Is agile project management applicable to construction?

This paper briefly summarises the evolution of Agile Project Management (APM) and differentiates it from lean and agile production and ‘leagile’ construction. The significant benefits being realized through employment of APM within the information systems industry are stated. The characteristics of APM are explored, including: philosophy, organizational attitudes and practices, planning, execution and control and learning. Finally, APM is subjectively assessed as to its potential contribution to the pre-design, design and construction phases. In conclusion, it is assessed that APM offers considerable potential for application in predesign and design but that there are significant hurdles to its adoption in the actual construction phase. Should these be overcome, APM offers benefits well beyond any individual project

Housing the knowledge economy in China: An examination of housing provision in support of science parks

Little attention is paid in the extant academic literature to the question of housing knowledge workers despite the potential mismatches between housing supply and demand. This paper provides an initial examination of housing the knowledge economy in China, focusing on three science parks (SPs): Zhongguancun (Z-Park, Beijing), Zhangjiang (Z-SHIP, Shanghai) and Optics Valley of China (OVC, Wuhan). It discusses to what extent, and how these three SPs have factored in the housing dimension in connection with the knowledge economy, paying particular attention to housing affordability, location (inside the SPs or outside in the wider city-region) and the mode of provision (market or state). Insights were drawn from documentary analysis and in-depth interviews in the three chosen case studies. Initial evaluation of policies geared towards housing supply in China suggests that the housing question needs to come to the fore in discussions of structural transformation towards the knowledge economy

Discovery of high-entropy ceramics via machine learning

AbstractAlthough high-entropy materials are attracting considerable interest due to a combination of useful properties and promising applications, predicting their formation remains a hindrance for rational discovery of new systems. Experimental approaches are based on physical intuition and/or expensive trial and error strategies. Most computational methods rely on the availability of sufficient experimental data and computational power. Machine learning (ML) applied to materials science can accelerate development and reduce costs. In this study, we propose an ML method, leveraging thermodynamic and compositional attributes of a given material for predicting the synthesizability (i.e., entropy-forming ability) of disordered metal carbides. The relative importance of the thermodynamic and compositional features for the predictions are then explored. The approach’s suitability is demonstrated by comparing values calculated with density functional theory to ML predictions. Finally, the model is employed to predict the entropy-forming ability of 70 new compositions; several predictions are validated by additional density functional theory calculations and experimental synthesis, corroborating the effectiveness in exploring vast compositional spaces in a high-throughput manner. Importantly, seven compositions are selected specifically, because they contain all three of the Group VI elements (Cr, Mo, and W), which do not form room temperature-stable rock-salt monocarbides. Incorporating the Group VI elements into the rock-salt structure provides further opportunity for tuning the electronic structure and potentially material performance

Evaluation of 3D Printed Immobilisation Shells for Head and Neck IMRT

This paper presents the preclinical evaluation of a novel immobilization system for patients undergoing external beam radiation treatment of head and neck tumors. An immobilization mask is manufactured directly from a 3-D model, built using the CT data routinely acquired for treatment planning so there is no need to take plaster of Paris moulds. Research suggests that many patients find the mould room visit distressing and so rapid prototyping could potentially improve the overall patient experience. Evaluation of a computer model of the immobilization system using an anthropomorphic phantom shows that >99% of vertices are within a tolerance of ±0.2 mm. Hausdorff distance was used to analyze CT slices obtained by rescanning the phantom with a printed mask in position. These results show that for >80% of the slices the median “worse-case” tolerance is approximately 4 mm. These measurements suggest that printed masks can achieve similar levels of immobilization to those of systems currently in clinical use

Practices of Using Blockchain Technology in ICT under the Digitalization of the World Economy

Abstract. Pursuing the purpose of effective functioning in today's conditions, the business is forced to transform rapidly, to modernize at all levels. The world is changing, erasing the limits of its certainty. Companies need quality transformations and strategies that are effective in the face of rapid change towards "deep" digitization. Massive corporate management systems increasingly need the flexibility to keep pace with change. And companies with an innovative culture are more in need of creative tasks than implementing detailed regulations. In the post-industrial time of digital economy, issues related to the development of the information sphere, the media and communications, the usage of modern information systems to develop the economy and stabilize social development as a whole, come first. The basic principles of practical application of Blockchain are investigated in the work. The stages of development of Blockchain technology, the stages of development of Blockchain technologies by time, the application of distributed registry technology in Blockchain applications, the principles of construction and operation of Blockchain have been specified. The benefits of using NEM for business are substantiated and the components of Proxima X technology, protocols and service layers, on-line and off-line protocols, decentralized applications are exposed