Target value design: using collaboration and a lean approach to reduce construction cost

Target Costing is an effective management technique that has been used in manufacturing for decades to achieve cost predictability during new products development. Adoption of this technique promises benefits for the construction industry as it struggles to raise the number of successful outcomes and certainty of project delivery in terms of cost, quality and time. Target Value Design is a management approach that takes the best features of Target Costing and adapts them to the peculiarities of construction. In this paper the concept of Target Value Design is introduced based on the results of action research carried out on 12 construction projects in the USA. It has been shown that systemic application of Target Value Design leads to significant improvement of project performance – the final cost of projects was on average 15% less than market cost. The construction industry already has approaches that have similarities with elements of the Target Value Design process or uses the same terminology, e.g. Partnering and Target Cost Contracts, Cost planning, etc. Following an exploration of the similarities and differences Target Value Design is positioned as a form of Target Costing for construction that offers a more reliable route to successful projects outcomes

Molybdenum distributions and variability in drinking water from England and Wales

An investigation has been carried out of molybdenum in drinking water from a selection of public supply sources and domestic taps across England and Wales. This was to assess concentrations in relation to the World Health Organization (WHO) health-based value for Mo in drinking water of 70 μg/l and the decision to remove the element from the list of formal guideline values. Samples of treated drinking water from 12 water supply works were monitored up to four times over an 18-month period, and 24 domestic taps were sampled from three of their supply areas. Significant (p  0.05) were detected. Tap water samples collected from three towns (North Wales, the English Midlands, and South East England) supplied uniquely by upland reservoir water, river water, and Chalk groundwater, respectively, also showed a remarkable uniformity in Mo concentrations at each location. Within each, the variability was very small between houses (old and new), between pre-flush and post-flush samples, and between the tap water and respective source water samples. The results indicate that water distribution pipework has a negligible effect on supplied tap water Mo concentrations. The findings contrast with those for Cu, Zn, Ni, Pb, and Cd, which showed significant differences (p < 0.05) in concentrations between pre-flush and post-flush tap water samples. In two pre-flush samples, concentrations of Ni or Pb were above drinking water limits, although in all cases, post-flush waters were compliant. The high concentrations, most likely derived from metal pipework in the domestic distribution system, accumulated during overnight stagnation. The concentrations of Mo observed in British drinking water, in all cases less than 2 μg/l, were more than an order of magnitude below the WHO health-based value and suggest that Mo is unlikely to pose a significant health or water supply problem in England and Wales

Rheology at the micro-scale: new tools for bio-analysis

We present a simple and non-invasive experimental procedure to measure the linear viscoelastic properties of cells by passive particle tracking microrheology. In order to do this, a generalised Langevin equation is adopted to relate the timedependent thermal fluctuations of a probe sensor, immobilised to the cell’s membrane, to the frequency-dependent viscoelastic moduli of the cell. The method has been validated by measuring the linear viscoelastic response of a soft solid and then applied to cell physiology studies. It is shown that the viscoelastic moduli are related to the cell’s cytoskeletal structure, which in this work is modulated either by inhibiting the actin/myosin-II interactions by means of blebbistatin or by varying the solution osmolarity from iso- to hypo-osmotic conditions. The insights gained from this form of rheological analysis promises to be a valuable addition to physiological studies; e.g. cell physiology during pathology and pharmacological response

Lorentz-covariant deformed algebra with minimal length

The $D$-dimensional two-parameter deformed algebra with minimal length introduced by Kempf is generalized to a Lorentz-covariant algebra describing a ($D+1$)-dimensional quantized space-time. For D=3, it includes Snyder algebra as a special case. The deformed Poincar\'e transformations leaving the algebra invariant are identified. Uncertainty relations are studied. In the case of D=1 and one nonvanishing parameter, the bound-state energy spectrum and wavefunctions of the Dirac oscillator are exactly obtained.Comment: 8 pages, no figure, presented at XV International Colloquium on Integrable Systems and Quantum Symmetries (ISQS-15), Prague, June 15-17, 200

Washington Park Main Street Plan

There is an immense variety of privately owned businesses. They will be stakeholders because their businesses are located there, but they will also be assets in themselves in drawing people to the area. There is basically everything anyone could possible want or need in this area. There are two gas stations, a Family Dollar, a liquor store, a few sit down restaurants, numerous places where one can get a quick bite to eat, a frame shop, a clothing store, a pawn shop, a store with fresh produce (which is hard to find in urban areas), a store that sells sports uniforms, a frame shop, a lawyerʼs office, an animal hospital, two Laundromats, a record shop, a health food store, two cell phone stores, an automotive shop, and a karate school with an afterschool program. With such variety, it will draw people to the area and then give them other reasons to keep coming back

Quantum field dynamics of the slow rollover in the linear delta expansion

We show how the linear delta expansion, as applied to the slow-roll transition in quantum mechanics, can be recast in the closed time-path formalism. This results in simpler, explicit expressions than were obtained in the Schr\"odinger formulation and allows for a straightforward generalization to higher dimensions. Motivated by the success of the method in the quantum-mechanical problem, where it has been shown to give more accurate results for longer than existing alternatives, we apply the linear delta expansion to four-dimensional field theory. At small times all methods agree. At later times, the first-order linear delta expansion is consistently higher that Hartree-Fock, but does not show any sign of a turnover. A turnover emerges in second-order of the method, but the value of $$at the turnover is larger that that given by the Hartree-Fock approximation. Based on this calculation, and our experience in the corresponding quantum-mechanical problem, we believe that the Hartree-Fock approximation does indeed underestimate the value of$$ at the turnover. In subsequent applications of the method we hope to implement the calculation in the context of an expanding universe, following the line of earlier calculations by Boyanovsky {\sl et al.}, who used the Hartree-Fock and large-N methods. It seems clear, however, that the method will become unreliable as the system enters the reheating stage.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures, revised version with extra section 4.2 including second order calculatio

Shear Viscosity in the O(N) Model

We compute the shear viscosity in the O(N) model at first nontrivial order in the large N expansion. The calculation is organized using the 1/N expansion of the 2PI effective action (2PI-1/N expansion) to next-to-leading order, which leads to an integral equation summing ladder and bubble diagrams. We also consider the weakly coupled theory for arbitrary N, using the three-loop expansion of the 2PI effective action. In the limit of weak coupling and vanishing mass, we find an approximate analytical solution of the integral equation. For general coupling and mass, the integral equation is solved numerically using a variational approach. The shear viscosity turns out to be close to the result obtained in the weak-coupling analysis.Comment: 37 pages, few typos corrected; to appear in JHE

A Two-Dimensional Model with Chiral Condensates and Cooper Pairs Having QCD-like Phase Structure

We describe how a generalization of the original Gross-Neveu model from U(N) to O(N) flavor symmetry leads to the appearance of a pairing condensate at high density, in agreement with the conjectured phenomenon of color superconductivity in $(3+1)$-dimensional QCD. Moreover, the model displays a rich phase structure which closely resembles the one expected in two-flavor QCD.Comment: 11 pages, 1 fugure, Presented at TMU-Yale Symposium on Dynamics of Gauge Fields: An External Activity of APCTP, Tokyo, Japan, 13-15 Dec 199

Continuity theorems for the M/M/1/nM/M/1/n queueing system

In this paper continuity theorems are established for the number of losses during a busy period of the $M/M/1/n$ queue. We consider an $M/GI/1/n$ queueing system where the service time probability distribution, slightly different in a certain sense from the exponential distribution, is approximated by that exponential distribution. Continuity theorems are obtained in the form of one or two-sided stochastic inequalities. The paper shows how the bounds of these inequalities are changed if further assumptions, associated with specific properties of the service time distribution (precisely described in the paper), are made. Specifically, some parametric families of service time distributions are discussed, and the paper establishes uniform estimates (given for all possible values of the parameter) and local estimates (where the parameter is fixed and takes only the given value). The analysis of the paper is based on the level crossing approach and some characterization properties of the exponential distribution.Comment: Final revision; will be published as i