Research on corporate social responsibility in the construction context : a critical review and future directions

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For the balance of stakeholders’ power and responsibility - a collaborative framework for implementing social responsibility issues in construction projects

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Assessment of video-based e-learning in a construction measurement course

© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group E-learning has been touted as a new phenomenon and formidable frontier of education, offering tremendous benefits to teachers, learners and educational administrators. However, despite the adoption of e-learning in many educational institutions worldwide, to enhancing teaching and learning experience, delivery of construction measurement courses has been limited to traditional lecture approach and the use of little technology such as PowerPoint. Therefore, this study investigates learners’ satisfaction, benefits, and the usefulness of e-learning approach, relative to instructional videos. A total of 76 undergraduate construction students were surveyed using a closed and open-ended questionnaire in one of the universities in Hong Kong. The results showed that students were satisfied with design and content of the instruction videos. Students also considered e-learning approach useful because it allows them to control their pace, time and location for learning. Learners prefer blended learning, i.e. a combination of e-learning (at 41%) and traditional face-to-face method (at 59%). The participants opined that blended learning has more significant benefits in delivering measurement course. The results of this study should assist educators in structuring blended learning approach

On the modularization and reuse of exception handling with aspects

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)This paper presents an in-depth study of the adequacy of the AspectJ language for modularizing and reusing exception-handling code. The study consisted of refactoring existing applications so that the code responsible for implementing error-handling strategies was moved to newly created exception handier aspects. We have performed quantitative assessments of five systems-four object-oriented and one aspect-oriented-based on four key quality attributes, namely separation of concerns, coupling, cohesion, and conciseness. Our investigation also included a multi-perspective analysis of the refactored systems, including (i) the extent to which error-handling aspects can be reused, (ii) the beneficial and harmful aspectization scenarios for exception handling, and (iii) the scalability of AOP to support the modularization of exception handling in the presence of other aspects. Copyright (C) 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.391713771417Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)National Institute of Science and Technology for Software Engineering (INES)FACEPECoordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)FACEPE/Brazil[573964/2008-4][APQ-1037-1.03/08]Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)CNPq [481147/2007-1, 550895/2007-8, 308383/2008-7, 301446/ 2006-7, 484138/2006-5][573964/2008-4][APQ-1037-1.03/08

Production of Recombinant Human Growth Hormone Conjugated with a Transcytotic Peptide in Pichia pastoris for Effective Oral Protein Delivery

Among the possible delivery routes, the oral administration of a protein is simple and achieves high patient compliance without pain. However, the low bioavailability of a protein drug in the intestine due to the physical barriers of the intestinal epithelia is the most critical problem that needs to be solved. To overcome the low bioavailability of a protein drug in the intestine, we aimed to construct a recombinant Pichia pastoris expressing a human growth hormone (hGH) fusion protein conjugated with a transcytotic peptide (TP) that was screened through peroral phage display to target goblet cells in the intestinal epithelia. The TP-conjugated hGH was successfully produced in P. pastoris in a secreted form at concentrations of up to 0.79 g/l. The function of the TP-conjugated hGH was validated by in vitro and in vivo assays. The transcytotic function of the TP through the intestinal epithelia was verified only in the C terminus conjugated hGH, which demonstrated the induction of IGF-1 in a HepG2 cell culture assay, a higher translocation of recombinant hGH into the ileal villi after oral administration in rats and both IGF-1 induction and higher body weight gain in rats after oral administration. The present study introduces the possibility for the development of an effective oral protein delivery system in the pharmaceutical and animal industries through the introduction of an effective TP into hGH