Search results for: safety of construction projects

Authors: Ayodele E. Ikudayisi, Yomi M. D. Adedeji, Olumuyiwa B. Adegun

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The level of adoption of green building (GB) schemes in Nigeria is low. The prevailing focus on economic development has overshadowed sustainability concerns. Despite these, few project cases exist in Nigeria in which sustainability goals have been achieved. This study aims to draw lessons from these in order to understand the project attributes, certification status, and the delivery process. Through an exploratory case study approach, fifteen project cases across five cities in Nigeria were examined. These represent the first-generation of green buildings in Nigeria, a verifiable reference for future initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa. From the result, three categories of green buildings were identified, namely certified projects, demonstration projects, and potential projects with varying delivery attributes. Then, it is concluded by setting research and practice agenda towards aligning Nigeria’s building industry with the global trends in sustainable building delivery.

Keywords: LEED, green building, Nigeria, project attributes

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Authors: Ali Liaghat, Navid Tavanpour, Nima Tavanpour

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An increase in population and prevalence of urbanity have led plan makers and decision makers put effort into sustainable development of cities at national and local levels. One of the important issues in urban development is compliance with safety issues in cities. Despite natural disasters and unexpected events such as floods, earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, etc., urban development should be regarded as an axiom, or else any form of construction and development is not safe, because it will greatly harm economic growth and development and pose an obstacle to achieving sustainable development, plus a loss to lives and finances of people. Therefore, in line with urban development, it is necessary to identify particular environmental and local issues as determinants and pay attention to them at the top of everything, in that we can call it a good action and factor in urban sustainable developments. Physical structure of each city represents how it has developed or its development shaped and what incidents, changes, natural disasters it has undergone over time. Since any form of development plan should be in accordance with the previous situations of cities, disregarding it, unfortunately, can escalate into uncontrolled urban development, non-resistant and unstable construction against earthquake or invasion of river areas, destruction of agricultural lands or vegetation, periodic floods over time. It has been viewed as serious threats to developing cities, and typically caused destruction of bed and other urban facilities as well as damages to lives and finances. In addition, uncontrolled development has caused cities to look ugly in terms of urban façade, and off and on such unplanned measures caused the country to face countless losses, and it not only vitiates expenses incurred, but it will also impose additional costs of reconstruction, i.e. it is unsustainable development. Thus, in this paper, in addition to a discussion about necessity for a profound attitude toward this subject and making long-term plans, programs for organizing river and its surrounding area, creating open and green urban spaces, retrofitting and flood preventing are presented for sustainable safety and development of cities along with a critique of successful countries.

Keywords: flood, sustainable development, urbanisation, urban management

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Authors: Marcial Blondet, Malena Serrano, Álvaro Rubiños, Elin Mattsson

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In Peru, there are more than two million houses made of adobe (sun dried mud bricks) or rammed earth (35% of the total houses), in which almost 9 million people live, mainly because they cannot afford to purchase industrialized construction materials. Although adobe houses are cheap to build and thermally comfortable, their seismic performance is very poor, and they usually suffer significant damage or collapse with tragic loss of life. Therefore, over the years, researchers at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and other institutions have developed many reinforcement techniques as an effort to improve the structural safety of earthen houses located in seismic areas. However, most rural communities live under unacceptable seismic risk conditions because these techniques have not been adopted massively, mainly due to high cost and lack of diffusion. The nylon rope mesh reinforcement technique is simple and low-cost, and two technological transference tools have been developed to diffuse it among rural communities: 1) Scale seismic simulations using a portable shaking table have been designed to prove its effectiveness to protect adobe houses; 2) A step-by-step illustrated construction manual has been developed to guide the complete building process of a nylon rope mesh reinforced adobe house. As a study case, it was selected the district of Pullo: a small rural community in the Peruvian Andes where more than 80% of its inhabitants live in adobe houses and more than 60% are considered to live in poverty or extreme poverty conditions. The research team carried out a one-day workshop in May 2015 and a two-day workshop in September 2015. Results were positive: First, the nylon rope mesh reinforcement procedure was proven simple enough to be replicated by adults, both young and seniors, and participants handled ropes and knots easily as they use them for daily livestock activity. In addition, nylon ropes were proven highly available in the study area as they were found at two local stores in variety of color and size.. Second, the portable shaking table demonstration successfully showed the effectiveness of the nylon rope mesh reinforcement and generated interest on learning about it. On the first workshop, more than 70% of the participants were willing to formally subscribe and sign up for practical training lessons. On the second workshop, more than 80% of the participants returned the second day to receive introductory practical training. Third, community members found illustrations on the construction manual simple and friendly but the roof system illustrations led to misinterpretation so they were improved. The technological transfer tools developed in this project can be used to train rural dwellers on earthquake-resistant self-construction with adobe, which is still very common in the Peruvian Andes. This approach would allow community members to develop skills and capacities to improve safety of their households on their own, thus, mitigating their high seismic risk and preventing tragic losses. Furthermore, proper training in earthquake-resistant self-construction with adobe would prevent rural dwellers from depending on external aid after an earthquake and become agents of their own development.

Keywords: adobe, Peruvian Andes, safe housing, technological transference

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Authors: Chun-Yuan Chen, Ming-Chang Li, Xiu-Hui Wen, Yi-Ching Tu

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The objective of this study explores GPS (Global Positioning System) applied to trace construction vehicles such as trucks or cranes, help to pattern the earth-dumping stations of traffic construction in Taiwan. Traffic construction in this research is defined as the engineering of high-speed railways, expressways, and which that distance more than kilometers. Audit the location and check the compliance with regulations of earth-dumping stations is one of important tasks in Taiwan EPA. Basically, the earth-dumping station was known as one source of particulate matter from air pollution during construction process. Due to GPS data can be analyzed quickly and be used conveniently, this study tried to find out dumping stations by modeling vehicles tracks from GPS data during work cycle of construction. The GPS data updated from 13 vehicles related to an expressway construction in central Taiwan. The GPS footprints were retrieved to Keyhole Markup Language (KML) files so that can pattern the tracks of trucks by computer applications, the data was collected about eight months- from Feb. to Oct. in 2017. The results of GPS footprints identified dumping station and outlined the areas of earthwork had been passed to the Taiwan EPA for on-site inspection. Taiwan EPA had issued advice comments to the agency which was in charge of the construction to prevent the air pollution. According to the result of this study compared to the commonly methods in inspecting environment by manual collection, the GPS with KML patterning and modeling method can consumes less time. On the other hand, through monitoring the GPS data from construction vehicles could be useful for administration to development and implementation of strategies in environmental management.

Keywords: automatic management, earth-dumping station, environmental management, Global Positioning System (GPS), particulate matter, traffic construction

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Authors: Amin Kamal Akhnoukh, Lois Zaki Kamel, Magued Mourad Barsoum

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The objective of this research is to mitigate and prevent the alkali silica reactivity (ASR) in highway construction projects. ASR is a deleterious reaction initiated when the silica content of the aggregate reacts with alkali hydroxides in cement in the presence of relatively high moisture content. The ASR results in the formation of an expansive white colored gel-like material which forms the destructive tensile stresses inside hardened concrete. In this research, different types of local aggregates available in the State of Arkansas were mixed and mortar bars were poured according to the ASTM specifications. Mortar bars expansion was measured versus time and aggregates with potential ASR problems were detected. Different types of supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) were used in remixing mortar bars with highly reactive aggregates. Length changes for remixed bars proved that different types of SCMs can be successfully used in reducing the expansive effect of ASR. SCMs percentage by weight is highly dependent on the SCM type. The result of this study will help avoiding future losses due to ASR cracking in construction project and reduce the maintenance, repair, and replacement budgets required for highways network.

Keywords: alkali silica reaction, aggregates, misture, cracks, Mortar Bar Test, supplementary cementitious materials

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Authors: Mustafa Eruyar, Ersoy Pehlivan, Fatih Kafalı, Fatih Gundogan

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All megacities are not only under the pressure of common urbanization and growth problems but also dealing with different challenges according to their specific circumstances. However, the majority of cities focuses mainly on popular smart city projects, which are usually driven by strong private sector, regardless of their characteristics, each city needs to develop customized projects within a tailor-made smart city roadmap to be able to solve its own challenges. Smart city manifest, helps citizens to feel the action better than good reading smart city vision statements, which consists of five elements; namely purpose, values, mission, vision, and strategy. This study designs a methodology for smart city roadmap based on a top-down approach, breaking down of smart city manifest to feasible projects for a systematic smart city transformation. This methodology was implemented in Istanbul smart city transformation program which includes smart city literature review, current state analysis, roadmap, and architecture projects, respectively. Istanbul smart city roadmap project followed an extensive literature review of certain leading smart cities around the world and benchmarking of the city’s current state using well known smart city indices. In the project, needs of citizens and service providers of the city were identified via stakeholder, persona and social media analysis. The project aimed to develop smart city projects targeting fulfilling related needs by implementing a gap analysis between current state and foreseen plans. As a result, in 11 smart city domains and enablers; 24 strategic objectives, 50 programs, and 101 projects were developed with the support of 183 smart city stakeholder entities and based on 125 citizen persona profiles and last one-year social media analysis. In conclusion, the followed methodology helps cities to identify and prioritize their needs and plan for long-term sustainable development, despite limited resources.

Keywords: needs-based, manifest, roadmap, smart city, top-down approach

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Authors: Tri Wisudawati, Radita Dwi Putera

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The role of human resources is the basic capital in determining the purpose of a business place. Without the role of human resources, activities in the company will not run smoothly. Every business place always has a risk of accidents. The magnitude of the risk that occurs depends on the type of industry, technology, and risk control efforts made. Work-related accidents are accidents that occur due to work or while carrying out work. Welding MSMEs have a fairly high risk to health, safety and the environment both from the side of workers who can cause accidents and from the side of the work environment, which has the potential to become a hazard and risk. Participatory ergonomic intervention can be a feasible and effective approach to reducing exposure to work-related risk factors in developing country industries. Complaints about occupational health and safety experienced by workers in the welding workshop industry should be able to be overcome by implementing an ergonomic intervention approach. The analysis process includes HIRARC analysis, participatory ergonomics analysis, and SEM-PLS analysis. Hierarch analysis is carried out by assessing the level of severity and likelihood, as well as risk control. At the participatory ergonomics analysis stage, it is obtained from the organizational culture and organizational stakeholders. At the SEM-PLS stage, an analysis is carried out to see whether there is a strong relationship between the research variables in order to produce occupational health and safety (K3) and worker productivity in the welding shop better and in accordance with welding safety standards. So that the output of this study is how participatory ergonomics interventions affect working conditions to improve occupational health and safety and the productivity of welding workers.

Keywords: ergonomic partisipatory, health and safety, welding workers, welding safety

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Authors: Kosuri Harshitha Durga, Ritesh Yaduwanshi

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Potholes are one of the most significant problems that affect road safety and the quality of infrastructure. The aim of pothole detection using OpenCV is to design an automated system that will detect and create a map of potholes on the road surfaces to improve the safety of roads and ease the maintenance process. This system is based on high-powered computer vision methods that use still images or video footage taken by cameras located in cars or drones. This paper presents an analysis of the implementation of the YOLOv11 model in pedestrian detection and demonstrates greater effectiveness of this method in regards to accuracy, speed, and efficiency of inference. The improved system now supports enhanced prompt diagnosis and timely repair leaving little or no damage on the infrastructure and also ensuring that enhanced road safety is achieved. This technology can also be used as a safety feature for the car itself by being installed in ADAS systems that would alert drivers in real-time while driving to avoid driving over potholes.

Keywords: deep learning, Potholes, segmentation, object detection, YOLO

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Authors: Elysa V. Largo, Lormaine Anne A. Branzuela, Julie Marisol D. Pagalilauan, Neil C. Concibido, Monet Concepcion M. Detras

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The energy demand in the country is increasing; thus, nuclear energy is recently mandated to add to the energy mix. The Philippines has the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP), which can be a source of nuclear energy; however, it has not been operated since the completion of its construction. Thus, evaluating the safety of BNPP is vital. This study explored the possible deviations that may occur in the operation of a nuclear power plant with a pressurized water reactor, which is similar to BNPP, through a virtual process hazard analysis (PHA) using the hazard and operability (HAZOP) technique. Temperature, pressure, and flow were used as parameters. A total of 86 causes of various deviations were identified, wherein the primary system and line from reactor coolant pump to reactor vessel are the most critical system and node, respectively. A total of 348 scenarios were determined. The critical events are radioactive leaks due to nuclear meltdown and sump overflow that could lead to multiple worker fatalities, one or more public fatalities, and environmental remediation. There were existing safeguards identified; however, further recommendations were provided to have additional and supplemental barriers to reduce the risk.

Keywords: PSM, PHA, HAZOP, nuclear power plant

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Authors: Daniel Y. Abebe, Jaehyouk Choi

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The design philosophy of building structure has been changing over time. The reason behind this is an increase in human interest regarding the improvements in building materials and technology that will affect how we live, the aim to speed up construction period, and the environmental effect which includes earthquakes and other natural disasters. One technique which takes into account the above case is using a prefabricable structural system, in which each and every structural element is designed and prefabricated and assembled on a site so that the construction speed is increased and the environmental impact is also enhanced. This system has immense advantages such as reduced construction cost, reusability, recyclability, faster construction period and less enviromental effect. In this study, some of the developed and evaluated structural elements of building structures are presented.

Keywords: eccentrically braced frame, natural disaster, prefabricable structural system, removable link, SGSS

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Authors: Anil Ranjitbhai Patel, Clement John Shaji, Peter Liggesmeyer

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Safety and security of autonomous vehicles (AVs) is a growing concern, first, due to the increased number of safety-critical functions taken over by automotive embedded systems; second, due to the increased exposure of the software-intensive systems to potential attackers; third, due to dynamic interaction in an uncertain and unknown environment at runtime which results in changed functional and non-functional properties of the system. Frequently occurring environmental uncertainties, random component failures, and compromise security of the AVs might result in hazardous events, sometimes even in an accident, if left undetected. Beyond these technical issues, we argue that the safety and security of AVs against accidental and deliberate faults are poorly understood and rarely implemented. One possible way to overcome this is through a well-known diversity approach. As an effective approach to increase safety and security, diversity has been widely used in the aviation, railway, and aerospace industries. Thus, the paper proposes fault-tolerance by diversity model takes into consideration the mitigation of accidental and deliberate faults by application of structure and variant redundancy. The model can be used to design the AVs with various types of diversity in hardware and software-based multi-version system. The paper evaluates the presented approach by employing an example from adaptive cruise control, followed by discussing the case study with initial findings.

Keywords: autonomous vehicles, diversity, fault-tolerance, adaptive cruise control, safety, security

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Authors: Ayala Kobo-Greenhut, Amos Notea, Izhar Ben-Shlomo

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In R&D projects, there is no doubt about the need to change a current concept to an alternative one over time (i.e., concept leaping). Concept leaping is required since with most R&D projects uncertainty is present as they take place in dynamic environments. Despite the importance of concept leaping when needed, R&D teams may fail to do so (i.e., frozen concept). This research suggests a possible reason why frozen concept happens in the framework of quality engineering and control engineering. We suggest that frozen concept occurs since concept determines the derived plan and its implementation may be considered as equivalent to a closed-loop process, and is subject to the problem of not recognizing gaps as failures. We suggest that although implementing quality practices into an R&D project’s routine has many advantages, it intensifies the frozen concept problem since working according to quality practices relates to exploitation of learning behavior, while leaping to a new concept relates to exploring learning behavior.

Keywords: closed loop, control engineering, design, leaping, frozen concept, quality engineering, quality practices

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Authors: Pei-Jun Xue, Ming-Yu Hsiao

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Language is the emblem of a culture, representing the extension of cultural life. In addition, it is also an important tool for communication and message transmission. It carries not only information but also covers the self-conscious of the information constructor as well as the situational experiences of users from different backgrounds. Moreover, design can be regarded as a language, a dynamic process of coding and decoding. With the designers’ experiences in everyday life, they bring them into the products’ experiences. Considered from the aspects of atmosphere and the five senses, a designer should consider and reconsider how to communicate the messages effectively to suit the users’ needs. In the process of language learning, we should understand the construction behind it and the rules of the compositions of language codes. Regarding the understanding of the design of works or the form of product construction, it is necessary for us to understand the coding system during the process of product construction. The form (signifiers) and meanings (signified) of Chinese characters are closely related. At the same time, it is also a process of simplifying the complicated to the simple. This study discusses the chinese characters that used in the cultural symbols construction, and analysis of existing products by Peirce's semiotic triangles. Through people's cognition of Chinese characters and constitute method, help to understand the way of construction product symbol.

Keywords: cultural-creative product design, cultural product, cultural symbols, linguistic symbols

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Authors: Anupam Sibal

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Apollo Quality Program(AQP) was launched across the Apollo Group of Hospitals to address the four patient safety areas; Safety during Clinical Handovers, Medication Safety, Surgical Safety and the six International Patient Safety Goals(IPSGs) of JCI. A measurable, online, quality dashboard covering 20 process and outcome parameters was devised for monthly monitoring. The expected outcomes were also defined and categorized into green, yellow and red ranges. An audit methodology was also devised to check the processes for the measurable dashboard. Documented clinical handovers were introduced for the first time at many locations for in-house patient transfer, nursing-handover, and physician-handover. Prototype forms using the SBAR format were made. Patient-identifiers, read-back for verbal orders, safety of high-alert medications, site marking and time-outs and falls risk-assessment were introduced for all hospitals irrespective of accreditation status. Measurement of Surgical-Site-Infection (SSI) for 30 days postoperatively, was done. All hospitals now tracked the time of administration of antimicrobial prophylaxis before surgery. Situations with high risk of retention of foreign body were delineated and precautionary measures instituted. Audit of medications prescribed in the discharge summaries was made uniform. Formularies, prescription-audits and other means for reduction of medication errors were implemented. There is a marked increase in the compliance to processes and patient safety outcomes. Compliance to read-back for verbal orders rose from 86.83% in April’11 to 96.95% in June’15, to policy for high alert medications from 87.83% to 98.82%, to use of measures to prevent wrong-site, wrong-patient, wrong procedure surgery from 85.75% to 97.66%, to hand-washing from 69.18% to 92.54%, to antimicrobial prophylaxis within one hour before incision from 79.43% to 93.46%. Percentage of patients excluded from SSI calculation due to lack of follow-up for the requisite time frame decreased from 21.25% to 10.25%. The average AQP scores for all Apollo Hospitals improved from 62 in April’11 to 87.7 in Jun’15.

Keywords: clinical handovers, international patient safety goals, medication safety, surgical safety

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Authors: Rameshwar Dahal, S. Ping Ho

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Although the demand for infrastructure development forms a promising market opportunity for international firms, the dominance of informal institutions over formal ones, investors are facing extraordinary institutional challenges when investing in emerging Least Developed Countries (LDCs). We believe that, in emerging LDCs, the project performance heavily depends on how well the entrants respond to the challenges exerted by the host institutional environments. Which primarily depends on how much they learn about the host institution and what strategy they apply in response. In Nepal, almost all international or global infrastructure projects are financed by international financers, so the procurement process of the infrastructure projects financed by foreign agencies is guided by the policies and regulations of the financer. Because of limited resources and the financers’ demand, contractors and consults are procured internationally. Moreover, the resources, including but not limited to construction material, manpower, and equipment, also need to be imported. Therefore, the involvement of international companies as an entrant in global infrastructure projects of LDCs is obvious. In a global project (GP), participants from different geographical and institutional environments hold different beliefs and have disparate interests. Therefore, the entrants face the challenges exerted by the host institutional environments. The entrants must either adapt to the institutions prevailing in the environment or resist the institutional pressures. It is hypothesized that, in emerging LDCs, the project performance heavily depends on how much the entrants learn about the host institutional knowledge and how well they respond to the institutional environments. While it is impossible to generalize the phenomenon and contextual conditions because of their vast diversity, this study has answered why and how participants’ level of institutional knowledge impacts the project's implementation performance. To draw that conclusion, firstly, we explored two typical GPs from Nepal. For this study, the data were collected by conducting interviews and examining the secondary data, such as the project reports published by the financers, project data provided by interviewees, and news reports. In an event analysis, firstly, we identify the sources, causes, or nature of the institutional challenges; secondly, we analyze the entrant’s responses to the exerted challenges and evaluate the impacts of the responses on the overall project performance. In this study, at first, the events occurred during the project implementation process have a causal link with the local institutions that demand the entrants’ response are extracted. Secondly, each event is scrutinized as the critical success factor of the case project. Finally, it is crucially examined whether and what institutional knowledge in these events played a critical role in project success or failure. The results also provide insights into the crucial institutional knowledge in LDCs and the subsequent strategy implications for undertaking projects in LDCs.

Keywords: emerging countries, LDC, project management, project performance, institutional knowledge, institutional theory

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Authors: Danny Mwangi, Collins Oduor Ondiek

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Mass mobility is one of the most important characteristics of every industrialized civilization. Man must travel about in order to fulfill his commitment to putting food on his table. As a result, movement is an important part of human life. Man must travel from one place to another. This is a natural trait of humans, according to elementary science. Variables in human mobility have arisen as a result of technological advancements over time. Public transit is one of these modes of transportation. When it comes to reducing safety-related risks in the public transport system, awareness is crucial. So much so even when it comes to public transportation in Kenya. Having a system that can be able to keep users updated with real-time traffic updates on the route, they are on and also have the ability to rate drivers after a trip could go a long way in improving safety on Kenyan roads. What this proposed system is intended to accomplish is to reduce occurrences of reckless driving and give matatu drivers the feeling that they are accountable to someone and more so have the incentive to be better drivers who are motivated to follow the law and have passenger safety as a priority. The research was conducted, and the findings show that 95.2% of respondents were not satisfied with the current safety measures in the Kenyan public transport sector. This means that the chances for this system to be accepted in the market are high because it addresses a key issue. 98.8% of the respondents were of the opinion that the implementation of the proposed system would significantly increase safety measures in the public transport sector. During the research, it was clear that the main challenge 77.1% of the respondents face when using public transport is that there is no way to monitor driver safety performance, and 68.7% of the respondent believed the widespread use of unroadworthy public transit vehicles contributed to the lack of safety when using public transport. However, 77.1% of the respondents expect the benefit of creating a sense of accountability for the drivers, and 74.7% of the respondents expect the benefit of increased passenger safety. 63.9% believe that with the implementation of the system, there will be the benefit of monitoring driver performance. This shows that with the implementation of the proposed system, it will be possible to make a lot of progress in terms of making Kenyan roads safer when using public transit. According to the findings, it is recommended that this proposed public transportation safety awareness system be implemented as it will be able to address matatu passengers' safety concerns while also encouraging matatu drivers to drive more carefully. As a result, it's a project with a chance of becoming viable, marketable, and feasible.

Keywords: public safety, public transportation, accountable driving, safe transportation

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Authors: Taha Anjamrooz, Sareh Rajabi, Salwa Bheiry

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Selection between the available projects in bidding processes for the contractor is one of the essential areas to concentrate on. It is important for the contractor to choose the right projects within its portfolio during the tendering stage based on certain criteria. It should align the bidding process with its origination strategies and goals as a screening process to have the right portfolio pool to start with. Secondly, it should set the proper framework and use a suitable technique in order to optimize its selection process for concertation purpose and higher efforts during the tender stage with goals of success and winning. In this research paper, a two steps framework proposed to increase the efficiency of the contractor’s bidding process and the winning chance of getting the new projects awarded. In this framework, initially, all the projects pass through the first stage screening process, in which the portfolio basket will be evaluated and adjusted in accordance with the organization strategies to the reduced version of the portfolio pool, which is in line with organization activities. In the second stage, the contractor uses linear programming to optimize the portfolio pool based on available resources such as manpower, light equipment, heavy equipment, financial capability, return on investment, and success rate of winning the bid. Therefore, this optimization model will assist the contractor in utilizing its internal resource to its maximum and increase its winning chance for the new project considering past experience with clients, built-relation between two parties, and complexity in the exertion of the projects. The objective of this research will be to increase the contractor's winning chance in the bidding process based on the success rate and expected return on investment.

Keywords: bidding process, internal resources, optimization, contracting portfolio management

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Authors: Adedayo Jeremiah Adeyekun, Samuel Oluwagbemiga Ishola,

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This paper is an assessment of factors influencing the cost and time performance of subcontractors and the need for effective performance of subcontractors at the project sites. The factors influencing the performance of subcontractors are grouped, similar to those identified with the project or an organization and on another hand, there are significant factors influencing the performance of the subcontractors. These factors incorporate management level leadership, time required to complete the project, profit, staff capability/expertise, reputation, installment method, organization history, and project procurement method strategy, security, bidding technique, insurance, bond and relationship with the major contractors. The factors influencing the management of subcontractors in building development projects includes performance of significant past projects, standard of workmanship, consistence with guidelines, regular payment to labourers, adherence to program, regularity and viability of communication with main contractor, adherence to subcontract necessities. Other factors comprise adherence to statutory environmental regulations, number of experienced sites administrative staff, inspection and maintenance of good workplace, number of artisans and workers, quality of as-built and shop drawings and ability to carry out the quantity of work and so on. This study also aimed to suggest a way forward to improve the performance of subcontractors which is the reason for exceeding budget at the project sites. To carry out this study, a questionnaire was drafted to derive information on the causes of low performance of subcontractors and the implication to cost.

Keywords: performance, contractor, subcontractors, construction

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Authors: Amjad Nusayr

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Software security is a general term used to any type of software architecture or model in which security aspects are incorporated in this architecture. These aspects are not part of the main logic of the underlying program. Software security can be achieved using a combination of approaches, including but not limited to secure software designs, third part component validation, and secure coding practices. Memory safety is one feature in software security where we ensure that any object in memory has a valid pointer or a reference with a valid type. Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) is a paradigm that is concerned with capturing the cross-cutting concerns in code development. AOP is generally used for common cross-cutting concerns like logging and DB transaction managing. In this paper, we introduce the concepts that enable AOP to be used for the purpose of memory and type safety. We also present ideas for extending AOP in software security practices.

Keywords: aspect oriented programming, programming languages, software security, memory and type safety

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Authors: M. Hossain, A. H. Khan, M. A. R. Sarkar

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Primary containment structure is one of the five safety layers of a nuclear facility which is needed to be designed in such a manner that it can withstand the pressure and excessive radioactivity during accidental situations. It is also necessary to ensure minimization of cost with maximum possible safety in order to make the design economically feasible and attractive. This paper attempts to identify the optimum design conditions for primary containment structure considering both mechanical and radiation safety keeping the economic aspects in mind. This work takes advantage of commercial simulation software to identify the suitable conditions without the requirement of costly experiments. Generated data may be helpful for further studies.

Keywords: PWR, concrete containment, finite element approach, neutron attenuation, Von Mises stress

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Authors: Selamawit Mulubrhan Gidey

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Adama city, having an area of 29.86 km2, is one of the main cities in Ethiopia experiencing rapid growth in business and construction activities which in turn with an increasing number of vehicles at an alarming rate. For this reason, currently, there is an attempt to develop public transport assignment modeling in the city. Still, there is a huge gap in developing public transport assignments along the road segments of the city with operational and safety performance due to high traffic volume. Thus, the introduction of public transport assignment modeling in Adama City can have a massive impact on the road safety and capacity problem in the city. City transport modeling is important in city transportation planning, particularly in overcoming existing transportation problems such as traffic congestion. In this study, the Adama City transportation model was developed using the PTV VISUM software, whose transportation modeling is based on the four-step model of transportation. Based on the traffic volume data fed and simulated, the result of the study shows that the developed model has better reliability in representing the traffic congestion conditions in Adama city, and the simulation clearly indicates the level of congestion of each route selected and thus, the city road administrative office can take managerial decisions on public transport assignment so as to overcome traffic congestion executed along the selected routes.

Keywords: trip modelling, PTV VISUM, public transport assignment, congestion

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Authors: Salisu Gidado Dalibi, Sadiq Gumi Abubakar, JingChun Feng

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Nigeria’s population is about 190 million and is on the increase annually making it the seventh most populated nation in the world and first in Africa. This population growth comes with its prospects, needs, and challenges especially on the existing and future infrastructure. Infrastructure refers to structures, systems, and facilities serving the economy of a country, city, town, businesses, industries, etc. These include roads, railways lines, bridges, tunnels, ports, stadiums, dams and water projects, power generation plants and distribution grids, information, and communication technology (ICT), etc. The Nigerian government embarked on several infrastructural development projects (IDPs) to address the deficit as the present infrastructure cannot cater to the needs nor sustain the country. However, delivering such IDPs have not been smooth; comes with challenges from within and outside the project; frequent delays and abandonment. Thus, affecting all the stakeholders involved. Hence, the aim of this paper is to identify and assess the factors that are hindering the effective delivery of IDPs in Nigeria’s built environment with the view to offer more insight into such factors, and ways to address them. The methodology adopted in this study involves the use of secondary sources of data from several materials (official publications, journals, newspapers, internet, etc.) were reviewed within the IDPs field by laying more emphasis on Nigeria’s cases. The hindrance factors in this regard were identified which forms the backbone of the questionnaire. A pilot survey was used to test its suitability; after which it was randomly administered to various project professionals in Nigeria’s construction industry using a 5-point Likert scale format to ascertain the impact of these hindrances. Cronbach’s Alpha reliability test, mean item score computations, relative importance indices, T-test, Chi-Square statistics were used for data analyses. The results outline the impact of various internal, external and project related factors that are hindering IDPs within Nigeria’s built environment.

Keywords: built environment, development, factors, hindrances, infrastructure, Nigeria, project

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Authors: Arshad Ali

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This study aims to highlight the comparative patterns of social construction of gender among bureaucrats and non-bureaucrats. For the purpose of this study purposive sample of 8 respondents, including both male and female bureaucrats and non-bureaucrats, was collected from Gujranwala and Lahore. The measures for collecting data included an indigenous demographic information sheet and interview protocol related to gender roles, social construction of gender and managerial performance. The collected data was analyzed through the Nvivo version 11 and analysis reveals that there are diverse perceptions regarding male and female stereotyping among bureaucrats and non-bureaucrats, as different kinds of social environments lead to the modification of stereotypes. The research contributes to gender studies, specifically in the context of Pakistani society. There are very few studies available, and empirical data about Gender construction is scanty, so the study provides an impetus for future research. It is suggested that future research explore the phenomenon at a larger scale, including more respondents and another dimension, by keeping in view the socio-economic factors and policies of the government regarding the elimination of gender discrimination in Pakistan.

Keywords: social construction, gender, bureaucrats, gender perception

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Authors: Bekir O. Bartin, Kaan Ozbay, Sandeep Mudigonda, Hong Yang

Abstract:

The use of microscopic traffic simulation in evaluating the operational and safety conditions at toll plazas is demonstrated. Two toll plazas in New Jersey are selected as case studies and were developed and validated in Paramics traffic simulation software. In order to simulate drivers’ lane selection behavior in Paramics, a utility-based lane selection approach is implemented in Paramics Application Programming Interface (API). For each vehicle approaching the toll plaza, a utility value is assigned to each toll lane by taking into account the factors that are likely to impact drivers’ lane selection behavior, such as approach lane, exit lane and queue lengths. The results demonstrate that similar operational conditions, such as lane-by-lane toll plaza traffic volume can be attained using this approach. In addition, assessment of safety at toll plazas is conducted via a surrogate safety measure. In particular, the crash index (CI), an improved surrogate measure of time-to-collision (TTC), which reflects the severity of a crash is used in the simulation analyses. The results indicate that the spatial and temporal frequency of observed crashes can be simulated using the proposed methodology. Further analyses can be conducted to evaluate and compare various different operational decisions and safety measures using microscopic simulation models.

Keywords: microscopic simulation, toll plaza, surrogate safety, application programming interface

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Authors: Jin A Ryu, Hee Sun Kim

Abstract:

As the number of fire accidents is gradually raising, many studies have been reported on evacuation. Previous studies have mostly focused on evaluating the safety of evacuation and the risk of fire in particular buildings. However, studies on effects of various parameters on evacuation have not been nearly done. Therefore, this paper aims at observing evacuation time under the effect of fire initiated location. In this study, evacuation simulations are performed on a 5-floor building located in Seoul, South Korea using the commercial program, Fire Dynamics Simulator with Evacuation (FDS+EVAC). Only the fourth and fifth floors are modeled with an assumption that fire starts in a room located on the fourth floor. The parameter for evacuation simulations is location of fire initiation to observe the evacuation time and safety. Results show that the location of fire initiation is closer to exit, the more time is taken to evacuate. The case having the nearest location of fire initiation to exit has the lowest ratio of successful occupants to the total occupants. In addition, for safety evaluation, the evacuation time calculated from computer simulation model is compared with the tolerable evacuation time according to code in Japan. As a result, all cases are completed within the tolerable evacuation time. This study allows predicting evacuation time under various conditions of fire and can be used to evaluate evacuation appropriateness and fire safety of building.

Keywords: fire simulation, evacuation simulation, temperature, evacuation safety

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Authors: Mike Chia-Yu Huang

Abstract:

China’s port facility construction projects in the Indian Ocean (IO) region, Gwadar Port and Djibouti Port projects in particular, have led to a heated debate among both Chinese and Western strategists over whether the country has literally been carrying out its “string of pearls” strategy, an alleged Chinese plan to challenge America’s military predominance in South Asia. Even though the Chinese government repeatedly denied the existence of such a strategy and highlighted the civilian/commercial nature of its port projects, it has significantly enhanced its strategic cooperation with littoral countries in the IO region since the “One Belt One Road” initiative was introduced by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013. Whether China does have a plan to expand its sphere of military influence westward concerns the balance of power in the IO region. If the answer is positive, the security environment there will be changed drastically. This paper argues that rather than simply copying the U.S. model of developing overseas military bases along the IO periphery, Beijing has been deliberating a more sophisticated plan for its physical presence there: creating a new set of “overseas strategic pivots.” These “pivots,” semi-military and semi-commercial in nature, are designed to help Beijing sustain its anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden and serve as forward stations for the transportation of China’s imported energy and merchandise. They can support the Chinese Navy’s operations overseas but are not supposed to undertake face-to-face combat missions. This upgraded Chinese scheme can be identified as “string of pearls” strategy 2.0. Moreover, it is expected to help China deepen its roots in the IO region, implying that Beijing has to a large extent scratched its old diplomatic philosophy which highlighted the merits of non-interference and nonalignment. While a full-scale maritime confrontation between China and the U.S.-India security alliance is unlikely to be witnessed in the near future, an ambitious Chinese plan to step into the global maritime domain has been evidently shown.

Keywords: Chinese navy, Djibouti, Gwadar, Indian Ocean, string of pearls strategy

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Authors: Seyyed Abolhasan Naeini, Ehsan Azini

Abstract:

In this paper, we consider the stability of a slope of 10 meters in silty gravel soils with modeling in the Geostudio Software.  we intend to use the parameters of the volumetric water content and suction dependent permeability and provides relationships and graphs using the parameters obtained from gradation tests and Atterberg’s limits. Also, different conditions of the soil will be investigated, including: checking the factor of safety and deformation rates and pore water pressure in drained, non-drained and unsaturated conditions, as well as the effect of reducing the water level on other parameters. For this purpose, it is assumed that the groundwater level is at a depth of 2 meters from the ground.  Then, with decreasing water level, the safety factor of slope stability was investigated and it was observed that with decreasing water level, the safety factor increased.

Keywords: slope stability analysis, factor of safety, matric suction, unsaturated silty gravel soil

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Authors: Etsuo Morishita

Abstract:

This paper presents the project and experiment-based fluid dynamics education in Meisei University, a private institution in Tokyo, Japan. We pay attention not only to the basic engineering courses but also to the practical aspect of engineering experience. So, we prepare courses called the Projects from I to VI. The Projects I and II are designed for the first year, III and IV are designated for the second year, V and VI are prepared for the third year, respectively. Each supervisor is responsible for two of these projects every year. When students take the Project V and VI at the third year, we automatically assume that these students will join the lab of the project for the graduation thesis. We would like to show our experience in the Project I in the summer term, 2016. In this project, we introduce a traction flight vehicle called Cat Flyer. This is a kind of a kite towed by a car for example. This is very similar to parasailing, but flight is possible even on the roads. Experiments in mechanical engineering education are also very important, and we would like to explain our course on centrifugal pump, venture, and orifice. Although these are described in detail in the text books of fluid dynamics, it is still crucial to have practical experiments as a student.

Keywords: aerodynamics, experiment, fluid dynamics, project

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Authors: Nadine Osbild

Abstract:

Recent urban development projects often try to cater to both high-tech innovation/start-up culture and local culture/sustainable living. In the process, the so-called “creative class” (Florida 2002) has become a focal point for innovative answers to increasing urban pressures. Our paper explores local subculture and art scenes as a place where current innovation policies and alternative approaches to urban future-making collide. We explore the (re-)making of prevalent understanding of creativity in the context of Munich – an economically successful and over-saturated city with a relatively conservative approach to innovation and disruption and no apparent need for the “creative class” remedy. In particular, we investigate the opportunities and manifestations of subculture in three urban development projects that are envisioned as collaborations between innovators and (sub)culturally oriented creativity. Following a co-production STS approach, we observe that these development projects serve as sites where understandings of innovation and creativity are configured and stabilized in keeping with broader socio-political and economic rationalities. What is more, the projects materialize a de-facto split between the two understandings of a “creative scene,” whereby alternative and potentially disruptive forms of creativity become sidelined or even prevented in Munich’s imagination of urban development in the name of innovation and economic growth. Thus taming the unruliness of creativity, Munich also manages to tame the disruptive threats of innovation, ensuring that the innovation-centered modes of future-making still leave socio-economic hierarchies intact while displacing (counter-)visions rooted in the subculture.

Keywords: creative districts, science and technology studies, public engagement, innovation studies

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Authors: Ankit Kamboj, Shikha Talwar, Nilesh Powar

Abstract:

To successfully deliver our products in the market, the employees need to be in a safe environment, especially in an industrial and manufacturing environment. The consequences of delinquency in wearing safety glasses while working in industrial plants could be high risk to employees, hence the need to develop a real-time automatic detection system which detects the persons (violators) not wearing safety glasses. In this study a convolutional neural network (CNN) algorithm called faster region based CNN (Faster RCNN) with rotated bounding box has been used for detecting safety glasses on persons; the algorithm has an advantage of detecting safety glasses with different orientation angles on the persons. The proposed method of rotational bounding boxes with a convolutional neural network first detects a person from the images, and then the method detects whether the person is wearing safety glasses or not. The video data is captured at the entrance of restricted zones of the industrial environment (manufacturing plant), which is further converted into images at 2 frames per second. In the first step, the CNN with pre-trained weights on COCO dataset is used for person detection where the detections are cropped as images. Then the safety goggles are labelled on the cropped images using the image labelling tool called roLabelImg, which is used to annotate the ground truth values of rotated objects more accurately, and the annotations obtained are further modified to depict four coordinates of the rectangular bounding box. Next, the faster RCNN with rotated bounding box is used to detect safety goggles, which is then compared with traditional bounding box faster RCNN in terms of detection accuracy (average precision), which shows the effectiveness of the proposed method for detection of rotatory objects. The deep learning benchmarking is done on a Dell workstation with a 16GB Nvidia GPU.

Keywords: CNN, deep learning, faster RCNN, roLabelImg rotated bounding box, safety goggle detection

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