Proceedings of the African Diaspora Conference on Sustainable Development

The authors urge the Western donor organizations to facilitate and support the take up of such more sustainable models

A comparison of the effects of physical and chemical mutagens in sesame (Sesamum indicum L.)

Three sesame genotypes (Rama, SI 1666 and IC 21706) were treated with physical (γ-rays: 200 Gy, 400 Gy or 600 Gy) or chemical (ethyl methane sulphonate, EMS: 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5% or 2.0%) mutagens and their mutagenic effectiveness and efficiency were estimated in the M 2 generation. The M 3 generation was used to identify the most effective mutagen and dose for induction of mutations. The average effectiveness of EMS was much higher than γ-rays. The lowest dose of γ-rays (200 Gy) and the lowest concentration of EMS (0.5%) showed the highest mutagenic efficiency in all genotypes. Analysis of the M 3 generation data based on parameters such as the variance ratio and the difference in residual variances derived from the model of Montalván and Ando indicated that 0.5% concentration of EMS was the most effective treatment for inducing mutations

Agents in Computer-Assisted Collaborative Design

Abstract. For researchers working at the boundary between artificial intelligence and engineering design, the notion of “agents ” working in a collaborative manner to assist the design effort is not new. What therefore is the new emerging discipline of “intelligent software agents ” and how do agents in that discipline differ from our contemporary notion of computational design agents? Do the differences, if any, help advance computer-assisted collaborative design? Furthermore, what challenges does the intelligent agent approach pose the computer-assisted design research community? This paper attempts to answer these questions by briefly reviewing agents research, emphasizing its potential applications in the architecture, engineering and construction industry in general and engineering design in particular. We argue that the agent-based approach provides a useful metaphor for reasoning about design systems, as well as contributing new tools and techniques for facilitating the collaborative design process. Finally, with two examples from construction supply chain provisioning and building design, we demonstrate some of the advantages that an agent-based approach brings to computer-assisted design, and highlight the main challenges posed to the design community by the approach.

Deep Learning for Detecting Building Defects Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Clients are increasingly looking for fast and effective means to quickly and frequently survey and communicate the condition of their buildings so that essential repairs and maintenance work can be done in a proactive and timely manner before it becomes too dangerous and expensive. Traditional methods for this type of work commonly comprise of engaging building surveyors to undertake a condition assessment which involves a lengthy site inspection to produce a systematic recording of the physical condition of the building elements, including cost estimates of immediate and projected long-term costs of renewal, repair and maintenance of the building. Current asset condition assessment procedures are extensively time consuming, laborious, and expensive and pose health and safety threats to surveyors, particularly at height and roof levels which are difficult to access. This paper aims at evaluating the application of convolutional neural networks (CNN) towards an automated detection and localisation of key building defects, e.g., mould, deterioration, and stain, from images. The proposed model is based on pre-trained CNN classifier of VGG-16 (later compaired with ResNet-50, and Inception models), with class activation mapping (CAM) for object localisation. The challenges and limitations of the model in real-life applications have been identified. The proposed model has proven to be robust and able to accurately detect and localise building defects. The approach is being developed with the potential to scale-up and further advance to support automated detection of defects and deterioration of buildings in real-time using mobile devices and drones

Web-Based Risk Assessment Tool Using Integrated Duration-Cost Influence Network Model

The major challenges of project risk assessment may be attributed to the knowledge requirements for determining the level of uncertainty and the development of complex models to predict project outcomes. The duration-cost influence network is an adequate model that can be used for activity-based risk modeling. In this study, a scenario analysis feature is added to this model and a Web-based tool is developed that can be used to calculate risk-adjusted duration and cost, considering the risks affecting cost and duration of individual activities. Monte Carlo simulation is used to create scenarios, and the output of these scenarios is calculated by using the cost-duration influence system that simulates the vulnerability of the project to the identified risk factors. The Web-based tool can be used by decision makers during the preplanning stage of construction projects to estimate the cost and duration implications of various risk occurrence scenarios, determine contingencies, and prepare risk-management plans. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000547. (C) 2012 American Society of Civil Engineers

TOWARDS AFFORDABLE BIM ADOPTION IN EXTENDED CONSTRUCTION SUPPLY CHAINS

ABSTRACT The UK Government is committed to making BIM compulsory on all government projects by 2016. There is currently significant interest in adopting BIM systems in the design, construction, operation and refurbishment of buildings to deliver a low carbon future. As a result, there is currently a burgeoning interest in BIM and many of the major contractors are increasingly adopting BIM and reviewing their BIM strategies and how they can work with their supply chain to create, manage and share information about projects. However, about 99% of the firms in the construction supply chains are SMEs. They face significant challenges in adoption such as choice of system to implement given that they are frequently involved in projects using different tools which may not easily interoperate and the high costs implementation. There is therefore a need for innovation in developing affordable BIM systems offering new and alternative business models to meet the needs of the significant majority in the industry. This paper presents work being undertaken to allow SMEs to be able to choose and adopt a single affordable tool for their internal use and still be able to interoperate and seamlessly share information with supply chain partners in various modes of operation using emerging standards and protocols, services-oriented architectures and open innovation business models