Sustainable Construction Engineering and Management

This Book is a Printed Edition of the Special Issue which covers sustainability as an emerging requirement in the fields of construction management, project management and engineering. We invited authors to submit their theoretical or experimental research articles that address the challenges and opportunities for sustainable construction in all its facets, including technical topics and specific operational or procedural solutions, as well as strategic approaches aimed at the project, company or industry level. Central to developments are smart technologies and sophisticated decision-making mechanisms that augment sustainable outcomes. The Special Issue was received with great interest by the research community and attracted a high number of submissions. The selection process sought to balance the inclusion of a broad representative spread of topics against research quality, with editors and reviewers settling on thirty-three articles for publication. The Editors invite all participating researchers and those interested in sustainable construction engineering and management to read the summary of the Special Issue and of course to access the full-text articles provided in the Book for deeper analyses

Investigating the relationship between mobile network performance metrics and customer satisfaction

Fixed and mobile communication service providers (CSPs) are facing fierce competition among each other. In a globally saturated market, the primary di↵erentiator between CSPs has become customer satisfaction, typically measured by the Net Promoter Score (NPS) for a subscriber. The NPS is the answer to the question: ”How likely is it that you will recommend this product/company to a friend or colleague?” The responses range from 0 representing not at all likely to 10 representing extremely likely. In this thesis, we aim to identify which, if any, network performance metrics contribute to subscriber satisfaction. In particular, we investigate the relationship between the NPS survey results and 11 network performance metrics of the respondents of a major mobile operator in South Africa. We identify the most influential performance metrics by fitting both linear and non-linear statistical models to the February 2018 survey dataset and test the models on the June 2018 dataset. We find that metrics such as Call Drop Rate, Call Setup Failure Rate, Call Duration and Server Setup Latency are consistently selected as significant features in models of NPS prediction. Nevertheless we find that all the tested statistical and machine learning models, whether linear or non-linear, are poor predictors of NPS scores in a month, when only the network performance metrics in the same month are provided. This suggests that either NPS is driven primarily by other factors (such as customer service interactions at branches and contact centres) or are determined by historical network performance over multiple months

Reproductive success and survival of swallows (Hirundo rustica) : effects of age and body condition

This thesis presents the results of a study on the Swallow Hirundo rustica carried out in Central Scotland between April 1986 and August 1989. Their social behaviour and life history are described. Adults were found to be markedly faithful to both their mate and site. Notable differences between results observed here and with other similar studies were the apparent lack of any sexually selected infanticide or intra-specific nest parasitism. These results were attributed to differences in colony size. Intra- and inter-sexual variation in adult body size was measured and the presence of any age-related trends identified. Older birds had significantly bigger wing and outertail lengths but skeletal measures and inner tail-length did not vary in size. Swallows were found to be sexually size dimorphic for several parameters and these findings were discussed in relation to three hypotheses. Variation in reproductive performance between years and individuals was described. Clutch size and number of young fledged was lower for second- than first-broods but even after controlling for this, breeding performance still declined seasonally. Possible mechanisms associated with this common finding were explored. The number of broods attempted in a season made an important contribution to seasonal reproductive performance. Double brooded Swallows: (i) bred earlier, (ii) were older and (iii) were more successful during their first brood (cf. single-brooded). Since any measure of seasonal performance is likely to be an incomplete measure of fitness, attention was also given to understanding what factors affected adult and juvenile survival. Offspring which hatched earliest and from first broods were most likely to be recruited. There was no evidence to support a positive association between fecundity and parental survival in Swallows studied here, however. The role of individual characteristics in shaping reproductive performance was examined. Body size was only weakly associated, whereas parental age was strongly correlated with breeding success; yearlings laid later, had smaller clutch sizes and fledged fewer young during a season. Although females which were monitored over two successive seasons laid earlier in their second season they did not differ significantly for any other parameter compared. Data from other studies were reviewed and possible hypotheses to explain age-related trends were considered. It was concluded that the improved performance of older Swallows was related at least in part to individual differences and selective mortality. In an attempt to manipulate reproductive effort brood sizes were experimentally altered by adding (Enlarged) or removing (Reduced) one, two or three nestlings shortly after hatch. Un-manipulated broods served as Controls. The size of the first brood reared affected the probability that a second clutch would be laid as well as the timing (IBI) and, (iii) success (but not size) of the second clutch. The effect of manipulation on the IBI and occurrence of second brood was asymmetrical. Temporal variation, however, could not explain differences in future fecundity between first brood treatment categories. Early desertion in relation to clutch or brood reduction was discussed in relation to the "Concorde Fallacy". Although most pairs were able to rear additional young, nestling quality was adversely affected. Juvenile survival was related to brood size such that parents which reared Control broods were most likely to produce recruits. Manipulation of brood size also had an effect on adult survival but the effect differed between sexes and broods. The clearest and most significant result was that Swallows which reared Reduced broods (first or second) were more likely to survive (cf. Control or Enlarged broods). These findings were not attributed to differential dispersal of adults. A review of the literature indicated that this was the first study to publish results on the possible effects of manipulation of second broods for parental survival. The pattern of adult body mass during the nesting cycle was described. Males and females reached a minimum mass when the nestlings were aged between Days 9and 16 (NP II) and Days 17-23 (NP III) respectively. Only during these two stages were males heavier than females. Possible implications associated with a decrease in mass while feeding nestlings (cf. incubation) were discussed. Analyses of a sample of adult carcasses enabled body condition to be determined precisely. Quantitative methods of assessing the condition of live birds in the field were developed and validated against carcass analysis results. Muscle thickness as measured by a portable ultra-sound device and body mass were both considered to give reliable estimates of condition. A number of predictions following from the assumption that parental condition was related to current and future fecundity or overwinter survival were tested. There appeared to be no significant relationship between condition while feeding first brood nestlings and, a) the IBI, or b) occurrence of second broods. This applied to parents rearing both natural and experimental broods. There was some evidence to suggest that the condition of parents after the brood had fledged might be of greater importance. More data are necessary to confirm this finding, however. Female condition at any stage in the nesting cycle (lst or 2nd brood) was not related to overwinter survival. Data for males, however, supported the prediction such that birds in poorer condition during NP II were less likely to survive. Possible reasons for differences between the sexes were explored. One suggestion proposed was that females were better able to regulate their effort to maximise fitness and and so males were possibly "victims" of their partners variability. The possibility that single- and double-brooded species may vary in their allocation of resources was considered and there was some evidence to support this suggestion for Swallows observed here

The impact of action strategies on entrepreneurial success of emerging

Includes abstract.Includes bibliographical references.Research in the field of financial management of start-up SMEs in South Africa has suggested that many of these businesses could benefit from the implementation of rudimentary financial management practices such as improved access to finance and greater cash flow stability (GEM, 2003). Studies have indicated that high performing entrepreneurs have benefited from Complete Planning and Critical Point Planning Strategies as well as higher levels of Entrepreneurial Orientation (Krausse, 2005). Studies pertaining to the latter have focused on understanding or forecasting the entrepreneurial act in relation to success or failure and have been able to define more accurately, multiple dimensions of strategy. The purpose of this study was to examine the use of psychological factors such as strategy process characteristics and entrepreneurial orientation in explaining success in entrepreneurship research in a cross-sectional sample of 192 entrepreneurs in the Western Cape. This study examines mediating and moderating effects of entrepreneurial actions and strategies such as complete planning, critical point planning, reactive, and opportunistic strategies, as well as entrepreneurial orientation on the financial management practices-entrepreneurial success relationship. This study demonstrates the importance of the aforementioned personal strategies and how they could impact on the overall strategy-success relationships of start-up entrepreneurs

The decline of the neo-classical pastoral 1680-1730: a study in theocritean and virgilian influence.

The classical pastoral was an accredited genre in antiquity usually associated with a series of contrasts between the country and the city or between the supposedly natural and artificial worlds. With the decline in allegorical writing, however, the Restoration's neo-classical translators, especially Thomas Creech (Theocritus, l684) and John Dryden (1697), offered a pastoral with most of the potentially ironic commentaries on contemporary life either softened or erased altogether. Creech's Theocritus is free of the Doric alternations between the Heroic (Idyll I) and Rustic (idylls h and 5). Dryden's Eclogues pay homage to a transcendent classicism calculated to contrast with post-Revolution beliefs in limited traditions of authority. These two images of the classical pastoral provide one facet unacceptable to neσ-classicism (Theocritean rusticity) and one which casts doubt on its bucolic status altogether (Virgilian artifice). This dualism in the classical legacy is seen as rooted in opposed definitions of "simplicity", one a lyrical and affective quality, the other paying testimony to the classical past by imitating what was taken to be its bolder and enduring melodies. The foundation of the Modern variety, as exemplified by Ambrose Philips (1709), lies in its depiction of indigenous shepherds and their freedom from the classical, but not the rustic (Spenser and Theocritus). Alexander Pope's Pastorals (1709), on the contrary, demonstrate an Ancient preoccupation with a current culture’s indebtedness to its traditional sources of inspiration. His Strephons or Alexises wander amongst Windsor/Mantuan groves. The disappearance of much fresh neo-classical pastoral writing is then studied, especially in the mock-forms of the years I7IO-I6, particularly John Gay's The Shepherd's Week (I7l4). Within the Ancient pastoral Gay discovers sentiments incommensurate with contemporary rural poverty and so obviously redundant mimetically, but also an "unofficial" gusto in Theocritus and less imitated material that points forward to the particularity of the georgic. In short, Gay's mock-pastoral work, in the service of the prevailing Landed Interest, not only uncovers urban corruption but also the deceptions of the Ancient mode. In Purney's Theocritean pastorals (1717) and Ramsay's Scots Doric (1723-28), it is the Theocritean example which survives, not the more celebrated Eclogues of Virgil

Landscapes of ‘Civilisation’ and ‘Barbarity’ in the 1641 Irish Rebellion

The present research is comprised of an investigation into the organisation, execution, and reportage of the 1641 Irish rebellion in relation to the early modern Anglo-Irish struggle over ‘civility’ and ‘civilisation’, specifically by examining Irish and English perspectives of the ownership, use, and representation of the physical landscape throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In doing so, this investigation has contributed towards a greater understanding of the complexity of the Irish rebellion beyond its confessional scope, and has emphasised the significance of the landed dimension in relation to the continuation and endurance of Anglo-Irish conflict, from the Desmond Rebellions, to the Nine Years’ War, up until the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in 1641. By sampling individual testimonies of the Irish insurrection alongside larger contemporary accounts of the conflict, the English concern with the conquest and ‘civilisation’ of the physical Irish landscape and its inhabitants has been proven to extend across time, and was as much of a concern for average English and Protestant settlers seeking to ‘improve’ upon the land as for the colonial authorities of the crown, even after the onset of the conflict. As for the non-elite Irish population, who became the driving force behind the insurrection, given the scale of the displacement, dispossession, and devastation associated with the English conquest of Ireland, the rebellion was fought in order to reclaim their ancestral landscape, and was executed in order to restore the landscape to its former condition, use, and ownership, thus reinforcing Gaelic ties to the landscape itself. The rebellion constituted a battleground, not simply for the English conquest of the Irish landscape and its inhabitants, or even for religious denomination, but for the defence and advancement of English ‘civilisation’, or, from the perspective of the Irish, the restoration of Irish Gaeldom.The present research is comprised of an investigation into the organisation, execution, and reportage of the 1641 Irish rebellion in relation to the early modern Anglo-Irish struggle over ‘civility’ and ‘civilisation’, specifically by examining Irish and English perspectives of the ownership, use, and representation of the physical landscape throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In doing so, this investigation has contributed towards a greater understanding of the complexity of the Irish rebellion beyond its confessional scope, and has emphasised the significance of the landed dimension in relation to the continuation and endurance of Anglo-Irish conflict, from the Desmond Rebellions, to the Nine Years’ War, up until the outbreak of the Irish rebellion in 1641. By sampling individual testimonies of the Irish insurrection alongside larger contemporary accounts of the conflict, the English concern with the conquest and ‘civilisation’ of the physical Irish landscape and its inhabitants has been proven to extend across time, and was as much of a concern for average English and Protestant settlers seeking to ‘improve’ upon the land as for the colonial authorities of the crown, even after the onset of the conflict. As for the non-elite Irish population, who became the driving force behind the insurrection, given the scale of the displacement, dispossession, and devastation associated with the English conquest of Ireland, the rebellion was fought in order to reclaim their ancestral landscape, and was executed in order to restore the landscape to its former condition, use, and ownership, thus reinforcing Gaelic ties to the landscape itself. The rebellion constituted a battleground, not simply for the English conquest of the Irish landscape and its inhabitants, or even for religious denomination, but for the defence and advancement of English ‘civilisation’, or, from the perspective of the Irish, the restoration of Irish Gaeldom

Behavioural ecology of the Redbilled Woodhoopoe Phoeniculus purpureus in South Africa

Includes bibliographies.A study was made of two Redbilled (Green) Woodhoopoe Phoeniculus purpureus populations spanning an eight year period (1981-1988) and 258 'flock-years', in the eastern Cape Province of South Mrica. The main objectives of the study were to investigate (1) why woodhoopoes live in groups; (2) why nonbreeders do not breed; and, (3) why nonbreeders provision young that are not their own? Ecological and demographic data were gathered in addition to detailed behavioural observations of 54 woodhoopoe flocks. The following experimental manipulations were performed: (1) breeders were removed from flocks to (a) monitor dispersal patterns and restructuring of flocks; and, (b) observe behavioural reactions by remaining birds; (2) cavity availability was (a) decreased, to enable quantification of availability; and, (b) increased, by addition of nest/roost boxes to an area which supported no permanent woodhoopoe territories; and, (3) stimuli, associated with the food provisioning response of adult birds, were manipulated to investigate the evolutionary basis of allofeeding behaviour Variability in social and reproductive behaviour reflects environmental selection pressures, in the form of roost-cavity availability, with a reduction in cavity availability leading to increased group size. The group-territorial social system and high level of inbreeding of Redbilled Woodhoopoes have evolved primarily in response to environmental constraints on dispersal, rather than by particular benefits that arise from group living. Therefore, the habitat-saturation hypothesis best explains group living of woodhoopoes. Behavioural dominance hierarchies ensure that dominance relationships are well-defined among potential competitors (for breeding status), and thereby minimize disruption to flock cohesion upon the death (or removal) of a breeder. If competition for a breeding vacancy arose at the time of the breeder's death, the resultant delay in occupancy of the breeding vacancy would increase the likelihood of competition from unrelated birds. The establishment of such hierarchies is therefore adaptive in the context of the direct component of kin selection. The presence of nonbreeding helpers do not increase fledgling success, breeding frequency, survivorship (of any age, sex or social class), or number of breeder-offspring produced. Because no unambiguous indirect fitness benefits could be shown to result from helping behaviour (specifically allofeeding), I propose that the unselected (misdirected parental care) hypothesis is a viable alternative to the 'functional hypotheses.' This hypothesis is supported by observations/manipulations of misdirected food provisioning by both breeders and helpers

Ethical purchase behaviour and social responsibility in business

This thesis is about the decisions made in markets: whether decisions and what decisions are made by consumers. It isa study in consumer sovereignty and particularly In the way this may be used In ensuring social responsibility In business. Pressure group influence on purchase behaviour, particularly in the use or threat of consumer boycotts, suggests an extension of consumer sovereignty beyond its mere technical meaning within economics to a more literal meaning. Consumer authority in the marketplace may not simply refer to the more immediate characteristics of the offering such as product features or price but, as boycotts show, other charac- teristics such as whether the firm has investments in South Africa. Consumer boycotts are but the most manifest and organised form of purchase behaviour influenced by ethical concerns. Yet ethical purchase behaviour, although found in many markets, is largely unre- cognised In the literature. The novelty of this topic and the perspective on consumer sovereignty entailed an emphasis on conceptualisation in the research. The nature of capitalism and consumer sovereignty, the ideology of marketing, the problem of the social control of business, and pressure groups in the political process and their strategies and tactics, are explored to develop an argument which supports the notion of ethical purchase behaviour. A model is proposed identifying a role for pressure groups In the marketing system, explaining ethical purchase behaviour at the micro level by recognising negative product augmentation. Survey research and case studies support the model and the argument. Guidelines for action are proposed for pressure groups and business, suggesting both seek to influence a legitimacy element in the marketing mix. At a more conceptual level, consumer sovereignty is shown to offer potential for ensuring social responsibility in busi - ness. Of the three mechanisms for social control of business, the market may be used to greater effect through ethical purchase beha- vi our. However, consumer sovereignty requires choice as well as information. Pressure groups may act as a countervailing power by providing the necessary information, but competition is essential for choice. Consumer sovereignty Is the rationale for capitalism, the political- economic system in the West. This study questions the basis of such a system if political or ethical, as well as economic decisions, are not made by consumers in markets. Hence the argument for ethical purchase behaviour becomes an argument for capitalism

Jewish education at the Cape, 1841 to the present day : a survey and appraisal in the light of historical and philosophical perspectives

Bibliography: p. [A41-A42].Essentially, this history recounts the endeavours of a comparatively small Jewish Community, distant from the main centres of culture and population, in its search for assurance of continuity expressed in terms of an educational response to positive as well as negative forces acting on its group-existence. Interestingly enough, it is epitomised in the story of one or two Jewish schools: generally, one main school holds the stage. It is a story, however, which cannot be adequately understood without an examination of its long historical roots

Review of Particle Physics

The Review summarizes much of particle physics and cosmology. Using data from previous editions, plus 2,143 new measurements from 709 papers, we list, evaluate, and average measured properties of gauge bosons and the recently discovered Higgs boson, leptons, quarks, mesons, and baryons. We summarize searches for hypothetical particles such as supersymmetric particles, heavy bosons, axions, dark photons, etc. Particle properties and search limits are listed in Summary Tables. We give numerous tables, figures, formulae, and reviews of topics such as Higgs Boson Physics, Supersymmetry, Grand Unified Theories, Neutrino Mixing, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, Cosmology, Particle Detectors, Colliders, Probability and Statistics. Among the 120 reviews are many that are new or heavily revised, including a new review on Machine Learning, and one on Spectroscopy of Light Meson Resonances. The Review is divided into two volumes. Volume 1 includes the Summary Tables and 97 review articles. Volume 2 consists of the Particle Listings and contains also 23 reviews that address specific aspects of the data presented in the Listings