A systematic review of quantitative risk analysis in construction of megaprojects

Mega projects (MP) require efficient management of risks during their construction. Therefore, it is crucial to identify any possible deviations towards meeting their objectives. Such deviation forced MP to be delivered behind schedule and over budget. According references, MP does not require only qualitative analysis but requires an accurate quantitative analysis based on knowledge and practice. Thus, this paper aims to undergo a systematic review of quantitative analysis literature in construction of worldwide MP,with the utmost aim to improve contractors quantitative risk analysis practices in the presence of uncertainty. A time line was produced which shows the process of quantitative risk analysis in this literature including the past six years from 2013 to 2018. This was followed by a critical analysis in order to account for quantitative risk analysis techniques highlighted throughout literature sources. Furthermore, the paper reviews the literature of worldwide mega projects by which quantitative risk analysis process was practiced. It was observed that Monte Carlo analysis technique has succeeded in supporting project managers in allocating deviations in the objectives of MP. The paper adds value to practitioners using the process of quantitative risk analysis as well as contractors working on construction of MP

Embedding Sustainability Principles in the Mindset of Children Through Creating Nature-Interactive Physical Spaces

Natural world is one of the most important context of children’s maturation. However, the result of a latest survey that was conduct- ed on 12,000 parents from 10 different countries, showed that one- third of children in the age of 5 to 12 years old spend less than 30 minutes outside every day. This survey and other relevant studies have brought evident to the problem of the lack of children interac- tion with their surrounding environment and nature in general. One of the major role players who can make a difference in resolving children-environment interaction is the architecture designer, who is the one responsible for creating physical spaces for children. The ob- jective of this paper is thus to investigate the role of architecture in the creation of spaces for children that can act as a tool in itself, and which could promote both tangible and intangible sustainability concepts. A literature review was conducted in order to study the principles of sustainability and how to integrate nature into a physi- cal space for children through a number of analyzed case studies. Findings of this paper were based on a double perception including literature and designers. It was indicated that children are generally interested in the idea of integrating nature to their physical space. The results of this study are expected to influence the architects through presenting guidelines that guides decision throughout the design of spaces for children. It is recommended that such spaces should enhance understanding of the concept of sustainability, and could sustain sustainability in the mind set of young children, who represent in turn environmentally aware future generation

Policy-Guided Lazy Search with Feedback for Task and Motion Planning

PDDLStream solvers have recently emerged as viable solutions for Task and Motion Planning (TAMP) problems, extending PDDL to problems with continuous action spaces. Prior work has shown how PDDLStream problems can be reduced to a sequence of PDDL planning problems, which can then be solved using off-the-shelf planners. However, this approach can suffer from long runtimes. In this paper we propose LAZY, a solver for PDDLStream problems that maintains a single integrated search over action skeletons, which gets progressively more geometrically informed as samples of possible motions are lazily drawn during motion planning. We explore how learned models of goal-directed policies and current motion sampling data can be incorporated in LAZY to adaptively guide the task planner. We show that this leads to significant speed-ups in the search for a feasible solution evaluated over unseen test environments of varying numbers of objects, goals, and initial conditions. We evaluate our TAMP approach by comparing to existing solvers for PDDLStream problems on a range of simulated 7DoF rearrangement/manipulation problems

Identifying the Gap in User Satisfaction Assessment from Different Perspectives in Public Institutional Buildings

The building is a place that is responsible for meeting its users' needs and expectations, and offering them a safe and comfortable environment. Many researchers focus on evaluating the user satisfaction level in different Building Performance Levels (BPLs). However, measuring the end-user satisfaction is not an indicator of the importance of the BPLs and its attributes to the end-users. This paper aims to identify the gap between the importance of different performance levels from the user's and the architect's perspective, and the frequency of their application in scientific research. Two surveys were conducted to 172 architects and end-users. Then, a structured review highlights the frequency of applying user satisfaction assessment in each BPLs. The results showed that the gap between the architect and the end-users in identifying the importance of each performance level in building is low not exceeding 12% in any performance level, but there is a clear gap in research related to measuring user satisfaction in the functional, technical, and aesthetic performances by (38%), (39%), (12%) respectively, compared to their importance in affecting the level of user satisfaction in buildings

Integrating the Principles of Lean Management into the Design Process of Green Tall Buildings

Tall buildings have become a sign of Economic and technological development in advanced countries, resolving different issues coming from the significant increase in the urban dwellers and land price. This type of buildings is characterized by its high levels of energy consumption and design complexity. The design process of tall buildings involves many professionals from several disciplines, requiring an efficient management to coordinate and interpret the interrelations between these various disciplines in the design stage taking into consideration the global awareness of energy consumption and the urgent need to reduce the quantity of energy used by this type of buildings. Lean process tools and methods have been adapted to the design management process in the AEC industry - known as Lean Design management (LDM) - to improve the context of design and overcome its deficiencies with minimum wastage with a greener comprehensive view of the whole project. Applying lean design management tools to the design process of tall buildings will help in overcoming the challenges coming from the complex design process of tall buildings. Thus, the objective of this paper is to set preliminary guidelines for the integration of the lean design management concept with the design process management of green tall buildings, through a literature review. More than 200 research paper -ranging from 2010 till present mostly indexed in Scopus database- including the aim of the study were selected for review. Research found a number of preliminary guidelines for optimizing the design process of green tall buildings through the adaptation of the lean design management concept. This research is meant to be the first phase of the study to assess the application of lean principles to the design process of tall buildings through practical analysis of case studies that will be carried out in further studies

Migration Remittances Inflows and Macroeconomic Shocks: The Case of Egypt

This paper explores to what extent Egyptian remittances inflows serve as a hedge against macroeconomic shocks. This is the first study applied on Egypt focusing on both the determinants of remittances and their cyclical behavior at the same time. By estimating a vector error correction (VEC) model, it was found that remittances inflows were associated significantly with real per capita income, money supply and oil price, in both long and short run. This indicated that remittance flows to Egypt were for investment and not for family support purposes. The analysis of impulse response functions confirmed that remittances inflows were procyclical with output shocks, reducing support for the ability of remittances as a hedge against macroeconomic shocks. This paper suggests that; policy makers should deal cautiously with the different aspects of remittances and its analysis could be applied to other small open economies

Migration Remittances Inflows and Macroeconomic Shocks: The Case of Egypt

This paper explores to what extent Egyptian remittances inflows serve as a hedge against macroeconomic shocks. This is the first study applied on Egypt focusing on both the determinants of remittances and their cyclical behavior at the same time. By estimating a vector error correction (VEC) model, it was found that remittances inflows were associated significantly with real per capita income, money supply and oil price, in both long and short run. This indicated that remittance flows to Egypt were for investment and not for family support purposes. The analysis of impulse response functions confirmed that remittances inflows were procyclical with output shocks, reducing support for the ability of remittances as a hedge against macroeconomic shocks. This paper suggests that; policy makers should deal cautiously with the different aspects of remittances and its analysis could be applied to other small open economies

Integrating the Principles of Lean Management into the Design Process of Green Tall Buildings

Tall buildings have become a sign of Economic and technological development in advanced countries, resolving different issues coming from the significant increase in the urban dwellers and land price. This type of buildings is characterized by its high levels of energy consumption and design complexity. The design process of tall buildings involves many professionals from several disciplines, requiring an efficient management to coordinate and interpret the interrelations between these various disciplines in the design stage taking into consideration the global awareness of energy consumption and the urgent need to reduce the quantity of energy used by this type of buildings. Lean process tools and methods have been adapted to the design management process in the AEC industry - known as Lean Design management (LDM) - to improve the context of design and overcome its deficiencies with minimum wastage with a greener comprehensive view of the whole project. Applying lean design management tools to the design process of tall buildings will help in overcoming the challenges coming from the complex design process of tall buildings. Thus, the objective of this paper is to set preliminary guidelines for the integration of the lean design management concept with the design process management of green tall buildings, through a literature review. More than 200 research paper -ranging from 2010 till present mostly indexed in Scopus database- including the aim of the study were selected for review. Research found a number of preliminary guidelines for optimizing the design process of green tall buildings through the adaptation of the lean design management concept. This research is meant to be the first phase of the study to assess the application of lean principles to the design process of tall buildings through practical analysis of case studies that will be carried out in further studies

Does Foreign Direct Investment Affect Industrial Workers? Evidence from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

This paper aims at determining the essential variables that affect the employment of industrial workers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) by focusing on the role of foreign direct investment as an indicator of financial openness. By using the methodology of the autoregressive distributed lag (ADRL) to identify the impacts on both the short and long run during the period (1990-2014), it turns out that foreign direct investment does not have a positive impact on the employment of industrial workers which is contrary to the hypothesis of the study. The empirical results have shown that there is a positive and significant impact of both exports and inflation on industrial employment on the long run only. Thus, the current paper is important in the decision making concerning investment and labor market in KSA