Risk Management Assessment for Partnering Projects in the Malaysian Construction Industry

The Partnering concept is not a new way of doing business. The partnering process establishes the working relationship among the parties (stakeholders) through a mutually-developed, formal strategy of commitment and communication. It attempts to create an environment where trust and teamwork prevent disputes, co-operative bonds are fostered for everyone’s benefit and the completion of successful project is facilitated. The Construction industry in Malaysia is suffering constraints in the processes of construction procurement. Thus, partnering is used as an approach in procurement that could lead toward improving performance of the construction industry in Malaysia. Organizations which have used partnering for construction projects are now reporting favourable results, which include the decreased costs, quality improvement and delivery of project to programme. Partnering has reached many benefits in terms of project cost, time quality, build ability and etc. Despite the benefits in applying the partnering procurement method, there remains risks associated with this mode of construction. From the literature review it was found that the risk management process and partnering are critical to the success of the project. A questionnaire survey was conducted on the sample in order to examine the criticality of risk factors and to identify the effectiveness of risk mitigation measures applied in partnering. The opinions and techniques of risk mitigation were gathered through. It was found that the most critical construction partnering risk is the partner’s financial resources, clients’ problems and economic conditions and financial problems among one of the partner. It is hope that the risk management programme will help to reduce the risks in the construction project in Malaysia

Gender, war and militarism: making and questioning the links

The gender dynamics of militarism have traditionally been seen as straightforward, given the cultural mythologies of warfare and the disciplining of ‘masculinity’ that occurs in the training and use of men's capacity for violence in the armed services. However, women's relation to both war and peace has been varied and complex. It is women who have often been most prominent in working for peace, although there are no necessary links between women and opposition to militarism. In addition, more women than ever are serving in many of today's armies, with feminists rather uncertain on how to relate to this phenomenon. In this article, I explore some of the complexities of applying gender analyses to militarism and peace work in sites of conflict today, looking most closely at the Israeli feminist group, New Profile, and their insistence upon the costs of the militarized nature of Israeli society. They expose the very permeable boundaries between the military and civil society, as violence seeps into the fears and practices of everyday life in Israel. I place their work in the context of broader feminist analysis offered by researchers such as Cynthia Enloe and Cynthia Cockburn, who have for decades been writing about the ‘masculinist’ postures and practices of warfare, as well as the situation of women caught up in them. Finally, I suggest that rethinking the gendered nature of warfare must also encompass the costs of war to men, whose fundamental vulnerability to psychological abuse and physical injury is often downplayed, whether in mainstream accounts of warfare or in more specific gender analysis. Feminists need to pay careful attention to masculinity and its fragmentations in addressing the topic of gender, war and militarism

Performed subjectivities in ranking and recommendation systems

Creative professions were among the first to be affected by the algorithmic logic of online reputational mechanisms, rating processes, evaluations and measurements, and creative workers were among the first to highlight the critical aspects of the so-called algorithmic self and its impact on labour practices. In some regards, supply and demand platforms dedicated to creative services have paved the way for ‘factory-model’ subjectivities evaluated by algorithms. Certain creative work dynamics have been exacerbated by the need to digitally position oneself through personal branding and self-marketing. This chapter focuses on the socio-technical dimensions which heavily impact on all those professions for which one’s online positioning is important, a position which is affected by reputation and recommendation models on social networks, and algorithms inside ranking systems. More specifically, the chapter analyses the functioning of rankings on Facebook, discussing this point within the debate on how and whether to humanise algorithms, making them less ‘unfair’.</jats:p

Peranan Visual Thinking Berbasis Computational Thinking dalam Penyelesaian Masalah Statistik dan Probabilitas

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat seberapa besar peran visual thinking dalam penyelesaian masalah statistik &amp; probabilitas. Kemampuan pemecahan masalah adalah jantungnya matematika, visualisasi merupakan inti pemecahan masalah matematika. Visualisasi adalah kemampuan untuk melihat dan memahami situasi masalah. Pada dasarnya mahasiswa sangat membutuhkan pembelajaran yang menarik, inovatif dan menyenangkan. Solusinya adalah dengan&nbsp; menciptakan suasana pembelajaran menjadi menarik walaupun pembelajaran tersebut dilakukan secara daring. Dimana mahasiswa sangat merasa kesulitan dalam memahami materi statistik probabilitas, sehingga perlu disajikan visualisasi dari contoh contoh penyelesaian masalah yang bisa memotivasi mahasiswa untuk menyelesaikan masalah statistik &amp; probabilitas dengan baik dan benar. Pembelajaran dengan memaksimalkan peran visual thinking menjadi suatu solusi dalam penyelesaian masalah statistik &amp; probabilitas yang berbasis Computational-Thinking. Computational-thinking adalah suatu cara melatih otak untuk terbiasa berpikir secaras logis, terstruktur dan kreatif yang mana sangat dibutuhkan oleh genarasi era Industri 4.0. Penelitian ini adalah penelitian tindakan kelas. Dilakukan dengan 2 siklus pada kelas SI (Sistem Informasi) S1 B Malam Universitas Potensi Utama yang terdiri dari 31 orang mahasiswa. Pada siklus I nilai rata-rata dari pretes ke posttest naik 30% dan untuk siklus II nilai rata-rata pretes ke posttest naik 20%. Peran visual thingking sangat besar dalam memotivasi mahasiswa pada proses pemecahan masalah. Hal ini terlihat dengan adanya perubahan nilai rata-rata postes baik pada siklus I maupun siklus II, motivasi belajar mahasiswa juga menjadi lebih baik

IMPROVING STUDENTS’ SPEAKING ABILITY THROUGH DEBATE TECHNIQUE

The study is aim to find out how to improve students' speaking ability in making questions, giving explanations, and answers based on the debate topic. The methodology of this research is a classroom action research which consisted of 3 cycles. The subject of this research was the students of Semester II Sistem Informatika of Informatica Technical Faculty 2019/2020, Potensi Utama University, which consists of 60 students. To collect the data, the researcher applied the observation checklist and fieldnotes. Through the observation checklist, the researchers observed students' activity in the classroom, and by using fieldnotes the researchers summarized the problem during debating process. Based on the research findings, the debate technique which was applied to the subjects of research reflected the improvement of students' speaking ability. Based on the result of the researchers’ observation using the observation checklist and fieldnotes, it can be seen that students' speaking ability in making questions and giving explanations have been improved. The percentage of students' activity in the classroom when debate, in the first cycle, was 42.83%, in the second cycle was 59.17%, and the third cycle was 85.17%. It indicated that debate technique had improved students' speaking ability in making questions and giving explanations.Keywords: Classroom Action Research, College Student, Debate Technique, Speaking Skil

Smart working during the Covid19 pandemic in Italy: Twitter narratives in female-centered communities.

While the recent pandemic has accelerated the spread of smart working dynamics in Italy, social media increased their importance as platforms to vehiculate information and points of view and shape public opinion. In the face of extended confinement and a looming health crisis, society has had to fundamentally rethink its daily work practices, social relations, family relationship management, and work-life balance. As a result, the radical and abrupt migration to networked platforms has been a disruptive and unprecedented phenomenon. We aimed to investigate the Twitter debate on smart working during the pandemic by focusing mainly on social concerns and thematics related to work-life balance by addressing the following research questions: RQ1: How was the topic of smart working debated on Twitter during the Covid19 pandemic (2020-2021) in Italy, and which narratives and issues fuelled the debate the most? RQ2: How the public debate has received the Italian government's worklife balance measures?RQ3: Which topics were most discussed by women on smart working? We used Digital Methods to cope with re-proposing data to depict collective phenomena, social transformations, and cultural expressions by analyzing natively digital data on social media platforms. We gathered more than 750.000 tweets between 28 February 2020 and 30 November 2021, and we mapped narratives and communities by using social network analysis. This allowed for the selection of the more intriguing ones to define various sub-datasets on which to conduct a topic modeling study, which aided in understanding more nuanced aspects of the highly fragmented topic. By studying the italian debate, we identified specific communities which debated government measures to help families during the pandemic and discussed digitalization and smart working as a new paradigm for work. We found DAD (Didactic at Distance, aka homeschooling) as a transversal topic that highly affected how people experienced smart working

Real Wage Rigidity and the New Phillips Curve: The Brazilian Case

The new Keynesian Phillips curve has been criticized for not explaining the short-run inflation-output gap trade-off. Blanchard and Galí (2007) introduced real wage rigidity and derived a trade-off between stabilizing inflation and the gap between actual and efficient output. This paper estimates the new Phillips curve for the Brazilian economy, computes short-run trade-off, analyzes real wage rigidity, and tests theoretical restrictions imposed by the model. The GMM estimations fit the data very well and all theoretical restrictions are satisfied. There is strong real wage rigidity and a high output-gap cost to stabilize inflation in the short run.A curva de Phillips Novo-keynesiana tem sido criticada por não explicar o trade-off de curto prazo entre inflação-hiato do produto. Blanchard-Gali (2007) introduziram a rigidez do salário real e derivaram um trade-off entre estabilizar inflação ou hiato do produto real e eficiente. Neste artigo estima-se essa nova curva para a economia brasileira, calcula-se o trade-off, analisa-se a rigidez do salário real e testa-se as restrições teóricas do modelo. Estimações GMM adequam-se bem aos dados e todas as restrições teóricas são satisfeitas. Há forte rigidez do salário real e alto custo do hiato do produto para estabilizar inflação no curto prazo