Innovation in construction: a sociology of technology approach

An alternative approach to understanding innovation is made using two intersecting ideas. The first is that successful innovation requires consideration of the social and organizational contexts in which it is located. The complex context of construction work is characterized by inter-organizational collaboration, a project-based approach and power distributed amongst collaborating organizations. The second is that innovations can be divided into two modes: 'bounded', where the implications of innovation are restricted within a single, coherent sphere of influence, and 'unbounded', where the effects of implementation spill over beyond this. Bounded innovations are adequately explained within the construction literature. However, less discussed are unbounded innovations, where many firms' collaboration is required for successful implementation, even though many innovations can be considered unbounded within construction's inter-organizational context. It is argued that unbounded innovations require an approach to understand and facilitate the interactions both within a range of actors and between the actors and technological artefacts. The insights from a sociology of technology approach can be applied to the multiplicity of negotiations and alignments that constitute the implementation of unbounded innovation. The utility of concepts from the sociology of technology, including 'system building' and 'heterogeneous engineering', is demonstrated by applying them to an empirical study of an unbounded innovation on a major construction project (the new terminal at Heathrow Airport, London, UK). This study suggests that 'system building' contains outcomes that are not only transformations of practices, processes and systems, but also the potential transformation of technologies themselves.     

Let's call it “color‐gamut rendering”

The term “color gamut” historically has been associated with color output such as optimal color stimuli and additive and subtractive imaging systems. Recently, this term has been used with input devices such as scanners and digital cameras. It is proposed that the term “color‐gamut rendering” should be used instead of input devices. This clarifies the distinction between input (analysis) and output (synthesis) color systems in terms of the effect of an input system on defining the colorimetric properties of an output system. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Col Res Appl, 32, 334–335, 2007     

Thermal Evaluation of Scorched Graphite-Epoxy Panels by Infrared Scanning

A simple measurement system is described for evaluating damage to graphite-epoxy panels, such as those used in high-performance aircraft. The system uses a heating laser and infrared imaging system to measure thermal performance. Thermal conductivity or diffusivity is a sensitive indicator of damage in materials, allowing this thermal measurement to show various degrees of damage in graphite-epoxy composites. Our measurements track well with heat-flux damage to graphite epoxy panels. This measurement system, including analysis software, could easily be used in the field, such as on the deck of an aircraft carrier or at remote air strips.     

Application of a Three-dimensional Wind Driven Circulation Model to Assess the Locations of New Drinking Water Intakes in Lake Ontario

A 3D transport model is used to perform a comparative analysis of several potential drinking water intakes located along the northwest shore of Lake Ontario between Toronto and Oshawa. The model is specifically used to assess each intake under both long- and short-term transport of a potential pollutant release from the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station and potential and actual pollutant releases from local land sources respectively. A model based on a 500 m grid resolution is calibrated using data collected in the aftermath of the 1992 tritium spill at the Pickering Nuclear Generation Station and subsequently used to simulate long-term transport. A model based on a 100 m grid resolution is verified using drogue studies and used to simulate short-term transport events. Both models are used to assess pollutant levels at each of nine potential intake locations under different wind scenarios and pollutant releases. Field data for the study included water quality and flow measurements from local sewers and rivers, and estimates of pollutant levels from the local waste water treatment plants. This paper describes the model setup for both the long-term and short-term transport models, calibration using field data, long-term transport modeling, short-term transport modeling, and the comprehensive analysis approach used to evaluate the nine potential intake locations proposed. Results indicated that four intakes in particular outperformed other intake locations by maintaining bottom pollutant levels within governmental standards and warning times that exceeded 20 hours.     

基于模型缩聚的θ指标损伤识别方法

为实现大型三维空间结构的损伤检测,提出了一种基于模型缩聚技术的检测方法。该方法利用有限数量的加速度传感器,得到大型三维桁架结构的自振频率和模态振型,以完成损伤的识别。数值仿真结果表明：该方法在损伤的定位识别和定量识别上能达到预期的适用性和可靠性。     

TEM IMAGING TECHNIQUE

This imaging technique is used for approximate interpretation of TEM data including ungrounded loopsource and grounded line source soundings.Loop source data can be collected as central-loop soundings or asout-of-loop soundings with a short or long offset configuration.The imaging method is based on the same princi-ple as that employed by Fullager(1989),with apparent resistivities computed directly from time-derivative data,db/d,and then associated with depths according to image theory.     

Strategies for processing diffraction data from randomly oriented particles

The high intensity of free-electron X-ray light sources may enable structure determinations of viruses or even individual proteins without the encumbrance of first forming crystals. This note compares two schemes of non-crystalline diffraction data collection that have been proposed: serial single-shot data from individual particles, and averaged cross-correlation data from particle ensembles. The information content of these schemes is easily compared and we show that the single-shot approach, although experimentally more challenging, is always superior in this respect. In fact, for 3D structure determination a constraint counting argument shows that the cross-correlation scheme suffers from data deficiency.     

计算机房常用教学软件的安装和维护

高校的计算机房所用的操作系统大多数是Windows,常用教学软件的安装和维护,需要有非常丰富的计算机知识和动手能力很强的计算机老师来担当,学校的教学机房的维护管理好坏,直接影响到计算机的正常教学工作,该作者从事过一段机房软件安装、维护、管理工作,在此把他的管理经验和技巧归纳了一下。     

A portable stereo vision system for whole body surface imaging

This paper presents a whole body surface imaging system based on stereo vision technology. We have adopted a compact and economical configuration which involves only four stereo units to image the frontal and rear sides of the body. The success of the system depends on a stereo matching process that can effectively segment the body from the background in addition to recovering sufficient geometric details. For this purpose, we have developed a novel sub-pixel, dense stereo matching algorithm which includes two major phases. In the first phase, the foreground is accurately segmented with the help of a predefined virtual interface in the disparity space image, and a coarse disparity map is generated with block matching. In the second phase, local least squares matching is performed in combination with global optimization within a regularization framework, so as to ensure both accuracy and reliability. Our experimental results show that the system can realistically capture smooth and complete whole body shapes with high accuracy.     

浅析建筑三维动画技术

在建筑方案设计阶段和工程完成后,三维动画为筛选、优化设计方案、评估城市景观、协调工程与环境的关系,都创造了有利条件。主要介绍建三维动画的简介,制作过程,及得到的启示,最后介绍了建筑三维动画的优势和广阔发展前景。