Integrated urban microclimate assessment method as a sustainable urban development and urban design tool

In the past decades, urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon in the city and its corresponding issues including the mitigation methods have become the main research topics in the area of urban climatology. Researchers have conducted various investigations and measurements in the urban environment. Prediction models such as impact mitigation strategies, urban air temperature predictions, improved weather forecasting and air quality forecasting have been developed as a result. With the current issue of sustainable urban development in the cities, urban planners are beginning to look into different aspects of urban climatic parameters and incorporate them as the design parameters. However, it is rather difficult for the planners to attempt to design without engaging the urban climate scientists. Presently, Geographical Information System (GIS) is a platform commonly used in various geographical related research and applications, including those relating to urban climate research, as it can be used to analyze different urban climatic parameters. Although it is, by all standards, an appropriate urban design tool, urban planners tend not to embrace this technology. This paper shall present an idea to overcome this challenge by means of developing a user friendly urban design platform that takes after GIS. This paper will also discuss the plan for advancement of the urban design tool from the current situation to the future.     

Solubility controls on aluminum in drinking water at relatively low and high pH

Potential control of soluble aluminum in drinking water by formation of solids other than Al(OH)3 was examined. At pHs below 6.0, Al(+3) solids containing sulfate, silica or potassium are thermodynamically favored versus amorphous Al(OH)3; however, in this work no evidence could be obtained that solids other than Al(OH)3 would form in practice. At pHs above 9, aluminum and magnesium were discovered to form complex solid phases of approximate composition AlMg2(OH)7, AlMg2SiO2(OH)7 or Al(SiO2)2(OH)3 dependent on circumstance. Formation of these solids provide a mechanistic explanation for enhancements to precipitative softening obtained in practice by dosing Al(+3) salts; that is, improved flocculation/settling and removal of silica from water that interferes with calcium precipitation. The solids also maintain residual aluminum below regulatory guidelines at high pH > 9.5.     

The role of industry: an analytical framework to understand ICT transformation within the AEC industry

Despite wide-ranging research on information and communication technologies (ICT) in the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC) industry, little is known about the role that industry plays in the adoption and use of ICT. Based on observations of how the drivers for ICT use seem to be inconsistent with the industry’s central characteristics, and drawing on information systems (IS) research that demonstrates the role of shared systems of meaning, the purpose here is to develop an analytical framework that explains how industry shapes the adoption and use of ICT. Building on a theoretically driven approach and a case study, a framework is first sketched and then substantiated through empirical illustrations. Three dimensions of industry are highlighted: the socio-cognitive environment, the market and production environment and institutional actors. It is explained how the interplay of these dimensions shapes the way the industry functions, which in turn influence the adoption and use of ICT. The outcomes of the interplay can either be aligned or misaligned with ICT, which explains why certain aligned applications are rapidly adopted, whereas other applications are not. The primary implication is that the framework can aid in analysing the need for structural adaptation when trying to achieve ICT-induced change.     

Revisiting thermal comfort models in Iranian classrooms during the warm season

The validity of existing thermal comfort models is examined for upper primary school children in classroom settings. This is of importance to enhance productivity in the learning environment and to improve the control of artificial heating and cooling, including the potential for energy savings. To examine the thermal perceptions of children aged 10–12 years in non-air-conditioned classrooms, three sets of field experiments were conducted in boys’ and girls’ primary schools in Shiraz, Iran. These were undertaken during regular class sessions covering cool and warm conditions of the school year, polling responses from 1605 students. This paper illustrates the overall methods and reports the results of the warm season field survey (N?=?811). This investigation suggests that predicted mean vote-predicted percentage of dissatisfied (PMV/PPD) underestimates children's actual thermal sensation and percentage dissatisfied in the investigated classrooms. The analysis shows that sampled children may be slightly less sensitive to indoor temperature change than adults. The upper acceptable temperature derived from children's responses corresponding to mean thermal sensations of +0.85 is 26.5°C, which is about 1°C lower than the ASHRAE upper 80% acceptability limit. This implies that sampled children feel comfortable at lower temperatures than predicted by the ASHRAE Adaptive model during the warm season.     

Great expectations and hard times: The paradoxical experience of the engineer as project manager

While tensions between technical and management functions in organisations have long been recognised, very little research examines this relationship empirically in light of the emergence of project management as an (apparently) attractive career route for engineers and other technical specialists. This paper empirically explores these tensions, identifying various contradictions between the discursive legitimation of project management and the lived experience of project managers. Drawing on a series of structured group discussions with project managers from a range of industrial sectors with an engineering background, the paper illustrates the tensions implicit in the transition from technical specialist to project manager, and provides empirical evidence of the conflict between discourses which extol the importance and value of project management as an organisational imperative and the far more mundane experiences of project management as practiced in the real world, posing fundamental questions about the status and influence of project management in contemporary organisations.     

United Kingdom Construction Claims: Views of Professionals

A novel approach has been used to attempt to understand how contractors justify their claims on construction contracts and how contract administrators are likely to assess them. This is done by encapsulating particular claim types into scenarios and interviewing not only contractors and contract administrators, but also claims consultants, to hear their views on how the situations represented by the scenarios should be resolved. In this paper, four areas of general uncertainty surrounding claims in the United Kingdom are described and the results of the survey on these four areas are reported. The concerns addressed are: the treatment of exceptionally adverse weather; dealing with early completion schedules; quantification of the prolongation costs associated with an approved extension of time; and concurrent delays. The results show some good agreement, particularly on the problems of dealing with exceptionally adverse weather and with some aspects of concurrent delay assessment. Although the consensus was not so clear on the other two issues, there was a majority view that should give professionals working in this area greater confidence when dealing with these problems.     

F international: A unique approach to computer consulting

Office workstations in the home is a rapidly growing concept. This concept focuses on working from home, not necessarily always at home. There have been many successful case studies of this approach. One such case study is described in this paper and it involves the business practices of F International (FI).     

Proteus: A reconfigurable computational network for computer vision

The Proteus architecture is a highly parallel, multiple instruction, multiple data machine (MIMD) optimized for large granularity tasks such as machine vision and image processing. The system can achieve 20 gigaflops (80 gigaflops peak). It accepts data via multiple serial links at a rate of up to 640 MB/S. The system employs a hierarchical reconfigurable interconnection network with the highest level being a circuit-switchedenhanced hypercube, serial interconnection network for internal data transfers. The system is designed to use 256 to 1024 RISC processors. The processors use 1-MB externalread/write allocating caches for reduced multiprocessor contention. The system detects, locates, and replaces faulty subsystems using redundant hardware to facilitatefault tolerance. The parallelism is directly controllable through an advanced software system for partitioning, scheduling, and development. System software includes a translator for the INSIGHT language, a parallel debugger, lowand high-level simulators, and a message-passing system for all control needs. Image-processing application software includes a variety of point operators, neighborhood operators, convolution, and the mathematical morphology operations of binary and gray-scale dilation, erosion, opening, and closing.