotas y escalables de servicios ligeros con mecanismos de coordinación y comunicación extremadamente simples, una tendencia moderna que lleva el nombre de microservicios. Esta tesis aborda esta problemática 1) estudiando que propiedades podemos inferir de los sistemas distribuidos que nos permitan tratarlos como parte de un sistema sociotécnico, y 2) analizando que mecanismos podemos proporcionar a los sistemas distribuidos de forma que puedan actuar de forma correcta como sistemas socio-técnicos. El producto principal de la tesis es, por tanto, una colección de elementos computacionales requeridos para la monitorización e interpretación e_cientes en tiempo real y con clara base formal. En concreto: 1. Una ontología de eventos para modelar adecuadamente las entradas del mundo exterior y convertirlas en hechos básicos o en eventos institucionales; 2. Un lenguaje de normas ligero y sencillo, adecuado para su uso en arquitecturas orientadas a servicios; 3. Un formalismo especialmente adaptado para la detección de la realidad social, basado en y reducible a lógica deóntica con soporte para normas constitutivas; 4. Una reducción de ese formalismo a sistemas de reglas de producción; y 5. Una o más implementaciones de esta reducción, de las que se ha probado que funcionan eficientemente en distintos escenarios. Este documento presenta el estado del arte relacionado, la justificación y el diseño/implementación para cada uno de esos elementos. Al combinarlos, somos capaces de presentar trabajo novedoso y relevante que permite la aplicación de mecanismos de razonamiento normativo en sistemas del mundo real bajo la forma de un razonador práctico. De especial relevancia es el hecho de que el trabajo presentado en este documento simplifica formas complejas y teóricas de razonamiento preservando la correctitud formal. El uso de sistemas de reglas de producción como la materialización a nivel de implementación del monitoreo normativo permite que nuestro trabajo se pueda aplicar a cualquier lenguaje o plataforma disponible, ya sea en la forma de motores de reglas, reglas ECA o incluso patrones si-entonces. El trabajo presentado ha sido probado y usado con éxito en un amplio rango de dominios y aplicaciones prácticas. La tesis describe como nuestros mecanismos se han aplicado a casos prácticos de uso basados en su integración en la gestión distribuida de pacientes de edad avanzada o en el sector de los videojuegos comerciales.Postprint (published version

Why do Part-Time Workers invest less in Human Capital than Full-Timers?

We analyze whether lower investments in human capital of part-time workers are due to workers’ characteristics or human resource practices of the firm. We focus on investments in both formal training and informal learning. Using the Dutch Life-Long-Learning Survey 2007, we find that part-time workers have different determinants for formal training and informal learning than full-time workers. The latter benefit from firms’ human resource practices such as performance interviews, personal development plans and feedback. Part-time workers can only partly compensate the lack of firm support when they have a high learning motivation and imagination of their future development.education, training and the labour market;

Life cycle assessment of coated abrasives and polishing agents : Case Mirka

This thesis presents and discusses the lifecycle assessment (LCA) of coated abrasives and polishing agents. The thesis was commissioned by Mirka Ltd. in 2020 and it’s aims are to 1) establish the environmental impact (as carbon and water footprints) of coated abrasives and polishing agents throughout the products’ life cycles and 2) compare the carbon footprint of three abrasives with the results from Henriksson’s 2012 thesis. The LCA methodology is standardised through the ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards and the number of LCA studies commissioned by companies is increasing. However, in the sanding solutions industry specifically are there yet not many published LCA studies. For this study the standardised LCA methodology was used, with background data from the ecoinvent 3.6 database and foreground data collected through Mirka employees. Data collected for the establishment of the environmental impact was made up of a sample of four PAPER, two PLASTIC, two NET and one TEXTILE coated abrasive products and four polishing agents. Data collected for the comparison included the products PRODUCT 1, PRODUCT 2 and PRODUCT 3. The data was assessed in the OpenLCA 1.10.2 software with the ReCiPe Midpoint (H) V1.13 method. The results show that one major contributor to the environmental impact is the raw material, followed by production for coated abrasives and packaging for polishing agents. The large impact of air freight is highlighted in the assessment of the distribution. The discussion on the end-of-life stage finds waste-to-energy (WtE) to be the most suitable option for the coated abrasives, with recycling or reuse the preferred option for the packaging materials. In the comparative assessment it is found that Mirka’s transition to WtE technology at the Jepua facility has zeroed the facility’s production impact. With the biggest environmental impact areas identified, Mirka can now search for solutions to lower their impact and have a benchmark to track their progress against.Denna pro gradu avhandling presenterar och diskuterar livscykelanalysen (LCA) på sandpapper och polermedel. Avhandlingen som beställdes av Mirka Ltd. år 2020 har som mål att 1) etablera miljöpåverkan (koldioxid- och vattenfotavtryck) av sandpapper och polermedel under produkternas livscykel och 2) jämföra tre sandpappers koldioxidfotavtryck med resultaten från Henrikssons slutarbete från 2012. LCA metoden är standardiserad genom standarderna ISO 14040 och ISO 14044 och efterfrågan på LCA studier ökar bland företag. Inom slipmaterialsindustrin har det dock ännu inte publicerats någon större mängd LCA studier. I denna studie användes den standardiserade LCA metoden, med bakgrundsdata från ecoinvent 3.6 databasen och förgrundsdata som är insamlat i samarbete med anställda på Mirka. För etablering av produkternas miljöpåverkan samlades data ur ett stickprov på fem pappers- (PAPER), två plast- (PLASTIC) och två nätprodukter (NET), samt en textilprodukt (TEXTILE) ur sandpapperskategorin och fyra polermedel. Data för jämförelsen inkluderade produkterna PRODUCT 1, PRODUCT 2 och PRODUCT 3. Analysen gjordes i programvaran OpenLCA 1.10.2 med metoden ReCiPe Midpoint (H) V1.13. Enligt resultaten har råmaterialen den största inverkan på produkternas miljöpåverkan, med produktionen för sandpappren och förpackningsmaterialen för polermedlen på andra plats. Den höga påverkan av flygtransport synliggörs i analysen av distributionen. I diskussionen angående graven-delen av produkternas livscykel är slutsatsen att avfallsenergiprocesser är det bästa alternativet för sandpapper, medan återvinning eller återanvändning är att föredra för förpackningsmaterialen. I den jämförande delen synliggörs det att Mirkas övergång till avfallsförbränning som huvudsaklig energikälla vid fabriken i Jeppo har nollat fabrikens koldioxidfotavtryck för produktionen. När områden med den största miljöpåverkan nu identifierade kan Mirka hitta lösningar för att sänka deras påverkan och ha en baslinje att jämföra framstegen mot

Robotization and digitalisation in the construction industry

Abstract. Industry 4.0 has emerged as a famous concept in the last few years to describe the significance of digitisation and robotization in the smart manufacturing environment. The advancements in robotics, digital software, and smart technologies have allowed a new wave in the construction industry. The construction industry is the major economic pillar and provides a significant impact on the overall GDP of the country. Despite the predominant pillar, it is considered as the poor innovator and late adopter of new technologies, which ends up with delays and cost overruns in their construction projects. Considering this aspect, the research emphasises the importance of adopting the latest technologies in the construction industry in order to enhance the productivity and efficiency of various processes. This study seeks to examine existing robotization and digitalisation practices in the leading construction companies and intends to provide the required improvement ideas in this research domain. The empirical results revealed that the majority of the case companies lack basis to implement the latest technologies in their construction activities. They believe that effective use of the available technologies is an asset, but it is a long process to be achieved. Thus, the thesis is concluded by providing the critical information regarding the adoption of latest technologies and proposes a framework that can help to enhance the robotization and digitisation practices to improve the performance of the construction activities. The mentioned framework mainly focusses on elements that this research found as a potential need for companies to implement. This framework has a future scope for validation and also key elements of the framework can be utilised for further research

Bio-inspired anatomy for autonomous DPWS-compliant automation components

Dissertação apresentada na Faculdade de Ciências e Engenharia da Universidade Nova de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Electrotécnica e de ComputadoresThis thesis approaches the use of the DPWS technology to implement web-services on small devices, addresses its limitations, and explains an architecture to solve it. An approach to an autonomous device’s simple architecture was realized, using DPWS, and was called Simple DPWS. The objective was to implement/simplify some features in a device in a way that the device can work on its own. The designed architecture is based on that each component has its framework of modules, having always at least the skeleton modules communication and Event Router-Scheduler. The communication module controls all the communication between the devices and the ERS is the responsible for the other modules’ real-time communication. The DPWS toolkit offers no capability of interacting with run-time-appearing services. Thus there was a necessity to do enhancements over the DPWS toolkit to have a dynamic stub and skeleton. This service was called the dynamic service. An experience was done connecting a DPWS toolkit sample service with the corresponding hand-created dynamic service. It was used the lighting service that consists on turning a lamp ON or OFF and getting its status. A GUI was done for the application to be more user-friendly. The results were satisfactory, as the connection worked

A new approach to the development and maintenance of industrial sequence logic

This thesis is concerned with sequence logic as found in industrial control systems, with the focus being on process and manufacturing control systems. At its core is the assertion that there is a need for a better approach to the development of industrial sequence logic to satisfy the life-cycle requirements, and that many of the ingredients required to deliver such an approach are now available. The needs are discussed by considering the business case for automation and deficiencies with traditional approaches. A set of requirements is then derived for an integrated development environment to address the business needs throughout the control system life-cycle. The strengths and weaknesses of relevant control system technology and standards are reviewed and their bias towards implementation described. Mathematical models, graphical methods and software tools are then assessed with respect to the requirements for an integrated development environment. A solution to the requirements, called Synect is then introduced. Synect combines a methodology using familiar graphical notations with Petri net modelling supported by a set of software tools. Its key features are justified with reference to the requirements. A set of case studies forms the basis of an evaluation against business needs by comparing the Synect methodology with current approaches. The industrial relevance and exploitation are then briefly described. The thesis ends with a review of the key conclusions along with contributions to knowledge and suggestions for further research

Advances on Mechanics, Design Engineering and Manufacturing III

This open access book gathers contributions presented at the International Joint Conference on Mechanics, Design Engineering and Advanced Manufacturing (JCM 2020), held as a web conference on June 2–4, 2020. It reports on cutting-edge topics in product design and manufacturing, such as industrial methods for integrated product and process design; innovative design; and computer-aided design. Further topics covered include virtual simulation and reverse engineering; additive manufacturing; product manufacturing; engineering methods in medicine and education; representation techniques; and nautical, aeronautics and aerospace design and modeling. The book is organized into four main parts, reflecting the focus and primary themes of the conference. The contributions presented here not only provide researchers, engineers and experts in a range of industrial engineering subfields with extensive information to support their daily work; they are also intended to stimulate new research directions, advanced applications of the methods discussed and future interdisciplinary collaborations