126 research outputs found
A Review on Professional Indemnity Insurance for Quantity Surveyors
Professional Indemnity Insurance is a risk shifting mechanism popular among the service providers including the delivery of construction related services. One of the guiding principles used for structuring an insurance policy is to ensure adequate indemnity. This research is to appraise various dimensions of Professional Indemnity Insurance (PII) related to the quantity surveying profession with particular emphasis on the Sri Lankan context. A comprehensive literature survey was carried out to recognize the liabilities that inspire policy requirements. A desk review was carried out to identify the deficiencies of the existing PII policies. 15 individual practitioners selected purposively were interviewed to gauge their perception and experience. All responses were considered valid for analysis. A discourse analysis was carried out to understand the themes and patterns in the context under study and draw conclusions. It was found that PII for the QS profession is at its embryonic stage. The study suggests that the uptake of enhanced policies would indeed help in fostering a fully-fledged insurance mechanism for quantity surveyors that is capable of accommodating the rapidly changing and newly added dimensions in the quantity surveying profession.
Keywords: Professional indemnity insurance, Quantity surveyor, Professional liabilities, Insurance polic
FACTORS AFFECTING THE SWELLING PRESSURE MEASURED BY THE OEDEMETER METHOD
ABSTRACT: Expansive soils are common in arid and semi-arid climate regions of the world and cause severe problems on civil engineering structures. The Swelling potential of the expansive soil mainly depends upon the properties of soil and environmental factors, and stress conditions. Swelling pressure is a key parameter used in designing structures in and on expansive soil. The swelling pressure of soil is measured in the laboratory using a representative soil samples. The size and the surface friction of the sample ring used in the swelling pressure test have effects on the measured swelling pressure and they have not properly been investigated. In this study, a series of constant volume swelling tests were conducted using an automated consolidation-swell apparatus to evaluate the effect of sample ring size, ring friction, initial dry density, and initial moisture content (IMC). Test results indicate an exponential growing trend of swelling pressure when the dry density is increased. Similarly, high swell pressures are achieved when the IMC is increased for the same dry density. A higher swelling pressure was measured when the friction of the specimen ring was reduced. The measured swelling pressure increases with increasing the height of the sampling ring and it decreases when the ring diameter is increased. Therefore, it is recommended to use a standard sample ring reducing inside wall friction using lubricants when measuring the swelling pressure in the laboratory. Further, the sample ring size, initial density and initial moisture content of soil should be given when reporting swelling pressure of soil
Partial Decay Widths of Negative Parity Baryons in the 1/Nc Expansion
The partial decay widths of lowest lying negative parity baryons belonging to
the 70-plet of SU(6) are analyzed in the framework of the 1/Nc expansion The
channels considered are those with single pseudo-scalar meson emission. The
analysis is carried out to sub-leading order in 1/Nc and to first order in
SU(3) symmetry breaking. Conclusions about the magnitude of SU(3) breaking
effects along with predictions for some unknown or poorly determined partial
decay widths of known resonances are obtained.Comment: 35 pages, 20 table
Epidemiology, Clinical Manifestations, and Long-Term Outcomes of a Major Outbreak of Chikungunya in a Hamlet in Sri Lanka, in 2007: A Longitudinal Cohort Study
Chikungunya outbreaks occurred in the central province, Sri Lanka in 2006. This community-based study reports the epidemiology and the natural history of the infection from an affected village. Of the 199 families and 1001 individuals in the village, 159 (80%) and 513 (51%) were affected, respectively, comprising 237 (46%) males with peak incidence at 40–50 years. The acute illness caused polyarthritis in 233 (46%), and of them 230 (98%) progressed to chronic arthritic disability (CAD). Of the CAD patients, 102 (44%) had recovered in 141 days (range 30–210 days) from the disability state whilst 128 (56%) had persisting disability which lasted 12, 24, and 36 months in 41 (17.8%), 22 (9.5%), and 14 (6.1%) individuals, respectively. Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) manifested in 110 (21%). Females showed preponderance for complications over males: acute arthritis 147 versus 86, P = 0.001; CAD 136 versus 84, P = 0.029; CTS 88 versus 22, P = 0.001; relapses 105 versus 68, P = 0.001. Chikungunya was highly communicable and caused lasting crippling complications
Measurements of Non-Singlet Moments of the Nucleon Structure Functions and Comparison to Predictions from Lattice QCD for
We present extractions of the nucleon non-singlet moments utilizing new
precision data on the deuteron structure function at large Bjorken-
determined via the Rosenbluth separation technique at Jefferson Lab
Experimental Hall C. These new data are combined with a complementary set of
data on the proton previously measured in Hall C at similar kinematics and
world data sets on the proton and deuteron at lower measured at SLAC and
CERN. The new Jefferson Lab data provide coverage of the upper third of the
range, crucial for precision determination of the higher moments. In contrast
to previous extractions, these moments have been corrected for nuclear effects
in the deuteron using a new global fit to the deuteron and proton data. The
obtained experimental moments represent an order of magnitude improvement in
precision over previous extractions using high data. Moreover, recent
exciting developments in Lattice QCD calculations provide a first ever
comparison of these new experimental results with calculations of moments
carried out at the physical pion mass, as well as a new approach which first
calculates the quark distributions directly before determining moments
Observation of the Helium 7 Lambda hypernucleus by the (e,e'K+) reaction
An experiment with a newly developed high-resolution kaon spectrometer (HKS)
and a scattered electron spectrometer with a novel configuration was performed
in Hall C at Jefferson Lab (JLab). The ground state of a neutron-rich
hypernucleus, He 7 Lambda, was observed for the first time with the (e,e'K+)
reaction with an energy resolution of ~0.6 MeV. This resolution is the best
reported to date for hypernuclear reaction spectroscopy. The he 7 Lambda
binding energy supplies the last missing information of the A=7, T=1
hypernuclear iso-triplet, providing a new input for the charge symmetry
breaking (CSB) effect of \Lambda N potential.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR
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