A Study of the Factors Affecting Perceptions of Science, Engineering and Technology (SET) in Young People

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Black English In A Suburban Southern County

A comparison of the spoken language of adolescent Black males living in three southern suburban communities was conducted. The results indicated certain trends by locale in the areas of morphology, phonology, syntax and semantics. The findings affirm the assumption that it is possible to determine likenesses and differences in the Black English spoken by Black males living in three isolated communities with a rating instrument

Greenways and Crime on Nearby Properties: An Investigation of Reported Crimes Along Three Greenways

During greenway planning efforts, landowners along the proposed path often voice concerns about an increase in crime due to the expectation that a greenway provides criminals with refuge and sheltered access to targets. In response to this common public perception, this study investigates the question of whether the presence of a greenway increases the risk of crime occurring on the properties adjacent to the greenway. Three greenways in Chapel Hill, North Carolina were selected for the study. Through spatial analysis in a geographic information system, crime trends in the study areas for periods before and after each greenway installation were compared to trends for the same time periods in control areas with similar socioeconomic composition. Results indicated that two out of the three greenways appeared to have no influence on the rate or location of crime. In the third case, the density of crime in the vicinity of the greenway increased after the trail opened. The study concludes that the empirical data does not fully support the existence of a relationship between greenways and crime. Due to a limited number of cases included here, this study does not attempt to establish causality. Future studies involving more observations should be able to provide more reliable results.Master of City and Regional Plannin

Risk and Uncertainty in the Cost Contingency of Transport Projects: Accommodating Bias or Heuristics, or Both?

Transport projects are regularly subjected to cost misperformance. The contingency set aside to cover any increases in cost due to risk and uncertainty issues is often insufficient. We review approaches that have been used to estimate a cost contingency. We show that some approaches such as reference class forecasting, which underpins the planning fallacy theory, take a biased view to formulate a contingency. Indeed, there is a perception that the risks and uncertainties that form the parts of a cost contingency cannot be accurately assessed using heuristics. The absence of an overarching theory to support the use of heuristics has resulted in them often being downplayed in a project's investment decision-making process. This article fills this void and provides the theoretical backdrop to support the use of heuristics to formulate a cost contingency. We make a clarion call to reconcile the duality of the bias and heuristic approaches, propose a balanced framework for developing a cost contingency, and suggest the use of uplifts to derisk cost estimates is redundant. We hope our advocacy for a balanced approach will stimulate debate and question the legitimacy of uplifts to solely debias cost estimates

Large-Scale Transport Infrastructure Project Performance: Generating a Narrative of Context and Meaning

In this article, we go beyond the proverbial appreciation that context matters and provide a deep exploration of how and why it can help make sense of cost deviations in large-scale transport projects (>$500 million). Using abductive inference in combination with a multiple case study approach, the criteria of planning, funding, scope, contract, challenges/issues, and benefits are used to understand and interpret the context and meaning of project cost performance. By comparing two light rail transit systems and conducting an in-depth examination of a road project, this article examines the differences between procurement approaches and worldviews and how they can introduce bias into a project's cost performance outlook. The contributions of this research are threefold as it provides an avenue for a new line of inquiry to help better understand causal inferences, thus contributing to the development of a plausible theory of project cost performance; highlights the ambiguity associated with cost performance assessment and calls for the use of standardized definitions and terminologies so that evidence-based decision surrounding risk and uncertainty can be enacted; and suggests that by engaging in a collaborative benchmarking process of project completion data, the context and meaning of a project's performance can be documented

Model server enabled management of collaborative changes in building information models

The issues and challenges involved in controlling the collaborative changes in a Building Information Modeling (BIM) data repository, in a multi-model collaboration environment, are discussed. It is suggested that managing iterative changes in BIMs is a database problem, exacerbated by the long transaction times needed to support collaborative design progression. This is yet to be resolved in the construction industry and better solutions are needed to support the underlying workflows and computing operations for seamless collaboration on BIMs. With this in mind, this paper proposes the use of the structural and semantic characteristics of BIM objects as a mechanism for tracking changes across co-developed solutions. The creation of object signatures, using hash codes derived from their characteristics, provides a potential mechanism for object comparison and effective change recognition and management

When ‘less is more’: The rationale for an adaptive toolbox to manage the risk and uncertainty of rework

Determining the risk and uncertainty of rework in construction has received limited attention due to a paucity of information about its frequency and causes. Errors made during construction, which may require rework, can go undetected, manifesting as an engineering failure during an asset's operation and thus jeopardise system safety. Therefore, this paper addresses the following research question: How can practitioners make better decisions to mitigate the risk and uncertainty of rework during the construction of infrastructure assets and ensure system safety? Using a mega-transport infrastructure asset as a case setting, we adopt an interpretative line of inquiry and examine people's experiences with managing the risk and uncertainty of rework under the auspices of a sense-making lens. Our analysis revealed that heuristics were being used informally to determine rework risks and uncertainties due to the absence of information, resulting in them becoming curiosities as the same mistakes were repeated and learning stymied. We suggest that developing an adaptive-box tool comprising heuristics can provide the much-need theoretical foundation to effectively manage the risk and uncertainty of rework. Such heuristics would be adaptable to different situations as they are fitted to the environment through evolution and/or learning by amending them successively in small steps

State of Science: Why Does Rework Occur in Construction? What Are Its Consequences? And What Can be Done to Mitigate Its Occurrence?

There has been a wealth of research that has examined the nature of rework in construction. Progress toward addressing the rework problem has been limited—it still plagues practice, adversely impacting a project's performance. Almost all rework studies have focused on determining its proximal or root causes and therefore have overlooked the conditions that result from its manifestation. In filling this void, this paper draws upon our previous empirical studies, amongst others, to provide a much-needed theoretical framing to understand better why rework occurs, what its consequences are, and how it can be mitigated during construction. The theoretical framing we derive from our review provides construction organizations and their projects with a realization that the journey to mitigating rework begins with creating an error-mastery culture comprising authentic leadership, psychological safety, an error-management orientation, and resilience. We suggest that, once an error-mastery culture is established within construction organizations and their projects, they will be better positioned to realize the benefits of the techniques, tools, and technologies espoused to address rework, such as the Last Planner® and building information modeling. We also provide directions for future research and identify implications for practice so that strides toward rework mitigation in construction can be made

Volatile Production and Lipid Oxidation of Irradiated Cooked Sausage with Different Packaging

Irradiation dose had a significant effect on the production of volatiles in both vacuum- and aerobic-packaged cooked pork sausage, but its effect on the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) values was minor. Storage increased the production of volatiles and changed the composition of volatiles only in aerobic-packaged sausage. Among the volatile components, 1-heptene and 1-nonene were influenced most by irradiation dose, and aldehydes by packaging type. The TBARS values and volatiles of vacuum-packaged irradiated cooked sausage had very low correlation.The TBARS, however, had very high correlation with the amount of aldehydes and total volatiles, and ketones and alcohols with long retention times in aerobic-packaged pork sausage. Heptene and 1-nonene could be used as indicators for irradiation, and propanal, pentanal, and hexanal for the oxygen-dependent changes of cooked meat. The results indicated that irradiation had some effect on lipid oxidation of cooked pork sausages, especially with aerobic packaging, but oxygen availability (packaging) to meat during storage had much stronger impact. The low correlations of irradiation-dependent volatiles (e.g., 1-heptene and 1-nonene) with TBARS values regardless of packaging and storage conditions indicated that volatile compounds responsible for irradiation odor were different from those of lipid oxidation odor in cooked pork sausages