Ecological Quality of the Construction Investment Project

The aim of the article is to indicate the possibility of assessing the quality of construction solutions for investment projects by analyzing their environmental performance, also formulated as ecological quality. The concept of the environmental performance of a construction project was defined as adapting the solutions applied throughout the whole life cycle to comply with the environment. The life cycle of the construction project begins articulating building needs, then the concept and feasibility study of the project appears at the beginning of the life cycle of the project. This is followed by the design of the building and executive processes. The next stages of the project life cycle are the implementations of logistic and construction processes, which end with putting the project into service. The operation phase ends with a project closure (usually demolition or deconstruction). An attempt was made to specify the criteria for assessing the ecological quality of construction investment projects in individual phases of their cycle. The investigations were based on available literature and practical experience of the authors of the study. It was also stressed that the perspective of the subject should be taken into account in the environmental assessment. This is due to the fact that the processes of shaping the object in the program, project and implementation phases are related to operational processes and the liquidation phase. It was emphasized that each of the stakeholders should perceive all stages of the construction project cycle

An exploration of the construction industry's role in disaster preparedness, response and recovery

The construction industry’s role in reconstruction activities following disasters such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami, is well documented. In particular, post-disaster reconstruction has been the subject of a significant body of research, with particular emphasis on developing countries that are less able to deal with the causes and impacts of disasters. There is, however, growing recognition that the construction industry has a much broader role to anticipate, assess, prevent, prepare, respond and recover from disruptive challenges. Advocates suggest construction professionals have a key role to play because they are involved in the construction of the infrastructure, and therefore should also be involved when an event destroys that infrastructure. They also suggest that the construction professions are in the best position to frame the discussion of the costbenefit trade-offs that occur in the risk management process; for example, the need for risk avoidance against the cost of implementing safety strategies. This exploratory paper considers the need for a more expansive view of the life cycle of infrastructure projects: one that extends beyond the traditional cycle of feasibility analysis, planning, design, construction, operation, maintenance and divestiture. This revised life cycle considers the construction professional’s ability to anticipate and respond to events, such as the Indian Ocean Tsunami, which damage or destroy an infrastructure project and reflects the construction industry’s ongoing responsibility toward an infrastructure’s users

USING A GENRE-BASED APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE ENGLISH WRITING COMPETENCE OF VIIIA STUDENTS OF SMPN 3 METRO LAMPUNG IN THE ACADEMIC YEAR 2011/2012

This research is a collaborative classroom action research, and the subject is VIIIA students of SMPN 3 Metro–Lampung in the academic year 2011/2012 and English teacher who teaches the eight grade of SMPN 3 Metro Lampung. The method of Kemmis & McTaggart was used in this research, consisting four steps: (1) planning, which prepared components of the cycle in genre-based approach including building knowledge of the field, modeling of text, joint construction of text, and independent construction of text; (2) action, which was the implementation of each cycle in the genre-based approach; (3) observation, observing which implemented the genre-based approach; and (4) reflection, which was a discussion between the researcher and collaborator about the findings in the observation and action phases. The research instruments were students observation guide, field note guide, and writing assessment guide. The data were qualitative and quantitative. The qualitative data were obtained from the results of classroom observation and field notes, and the quantitative data were the students’ pretest scores, scores in the independent construction of text in each cycle, and posttest scores. The reliability of the data was obtained by using the triangulation technique which combined the result of the observation, field note, and the result of the students’ writing. The result of the research shows that the improvement was achieved in every cycle. At the building knowledge of the field phase, the students competence in expressing vocabulary improved, at modeling of text phase, the students were able to understand the teachers’ explanation about genre, at the joint construction of text phase, the students were able to interact with their peers, and at the independent construction of text phase, the students were able to compose a text without the teacher’s guide and friends’ help. The result of the improvement can be seen from the comparation of the pretest result, each cycle result, and posttest result. The mean score of the students pretest result is 55.05, the result of the first cycle is 70.08, and the second cycle is 74.63, while the posttest result is 76.1. From those results, it can be concluded that the genre-based approach can improve the students’ writing competence. Keywords: genre-based approach, writing, cycl

The fundamental cycle of concept construction underlying various theoretical frameworks

In this paper, the development of mathematical concepts over time is considered. Particular reference is given to the shifting of attention from step-by-step procedures that are performed in time, to symbolism that can be manipulated as mental entities on paper and in the mind. The development is analysed using different theoretical perspectives, including the SOLO model and various theories of concept construction to reveal a fundamental cycle underlying the building of concepts that features widely in different ways of thinking that occurs throughout mathematical learning

On Binary de Bruijn Sequences from LFSRs with Arbitrary Characteristic Polynomials

We propose a construction of de Bruijn sequences by the cycle joining method from linear feedback shift registers (LFSRs) with arbitrary characteristic polynomial $f(x)$. We study in detail the cycle structure of the set $\Omega(f(x))$ that contains all sequences produced by a specific LFSR on distinct inputs and provide a fast way to find a state of each cycle. This leads to an efficient algorithm to find all conjugate pairs between any two cycles, yielding the adjacency graph. The approach is practical to generate a large class of de Bruijn sequences up to order $n \approx 20$. Many previously proposed constructions of de Bruijn sequences are shown to be special cases of our construction

Multiple zeta value cycles in low weight

In a recent work, the author has constructed two families of algebraic cycles in Bloch cycle algebra over the prjective line minus 3 points that are expected to correspond to multiple polylogarithms in one variable and have a good specialization at 1 related to multiple zeta values. This is a short presentation, by the way of toy examples in low weight (5), of this contruc- tion and could serve as an introduction to the general setting. Working in low weight also makes it possible to push ("by hand") the construction further. In particular, we will not only detail the construction of the cycle but we will also associate to these cycles explicit elements in the bar construction over the cycle algebra and make as explicit as possible the "bottow-left" coefficient of the Hodge realization periods matrix. That is, in a few relevant cases we will associated to each cycles an integral showing how the specialization at 1 is related to multiple zeta values. We will be particularly interested in a new weight 3 example .Comment: revised version

M&A in the Construction Industry -Wealth Effects of Diversification into Real Estate Life Cycle Related Services

Since the late 1990s, the construction industry has undergone a change in business model, as contractors vertically expand their operations to other parts of the real estate life cycle. The question arises on whether construction companies have superior abilities as real estate service providers. We have examined the value implications of 106 large merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions in the construction industry worldwide from 1986 to 2006. We inquire if a vertical expansion of the construction value chain in the real estate life cycle through M&A leads to the creation of shareholder value. We find out that this is not the case. M&A success is mainly determined by industry-specific size effects and common agency conflicts.Construction industry; Cross-border acquisitions; Bidder gains; Global diversification

Life cycle assessment of completely recyclable concrete

Since the construction sector uses 50% of the Earth. s raw materials and produces 50% of its waste, the development of more durable and sustainable building materials is crucial. Today, Construction and Demolition Waste (CDW) is mainly used in low level applications, namely as unbound material for foundations, e.g., in road construction. Mineral demolition waste can be recycled as crushed aggregates for concrete, but these reduce the compressive strength and affect the workability due to higher values of water absorption. To advance the use of concrete rubble, Completely Recyclable Concrete (CRC) is designed for reincarnation within the cement production, following the Cradle-to-Cradle (C2C) principle. By the design, CRC becomes a resource for cement production because the chemical composition of CRC will be similar to that of cement raw materials. If CRC is used on a regular basis, a closed concrete-cement-concrete material cycle will arise, which is completely different from the current life cycle of traditional concrete. Within the research towards this CRC it is important to quantify the benefit for the environment and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) needs to be performed, of which the results are presented in a this paper. It was observed that CRC could significantly reduce the global warming potential of concrete