A knowledge based system for valuing variations in civil engineering works: a user centred approach

There has been much evidence that valuing variations in construction projects can lead to conflicts and disputes leading to loss of time, efficiency, and productivity. One of the reasons for these conflicts and disputes concerns the subjectivity of the project stakeholders involved in the process. One way to minimise this is to capture and collate the knowledge and perceptions of the different parties involved in order to develop a robust mechanism for valuing variations. Focusing on the development of such a mechanism, the development of a Knowledge Based System (KBS) for valuing variations in civil engineering work is described. Evaluation of the KBS involved demonstration to practitioners in the construction industry to support the contents of the knowledge base and perceived usability and acceptance of the system. Results support the novelty, contents, usability, and acceptance of the system, and also identify further potential developments of the KBS

Learning building pathology using computers - evaluation of a prototype application

Building Surveying employers are requiring graduates with a high level of cognitive and experiential skills to enable them to survey buildings directly after graduation with little or no supervision. These skills have traditionally been built up over many years through on the job training. This has led to a change in thinking for educators as providing this type of graduate requires learning and training material that is time consuming and costly to provide, as it requires learners to be actively involved in real surveying tasks. One method that appears to solve some of these problems is computer-aided-learning (CAL). CAL can be defined as, “…a way of presenting educational material to a learner by means of computer program which gives the opportunity for individual interaction.” The full potential of CAL tools in the building-surveying domain has yet to be fully explored. This paper presents the results of a prototype application developed to enable inexperienced surveyors to learn building pathology without leaving their desktops

Geospatial virtual reality for cyberlearning in the field of topographic surveying: Moving towards a cost-effective mobile solution

In spite of the tremendous success in artificial intelligence technology and a high level of automation in geospatial data obtaining processes, there is still a need for topographical field data collection by professional surveyors. Understanding terrain topology and topography is a cognitive skill set that has to be demonstrated by geospatial Subject Matter Experts (SME) for the productive work in the topographic surveying field. For training of the mentioned above skillset, one has to be exposed to the theory and must also practice with surveying instruments in field conditions. The challenge of any surveying/geospatial engineering workforce training is to expose students to field conditions which might be limited due to equipment expenses and meteorological conditions that prevent good data collection. To meet this challenge, the Integrated Geospatial Technology research group is working on a geospatial virtual reality (VR) project which encompasses the following components: (a) immersive visualization of terrain; (b) virtual total station instrument; (c) virtual surveyor with reflector installed on the virtual rod. The application scenario of the technology we are working with has the following stages: (1) student is installing total station on the optimal location; (2) students move virtual surveyor on the sampling points they consider to be important (3) contours are generated and displayed in 3D being superimposed on 3D terrain; (4) accuracy of terrain modeling is observable and measurable by comparing the sampling model with initial one

SurveyingGame: Gamified Virtual Environment for Surveying Training

This contribution describes the first developing phases of a tool aimed to support field training ses-sions in topographic survey learning courses. After describing the issue that justifys the proposal of the research, a discussion of similar approaches carried out by researcher from different countries is shown. Thenceforth, the concept and description of the proposed gamified simulator are explained. Finally, the future features and scopes of the research are presente

Creation of a web site to provide technical support and training

The project, presented in this paper, developed a web-based tool that provides training and technical support in the use of computers to employees at the San Bernardino Community College District. The purpose of this project was with the lack of one support system it has become necessary to create one place for support entities to share their expertise with one another and with the campus community. This project creates a web presence that all of these groups can contribute to. This system starts out small and creates a skeletal system that will allow for continued development after the project is over

Minimization of tool path length of drilling process using particle swarm optimization (PSO)

In the era of challenging economic, the industry in our country has been forced to produce a good quality product and increase the productivity of machining process simultaneously in order to compete with other countries. Drrilling process is one of a very important cutting process in industry. In a drilling for machining by Computer Numerical Control (CNC) such as drilling machines, the parameter of the tool routing path for the machining operation plays a very important role to minimize the machining time (Tiwari 2013, Rao and Kalyankar 2012) . This machine can be used with procedures for drilling, spreading, weaning and threading with a lot of the holes precisely. In order to increase the efficiency and productivity of drilling process, optimization on parameters of process can lead to better performance. Optimization of holes drilling operations will lead to reduction in time order and better productivity of manufacturing systems. Optimizing the tool path has played an important role, especially in mass production because reducing the time to produce one piece eventually lead to a significant reduction in the cost of the entire series (Pezer, 2016). In various publications and articles, scientists and researchers adapted several methods of artificial intelligence (AI) or hybrid optimization method for tool path artificial immune system (AIS), genetic algorithms (GA), Artificial Neural networks (ANN) Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) (Narooei and Ramli, 2014). These methods were been proven that can produce better performance and increase the productivity of drilling process. Therefore, in this study, the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm was develop in order to minimizing the tool path length in the drilling process which can produce the better results for the required machining time process. For this study, the main purpose is to apply the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm for use in searching for the optimal tool routing path for in simulation of drilling proces

Introduction to pollution prevention concepts in freshman chemistry through simulations and hypermidia

As citizens of the 20th century, a key issue we all are aware of is degradation of the environment. In the interest of teaching the environmental issues to freshmen engineers, this study develops a computer aided learning/teaching (CAL/T) tool. This CAL/T tool consists of Internet based multimedia courseware and intelligent simulations. The courseware assembles the fundamentals of chemistry associated with current environmental issues such as air pollution, stratospheric ozone layer depletion and environmentally sensitive or \u27clean\u27 manufacturing. The courseware targets early and comprehensive understanding of pollution prevention concepts with a focus on environmentally friendly manufacturing. The courseware includes: on-line text, audio-video education tools, video files of laboratory demonstrations, interactive computer software for environmental problem solving and laboratory simulation, on-line self assessment tests, information about faculty, and on-line evaluation tools to obtain students\u27 feed-back to enhance faculty teaching. To enable the widest possible dissemination this courseware can be accessed by academia, industry, and governmental research and educational institutions through the World Wide Web

Information-Enabled Decision-Making in Health Care: EHR-Enabled Standardization, Physician Profiling and Medical Home

Health care today harms too frequently and routinely fails to deliver its potential benefits. Significant evidence suggests that high quality primary care can positively affect health outcomes. I explored three related topics mentioned frequently in current United States health reform €“ Electronic Health Records (EHR), physician profiling and Medical Home. An investment in these areas is expected to significantly improve quality of care and efficiency; however, there is only a patchwork of evidence supporting such claims. To achieve EHR promises, my research employed a standardization lens to study the dynamics between EHR embedded structures and primary care processes. Using grounded theory, a standardization dynamics model was created describing the influencers, conditions and consequences of the process state. A matrix of two conditions, information exchange and patient complexity, identified four distinct pathways that require a different balance between standardization and flexibility. The value of such pathways is that they frame choices about how to use embedded IT structures to support effective delivery processes. Physician profiling is an emerging methodology used in health care quality improvement programs. Efforts to measure performance at the individual physician level face a number of challenges, including the need for sufficient sample size to support reliable measurement. A process for creating a physician profiling model was developed, and a model designed for a case study site. Results indicate that reliable physician profiling is possible across care domains using a hierarchical composite model. Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) is a new care delivery approach for providing comprehensive primary care that seeks to strengthen the physician-patient relationship. This exploratory study utilizes Pearson correlation coefficients to test four hypotheses about relationships between two sources of data: (1) PPC-PCMH Survey results that measure adoption of PCMH structures and (2) patient experience data from Massachusetts Health Quality Partners (MHQP). The results showed that the PPC-PCMH structures of access and communication were negatively correlated with the related patient experience measure. This study contributes to the literature by addressing deficiencies in how EHR-enabled processes, physician profiling models and Medical Home constructs are measured, to support improved outcomes

Building Bridges Between Community Based Organizations and Technology: Exploring Tools for Community Participation and Economic Development for the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative

Technology plays a vital role in public and private businesses, governments, and organizations, and can be especially useful to organizations that may know the least about it. Unfortunately, many Community Based Organizations (CBOs) have traditionally been unable to embrace contemporary tools due to lack of capacity, time or money. This paper begins to identify issues related to the technology gap faced by CBOs in a case study that examines community economic empowerment for the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative® (DSNI). The problem was approached through a community-university partnership between the Cornell University CRP 607 GIS Workshop Class (Sibley Consulting) and DSNI. One of the main technological tools used in bridging this gap was the use of geographic information systems (GIS). With an increase in GIS capability, DSNI can collect, manage, analyze and visualize neighborhood data, thus providing simple but powerful knowledge to the community. A geodatabase should be created where new and existing data can be stored, updated, and utilized repetitively. The geodatabase will allow DSNI to manipulate the data for a wide range of uses such as evaluating neighborhood trends for economic development. This classroom experiment provided students with an opportunity to provide professional technology services as a ‘mock’ consulting team. However, all of the data, maps and geospatial and other web-based technology evaluations will be utilized by DSNI and will have an immediate impact on the future of the Dudley neighborhood. This report is an educational tool for DSNI in order to evaluate the future database design and community GIS application. This report can also be seen as a model by which other community-university teams can measure their successful implementation to create a resident led community database information management system. A series of base maps which depict existing conditions along with secondary data resources have been used to evaluate the Dudley Neighborhood in Roxbury and North Dorchester, Massachusetts