Integrating BIM to the Construction Industry: The Hardships, Benefits, and an Unyielding Educational Gap between Technology and Field Application

In recent years, Building Information Modeling has taken the construction industry by storm and revolutionized the construction process entirely. It allows for trades to coordinate more efficiently and effectively, while providing a hands-on, 3D overview of a structure being built. Certain characteristics are more easily adoptable by existing companies than others, but there are vast fallacies of hype in the concept. This study will examine the effects as BIM, positive and negative, and its current usage in industry. In addition it will identify the gap developing between students exiting the university setting that has a strong emphasis on technological integration, and the actual implementation of technology associated with field activities from a superintendent stand-point and a superintendent’s proficiency with the software

Using Machine Learning to Study the Relationship Between Galaxy Morphology and Evolution

We can track the physical evolution of massive galaxies over time by characterizing the morphological signatures inherent to different mechanisms of galactic assembly. Structural studies rely on a small set of measurements to bin galaxies into disk, spheroid and irregular classifications. These classes are correlated with colors, SF history and stellar masses. Rare and subtle features that are lost in such a generic classification scheme are important for characterizing the evolution of galaxy morphology. We can connect the Hubble sequence observed for local galaxies to their high redshift progenitors to determine the full distribution of galaxy morphologies as a function of time over the entire lifetime of the Universe. To fully capture the complex morphological transformation of galaxies we need more useful classifications. To accomplish such a feat in a computationally tractable way we will need to convert galaxy images to low-dimensional representations of only a few parameters

At-Risk in the Virtual Classroom: a Handbook for Student Success

Online education, also known as the virtual classroom , has proliferated in the United States, as well as in much of the world, in the last few years. Indeed, virtual schooling is one of the fastest-growing areas in K-12 education. In its 2005 report, the National Center for Education Statistics found that 36% of all school districts had students participating in virtual courses, for a total of 300,000 students, and this number is projected to explode in the next decade. (Roblyer, 2006, p. 32). Many students who are considered at-risk are looking to the virtual classroom as an alternative to the traditional classroom where they were not successful. Yet the virtual classroom, while offering many advantages to at-risk students, also presents new challenges for this type of student. This paper will examine both the positives and negatives for the at-risk learner, and present strategies to help parents of at-risk students decide whether an online education is best for their student

Changes in soil and vegetation properties under different land uses in Northern Scandinavia

We studied changes in vegetation, soil microbiology and soil properties during a 3 years study in a Fennoscandia tundra. The test sites were located at the border between Norway and Finland, a region which is divided by a fence to different areas of land use by reindeer herding. The Norwegian site acts as winter pasture only, the Finnish site is under use all the year. Due to shifts of the fence some years ago, an area of recover was found. Reindeer grazing and trampling changed not only vegetation cover, mainly from lichen heaths in Norway to grass and shrub land at the Finnish side. This had also consequences on soil properties, the microbial community and soil respiration. Differences in these items, however, are not directly to changes in vegetation cover; more dangerous are trampled and probably highly grazed spots which show barren soils. Main effect to soil respiration is temperature, which shows significant higher levels at the Finnish side, which leads to higher evaporation, thus lower moisture and thereof reduced microbial activity

Development of mechanical soil stability in an initial homogeneous loam and sand planted with two maize (Zea mays L.) genotypes with contrasting root hair attributes under in-situ field conditions

Purpose: Soil structure evolving from physical and biological processes is closely related to soil mechanical characteristics and texture. We studied the influence of substrate and genotype on the initial development of mechanical traits, differences between depths, and changes over the course of two years in the field. Methods: Plots were homogeneously filled with a loam and a sand and planted with two maize (Zea mays L.) genotypes (wild type (WT) and rth3 mutant) with contrasting root hair attributes. Undisturbed soil cores were taken in 2019 and 2020 at 14 and 34 cm depth. Confined uniaxial compression tests were performed to determine pre-compression stress (σpc), compressibility (Cc, Cs) and elasticity index (EI). Mechanical energy was calculated based on penetration resistance (PR) tests with a penetrometer needle resembling root geometries. Results: σpc, Cc and Cs were significantly higher in loam as compared to sand, whereas the factor genotype proved to be negligible. Over time, σpc increased and Cc decreased in loam from 2019 to 2020 and Cs declined in both substrates. Higher mechanical energies were observed in loam and partially in WT. Required energy was higher at 14 cm than at 34 cm depth and decreased from 2019 to 2020 in sand. Airdry sand samples required four times as much energy than those at matric potential (Ψm) of -50 kPa. Conclusion: For the development of the mechanical traits examined texture proved to be the dominating factor and changes in soil stability could be observed within a short period of time

Challenges in imaging and predictive modeling of rhizosphere processes

Background Plant-soil interaction is central to human food production and ecosystem function. Thus, it is essential to not only understand, but also to develop predictive mathematical models which can be used to assess how climate and soil management practices will affect these interactions. Scope In this paper we review the current developments in structural and chemical imaging of rhizosphere processes within the context of multiscale mathematical image based modeling. We outline areas that need more research and areas which would benefit from more detailed understanding. Conclusions We conclude that the combination of structural and chemical imaging with modeling is an incredibly powerful tool which is fundamental for understanding how plant roots interact with soil. We emphasize the need for more researchers to be attracted to this area that is so fertile for future discoveries. Finally, model building must go hand in hand with experiments. In particular, there is a real need to integrate rhizosphere structural and chemical imaging with modeling for better understanding of the rhizosphere processes leading to models which explicitly account for pore scale processes

Arrival or Transient Spaces? Differentiated Politics of Mobilities, Socio-Technological Orderings and Migrants' Socio-Spatial Embeddedness

For the last decade there has been a lively debate on urban arrival spaces. Saunders’ (2011) widely received book Arrival Cities can be seen as catalyst of this debate. Taking a hitherto largely unexplored comparative approach, based on two empirical research studies on migrant workers and highly-skilled migrants in Singapore, this study debates the notion of arrival cities and spaces and argues for a differentiated perspective on the complex and interdependent processes of spatially and socially arriving. By comparing how the politics of mobilities, migration management and differential inclusion influence the migration trajectories of workers and professionals we argue that the concept of transient spaces might be a more fruitful approach for understanding the differentiated processes of arriving and (not) becoming socio-spatially embedded. In order to educe the relevance of a processual perspective, and for a systematic comparison, we apply four analytical dimensions that shed light on the process of migrating, arriving, and passing through. These four dimensions comprise (1) arriving, (2) settling, (3) mingling locally and translocally, and (4) planning ahead for future mobilities. We argue that the scholarship on politics of mobilities needs to take note of the combined effects of states’ and companies’ neoliberal politics of mobility throughout the migration process, and of the increasing relevance of socio-technological orderings, which imprint migrants’ socio-spatial embedding

Diverse Structural Evolution at z > 1 in Cosmologically Simulated Galaxies

From mock Hubble Space Telescope images, we quantify non-parametric statistics of galaxy morphology, thereby predicting the emergence of relationships among stellar mass, star formation, and observed rest-frame optical structure at 1 < z < 3. We measure automated diagnostics of galaxy morphology in cosmological simulations of the formation of 22 central galaxies with 9.3 < log10 M_*/M_sun < 10.7. These high-spatial-resolution zoom-in calculations enable accurate modeling of the rest-frame UV and optical morphology. Even with small numbers of galaxies, we find that structural evolution is neither universal nor monotonic: galaxy interactions can trigger either bulge or disc formation, and optically bulge-dominated galaxies at this mass may not remain so forever. Simulated galaxies with M_* > 10^10 M_sun contain relatively more disc-dominated light profiles than those with lower mass, reflecting significant disc brightening in some haloes at 1 < z < 2. By this epoch, simulated galaxies with specific star formation rates below 10^-9.7 yr^-1 are more likely than normal star-formers to have a broader mix of structural types, especially at M_* > 10^10 M_sun. We analyze a cosmological major merger at z ~ 1.5 and find that the newly proposed MID morphology diagnostics trace later merger stages while G-M20 trace earlier ones. MID is sensitive also to clumpy star-forming discs. The observability time of typical MID-enhanced events in our simulation sample is less than 100 Myr. A larger sample of cosmological assembly histories may be required to calibrate such diagnostics in the face of their sensitivity to viewing angle, segmentation algorithm, and various phenomena such as clumpy star formation and minor mergers.Comment: 23 pages, 16 figures, MNRAS accepted versio