The use and evaluation of a simulation game to teach professional practice skills to undergraduate Architecture students

Architects are currently grappling to exploit new forms of communication made possible with developments in internet communication. At the same time, the construction industry is in a state of flux as novel project management systems are being introduced. Students need to understand the first principles of project management within the context of our changing environment. One of the best ways for students to learn about the legalities of the construction process is through role play and simulation, but there is a Catch 22. Unless students have a basic understanding of project management, the contractual process can be confusing and intimidating. Even fifth and sixth year architecture student are reluctant to ask practitioners questions, for fear of appearing ignorant. This paper describes the use of a web-based simulation game to deliver the Management, Practice and Law syllabus to Architecture Students. The web-based game allows students to critically observe the transformation of designs into buildings through the exploration of the contract management process. A questionnaire survey was used to assess the efficacy of the simulation game as a learning tool, and in particular the effectiveness of the web-based simulation in facilitating the development of professional practice skills in undergraduate Architecture students. The initial results of the assessment indicate that the simulation game is both a useful and complementary adjunct to traditional teaching and learning methods, as observed through the evaluation of outcomes, and helpful in developing generic professional practice skills of undergraduate students. Further game development will require more formal evaluation over a series of uses

UK construction practitioners' experience of adjudication

This paper aims to fill a gap in the literature by exploring the construction professionals' interaction with adjudication at a key stage in its evolution based on a focus group analysis of industry experiences. The research aims to provide a richer understanding of the professional's interaction with the adjudication process more generally, as well providing detailed insights into the issues that different professional groupings have experienced with the process, more specifically. At first glance, the conclusions of the research offer few surprises, confirming the importance of financial aspects of the process, the timescales involved, the quality of adjudication professionals and the role of legal practitioners in adjudication. A closer examination of the focus group analysis, however, suggests that the loss of confidence in the process is attributable to a myriad of interrelated factors linking professional reputation with understanding of commercial realities and business relationships, lawyer-client power imbalances and dispute tactics, the role of lawyers with dispute complexity, parliamentary intentions and the timescale of the process. Although, it is recognised that on-going changes to adjudication will add more uncertainties into the context, the findings of this study will act as a springboard from which further research will be conducted

Importance Sampling: Intrinsic Dimension and Computational Cost

The basic idea of importance sampling is to use independent samples from a proposal measure in order to approximate expectations with respect to a target measure. It is key to understand how many samples are required in order to guarantee accurate approximations. Intuitively, some notion of distance between the target and the proposal should determine the computational cost of the method. A major challenge is to quantify this distance in terms of parameters or statistics that are pertinent for the practitioner. The subject has attracted substantial interest from within a variety of communities. The objective of this paper is to overview and unify the resulting literature by creating an overarching framework. A general theory is presented, with a focus on the use of importance sampling in Bayesian inverse problems and filtering.Comment: Statistical Scienc

Research Directions in Network Service Chaining

Network Service Chaining (NSC) is a service deployment concept that promises increased flexibility and cost efficiency for future carrier networks. NSC has received considerable attention in the standardization and research communities lately. However, NSC is largely undefined in the peer-reviewed literature. In fact, a literature review reveals that the role of NSC enabling technologies is up for discussion, and so are the key research challenges lying ahead. This paper addresses these topics by motivating our research interest towards advanced dynamic NSC and detailing the main aspects to be considered in the context of carrier-grade telecommunication networks. We present design considerations and system requirements alongside use cases that illustrate the advantages of adopting NSC. We detail prominent research challenges during the typical lifecycle of a network service chain in an operational telecommunications network, including service chain description, programming, deployment, and debugging, and summarize our security considerations. We conclude this paper with an outlook on future work in this are

A research roadmap for megaproject sustainability assessment

The characteristics of sustainability within megaprojects (typically worth over $1bn each) can make gigantic impacts on the society, the economy, and the environment at local, regional, national, and even international level depending on the nature of the project in short and longer term, and the pursuit of megaproject sustainability in development and operation is to satisfy the need for a sufficient address on dynamically interactive issues relating to social, technical, economic, ecological and political (STEEP) aspects throughout project lifecycle. Therefore it’s an important but challenging task to do a reliable assessment on the overall sustainability of individual megaprojects to ensure the target is met in practice. This paper presents recent research findings about megaproject assessment on sustainability (MAS). The research has been conducted by using a new research method underpinned by TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving) to facilitate the adoption of evidence-based learning (EBL) in further research into MAS. Findings from this TRIZ driven research include a knowledge framework, a research roadmap, and research tasks to support improved MAS in practice. It’s expected that this paper can be useful for research advancement towards reliable MAS to support decision making at work stages of megaprojects

Collaborative business relationships : a means to an end of construction disputes or fuel for the fire?

Collaboration under BS11000 provides an opportunity for clients, designers, contractors and other parties to construction projects to come together from a very early stage and form relationships in advance of any actual physical work being carried out on site. With the introduction of a standard for collaborative business relationships which defines the processes, this paper aims to investigate how contractual relationships can be supported by building a collaborative working relationship underpinned by BS11000 and, if, by building these relationships, disputes that would traditionally arise out of construction contracts can be resolved between the parties before they become a dispute or whether the parties to a construction contract are lulled into a false sense of security where they are more relaxed in the relationship, failing to take due cognisance of the terms and conditions of the contract until a dispute has crystallised and they find that the required supporting information is not available. The findings of the investigation indicate that for collaborative relationships to be successful under the BS11000 standard, the Relationship Management Plan (RMP) plays a significant role in the process of preventing issues crystallising into disputes if properly implemented

Hierarchical Bayesian level set inversion

The level set approach has proven widely successful in the study of inverse problems for inter- faces, since its systematic development in the 1990s. Re- cently it has been employed in the context of Bayesian inversion, allowing for the quantification of uncertainty within the reconstruction of interfaces. However the Bayesian approach is very sensitive to the length and amplitude scales in the prior probabilistic model. This paper demonstrates how the scale-sensitivity can be cir- cumvented by means of a hierarchical approach, using a single scalar parameter. Together with careful con- sideration of the development of algorithms which en- code probability measure equivalences as the hierar- chical parameter is varied, this leads to well-defined Gibbs based MCMC methods found by alternating Metropolis-Hastings updates of the level set function and the hierarchical parameter. These methods demon- strably outperform non-hierarchical Bayesian level set methods

Natural and human hazard assessment of the archaeological sites of Paphos area (Cyprus) with the use of remote sensing and GIS.

Η συγκεκριμένη εργασία εστιάζει στη χρήση σύγχρονων τεχνολογιών όπως είναι η Δορυφορική  Τηλεπισκόπηση  και  τα  Γεωγραφικά  Συστήματα  Πληροφοριών  για  τη δημιουργία   ενός   ολοκληρωμένου   συστήματος   εκτίμησης   επικινδυνότητας αρχαιολογικών θέσεων και κατάλοιπων στη Κύπρο και συγκεκριμένα στην επαρχία Πάφου.  Τέτοιου  είδους  αναλύσεις  οι  οποίες  περιλαμβάνουν  συλλογή  δεδομένων, συνεχείς  παρατηρήσεις  και  πολυπαραμετρικές  αναλύσεις  εκτίμησης  κινδύνου  είναι δύσκολο να πραγματοποιηθούν με τις παραδοσιακές τεχνικές και μεθόδους, οι οποίες κοστίζουν  και  είναι  χρονοβόρες.  Οι  σύγχρονες  τεχνολογίες  δίνουν  τη  δυνατότητα στους επιστήμονες για την συνολική επόπτευση της περιοχής μελέτης καθώς επίσης και το μοναδικό πλεονέκτημα της ταυτόχρονης αποθήκευσης κα διαχείρισης μεγάλου όγκου χωρικών και περιγραφικών δεδομένων που σχετίζονται με την διαχείριση και προστασία  της  πολιτιστικής  κληρονομιάς.  Αυτό  το  στόχο  εξυπηρετεί  και  η συγκεκριμένη μελέτη που φιλοδοξεί να αναδείξει τις δυνατότητες που προσφέρει η χρήση  δεδομένων  δορυφορικής  Τηλεπισκόπησης  και  ΓΣΠ  για  την  προστασία  της πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς της ευρύτερης περιοχής της επαρχίας Πάφου στη Κύπρο από ανθρωπογενείς και φυσικούς κινδύνους.   The study focuses on the creation of an innovative methodology for the development of a risk assessment model for the archaeological sites of western Cyprus (Paphos district). On site observation is the most common way for monitoring cultural heritage sites and monuments in Cyprus. However, this procedure which includes data collection,  periodical  observations,  and  multivariate  risk  assessment  analysis,  is practically difficult to be accomplished with the traditional practices and methods since it is time consuming and cost insufficient. Thus, the use of modern technologies such as Remote Sensing and GIS is anticipated to provide a tool of directives for the protection and preservation of cultural heritage sites from anthropogenic and environmental threats. These technologies provide  to scientists integrated monitoring capabilities and have the unique advantage to store and manipulate a large amount of spatial and attribute data simultaneously. This study aims to integrate both satellite remote sensing techniques and GIS in a multidisciplinary approach, for monitoring natural and anthropogenic hazards with the use of archived and up-to-dated multi-temporal remotely sensed images in the study area, namely in areas nearby cultural heritage sites and monuments in Paphos area (Cyprus).According to the results, extensive construction and building development has taken placein the broader area. It was also proved that vast number of sites is established on areas prone to erosion and landslide phenomena

Volatolomics: A broad area of experimentation

Chemical analysis (detection and monitoring) of compounds associated with the metabolic activities of an organism is at the cutting edge of science. Volatile metabolomics (volatolomics) are applied in a broad range of applications including: biomedical research (e.g. disease diagnostic tools, personalized healthcare and nutrition, etc.), toxicological analysis (e.g. exposure tool to environmental pollutants, toxic and hazardous chemical environments, industrial accidents, etc.), molecular communications, forensics, safety and security (e.g. search and rescue operations). In the present review paper, an overview of recent advances and applications of volatolomics will be given. The main focus will be on volatile organic compounds (VOCs) originating from biological secretions of various organisms (e.g. microorganisms, insects, plants, humans) and resulting fusion of chemical information. Bench-top and portable or field-deployable technologies-systems will also be presented and discussed