以科学发展观审视21世纪的中国高炉炼铁

 进入21世纪,中国钢铁工业规模发展空前,对中国经济增长贡献巨大。规模快速扩张中出现许多问题,以科学发展观来衡量,在许多方面需要改进。虽然在某些方面,中国高炉炼铁技术经济指标进入国际先进水平,但总体上中国钢铁工业仍属于粗放型,面临的挑战是严峻的。提出了迎接挑战的若干建议。     

Educating the 21st Century Construction Professionals

Traditionally recognized construction professionals such as architects, engineers, and surveyors occupy segregated roles in the construction industry. With the rapidly growing complexity and ever increasing sophistication in project procurement and construction, new disciplines have been added to the traditional construction professions. The characteristics and the roles of the different disciplines in the construction industry are becoming less clear-cut. Specialism within the different disciplines and the working relationship among them are also not easily defined. Transprofessional practice among the several disciplines of construction professionals is commonplace. The skills needed by each discipline and the education structure required to develop those skills cannot be usefully examined on a discipline-by-discipline basis. This paper, based on a research study carried out with a questionnaire survey, aims to investigate these phenomena in professional practices within the construction industry and to develop cogent and sustainable directions for the education of construction professionals in the new millennium. Results from the study suggest that the demands of a transprofessional discipline practice call for construction professionals to critically reexamine their professional skills and realistically evaluate the professional demands made on them by the ever-increasing complexity and technological sophistication in construction and project procurement. The work concludes that the curricula for educating aspiring construction professionals should embrace a multidisciplinary and an integrative-professional approach. Such an approach should be implemented in curricula designed for undergraduates and for the continuing professional education of practitioners.     

Developing Construction Professionals of the 21st Century: Renewed Vision for Leadership

The construction industry faces several technical, social, financial, political, and cultural challenges. Developments such as the growing volume of activity, increasing number of active stakeholders, advancement in technology, more intense global competition, and demand for fast-track completion, have created many distinct challenges for construction professionals. Consequently, there is a need to equip the professionals with hard (technical) as well as soft (management and leadership) skills. Construction professionals invariably work in teams and often assume leadership roles as the design manager, construction manager, procurement manager, contracts manager, or project manager. They deal with various project stakeholders and often get involved in sensitive decision making and dispute resolution processes. There is a broad sentiment in the industry that today’s new graduates are not adequately trained to deal with the soft issues on complex construction projects. In particular, academic programs do not prepare professionals with an appropriate blend of hard and soft skills. In this paper, it is argued that in order to develop competent professionals who have strong leadership skills, the universities, the construction industry, professional organizations, and the government need to form a broad collaboration. A conceptual model of this potential collaborative relationship is presented, and specific roles for the universities, the industry, professional bodies, and government in the lifelong professional development of the industry’s human resources are discussed.     

Why We Need Renaissance Engineers: Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Phase II Case Study

In today’s world of specialization, civil engineers may benefit from a return to an earlier period when breadth of knowledge, skills, and attitudes were appreciated: the Renaissance era. A broad set of skills is especially important in meeting the challenges of restoring deteriorating infrastructure and working with restricted financing. This paper presents the case of the Golden Gate Bridge Seismic Retrofit Phase II Project to illustrate how important it is for civil engineers to possess solid technical expertise coupled with a cross-disciplinary knowledge of design and construction to achieve project success. These qualities allowed the engineers to integrate construction knowledge into the design process and design knowledge into the construction process, in spite of the project’s traditional design-bid-build delivery method. Of equal importance to the success were the engineers’ commitment, integrity, and persistence. The Phase II Project involved modifying the 70-year-old bridge’s five south approach structures. By applying modern earthquake engineering standards, these structures are now capable of withstanding a seismic event comparable to the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. The final outcome was a complex yet cost-efficient seismic upgrade of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, a project that was constructed within budget and without claims. In 2007, the project received the American Society of Civil Engineers’ Outstanding Civil Engineering Award.     

Effective Partnering in Innovative Procured Multicultural Project

Effective partnering has been shown to improve projects in numerous ways including cost, schedule, safety, quality, and claims. However, partnering in a multicultural, multiphase environment has some additional challenges. This paper describes some lessons learned from the Tren Urbano project in San Juan, Puerto Rico, a $1.5 billion, 17.2-km heavy-rail project. The Tren Urbano Project has an innovative procurement strategy of turnkey with multiple primes, which combined with the multiphase, multicultural project environment presents additional challenges for providing an effective partnering environment. A system dynamics partnering model was built to demonstrate that the partnering effort in the Tren Urbano project was adequate for a traditional procured, limited culture project. However, for a project like Tren Urbano, a greater partnering effort is needed to achieve the same results.     

Educating Civil Engineering Professionals of Tomorrow

Engineering education is currently facing unprecedented challenges and opportunities. Engineering institutions are being called upon to educate the architectural, engineering, and construction (A/E/C) professionals of tomorrow by complementing their traditional engineering education with the transfusion of information technology and process automation concepts through the necessary reorganization of classes and academic curricula. This paper presents a framework for an interdisciplinary course sequence in civil engineering, project management, and information technology centered on the concepts of fully integrated and automated project processes (FIAPP). The described sequence enables students to benefit pedagogically from working in truly multidisciplinary teams, to enrich their educational experience by bringing real world projects to academic settings, and to teach them fundamental principles in integration and automation of project processes highlighting the value of such integrated project management systems (information management, planning, design, construction management, procurement, operations, and maintenance). Furthermore, the course sequence addresses deficiencies in current one-dimensional educational curricula and needs expressed by educators, students, and industry professionals. The paper presents experiences and knowledge gained from the aforementioned academic sequence on FIAPP and on the utilization of three-dimensional computer models and associated databases in the management of A/E/C processes.     

Localization of extracellular matrix molecules, integrins and their regulators, TGF betas, is correlated with axon pathfinding in the spinal cord of normal and Danforth''s short tail mice

We present a local Dissemination of EPIC, a project which has been devised to support health and social primary care by an information system. One key point of the EPIC project was a standardization effort at European level, providing a standardized basis for the management system based on client needs for planning and manpower control. Whilst EPIC has been designed as a general community information system, the main EPIC applications focus is on the care of the elderly. Savona is a middle size Italian town with a high percentage of elderly people and has already had an experience of integration of health and social care within an Italian project. It has therefore been regarded as a suitable site for the dissemination of EPIC. The EPIC application solved some of the information problems which emerged during the validation of the previous Italian project, such as the definition of the requirements; the collection, processing and retrieval of the clinical/social data; the definition of responsibilities and relations of the operators.     

Thermotolerance in Saccharomyces cerevisiae: the Yin and Yang of trehalose

What is neuroinformatics? What is the Human Brain Project? Why should you care? Supported by a consortium of US funding agencies, the Human Brain Project aims to bring to the analysis of brain function the same advantages of Internet-accessible databases and database tools that have been crucial to the development of molecular biology and the Human Genome Project. The much greater complexity of neural data, however, makes this a far more challenging task. As a pilot project in this new initiative, we review some of the progress that has been made and indicate some of the problems, challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.     

Multiple Device Collaborative and Real Time Analysis System for Project Management in Civil Engineering

Complexity in civil engineering projects has increased over the years, which has led to an increase in the number of organizations involved in those projects. In today’s environment, these organizations operate in different parts of the world requiring their personnel to be geographically distributed. However, current project management practices require project personnel to be geographically collocated and, thus, are unable to provide the infrastructure to support geographically distributed project management teams. In addition, current project management practices require access to personal computer (PC) based resources for project information, which is not always a feasible alternative for on-site project personnel, as it requires certain hardware and office configurations. Thus, alternatives to PC-based resources such as personal digital assistants (PDA) or phones are needed for information access. Moreover, once project information has been conveyed to all project personnel, the system should aid them in terms of providing data analysis tools and presenting technical or management solutions to the problems encountered by the project personnel. This paper presents a collaborative project management system with a knowledge repository, analysis resources, and multiple device access to support the infrastructure of distributed project management teams in complex architecture/engineering/construction projects. The primary goal for such a system would be to provide a platform where project information can be effectively shared with any of the project management personnel from anywhere and with a very few limitations on the computing device.     

Wastewater Management in the 21st Century

A dialogue concerning potential future directions for the wastewater profession is initiated by identifying four principal challenges. The first is the perception by many (at least in the United States) that water pollution and water quality problems have largely been solved. Dramatic improvements during the 20th century (by the founders of our profession, not by us!) have eliminated many of the obvious public health and environmental issues associated with wastewater management. The second is population growth and the associated added stress on water resources. The third is the potential (at least perceived) conflict between providing improved water and wastewater service to the poor (especially in developing countries) and reducing the environmental impacts of our systems. The fourth is to determine whether we are wastewater managers, or more broadly water managers. These challenges can be addressed by adopting a broader, more holistic view of urban water management incorporating water supply, wastewater management, and storm water. A toolkit of existing and evolving technologies could be assembled and grouped into example systems. Improved methods for evaluating alternate urban water management systems based on sustainable development principles need to be developed. Achieving the vision of more sustainable urban water management systems requires that our professional organizations speak with one voice. Our profession must also reach out and engage a wide range of interests in defining and implementing dramatically improved solutions.     

Improving Productivity on a Troubled Bridge Project

This paper presents a case study of a bridge constructed under adverse conditions in rural Florida. The major challenges facing the contractor were clearly identified through analysis. The bridge was constructed by an established, experienced bridge contractor that faced many daunting challenges in the construction of the bridge foundation, ranging from overdesign to the project manager managing his first construction project. However, the biggest challenge was unforeseen site conditions; namely, some of the most difficult clay imaginable through which to drive piles. These challenges forced the contractor into several tactical maneuvers. In sharing both the methods adapted by the contractor and the results of the adaptations, this paper quantifies for researchers and practitioners how a good contractor made sound, fundamental decisions to overcome severe challenges, improve productivity rates midproject, and eventually make the project a success. A seeming disaster early on, the project was eventually completed in less than the contract duration and at a sizable profit for the contractor.     

Numerical Modeling of Silo Filling.?I: Continuum Analyses

Two main computational methods have been used in recent years to model the behavior of particulate solids in silos. These are the finite element method and the discrete element method. To assess the current state of the art in the two methods applied to silo problems, and to evaluate their capabilities without bias, an international collaborative project was set up to compare predictions of several silo phenomena. The first of these computational challenges was deemed the simplest: that of filling a silo or container with particulate solid. This paper presents an overview of the findings of this first problem, based on a total of 38 independent calculations. Here the collaborative project is briefly outlined and some deduced outcomes from calculations by continuum analysts are compared. The results of discrete element calculations are described in a companion paper, which also compares the two methods and comments on their strengths and weaknesses.     

Contextual Information Requirements of Cost Estimators from Past Construction Projects

Past project data sources provide key information for construction cost estimators. Previous research studies show that relying only on one’s own experience during estimation results in estimators’ bias. Having and referring to historical databases, containing objective information on what happened in past projects, are essential for reducing estimators’ biases. The first step toward development of useful project history databases is to understand what information estimators require from past projects. The research described in this paper targets estimators’ information needs identified through interviews, brainstorming sessions, task analyses, and card games conducted with estimators with different experience levels and specialized in heavy/civil and commercial construction projects, and exploration of historical and standard databases available in companies to determine what is being currently represented. Findings show that estimators need contextual information, depicting the conditions under which specific production rates were achieved, so that they can identify which production rate would be more realistic to use during the production rate estimation of an activity in a new bid. Comparison of the contextual information needs identified in this research with information items available in historical data sources (such as company cost reports, RSMeans, previous studies) highlighted some gaps and important opportunities for improvements in those sources. The identified contextual information items are significant for practitioners in developing ways to augment their existing project history databases to make them more beneficial for estimators.     

岩爆数据库管理系统开发及应用

针对深部岩体工程科学前沿的岩爆研究难题,分析了制约其动态定量及智能化预警研究的挑战性问题。为突破挑战问题制约,采用面向对象的B/S+C/S结构,建立了岩爆数据库管理系统,包含岩爆案例数据库、微震波形数据库、微震时序数据库,具备多工程管理、详细数据采集、查询分析、结果导出等功能的岩爆数据库管理系统,成功实现了多工程、多源岩爆灾害信息的详细采集与有效管理。利用多个具有岩爆灾害的深埋岩体工程,对岩爆数据库管理系统进行了应用,取得了较好的效果。结果表明建立的岩爆数据库管理系统具有较好的适用性,可为不同工程岩爆类比研究、岩爆智能预警研究等提供科学、可靠的数据基础与参考。      

信息化建设对现代企业的作用

根据国际经济形势,特别是我国加入WTO后国际商情的变化,阐述了我国企业进行信息化建设的必要性与迫切性,指出了企业信息化进程中存在的某些问题和提出了一些改进这方面工作的对策。     

Microbial amino acid synthesis and utilization in rats: the role of coprophagy

The Substance Abuse Monitor is a comprehensive community-based addictions information system that forms the basis for an innovative approach to community needs assessment. This paper describes: (1) the conditions that created the need and support for the monitoring system; (2) the community development strategy that was employed to secure the commitment of agencies to the project; (3) the specifics of the needs assessment procedures; (4) some of the theoretical, clinical and methodological issues on which the procedures are based; (5) the practical applications of the system; and (6) the limitations of the system. The establishment of the database was based upon the idea that there would be benefits at several levels: the community, the participating agencies, the individual counsellors and the clients. The realization of these benefits requires that the information collected and the results generated must be capable of addressing specific service delivery problems with practical and tangible solutions. It is argued that the project has been successful in generating such solutions, and has considerable potential as an ongoing needs assessment tool.     

大型工程项目平行承包模式下业主方信息管理

平行承包模式是大型工程建设项目中业主普遍采用的组织形式。本文通过分析这种模式下业主信息 管理面临的困难和不足,提出了工程建设业主的信息管理模式,明确了这种模式应该能达到的功能,最后指出了这 种信息管理模式应该注意的几个问题。     

工程项目管理信息化系统现状和发展趋势

分析了现有工程项目管理信息化系统在我国实施的现状及存在的问题,通过比较各种不同类型的工程项目管理信息系统的实施原理,提出了适合我国工程项目管理信息化发展的途径,并揭示了未来发展趋势。最后以中国瑞林综合管理信息化系统的工程项目管理模块为例,探讨了适合我国大型勘察设计企业的工程项目管理信息化的解决方案。     

Challenges in Line-of-Balance Scheduling

The line-of-balance (LOB) method of scheduling is well suited to projects that are composed of activities of a linear and repetitive nature. The objective of this study is to set down the basic principles that can be used in the development of a computerized LOB scheduling system that overcomes the problems associated with existing systems and creates solutions to problems encountered in the implementation of repetitive-unit construction. The challenges associated with LOB scheduling include developing an algorithm that handles project acceleration efficiently and accurately, recognizing time and space dependencies, calculating LOB quantities, dealing with resource and milestone constraints, incorporating the occasional nonlinear and discrete activities, defining a radically new concept of criticalness, including the effect of the learning curve, developing an optimal strategy to reduce project duration by increasing the rate of production of selected activities, performing cost optimization, and improving the visual presentation of LOB diagrams.     

充装站的系统改造工程分析

以马钢气体公司充装站的系统改造工程为例,介绍了充装站的系统改造工程的设备、工艺配管、试车前的准备工作,以改造工程施工中遇到的问题,简单总结系统改造工程一些经验和教训。