Increasing Efficiency in the Construction Industry and Construction Management Classrooms Using Computer Software

The purpose of this research is to identify the best computer software programs that are the most effective within the construction industry. Companies are gradually shifting from manual practices to various software and technologies to optimize business and communication efficiency. With the plethora of software available, the industry does not fully understand which software are the most effective for addressing the challenges of the industry. As the industry is struggling with integrating these software into their company structure, more money is being spent to tackle the challenges that face the construction industry today. Companies that do not integrate construction technology to further their efficiency will be left behind. Industry productivity reports show that the construction industry has lost productivity since the 1950\u27s while other industrial sectors have increased their productivity using modem technology. (Crumrie, 2017). Most construction companies work through their management processes manually, instead of utilizing available software programs like Procore, Bluebeam, ASTA Powerproject, and ProEst. These programs are designed to increase efficiency and productivity. In this paper, data is collected and analyzed from Fortune 500 companies, such as Lithko Contracting LLC, Bulley & Andrews, Hensel Phelps, NECA, Walsh and others, and their representatives, regarding their technology usage. The data is taken from company Vice Presidents, Project Managers, Supervisors, and Project Engineers. Application software for various construction management practices are examined and evaluated for their production efficiency impact and relative cost

Automatic and Intentional Number Processing Both Rely on Intact Right Parietal Cortex: A Combined fMRI and Neuronavigated TMS Study

Practice and training usually lead to performance increase in a given task. In addition, a shift from intentional toward more automatic processing mechanisms is often observed. It is currently debated whether automatic and intentional processing is subserved by the same or by different mechanism(s), and whether the same or different regions in the brain are recruited. Previous correlational evidence provided by behavioral, neuroimaging, modeling, and neuropsychological studies addressing this question yielded conflicting results. Here we used transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to compare the causal influence of disrupting either left or right parietal cortex during automatic and intentional numerical processing, as reflected by the size congruity effect and the numerical distance effect, respectively. We found a functional hemispheric asymmetry within parietal cortex with only the TMS-induced right parietal disruption impairing both automatic and intentional numerical processing. In contrast, disrupting the left parietal lobe with TMS, or applying sham stimulation, did not affect performance during automatic or intentional numerical processing. The current results provide causal evidence for the functional relevance of right, but not left, parietal cortex for intentional, and automatic numerical processing, implying that at least within the parietal cortices, automatic, and intentional numerical processing rely on the same underlying hemispheric lateralization

rTensor: An R Package for Multidimensional Array (Tensor) Unfolding, Multiplication, and Decomposition

rTensor is an R package designed to provide a common set of operations and decompositions for multidimensional arrays (tensors). We provide an S4 class that wraps around the base 'array' class and overloads familiar operations to users of 'array', and we provide additional functionality for tensor operations that are becoming more relevant in recent literature. We also provide a general unfolding operation, for which the k-mode unfolding and the matrix vectorization are special cases of. Finally, package rTensor implements common tensor decompositions such as canonical polyadic decomposition, Tucker decomposition, multilinear principal component analysis, t-singular value decomposition, as well as related matrix-based algorithms such as generalized low rank approximation of matrices and popular value decomposition

Collective leadership dynamics among professional peers: Co-constructing an unstable equilibrium

Professional service firms (PSFs) are characterised by contingent and contested power relations among an extended group of professional peers. Studies of such firms can therefore yield important insights for the literatures on collective leadership and leader–follower relations. Yet to date PSF scholars have neglected the topic of leadership,and leadership scholars have neglected the context of PSFs.Based on 102 interviewsacross the consulting, accounting, and legal sectors, we identify three relational processesthrough which professional peers co-construct collective leadership:legitimising, negotiating, and manoeuvring. We demonstrate how the relational processes taken together constitute an unstable equilibrium, both in the moment and over time, emphasising how leadership in PSFs is inherently contested and fragile. Our model contributes to theories of collective leadership and leader–follower relations by foregrounding the power and politics thatunderlie collective leadership. We highlight the significance of the individual leader within the collective. We challengeassumptionsconcerning the binary nature of leadership and followership,by showing how colleagues may grant leadership identities to their peers without necessarily granting them leadership authority, and without claiming follower identities for themselves

Social Roles and Baseline Proxemic Preferences for a Domestic Service Robot

© The Author(s) 2014. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited. The work described in this paper was conducted within the EU Integrated Projects LIREC (LIving with Robots and intEractive Companions, funded by the European Commission under contract numbers FP7 215554, and partly funded by the ACCOMPANY project, a part of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under grant agreement n287624The goal of our research is to develop socially acceptable behavior for domestic robots in a setting where a user and the robot are sharing the same physical space and interact with each other in close proximity. Specifically, our research focuses on approach distances and directions in the context of a robot handing over an object to a userPeer reviewe

Pathogenesis, diagnosis and treatment of Rasmussen encephalitis: A European consensus statement

Rasmussen encephalitis (RE) is a rare but severe immune-mediated brain disorder leading to unilateral hemispheric atrophy, associated progressive neurological dysfunction and intractable seizures. Recent data on the pathogenesis of the disease, its clinical and paraclinical presentation, and therapeutic approaches are summarized. Based on these data, we propose formal diagnostic criteria and a therapeutic pathway for the management of RE patient

Soluble Cytokine Receptors (sIL-2Rα, sIL-2Rβ) Induce Subunit-Specific Behavioral Responses and Accumulate in the Cerebral Cortex and Basal Forebrain

Soluble cytokine receptors are normal constituents of body fluids that regulate peripheral cytokine and lymphoid activity. Levels of soluble IL-2 receptors (sIL-2R) are elevated in psychiatric disorders linked with autoimmune processes, including ones in which repetitive stereotypic behaviors and motor disturbances are present. However, there is no evidence that sIL-2Rs (or any peripheral soluble receptor) induce such behavioral changes, or that they localize in relevant brain regions. Here, we determined in male Balb/c mice the effects of single peripheral injections of sIL-2Rα or sIL-2Rβ (0–2 µg/male Balb/c mouse; s.c.) on novelty-induced ambulatory activity and stereotypic motor behaviors. We discovered that sIL-2Rα increased the incidence of in-place stereotypic motor behaviors, including head up head bobbing, rearing/sniffing, turning, and grooming behavior. A wider spectrum of behavioral changes was evident in sIL-2Rβ-treated mice, including increases in vertical and horizontal ambulatory activity and stereotypic motor movements. To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that soluble receptors induce such behavioral disturbances. In contrast, soluble IL-1 Type-1 receptors (0–4 µg, s.c.) didn't appreciably affect these behaviors. We further demonstrated that sIL-2Rα and sIL-2Rβ induced marked increases in c-Fos in caudate-putamen, nucleus accumbens and prefrontal cortex. Anatomical specificity was supported by the presence of increased activity in lateral caudate in sIL-2Rα treated mice, while sIL-2Rβ treated mice induced greater c-Fos activity in prepyriform cortex. Moreover, injected sIL-2Rs were widely distributed in regions that showed increased c-Fos expression. Thus, sIL-2Rα and sIL-2Rβ induce marked subunit- and soluble cytokine receptor-specific behavioral disturbances, which included increases in the expression of ambulatory activity and stereotypic motor behaviors, while inducing increased neuronal activity localized to cortex and striatum. These findings suggest that sIL-2Rs act as novel immune-to- brain messengers and raise the possibility that they contribute to the disease process in psychiatric disorders in which marked increases in these receptors have been reported

Physical Electronics

Contains reports on four research projects