SCP VS. SOP: MANAGING H&S ON A CONSTRUCTION SITE

The main objective of the paper is to suggest proposals likely to facilitate the relationship between the Client and the Contractor/Subcontractors, in order to improve the management of the construction phases with regard to Health & Safety (H&S). It is based on field research in the context of Italian construction. The paper analyzes and compares the content of two documents: The Safety and Coordination Plan (SCP) and the Safety Operational Plan (SOP), with the intent of implementing them in an integrated system managing H&S on construction sites. The comparative analysis recommends several improvements and the optimization of relationships between Client and Contractor, fostering a climate of cooperation and an optimum management of H&S within the construction sit

THE ITALIAN LEGISLATION ON PROJECT VALIDATION

Italy, first in Europe, introduced mandatory validation in building public works: the first years experienced some issues leading to a general updating of the national legislation, differentiating the project verification from the project validation. The former is a formal stage of the construction process committed to the Public Authority (through the Overall Procedure manager), the latter can usefully be performed by an external authority and involves systematic project examination and contractual documentation monitoring. The research critically approaches the modifications in the last decades on public work legislation, from the aged Merloni Act to the current Presidential Decree no. 207/2010. The paper focuses on the improvements on public building in design stage because of the mandatory validation. It also describes how some weak points have been solved and those that are still present in the Italian legislation. Particular attention is given to construction works below a certain threshold of amount

THE ITALIAN LEGISLATION ON PROJECT VALIDATION

Italy, first in Europe, introduced mandatory validation in building public works: the first years experienced some issues leading to a general updating of the national legislation, differentiating the project verification from the project validation. The former is a formal stage of the construction process committed to the Public Authority (through the Overall Procedure manager), the latter can usefully be performed by an external authority and involves systematic project examination and contractual documentation monitoring. The research critically approaches the modifications in the last decades on public work legislation, from the aged Merloni Act to the current Presidential Decree no. 207/2010. The paper focuses on the improvements on public building in design stage because of the mandatory validation. It also describes how some weak points have been solved and those that are still present in the Italian legislation. Particular attention is given to construction works below a certain threshold of amount

METHODOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK TO IMPROVE PPP PROJECTS

The Public–Private Partnership (PPP) plays a significant role in the construction industry. It is of special importance because of its weight in the global economy and the lack of funding for major projects. The PPP concept, as a procurement strategy, is successful only if the major stakeholders, namely the public sector, private consortium, and end–users are all satisfied with project outcomes. There have been reported cases of problems associated with the initial stages of the PPP process in terms of bidding costs and anticipated costs of construction and operation. The banks’ attention is currently centered on the promotors’ financial stability rather than on project quality. The key issue is to improve the efficiency for the whole building lifecycle. In this context, BIMM philosophy (not just Building Information Modeling but also Information Management) may be a powerful tool. In other words, is there room to put this concept in practice without jeopardizing service quality, innovation and efficiency? The answer to this question is explored in this paper. The use of Technical Sheets for PPP procurement like policy models may enhance systematic and integrated management of the whole building process. This technical framework allows one to collect project data, grouped into three areas: design, construction, and operation. In so doing, a Public Agency may assess project quality

Improved low Q2 model for neutrino and electron nucleon cross sections in few GeV region

We present an improved model on neutrino- and electron-nucleon scattering cross sections using effective leading order PDFs with a new scaling variable xi_w. Non-perturbative QCD effects at low Q^2 are separately treated for u and d valence quarks, and sea quarks. The improved model uses all inelastic charged lepton F_2 data (SLAC/BCDMS/NMC/HERA), and photoproduction data on proton and deuterium. In this way, we obtain an improved model which describes all inelastic scattering charged lepton data, JLAB resonance data, and neutrino data. This improved model is expected to be better for neutrino oscillation experiments at few GeV region.Comment: Prepared for International Workshop on Neutrino-Nucleus Interactions in the Few GeV Regions (NuInt04), Gran Sasso Lab., Italy, March, 2004, 6 pages, 10 figure

Managing Health & Safety in Refurbishment Projects involving Demolition and Structural Instability

Abstract There is consensus among practitioners and academics that refurbishment projects are among the most complex, risky, dangerous and uncertai

Co-regulation of a large and rapidly evolving repertoire of odorant receptor genes

The olfactory system meets niche- and species-specific demands by an accelerated evolution of its odorant receptor repertoires. In this review, we describe evolutionary processes that have shaped olfactory and vomeronasal receptor gene families in vertebrate genomes. We emphasize three important periods in the evolution of the olfactory system evident by comparative genomics: the adaptation to land in amphibian ancestors, the decline of olfaction in primates, and the delineation of putative pheromone receptors concurrent with rodent speciation. The rapid evolution of odorant receptor genes, the sheer size of the repertoire, as well as their wide distribution in the genome, presents a developmental challenge: how are these ever-changing odorant receptor repertoires coordinated within the olfactory system? A central organizing principle in olfaction is the specialization of sensory neurons resulting from each sensory neuron expressing only ~one odorant receptor allele. In this review, we also discuss this mutually exclusive expression of odorant receptor genes. We have considered several models to account for co-regulation of odorant receptor repertoires, as well as discussed a new hypothesis that invokes important epigenetic properties of the system