Development of building information models (BIM) to support innovative time management and delay analysis

Although time is a critical factor for most projects, the majority of construction projects encounter delay. Conventional methods for managing time tend to use static medium, which can make understanding delay challenging. This can result in reactive management, which contributes to inappropriate mitigation measures, untimely and insufficient claims, and failures to award extensions of time. These consequences are common causes of dispute, which have a negative effect on the construction industry. The likelihood and severity of disputes on construction projects are increasing but it is suggested that Building Information Modelling (BIM) has the potential to reduce the number of delays and disputes in the industry. However, literature directly addressing how to achieve this appears limited.To contribute research to this knowledge gap, this EngD aims to improve the understanding of delay on construction projects through BIM. This is addressed through five objectives, which gather data through a case study, workshop, simulation, questionnaire, focus group, content analysis and the available literature. The findings of each objective contribute to the next stage of research and led to the proposed interactive exhibit, which integrates VARK modes of presentation with 4D modelling technology developed to support BIM. The rationale behind this proposal is supported by five journal publications, which are appended to this document. [Continues.]</div

The role of sea ports in end-to-end maritime transport chain emissions

This paper's purpose is to investigate the role of sea ports in helping to mitigate the GHG emissions associated with the end-to-end maritime transport chain. The analysis is primarily focused on the UK, but is international in application. The paper is based on both the analysis of secondary data and information on actions taken by ports to reduce their emissions, with the latter data collected for the main UK ports via their published reports and/or via interviews. Only a small number of ports (representing 32% of UK port activity) actually measure and report their carbon emissions in the UK context. The emissions generated by ships calling at these ports are analysed using a method based on Department for Transport Maritime Statistics Data. In addition, a case example (Felixstowe) of emissions associated with HGV movements to and from ports is presented, and data on vessel emissions at berth are also considered. Our analyses indicate that emissions generated by ships during their voyages between ports are of a far greater magnitude than those generated by the port activities. Thus while reducing the ports' own emissions is worthwhile, the results suggest that ports might have more impact through focusing their efforts on reducing shipping emissions

Venous thromboembolism prophylaxis guideline implementation is improved by nurse directed feedback and audit

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major health and financial burden. VTE impacts health outcomes in surgical and non-surgical patients. VTE prophylaxis is underutilized, particularly amongst high risk medical patients. We conducted a multicentre clinical audit to determine the extent to which appropriate VTE prophylaxis in acutely ill hospitalized medical patients could be improved via implementation of a multifaceted nurse facilitated educational program.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>This multicentre clinical audit of 15 Australian hospitals was conducted in 2007-208. The program incorporated a baseline audit to determine the proportion of patients receiving appropriate VTE prophylaxis according to best practice recommendations issued by the Australian and New Zealand Working Party on the Management and Prevention of Venous Thromboembolism (ANZ-WP recommendations), followed by a 4-month education intervention program and a post intervention audit. The primary endpoint was to compare the proportion of patients being appropriately managed based on their risk profile between the two audits.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>A total of 8774 patients (audit 1; 4399 and audit 2; 4375) were included in the study, most (82.2% audit 1; and 81.0% audit 2) were high risk based on ANZ-WP recommendations. At baseline 37.9% of high risk patients were receiving appropriate thromboprophylaxis. This increased to 54.1% in the post intervention audit (absolute improvement 16%; 95% confidence interval [CI] 11.7%, 20.5%). As a result of the nurse educator program, the likelihood of high risk patients being treated according to ANZ-WP recommendations increased significantly (OR 1.96; 1.62, 2.37).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Utilization of VTE prophylaxis amongst hospitalized medical patients can be significantly improved by implementation of a multifaceted educational program coordinated by a dedicated nurse practitioner.</p

Optimising End-to-End Maritime Supply Chains: a Carbon Footprint Perspective

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to illustrate an optimisation method, and resulting insights, for minimising total logistics-related carbon emissions for end-to-end supply chains. Design/methodology/approach – The research is based on two real-life UK industrial cases. For the first case, several alternative realistic routes towards the UK are analysed and the optimal route minimising total carbon emissions is identified and tested in real conditions. For the second case, emissions towards several destinations are calculated and two alternative routes to southern Europe are compared, using several transport modes (road, Ro-Ro, rail and maritime). An adapted Value Stream Mapping (VSM) approach is used to map carbon footprint and calculate emissions; in addition Automatic Identification Systems (AIS) data provided information for vessel specification allowing the use of more accurate emission factors for each shipping leg. Findings – The analysis of the first case demonstrates that end-to-end logistics-related carbon emissions can be reduced by 16-21 per cent through direct delivery to the UK as opposed to transhipment via a Continental European port. The analysis of the second case shows that deliveries to southern Europe have the highest potential for reduction through deliveries by sea. Both cases show that for distant overseas destinations, the maritime leg represents the major contributor to CO2 emissions in the end-to-end supply chain. It is notable that one of the main apportionment approaches (that of Defra in the UK) generate higher carbon footprints for routes using Ro-Pax vessels, making those not optimal. The feasibility of the optimal route was demonstrated with real-life data. Originality/value – This research used real-life data from two UK companies and highlighted where carbon emissions are generated in the inbound and outbound transport chain, and how these can be reduced

An investigation into whether building information modelling (BIM) can assist with construction delay claims

It is probable that a construction project anywhere in the world will encounter some form of delay as a consequence of change. The impact of the delay on the project will vary but it is likely to have a negative financial outcome. Compensation can be requested by an affected party in the form of a claim; however, issues of liability and quantum can be difficult given the ever increasing complexity of construction work involving numerous differing successive parallel tasks with varying levels of interrelated resources. Experts are often employed to analyse delays based on project records and report their findings to a tribunal. This paper identifies the difficulties associated with the retrieval and representation of information for delay claims and recognises technological opportunities to deal with these challenges. The potential to exploit aspects of BIM to support these possibilities are discussed concluding that it can assist through the ease of access to coordinated contemporaneous project information and the use of visualisation through multiple dimensions. In order to support this initiative a detailed review of the literature is undertaken which forms part of an Engineering Doctorate

An investigation into whether building information modelling (BIM) can assist with construction delay claims

It is probable that a construction project anywhere in the world will encounter some form of delay as a consequence of change. The impact of the delay on a project will vary, but it is likely to have a negative financial outcome. Compensation can be requested by an affected party in the form of a claim; however, issues of liability and quantum can be difficult given the ever increasing complexity of construction work involving numerous differing successive parallel tasks with varying levels of interrelated resources. Experts are often employed to analyse delays based on project records and report their findings to a tribunal. This paper identifies the difficulties associated with the retrieval and representation of information for delay claims and recognises technological opportunities to deal with these challenges. The potential to exploit aspects of BIM to support these possibilities are discussed, concluding that it can assist through the ease of access to coordinated contemporaneous project information and the use of visualisation through multiple dimensions. In order to support this initiative a detailed review of the literature is undertaken which forms part of an Engineering Doctorate

A multi-label, dual-output deep neural network for automated bug triaging

Bug tracking enables the monitoring and resolution of issues and bugs within organizations. Bug triaging, or assigning bugs to the owner(s) who will resolve them, is a critical component of this process because there are many incorrect assignments that waste developer time and reduce bug resolution throughput. In this work, we explore the use of a novel two-output deep neural network architecture (Dual DNN) for triaging a bug to both an individual team and developer, simultaneously. Dual DNN leverages this simultaneous prediction by exploiting its own guess of the team classes to aid in developer assignment. A multi-label classification approach is used for each of the two outputs to learn from all interim owners, not just the last one who closed the bug. We make use of a heuristic combination of the interim owners (owner-importance-weighted labeling) which is converted into a probability mass function (pmf). We employ a two-stage learning scheme, whereby the team portion of the model is trained first and then held static to train the team--developer and bug--developer relationships. The scheme employed to encode the team--developer relationships is based on an organizational chart (org chart), which renders the model robust to organizational changes as it can adapt to role changes within an organization. There is an observed average lift (with respect to both team and developer assignment) of 13%-points in 11-fold incremental-learning cross-validation (IL-CV) accuracy for Dual DNN utilizing owner-weighted labels compared with the traditional multi-class classification approach. Furthermore, Dual DNN with owner-weighted labels achieves average 11-fold IL-CV accuracies of 76% (team assignment) and 55% (developer assignment), outperforming reference models by 14%- and 25%-points, respectively, on a proprietary dataset with 236,865 entries.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 9 table

Taking Development Seriously: Critique of the 2008 \u3ci\u3eJME\u3c/i\u3e Special Issue on Moral Functioning

This essay comments on articles that composed a Journal of Moral Education Special Issue (September, 2008, 37[3]). The issue was intended to honor the 50th anniversary of Lawrence Kohlberg’s doctoral dissertation and his subsequent impact on the field of moral development and education. The articles were characterized by the issue editor (Don Collins Reed) as providing a “look forward” from Kohlberg’s work toward a more comprehensive or integrated model of moral functioning. Prominent were culturally pluralist and biologically based themes, such as cultural learning; expert skill; culturally shaped and neurobiologically based predispositions or intuitions; and moral self-relevance or centrality. Inadequately represented, however, was Kohlberg’s (and Piaget’s) key concept of development as the construction of a deeper or more adequate understanding not reducible to particular socialization practices or cultural contexts. Also neglected were related cognitive-developmental themes, along with supportive evidence. Robert Coles’s account of a sudden rescue is used as a heuristic to depict Piaget’s/Kohlberg’s approach to the development of moral functioning. We conclude that, insofar as the Special Issue does not take development seriously, it moves us not forward but, instead, back to the problems of moral relativism and moral paralysis that Kohlberg sought to redress from the start of his work more than 50 years ago

An Extension to the Frenet-Serret and Bishop Invariant Extended Kalman Filters for Tracking Accelerating Targets

This paper presents an extension to the original Frenet-Serret and Bishop frame target models used in the invariant extended Kalman filter (IEKF) to account for tangential accelerations for highly-manoeuvrable targets. State error propagation matrices are derived for both IEKFs and used to build the accelerating Frenet-Serret (FSa-LIEKF) and Bishop (Ba-LIEKF) algorithms. The filters are compared to the original Frenet-Serret and Bishop algorithms in a tracking scenario featuring a target performing a series of complex manoeuvres. The accelerating forms of the LIEKF are shown to improve velocity estimation during non-constant velocity trajectory segments at the expense of increased noise during simpler manoeuvres

A novel therapeutic strategy for pancreatic neoplasia using a novel RNAi platform targeting PDX-1

Bi-functional shRNA (bi-shRNA), a novel RNA interference (RNAi) effector platform targeting PDX-1 utilizing a systemic DOTAP-Cholesterol delivery vehicle, was studied in three mouse models of progressive pancreatic neoplasia. Species-specific bi-functional PDX-1 shRNA (bi-shRNAPDX-1) lipoplexes inhibited insulin expression and secretion while also substantially inhibiting proliferation of mouse and human cell lines via disruption of cell cycle proteins in vitro. Three cycles of either bi-shRNA&#x3c;sup&#x3e;mousePDX-1&#x3c;/sup&#x3e; or shRNA&#x3c;sup&#x3e;mousePDX-1&#x3c;/sup&#x3e; lipoplexes administered intravenously prevented death from hyperinsulinemia and hypoglycemia in a lethal insulinoma mouse model. Three cycles of shRNA&#x3c;sup&#x3e;mousePDX-1&#x3c;/sup&#x3e; lipoplexes reversed hyperinsulinemia and hypoglycemia in an immune-competent mouse model of pancreatic neoplasia. Moreover, three cycles of the bi-shRNA&#x3c;sup&#x3e;humanPDX-1&#x3c;/sup&#x3e; lipoplexes resulted in near complete ablation of tumor volume and considerably improved survival in a human PANC-1 implanted SCID-mouse model. Human pancreatic neoplasia specimens also stained strongly for PDX-1 expression. Together, these data support the clinical development of a novel therapeutic strategy using systemic bi-shRNA&#x3c;sup&#x3e;PDX-1&#x3c;/sup&#x3e; lipoplexes against pancreatic neoplasia