4D modelling using virtual collaborative planning and scheduling

During the last decades, the introduction of Building Information Models (BIM) has opened new possibilities to ensure better communication and a shared understanding between stakeholders in construction projects. Similar benefits have been found in 4D simulations of the schedule. While BIM and 4D use has seen a steady increase, the potential benefits have not fully been realised, primarily due to tools not supporting and enabling the full potential of collaborative stakeholder involvement in scheduling. The benefits of 4D simulations come from improving communication between stakeholders. While traditional 4D modelling connects an existing BIM model with an existing schedule, a move from this type of passive 4D visualisation toward social co-creation enables all stakeholders to be involved in the scheduling process. This connection is further enhanced with the use of Virtual Reality (VR). Recent research has shown VR to enhance understanding and perception of the space and details and, thus, a better understanding of the project. This paper maps collaborative planning and scheduling method and traditional 4D scheduling using process modelling. This mapping is followed by implementing the 4D collaborative planning and scheduling method in the virtual project planning system with support for a multi-user interactive VR environment. The system enables social co-creation both during the planning and scheduling and during 4D modelling; it improves understanding of the project and the planning and scheduling

Collaboration: Critical success factors for student learning

Several studies identify collaboration between classroom teachers and teacher-librarians as a key factor that affects student achievement. Studies in teacher-librarianship have established procedures and processes for effective collaboration. This study examines collaboration from a broader theoretical and research perspective, beginning with 20 factors that specifically influence successful collaborations. These are clustered in six areas: factors related to the environment, to membership characteristics, to process and structure, to communication, to purpose, and to resources. Research from teacher-librarianship is then applied to substantiate and reinforce the factors and provide context for successful collaboration and thus effect on students\u27 learning in schools. Reprinted by permission of the publisher

Human-Machine Collaborative Optimization via Apprenticeship Scheduling

Coordinating agents to complete a set of tasks with intercoupled temporal and resource constraints is computationally challenging, yet human domain experts can solve these difficult scheduling problems using paradigms learned through years of apprenticeship. A process for manually codifying this domain knowledge within a computational framework is necessary to scale beyond the ``single-expert, single-trainee" apprenticeship model. However, human domain experts often have difficulty describing their decision-making processes, causing the codification of this knowledge to become laborious. We propose a new approach for capturing domain-expert heuristics through a pairwise ranking formulation. Our approach is model-free and does not require enumerating or iterating through a large state space. We empirically demonstrate that this approach accurately learns multifaceted heuristics on a synthetic data set incorporating job-shop scheduling and vehicle routing problems, as well as on two real-world data sets consisting of demonstrations of experts solving a weapon-to-target assignment problem and a hospital resource allocation problem. We also demonstrate that policies learned from human scheduling demonstration via apprenticeship learning can substantially improve the efficiency of a branch-and-bound search for an optimal schedule. We employ this human-machine collaborative optimization technique on a variant of the weapon-to-target assignment problem. We demonstrate that this technique generates solutions substantially superior to those produced by human domain experts at a rate up to 9.5 times faster than an optimization approach and can be applied to optimally solve problems twice as complex as those solved by a human demonstrator.Comment: Portions of this paper were published in the Proceedings of the International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI) in 2016 and in the Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS) in 2016. The paper consists of 50 pages with 11 figures and 4 table

HealthPartners: Consumer-Focused Mission and Collaborative Approach Support Ambitious Performance Improvement Agenda

Presents a case study of a nonprofit healthcare organization that exhibits the six attributes of an ideal healthcare delivery system as defined by the Fund, including information continuity, care coordination and transitions, and system accountability

Determining the basic principles in managing project schedule for construction.

The application of the scheduling software has been quite popular in Malaysia recently. Planning software like Microsoft Project and Primavera had been used to develop the schedule for construction project for the purpose or project monitoring and control. Many clients organization have made the task to submit computer generated schedule as mandatory. However in real practice the schedule submitted has not been very useful for the client. In some instances the schedule has been ignored once submitted to the client. There are many problems associated to this situation. Among them is due to the absent of the standard guideline that can be used to manage the schedule itself. The contractor. Contractor has been prepared the schedule based on their own assumption and without much consideration for actual application for the project later. Therefore this short term research has been conducted with the main aim to develop such guideline. The methodology adopted for the study includes the interviews with panel of professional in construction and questionnaire survey. The development of the guideline is based on the feedback by the respondents of the questionnaires survey conducted. Prior to that, the research has also investigated the current state of arts of the scheduling practice in Malaysia and its limitation. The major finding of the research is the development of the guideline for managing the scheduling process. This guideline can be used by the major client to regulate the process of preparing, submission and updating the project progress. It is expected that this schedule can be improve further by improving its level of comprehensiveness

Pre-Education Programs: A Comprehensive Project at Henry Ford Community College

Henry Ford Community College (HFCC) in Dearbom, Michigan is a two-year institution of higher education serving a diverse student population of approximately 13,000 students. In addition to providing a broad array of technical and vocational programs, the College provides the first two years of a baccalaureate program. However, the transferability of these programs is not assured. In the absence of a mandated state-wide curriculum, two- and four-year colleges and universities in Michigan develop courses and programs independently, and the transfer of courses between institutions is determined independently by the respective departments. The end result is often loss of credit when a community college student transfers. Other problems faced prospective education majors as well. Students were justifiably apprehensive about the suitability of their academic preparation for the challenges they would confront at the four-year institution. To address this and other problems, HFCC initiated a comprehensive project to develop a structured teacher education program. The project consisted of two components: 1) creation of pre-education programs and 2) institution of articulated transfer agreements as a result of collaboration with neighboring universities. The success of this reform is underscored by a dramatic increase in HFCC pre-education majors from 354 students in 1994 to 697 in 1997, with 80 students designating minority status in 1994 and 179 in 1997

Characterization and Classification of Collaborative Tools

Traditionally, collaboration has been a means for organizations to do their work. However, the context in which they do this work is changing, especially in regards to where the work is done, how the work is organized, who does the work, and with this the characteristics of collaboration. Software development is no exception; it is itself a collaborative effort that is likewise affected by these changes. In the context of both open source software development projects and communities and organizations that develop corporate products, more and more developers need to communicate and liaise with colleagues in geographically distant places about the software product they are conceiving, designing, building, testing, debugging, deploying and maintaining. Thus, work teams face sizeable collaborative challenges, for which they have need of tools that they can use to communicate and coordinate their Work efficiently

Nurse Practitioners\u27 Characteristics and Job Satisfaction

PURPOSE: To identify demographics and job satisfaction levels of currently working nurse practitioners (NPs) in California. DATA SOURCES: A mail-in survey was used to gather data The Mueller McCloskey Satisfaction Scale was sent to a randomized sample of 200 California NPs with active licensure. Descriptive statistical analysis of usable data was employed. CONCLUSIONS: NPs reported high levels of job satisfaction. Aspects of the job that showed significant levels of satisfaction were schedules, flexibility of hours, and interprofessional relationships. NPs were least satisfied with not having professional opportunities such as participation in nursing research, writing/publishing, and belonging to a department/nursing committee

The Science Studio – A Workshop Approach to Introductory Physical Science

This paper describes the Science Studio, an innovative workshop approach for instruction in a physical science course that combines aspects of traditional lecture and laboratory. The target audience for this introductory course is non-science majors, including prospective teachers. An inquiry-based, technology-rich learning environment has been created to allow students hands-on, in-depth exploration of topics in physics, and earth and space science. Course philosophy, course development, and sample activities are described in this paper, along with outcomes from a project-wide evaluation of the Virginia Collaborative for Excellence in the Preparation of Teachers (VCEPT), an investigation of change in student attitudes and the lasting impact of the studio model at Norfolk State University