The influence of project complexity on estimating accuracy

With the rapid development in technology over recent years, construction, in common with many areas of industry, has become increasingly complex. It would, therefore, seem to be important to develop and extend the understanding of complexity so that industry in general and in this case the construction industry can work with greater accuracy and efficiency to provide clients with a better service. This paper aims to generate a definition of complexity and a method for its measurement in order to assess its influence upon the accuracy of the quantity surveying profession in UK new build office construction. Quantitative data came from an analysis of twenty projects of varying size and value and qualitative data came from interviews with professional quantity surveyors. The findings highlight the difficulty in defining and measuring project complexity. The correlation between accuracy and complexity was not straightforward, being subjected to many extraneous variables, particularly the impact of project size. Further research is required to develop a better measure of complexity. This is in order to improve the response of quantity surveyors, so that an appropriate level of effort can be applied to individual projects, permitting greater accuracy and enabling better resource planning within the profession

Regenerative fuel cell combines high efficiency with low cost

Hydrogen/oxygen regenerative fuel cell stores electrical energy efficiently and inexpensively. The fuel cell has a high energy-to-weight ratio, and is adapted for a large number of cycles with deep discharge

Dynamic programming and direct interaction for the optimum design of skeletal towers

A computer technique is proposed for automatically designing tower structures. Dynamic programming was used to find the optimum geometric configuration of the structural members, while the member sizes were proportioned by direct iteration. Tower structures are particularly suited to this method of automatic design since the rapidity of the analysis and design depends primarily upon substructuring. Substructuring of towers was comparatively simple because interaction between adjacent substructures is simulated with reasonable accuracy. Typical examples are presented to illustrate the method

Users manual: Dynamics of two bodies connected by an elastic tether, six degrees of freedom forebody and five degrees of freedom decelerator

The equations of motion and a computer program for the dynamics of a six degree of freedom body joined to a five degree of freedom body by a quasilinear elastic tether are presented. The forebody is assumed to be a completely general rigid body with six degrees of freedom; the decelerator is also assumed to be rigid, but with only five degrees of freedom (symmetric about its longitudinal axis). The tether is represented by a spring and dashpot in parallel, where the spring constant is a function of tether elongation. Lagrange's equation is used to derive the equations of motion with the Lagrange multiplier technique used to express the constraint provided by the tether. A computer program is included which provides a time history of the dynamics of both bodies and the tension in the tether

Unmasked: The Author of Narrative of a Voyage to the Spanish Main in the Ship Two Friends

In 1819 John Miller of Burlington Arcade, Piccadilly, London, published the Narrative of a Voyage to the Spanish Main in the Ship Two Friends for an anonymous author, a young Englishman.1 The author, calling himself the Narrator, recounted his earlier voyage to Madeira Island, the Dutch island of St. Thomas, and Spanish East Florida. The Narrative paints a revealing portrait of northeast Florida during the waning years of the Second Spanish Period. In his introduction to the 1978 republication of the Narrative John W. Griffin posed two candidates, both named John Miller, for authorship; however, he concluded [w]ithal the author ... remains anonymous. 2 The Narrator\u27s anonymity has persisted, but overlooked sources render his identification possible