Public-Private-People Partnerships (4P) for Disaster Preparedness, Mitigation and Post-disaster Reconstruction

Session B6: Risk assessment and Communitypublished_or_final_versio

Salient Objects in Clutter: Bringing Salient Object Detection to the Foreground

We provide a comprehensive evaluation of salient object detection (SOD) models. Our analysis identifies a serious design bias of existing SOD datasets which assumes that each image contains at least one clearly outstanding salient object in low clutter. The design bias has led to a saturated high performance for state-of-the-art SOD models when evaluated on existing datasets. The models, however, still perform far from being satisfactory when applied to real-world daily scenes. Based on our analyses, we first identify 7 crucial aspects that a comprehensive and balanced dataset should fulfill. Then, we propose a new high quality dataset and update the previous saliency benchmark. Specifically, our SOC (Salient Objects in Clutter) dataset, includes images with salient and non-salient objects from daily object categories. Beyond object category annotations, each salient image is accompanied by attributes that reflect common challenges in real-world scenes. Finally, we report attribute-based performance assessment on our dataset.Comment: ECCV 201

Developing Sustainable Relationships through Public Private People Partnership (4P) Projects

Conference Theme: Global Challenges in Construction IndustryPublic Private Partnership (PPP) are sometimes used to procure public infrastructure, if deemed useful in mobilising private finance and expertise for generating innovations and enhanced ‘value’. However, when delivering desired ‘value’ to specific end-users, we should not neglect ‘overall value’ for the sustainable development of the parent community/society. To address such holistic issues in suitable broader-based projects, wider-ranging ‘Public Private People Partnership’ (4P) arrangements are proposed to invite and integrate contributions from societal stakeholders through relevant bodies, e.g. social enterprises, NGOs, academia and professional institutions. Selecting and integrating such stakeholders in a properly structured 4P procurement and operational framework can help formulate more widely acceptable and sustainable designs and mobilise more resources for procurement, construction, maintenance and operation of built assets. This will also help to address grass roots aspirations and concerns earlier, rather than try to resolve conflicts later. However, a major barrier to involving more stakeholders in already complex projects arises in managing their inputs, and relationships, while optimising outputs. Based on literature review and structured interviews, this paper presents pros and cons of using 4P in selected scenarios such as post-disaster reconstruction. Initial findings confirm that a 4P approach requires superior relationship management. This paper also draws on another study that highlighted the often neglected importance of relationship management in ‘traditional’ PPP projects. Combining these findings, a case is made for improving relationship management by mobilising the additional P (‘people’) to appropriate extents in selected PPP projects, so as to identify, prioritise and harmonise diverse stakeholder objectives and target optimal ‘overall value’ with sustainable relationships aimed at common goals.published_or_final_versio

Physiological Response of Soybean Genotypes to Water Limiting Conditions

This article has been retracted by the editor of the African Crop Science Journal. Soybean (Glycine max L. Merr.) is the most important source of protein as well as vegetable oil world wide. It suffers variously from water shortage at all stages of growth. This study was conducted to explore the physiological responses of soybean genotypes to water limiting conditions. Seven days old seedlings of C01, C08, C27, W01, W06 and W08 drought-sensitive, and C12 and W05 drought-tolerant genotypes used in the study were transplanted in Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes, filled with a soil mixture. Fifty percent of the plants were left unwatered when the second trifoliate leaves were halfway to growth. The rest (50%) were watered daily and considered as the control. Results showed that as soil water content diminished, plant stem elongation, stomatal conductance, relative water content (%RWC), water potential, osmotic potential and turgor pressure of stressed plants declined in all genotypes. The declining trends of those parameters were significantly different, to a great extent, in the drought tolerant genotypes, from the susceptible ones. Key Words: Glycine max, stomatal conductanc

A modern contract: Developments in the UK and China

The form of contract plays a significant role in the governance of relationships between parties. Recent research in project procurement emphasises relationships and cultural/behavioural issues. Such relationships operate within a formal (contractual) framework as well as an informal (interpersonal/social) framework since no contract is entirely transactional or entirely relational in nature. Sir Michael Latham suggested a cultural/behavioural change is required in the construction industry such that project participants should embrace a 'modern contract'. This paper examines the 13 Latham requirements of a modern contract in the latest edition of the NEC. The requirements are categorised, under what are labelled here as pillars of a modern contract, namely 'fairness', 'roles and functions of project participants', and 'payment operating mechanisms'. Developments in contracting practices in the Chinese construction industry, with a cultural tradition grounded in Confucian values of cooperation and sharing, are then examined and juxtaposed against the UK construction industry's movement towards a modern contract rooted in relational contracting. The developments show that China has nurtured a change towards the more formal, contractual, system of rights and obligations in their 'modernisation' of construction procurement in sharp contrast to the UK movement towards greater collaboration and cooperation.published_or_final_versio

Estimation of pharmacokinetic parameters from DCE‐MRI by extracting long and short time‐dependent features using an LSTM network

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156437/2/mp14222.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/156437/1/mp14222_am.pd

Stealthy integrity attacks for a class of nonlinear cyber-physical systems

This paper proposes a stealthy integrity attack generation methodology for a class of nonlinear cyber-physical systems. Geometric control theory and stability theory of incremental systems are used to design an attack generation scheme with stealthiness properties. An attack model is proposed as a closed-loop dynamical system with an arbitrary input signal. This model is developed based on a controlled invariant subspace that results from geometric control theory and is decoupled with the system outputs and the nonlinear function. The presence of the arbitrary signal in the attack model provides an additional degree of freedom and constitutes a novel component compared with existing results. The stealthiness property of the attack model is rigorously investigated based on the incremental stability of the closed-loop control system, and the incremental input-to-state stability of the anomaly detector. As a result, a sufficient condition in terms of the initial condition of the attack model is derived to guarantee stealthiness. Finally, a case study is presented to illustrate the effectiveness of the developed attack generation scheme

Engineered cementitious composites (ECC) encased concrete-steel composite stub columns under concentric compression

This paper presents an experimental investigation on the behaviour of a new form of engineered cementitious composites (ECC) encased concrete-steel composite stub columns. The proposed column section uses ECC encasement as a potential confinement layer to control the premature concrete spalling and explosive brittle failure of concrete encased steel composite columns. In this study, twelve stub columns including two bare steel and ten composite sections are tested under concentric compression. The effects of some key parameters such as material strengths, steel section type and column section configuration on the performance of proposed column sections were investigated in terms of failure behaviour, load deformation response, toughness and ductility. It was found that ECC encasement improved the compressive failure behaviour of encased composite columns and enhanced their ductility and toughness. Strain analysis was performed to trace the strain development and damage patterns of different materials. Finally, a simple equation to estimate ultimate strength of proposed columns was proposed which gave good predictions agreed well with test results

Compressive behaviour of engineered cementitious composites and concrete encased steel composite columns

This paper presents the results of an experimental study on the compressive behaviour of engineered cementitious composites and concrete encased steel (ECC-CES) composite columns. Two configurations of ECC-CES composite columns based on fully and partially concrete encasement were considered. A total of eleven short columns with different ECC and concrete encasing configurations were tested under pure compression. The effects of ECC strength, concrete strength and column configuration on the column compressive behaviour were investigated and reported in terms of failure modes, load-deformation curves, ductility and toughness. In addition, in order to study the confinement effect of different thickness ECC covers on high strength concrete (HSC), three ECC encased HSC short columns without encased steel section were also tested. The experimental results were compared with the ultimate strength predictions from different design codes for the tested columns. It was found that current design guidelines were generally conservative. Therefore, new equations with modified factors to predict the ultimate strength of ECC-CES columns were proposed. Finally, a comparison of performance of ECC-CES with conventional CES columns suggested that the ECC encasement could provide an alternative way to confine concrete core in columns applications

Compressive performance of ECC-concrete encased high strength steel composite columns

The use of high strength steel (HSS) in the construction of concrete encased steel (CES) composite columns is often limited by the strain incompatibility issue between HSS and concrete at peak-load. This study proposes an alternative approach to confine the high strength concrete with Engineered Cementitious Composite (ECC) to improve its compatibility with high strength steel. The main purpose of this study is to experimentally evaluate the axial compressive performance of the proposed composite column cross-section configuration. Behaviours of fifteen short columns including twelve ECC-CES columns are investigated in terms of failure modes, load-deformation curves, ductility and energy absorption capacity. The test parameters included ECC and concrete strengths, ECC cover thickness, steel section shape and column section's aspect ratio. It was found that ECC generally improved the failure behaviour of high strength steel CES columns and increased the deformation and energy absorption capacity. On average ECC-CES columns showed around 12% and 8% higher ductility and toughness than control concrete column, respectively. A detailed 3D nonlinear finite element model was developed and validated against experimental results. Applicability of current design codes to predict the ultimate strength of ECC-CES columns was also evaluated. Finally, a method to calculate the ECC-CES column's capacity considering effective material stresses at peak-load was proposed