Education in Construction Engineering and Management Built on Tradition: Blueprint for Tomorrow

Construction continues to be a significant part of the global economy and shapes the built environment and quality of life for people around the world. In the United States, construction is a multibillion dollar annual enterprise, employing nearly 10 million people. However, it appears that the fragmented nature of the industry continues to hamper productivity and hoped-for gains in efficiency. Issues involve an array of regulatory and legal constructs that: (1) redistribute risk; (2) present only low barriers to entry (making company startup somewhat easy); and (3) fail to provide the quality and quantity of labor necessary. These factors continue to produce overall inefficiencies throughout the construction industry, and ill prepare the industry for the formidable challenges of globalization, sustainability, population growth, and wise use of resources. The purpose of this paper is to review the past and present of construction engineering within the context of civil engineering, and to prescribe practical change to revitalize construction engineering education to meet future demands.     

An update on chromosome deletion and microdeletion syndromes

Chromosome deletion and microdeletion syndromes account for an increasing number of clinically recognizable genetic conditions. New deletion syndromes continue to be characterized, and a number of previously described syndromes are being found to be due to chromosomal deletions or microdeletions. Fluorescent in situ hybridization technologies are in wide clinical use to diagnose deletion and microdeletion syndromes, and future uses of these technologies will provide prognostic information for patients and their parents, as the genes responsible for the phenotypic aspects of various deletion syndromes are identified. Future research studies will focus on delineating critical deletion intervals at a molecular level, and identifying candidate genes for the phenotypic features of deletion and microdeletion syndromes, toward the goal of understanding the pathology of the abnormal developmental and physiologic processes involved in each syndrome.     

Aroused versus calm positive affects as predictors of lipids.

Objective: The authors hypothesized that high-pleasure low-arousal (HPLA) would predict a subsequent decrease of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglycerides (TRI), as well as a subsequent increase of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). The authors also hypothesized that high-pleasure high-arousal (HPHA) would have the opposite effects on these blood lipids, predicting a subsequent increase of LDL-C and TRI, and a decrease of HDL-C. Design: Participants were 990 male and 595 female apparently healthy employees who underwent a routine periodic health examination at two points in time, Time 1 (T1) and Time 2 (T2), about 24 months apart. Data were analyzed separately for the men and women, and the authors controlled for possible confounders shown in past research to be implicated with hyperlipidemia. Main Outcome Measures: HPHA and HPLA were assessed based on the Job-Related Affective Well-Being Scale, while LDL-C, TRI, and HDL-C were assessed based on fasting blood samples. Results: For the men, support for our hypotheses was found relative to HDL-C and TRI. The authors did not find support for our hypotheses for thee women. Conclusion: Our findings suggest that for men, the two types of positive affects may have opposite physiological consequences with respect to subsequent changes in blood lipid levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The application of fuzzy logic to the precautionary principle

One of the major problems in the implementation of the precautionary principle in environmental cases is the estimation of the weight of evidence. In this paper we propose a formal method that determines the weight of evidence based on the specific parameters of a given case. The proposed method is based on an artificial intelligence approach called fuzzy logic, which is commonly used as an interface between logic and human perception, and often applied to computer-based complex decision making. We use one fuzzy expert system that provides a quantification of the estimated environmental damage, and a second fuzzy expert system that computes the weight of evidence in a given case. The proposed expert system can be easily defined and adjusted by regulators and environmental science and policy experts.     

MarCol: A Market-Based Recommender System

Collaborative information-filtering systems maintain user judgments on the relevance of data items.These systems recommend relevant information to other users on the basis of similarity between user profiles or recommended items. This market-based collaborative information-filtering system employs a pricing mechanism to motivate users to provide judgments. Results show that the model increases feedback and improves recommendation quality. MarCol uses Google as the underlying search engine. It stores all user logs, including queries and judgments.     

The flow of ideas and timing of evaluation as determinants of knowledge creation

There are different perspectives on the study of knowledge inorganizations, developed in economics, sociology, anthropologyand organization theory. Several authors followed Schumpeter'sidea that innovations are new combinations of existing knowledgeand incremental learning. Kogut and Zander further developedthis idea and defined knowledge as a portfolio of options, andemphasized the importance of combinative capacities in knowledgecreation. In a similar vein, Garud and Nayyar developed a notionof the transformative capacitiy of a firm in analyzing technologicalinnovations. This paper follows in this tradition by pointingat the effects of different organizational structures on theflow of ideas and on the possibility of combining proposalsin organizations. Communication structures, span of controland timing of evaluation are shown, using computer simulations,to have a large impact on the degree to which commonalitiesand complementarities among ideas and proposals can be detectedand on the eventual combination of ideas for knowledge creation.Implications for organizational design are discussed.     

Correlations (updated) for predicting the flow through MSF plant interstage orifices

So far, very few design correlations for interstage flow in MSF plants have been published, and their validation for a broad range of conditions is absent. Based on all experimental data with small-scale MSF units that was available to us, correlations for the orifice coefficient were developed for a wide range of flow and flashing conditions, in stages without and with downstream baffles, and a draft was presented at a past IDA congress. This paper recorrelates them in a much better way. These correlations are the first to use such a large amount of data, and the first to employ appropriate dimensionless variables. While their standard error and correlation coefficient are satisfactory, we note that the data came from a variety of sources and for channel widths of at most 0.53 m. Consequently, they should be used with some caution, and further extensive well-instrumented experiments are highly recommended.