Insights into Architects’ Future Roles in Off-Site Construction

Today’s construction industry is overflowing with new ideas about its future. Off-Site Manufacture and Construction (OSCM) is at the heart of the modern construction industry. Much has been written about the state and context of OSCM in different countries regarding its perceived benefits and barriers to implementation. Off-site production (OSP) plays an important role in improving fragmented construction processes. Although most OSP research targets the attitudes and practices of OSP adoption, there is limited understanding of the philosophical issues underpinning OSP-related architecture. The roles of the architects’ personal philosophies are neglected and this hampers their implementation of OSCM (which has had a largely technical focus). This paper explores the traditional thinking patterns of architects in China and predicts possible future roles for them. It then conceptualizes an “architectural work” mode and a “building product” mode of design and construction and identifies the shortcomings of architects in an OSCM environment. The arguments made are based on practitioners’ perceptions and the first author’s practical experiences of leading several real-life projects in recent years. The findings reveal the implications and significance of the transformation from an “architectural work” mode to a “building product” mode. We foresee a study approach that focuses on the order and rules for OSCM, resulting in architects’ existing mindsets being changed to thinking patterns and design methodologies better suited to OSCM

Development of Advanced Controller to Achieve Complete Peak Shifting in Light-Weight Residential Buildings Located in Cold Climate

In the cold northern climate of Canada, building energy consumption for space heating during the winter have caused huge stress on electrical grids, especially during the peak hours. Shifting or shaving the peak demand can avoid additional capital investment required to meet extra peak demand for the electrical suppliers. Consequently, in the recent years, several utility companies adopted time-based rates to encourage the customers to shift their consumption from high demand hours to those with lower demand. In this regard, the two most commonly used time-based rates are time-of-use tariffs and critical peak pricing. Achieving peak shifting can reduce the heating cost under time-based rates for consumers. Overall, peak shaving is benefit not only for the electrical suppliers but also for the consumers. Most Canadian residential houses are equipped with a concrete slab in their basement primarily for structural integrity. Such high thermal mass concrete slab can be exploited for heat storage to shift the peak power consumption. To take benefit of the concrete slabs in the basement, in previous research works, the self-learning control system and the heat extraction system were proposed to achieve peak shifting in the basement and in the other floors of the buildings, respectively. Despite several advantages, the major limitation of these studies is that the developed self-learning control system focused only on peak shifting in the basement, while the heat extraction system concept was investigated separately from the self-learning control system. Accordingly, this study focused on developing an advanced controller, which can efficiently operate both electrically heated floor and heat extraction system with the objective of achieving the peak shifting, heating cost savings and guaranteeing the thermal comfort in the whole building. As a preliminary work of this study, the peak shifting ability and heating cost savings potential of the self-learning control system operated electrically heated floor under two electrical tariffs (i.e. time-of-use tariffs and critical peak pricing) was analyzed using a validated TRNSYS-MATLAB model. Later, the advanced controller was developed for extending the peak shifting from the floor with high thermal mass to that without high thermal mass by the electrically heated floors integrated with the heat extraction system. In this regard, the developed TRNSYS-MATLAB model was integrated with the heat extraction system. Consequently, the peak shifting ability, heating cost savings of the advanced controller was compared with the other commonly used peak shifting control strategies (i.e. constant set point control and rule-based control) and the respective results are presented. At last, a parametric study using Taguchi method was performed to explore the effective parameters that significantly influence the performance of electrically heated floor, heat extraction system in terms of peak shifting ability, thermal comfort and capital cost. For this purpose, three levels were considered for five factors (A) concrete slab thickness, (B) insulation thickness, (C) fan flow rate, (D) indoor air temperature upper limit and (E) floor surface temperature upper limit. Based on the results of the parametric study, overall recommendation to design the optimal electrically heated floors and heat extraction system was provided. Regarding the results, the peak shifting, thermal comfort and heating cost saving are presented for two tariffs (time-of-use tariffs and critical peak pricing) considering the floor with concrete. The simulation results showed that the peak shifting can be achieved at 99.7% in critical peak pricing and 97.6% in time-of-use tariffs, respectively. On the other hand, to extend the peak shifting in the whole building, self-learning control integrated with a fan (heat extraction system) can improve the peak shifting in basement (up to 97%) and second floor (up to 88%). The cost saving can also increase around 35%, which can be proven financially attractive to both supplier and owner. At last, through parametric study, the optimal condition for efficient design and operation of electrically heated floor system and heat extraction system was found to be concrete slab thickness of 152.4 mm, an insulation thickness of 101.6 mm, a fan flow rate of 400 CFM, air indoor upper limit of 24.5 °C and floor surface temperature upper limit of 28 °

Experimental studies of instability process and energy evolution of tunnels under true triaxial stresses: The role of pre-existed flaws

In the natural geological environment, there are many joints, faults and cavities. These natural defects will have an impact on the stability of tunnels. This paper investigates different conditions of surrounding rock: intact surrounding rock, surrounding rock with open-flaw and surrounding rock with filled-flaw under the true triaxial test. The effect of different surrounding rock conditions on the internal failure characteristics of tunnel under true triaxial conditions is explored. According to the characteristics of energy evolution and chaos theory, the failure characteristics inside the tunnel is divided into stages. The results show that: 1) The failure characteristics in the tunnel are different for different surrounding rock conditions. The failure characteristics do not represent the stability of the surrounding rock of the tunnel; 2) The trend of energy dissipation is different under different surrounding rock conditions. The elastic stage of the surrounding rock is shortened and the dissipation energy shows an earlier upward trend as its integrity declines. 3) When analysing the tunnel, chaos theory can give early warnings about the instability of the surrounding rock, but it can not give early warning of particle spray and spalling inside the tunnel

Identification of Water-Soluble Compounds from Cinnamomum kanehirae Hay Promoting the Asexual Sporulation of Antrodia cinnamomea and Optimization of Their Addition Levels in the Culture Medium

In order to determine compounds present in the aqueous extract of Cinnamomum kanehirae Hay (CWE) that promote the asexual sporulation of Antrodia cinnamomea in submerged fermentation. First, CWE was isolated by alcohol precipitation and fractional extraction with different organic solvents. The influence of the obtained fractions on the asexual sporulation of A. cinnamomea was investigated. It was showed that the chloroform (at 30 μg/mL) and ethyl acetate (at 50 μg/mL) extracts of the supernatant after ethanol precipitation of CWE presented remarkable promoting effects on the sporulation of A. cinnamomea, and the effect of LFE was significantly more pronounced than that of YZE, indicating that both LFE and YZE contained compounds that promote the sporulation of A. cinnamomea. Subsequently, liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) was used to analyze the chemical components of the fractions obtained from CWE, and erythritol was considered as the major component that promotes the sporulation of A. cinnamomea. Finally, the effect of erythritol with a purity of 98% on the fermentation performance of A. cinnamomead was investigated. The result showed that erythritol did significantly promote the sporulation of A. cinnamomea and increased the spore production by 55.17% compared with the control group at the optimal concentration of 1.0 μg/mL. Meanwhile, 1.0 μg/mL erythritol significantly promoted the mycelial growth and synthesis of intracellular polysaccharides (IPS) of A. cinnamomea in submerged fermentation and increased the biomass and the yield of IPS by 18.65% and 260.13%, respectively. However, erythritol had no significant effect on the synthesis of triterpenes in A. cinnamomea

The jumping mechanism of flea beetles (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Alticini), its application to bionics and preliminary design for a robotic jumping leg

Flea beetles (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Galerucinae, Alticini) are a hyperdiverse group of organisms with approximately 9900 species worldwide. In addition to walking as most insects do, nearly all the species of flea beetles have an ability to jump and this ability is commonly understood as one of the key adaptations responsible for its diversity. Our investigation of flea beetle jumping is based on high-speed filming, micro- CT scans and 3D reconstructions, and provides a mechanical description of the jump. We reveal that the flea beetle jumping mechanism is a catapult in nature and is enabled by a small structure in the hind femur called an ‘elastic plate’ which powers the explosive jump and protects other structures from potential injury. The explosive catapult jump of flea beetles involves a unique ‘high-efficiency mechanism’ and ‘positive feedback mechanism’. As this catapult mechanism could inspire the design of bionic jumping limbs, we provide a preliminary design for a robotic jumping leg, which could be a resource for the bionics industry

Simulation study of BESIII with stitched CMOS pixel detector using ACTS

Reconstruction of tracks of charged particles with high precision is very crucial for HEP experiments to achieve their physics goals. As the tracking detector of BESIII experiment, the BESIII drift chamber has suffered from aging effects resulting in degraded tracking performance after operation for about 15 years. To preserve and enhance the tracking performance of BESIII, one of the proposals is to add one layer of thin CMOS pixel sensor in cylindrical shape based on the state-of-the-art stitching technology, between the beam pipe and the drift chamber. The improvement of tracking performance of BESIII with such an additional pixel detector compared to that with only the existing drift chamber is studied using the modern common tracking software ACTS, which provides a set of detector-agnostic and highly performant tracking algorithms that have demonstrated promising performance for a few high energy physics and nuclear physics experiments

Ultrasound-Guided Attenuation Parameter May Replace B-mode Ultrasound in Diagnosing Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

Objective: To compare the diagnostic sensitivity and consistency of ultrasound-guided attenuation parameter (UGAP) with B-mode ultrasound in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) patients, and explored their correlation with clinical indicators. Methods: Patients suspected of NAFLD from July to November 2021 were enrolled in this prospective study. After performing the B-mode ultrasound and UGAP examination, all patients were divided into four groups according to the grade of NAFLD obtained by two modalities, respectively. The diagnostic agreement of the two modalities were evaluated, and the diagnostic sensitivity was compared by the McNemar test. The correlation between clinical indicators and the attenuation coefficient (AC) of UGAP was analyzed by linear regression. Results: The intraclass correlation coefficient of UGAP was 0.958 (95%CI: 0.943,0.970), while the kappa value of B-mode ultrasound grading was 0.799 (95%CI: 0.686, 0.912). The diagnostic sensitivity of UGAP was higher than that of B-mode ultrasound (99.0% vs. 32%, P < 0.001). BMI and TG can be distinguished in different grades of NAFLD diagnosed by B-mode ultrasound, while BMI, ALT, HDL, and Apo A can be distinguished in different grades of NAFLD diagnosed by UGAP. BMI (r = 0.502, P < 0.001), ALT (r = 0. 396, P < 0.001), TG (r = 0.418, P < 0.001), HDL (r = -0. 359, P < 0.001) and Apo A (r = -0.228, P = 0.020) were linearly correlated with the AC value of UGAP. Conclusions: Compared with the B-mode ultrasound, UGAP had a higher sensitivity and consistency in diagnosing NAFLD, and correlated well with some laboratory indicators, which may be more valuable in screening and diagnosis of NAFLD