Changes in Job Situations for Women Workforce in Construction during the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced unique circumstances to women workforce in construction including the need to work from home, changes in job situations and family responsibilities following the lockdowns. This exploratory study was conducted around six months into the pandemic in examining the changes of their job situations, and their perceptions of career aspects during the pandemic. The results show that most respondents were employed full-time at the time of survey, and that there were profound changes to their work location and working hours including working from home and worked more hours than usual. Their perceived negative impacts of the pandemic on their capacity to engage in paid work activities due to caring responsibilities, pay or earnings, job security, and career progression and advancement are modest. They were also seemingly confident in staying in their job in the next 12-month. Their perceptions have been found significantly associated with their age, education level, and years of experience in the industry. These findings provide a critical insight on women’s job situations in the industry during the pandemic, with implications for human resource practices towards addressing the challenges in retention of women workforce during and post COVID-19 pandemic

Women Workforce in Construction during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges and Strategies

Changes and challenges in employment are inevitable under the measures enacted to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. Early evidence suggests that the pandemic would disproportionately affect women compared to men. Focussing on women workforce in construction, this exploratory study examines the challenges associated with changes in their job situations, the adopted strategies in addressing the challenges and their opinions on employment situation of women workforce during the pandemic. Results of a content analysis show that the top ranked challenges are: (i) overworked; (ii) working space; (iii) social interactions; (iv) collaboration; and (v) parenting. The most cited strategies in addressing these challenges are: (i) increased visual communication; (ii) a dedicated workspace; (iii) self-scheduling; (iv) flexible working arrangements; and (v) breaking out work time and personal time. The evidence is suggestive that most challenges are interrelated, and the strategies adopted by the respondents are multi-level and interdependent. The results also show that the most mentioned opinion is the increased caring and domestic responsibilities among women workforce. Under the uncertainty about the duration of the pandemic and future contagion waves, these findings are critical in informing employing organizations’ human resource management challenges to better support their female employees during pandemic time and beyond

Sustainable Procurement in Australia: Quantity Surveyors' Perception on Life Cycle Costing

Life cycle costing (LCC) has long been recognised as one of the essential techniques for sustainable development. Over the past decades, the use of LCC in the industry has been restricted and building stakeholders are blaming each other for its limited application. The research aims to investigate quantity surveyors'perception towards LCC implementation in Australia by specifically examining their general awareness and application of LCC; determining the key obstacles hindering LCC implementation; and identifying the key enablers for LCC implementation. An online survey of 24 quantity surveying professionals was undertaken. The overall results indicate that quantity surveying professionals do have basic knowledge of LCC and appreciate its benefits. However, the results suggest that clients and architects are the key culprits for hindering the implementation of LCC by placing greater emphasis on initial costs and design over strategic value of an asset. For wider application, it is suggested that government and professional bodies play a vital role to enforcing and promoting the future use of LCC. In conclusion, the research informs building stakeholders the key issues in LCC implementation and adds to the existing body of knowledge on LCC application for future research to be undertaken

Early career women in construction: Are their career expectations being met?

The recruitment, retention and development of early career women have always been a challenge in the construction industry. With the focus on early career women or new female construction management degree graduate hires in construction, this study explores: (i) factors influencing their choice of career in construction; (ii) the extent of which their career expectations were met in their first few years of job experience; and (iii) how their met or unmet career expectations are related their overall job satisfaction. Data was collected using an online survey questionnaire. The results show that the top significant factors influencing the respondents’ career choice are career opportunities and belief of getting better pay. Their career expectations, on the other hand, were met or exceeded to a great extent for almost all the measurement items. The results also show that the respondents have a relatively high overall job satisfaction level. Although there is lack of evidence that their overall job satisfaction increased as met career expectations increased, there are statistically significant positive correlations among the career expectation measurement items. These findings have implications for human resource practices of construction employers that aimed to attract early career women into the industry, and to reinforce their met career expectations and job satisfaction

The Influence of Irrelevant Visual Distractors on Eye Movement Control in Chinese Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Evidence from the Remote Distractor Paradigm

The current study examined eye movement control in autistic (ASD) children. Simple targets were presented in isolation, or with central, parafoveal, or peripheral distractors synchronously. Sixteen children with ASD (47-81 months) and nineteen age and IQ matched typically developing children (TD) were instructed to look to the target as accurately and quickly as possible. Both groups showed high proportions (40%) of saccadic errors towards parafoveal and peripheral distractors. For correctly executed eye movements to the targets, centrally presented distractors produced the longest latencies (time taken to initiate eye movements), followed by parafoveal and peripheral distractor conditions. Central distractors had a greater effect in the ASD group, indicating evidence for potential atypical voluntary attentional control in ASD children

Dehydrosqualene Desaturase as a Novel Target for Anti-Virulence Therapy against Staphylococcus aureus

Staphylococcus aureus, especially methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA), is a life-threatening pathogen in hospital- and community-acquired infections. The golden-colored carotenoid pigment of S. aureus, staphyloxanthin, contributes to the resistance to reactive oxygen species (ROS) and host neutrophil-based killing. Here, we describe a novel inhibitor (NP16) of S. aureus pigment production that reduces the survival of S. aureus under oxidative stress conditions. Carotenoid components analysis, enzyme inhibition, and crtN mutational studies indicated that the molecular target of NP16 is dehydrosqualene desaturase (CrtN). S. aureus treated with NP16 showed increased susceptibility to human neutrophil killing and to innate immune clearance in a mouse infection model. Our study validates CrtN as a novel druggable target in S. aureus and presents a potent and effective lead compound for the development of virulence factor-based therapy against S. aureuspublished_or_final_versio

Impact of dispersive and saturable gain/loss on bistability of nonlinear parity-time Bragg gratings

We report on the impact of realistic gain and loss models on the bistable operation of nonlinear parity–time (PT) Bragg gratings. In our model we include both dispersive and saturable gain and show that levels of gain/loss saturation can have a significant impact on the bistable operation of a nonlinear PT Bragg grating based on GaAs material. The hysteresis of the nonlinear PT Bragg grating is analyzed for different levels of gain and loss and different saturation levels. We show that high saturation levels can improve the nonlinear operation by reducing the intensity at which the bistability occurs. However, when the saturation intensity is low, saturation inhibits the PT characteristics of the grating

Isogeometric analysis: an overview and computer implementation aspects

Isogeometric analysis (IGA) represents a recently developed technology in computational mechanics that offers the possibility of integrating methods for analysis and Computer Aided Design (CAD) into a single, unified process. The implications to practical engineering design scenarios are profound, since the time taken from design to analysis is greatly reduced, leading to dramatic gains in efficiency. The tight coupling of CAD and analysis within IGA requires knowledge from both fields and it is one of the goals of the present paper to outline much of the commonly used notation. In this manuscript, through a clear and simple Matlab implementation, we present an introduction to IGA applied to the Finite Element (FE) method and related computer implementation aspects. Furthermore, implemen- tation of the extended IGA which incorporates enrichment functions through the partition of unity method (PUM) is also presented, where several examples for both two-dimensional and three-dimensional fracture are illustrated. The open source Matlab code which accompanies the present paper can be applied to one, two and three-dimensional problems for linear elasticity, linear elastic fracture mechanics, structural mechanics (beams/plates/shells including large displacements and rotations) and Poisson problems with or without enrichment. The Bezier extraction concept that allows FE analysis to be performed efficiently on T-spline geometries is also incorporated. The article includes a summary of recent trends and developments within the field of IGA

A modified star formation law as a solution to open problems in galaxy evolution

In order to reproduce the low mass end of the stellar mass function, most current models of galaxy evolution invoke very efficient supernova feedback. This solution seems to suffer from several shortcomings however, like predicting too little star formation in low mass galaxies at z=0. In this work, we explore modifications to the star formation (SF) law as an alternative solution to achieve a match to the stellar mass function. This is done by applying semi-analytic models based on De Lucia & Blaizot, but with varying SF laws, to the Millennium and Millennium-II simulations, within the formalism developed by Neistein & Weinmann. Our best model includes lower SF efficiencies than predicted by the Kennicutt-Schmidt law at low stellar masses, no sharp threshold of cold gas mass for SF, and a SF law that is independent of cosmic time. These simple modifications result in a model that is more successful than current standard models in reproducing various properties of galaxies less massive than 10^{10}Msun. The improvements include a good match to the observed auto-correlation function of galaxies, an evolution of the stellar mass function from z=3 to z=0 similar to observations, and a better agreement with observed specific star formation rates. However, our modifications also lead to a dramatic over-prediction of the cold mass content of galaxies. This shows that finding a successful model may require fine-tuning of both star formation and supernovae feedback, as well as improvements on gas cooling, or perhaps the inclusion of a yet unknown process which efficiently heats or expels gas at high redshifts.Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, accepted by MNRA