268 research outputs found
Design of flexible and adaptable healthcare buildings of the future: a BIM approach
The UK's Government Construction adviser announced that all the public
construction will be implemented with BIM in the coming years. This decision affects
dramatically the design phase of healthcare facilities as by 2016, BIM is mandatory in
the implementation of the design process. Moreover, The UK Construction Strategy
plan does not offer for investigating the multidisciplinary design space of possible
solutions. The uncertainty that impacts on healthcare (demographic trends, changing
patterns of disease, technological advances and clinical knowledge) has led healthcare
policy makers to take action to manage demand for healthcare services and the supply
enabled by healthcare infrastructure. A state of the art review of literature identified
that healthcare facilities are not designed to be change-ready and that owners of such
facilities have dynamic requirements. To future-proof healthcare facilities a design
process is required to offer a collaborative, parametric lean construction practice that
enables the design team to generate and analyse flexible healthcare building design
spaces based on multi-stakeholder requirements. BIM and Integrated Project Delivery
(IPD) offer dynamic decisions early in the design process. Here, IPD, the RIBA
Outline Plan of Work 2012 and the BIM Guide from the Computer Integrated
Construction Research Program were used to define the exact information exchange
between the parties in a BIM-based construction process for change-ready healthcare
facilities. A generic process map is derived from the literature for future testing and
is presented in respect to the principles and philosophies of process protocol
Supporting future-proof healthcare design by narrowing the design space of solutions using building information modelling
BIM has been characterized by the UK Government’s chief construction adviser as unstoppable regarding its rise in construction and he further positioned BIM as mandatory for public projects in the UK by 2016. Moreover, large scale public projects such as healthcare facilities must be seen as a process, being able to meet the constantly changing demands imposed on healthcare infrastructure. Facilities should be designed as change-ready rather than to meet fixed requirements, therefore, the designer should accommodate as large section of design space potential solutions instead of mistakenly narrowing the response of the project to only one solution. Scenario based design was employed as research and design method for the proposed software modules which would extend the Activity Database (ADB). Two modules are proposed that will enable designers to improve their spatial design decisions for both new and refurbishment projects through partially automated knowledge extraction. Additionally, the integration of flexibility and standardisation concepts has been addressed. The proposed design approach is intended to provide rich knowledge representation at the early stages of the design process in less time and effort
The case for new academic workspaces
Executive summary: This report draws upon the combined efforts of
a number of estates professionals, architects,
academics, designers, and senior managers
involved in the planning of new university buildings
for the 21st century. Across these perspectives,
all would agree – although perhaps for different
reasons - that this planning is difficult and that a
number of particular considerations apply in the
design of academic workspaces. Despite these
difficulties, they will also agree that when this
planning goes well, ‘good’ buildings are truly
transformational – for both the university as a
whole and the people who work and study in them.
The value of well-designed buildings goes far
beyond their material costs, and endures long after
those costs have been forgotten ..
Electron gas polarization effect induced by heavy H-like ions of moderate velocities channeled in a silicon crystal
We report on the observation of a strong perturbation of the electron gas
induced by 20 MeV/u U ions and 13 MeV/u Pb ions channeled in
silicon crystals. This collective response (wake effect) in-duces a shift of
the continuum energy level by more than 100 eV, which is observed by means of
Radiative Electron Capture into the K and L-shells of the projectiles. We also
observe an increase of the REC probability by 20-50% relative to the
probability in a non-perturbed electron gas. The energy shift is in agreement
with calculations using the linear response theory, whereas the local electron
density enhancement is much smaller than predicted by the same model. This
shows that, for the small values of the adiabaticity parameter achieved in our
experiments, the density fluctuations are not strongly localized at the
vicinity of the heavy ions
Minimizing energy below the glass thresholds
Focusing on the optimization version of the random K-satisfiability problem,
the MAX-K-SAT problem, we study the performance of the finite energy version of
the Survey Propagation (SP) algorithm. We show that a simple (linear time)
backtrack decimation strategy is sufficient to reach configurations well below
the lower bound for the dynamic threshold energy and very close to the analytic
prediction for the optimal ground states. A comparative numerical study on one
of the most efficient local search procedures is also given.Comment: 12 pages, submitted to Phys. Rev. E, accepted for publicatio
Optimization by Quantum Annealing: Lessons from hard 3-SAT cases
The Path Integral Monte Carlo simulated Quantum Annealing algorithm is
applied to the optimization of a large hard instance of the Random 3-SAT
Problem (N=10000). The dynamical behavior of the quantum and the classical
annealing are compared, showing important qualitative differences in the way of
exploring the complex energy landscape of the combinatorial optimization
problem. At variance with the results obtained for the Ising spin glass and for
the Traveling Salesman Problem, in the present case the linear-schedule Quantum
Annealing performance is definitely worse than Classical Annealing.
Nevertheless, a quantum cooling protocol based on field-cycling and able to
outperform standard classical simulated annealing over short time scales is
introduced.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to PR
Augmenting the 6-3-5 method with design information
This paper describes a comparative study between the 6-3-5 Method and the ICR Grid. The ICR Grid is an evolved variant of 6-3-5 intended to better integrate information into the concept generation process. Unlike a conventional 6-3-5 process where participants continually sketch concepts, using the ICR Grid (the name derived from its Inform, Create, Reflect activities and structured, grid-like output) participants are additionally required to undertake information search tasks, use specific information items for concept development, and reflect on the merit of concepts as the session progresses. The results indicate that although the quantity of concepts was lower, the use of information had a positive effect in a number of areas, principally the quality and variety of output. Although grounded in the area of product development, this research is applicable to any organisation undertaking idea generation and problem solving. As well as providing insights on the transference of information to concepts, it holds additional interest for studies on the composition and use of digital libraries
DNA barcoding cannot discriminate between Sardinella tawilis and S. hualiensis (Clupeiformes: Clupeidae)
Sardinella tawilis, the only known freshwater sardinella in the world, is endemic to Taal Lake, Philippines. Previous studies found the Taiwan sardinella, S. hualiensis, to be morphologically very similar to S. tawilis and identified it as the marine sister species of S. tawilis. In this study, DNA barcoding using the mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene was carried out to analyze species demarcation in the Sardinella genus, focusing primarily on the relationship between S. tawilis and S. hualiensis. The neighbour-joining (NJ) tree that was constructed using Kimura 2-parameter (K2P) model showed a single clade for the two species with 100% bootstrap support. K2P interspecific genetic divergence ranged from 0% to 0.522%, which is clearly below the suggested 3–3.5% cutoff for species discrimination. Recombination activating gene 1 (RAG1), mitochondrial control region (CR), cytochrome b, 16S rRNA, and S7 markers were used to further validate the results. Sardinella tawilis and S. hualiensis clustered together with a bootstrap support of 99–100% in each of the NJ trees. Low interspecific genetic distances between S. tawilis and S. hualiensis for all the markers except CR could be attributed to incipient allopatric speciation
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