Project Characteristics Research Articles

Evaluating Risk in Prefabricated Building Construction under EPC Contracting Using Structural Equation Modeling: A Case Study of Shaanxi Province, China

Prefabricated buildings have the advantages of high efficiency and saving resources. However, China’s prefabricated buildings were built relatively late, and there are problems in terms of their low standardization, integration, and industrialization. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the risk of constructing prefabricated buildings under the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) general contracting mode from the perspective of general contractors and to propose countermeasures for the key risks. Firstly, a risk evaluation index system was established via a literature analysis, and a questionnaire survey was used to collect the data. SPSS was used to conduct the data factor analysis to finally identify 4 first-level indicators and 14 second-level indicators. Then, a structural equation model (SEM) was developed to further evaluate the impact of each indicator on the risk of constructing prefabricated buildings under the EPC general contracting mode. The results showed that the construction and design risk had the greatest impact. Among them, the technical level of the construction personnel while conducting the hoisting, stacking, and protection of on-site materials and the lack of integrated design experience among the designers were the key points for risk control. On the one hand, this study explored the whole life cycle of a project, which makes up for the lack of risk analyses and the control being limited to a single engineering stage that has been presented in previous studies. On the other hand, in terms of the design, procurement, and construction as a whole research object, we found that the fuzzy evaluation method and analytic hierarchy process (AHP) used in previous risk analyses and evaluation methods have defects. They cannot verify the rationality of the logical relationship between the evaluation indices. In contrast, this study used the SEM method to fill this research gap. This ensures the scientific nature of our research to the greatest extent. Additionally, we also found some problems with this type of research: the selection of the evaluation indicators and data collection vary with the region, project characteristics, project contracting mode, and risk management subject, which influence the results of studies. Overall, the SEM method established in this study provides a reference and can help us conduct similar research and model evaluations in other regions. This method can guide project implementers to make the best risk-management decisions, so it is of great significance for practitioners in this field.

Correlation analysis between talent training quality and regional economic development based on multivariate statistical analysis model

Abstract Talent training has a strong social constraint and economic dominance, and is closely related to regional economic development with two-way interaction. Context is any information that can be used to describe the situation and characteristics of an object, including time, location, social relationships, natural conditions, and project characteristics. Regional economic development is influenced by the process of multiple types of contextual elements, but traditional development models do not consider or only take into account a single contextual element, ignoring the combined influence of multiple contextual elements. To this end, the paper proposes a model for analyzing the correlation between talent training quality and regional economic development that integrates context-awareness and random forest algorithms, modeling contextual elements as feature attributes to be considered when splitting decision trees in random forests. The experimental results show that when conducting the analysis, assigning corresponding weights to various contextual elements according to the degree of importance can improve the accuracy of the recommendations. The prediction accuracy of the random forest model is higher under different data sampling ratios.

Pictures that are Worth a Thousand Donations: How Emotions in Project Images Drive the Success of Online Charity Fundraising Campaigns? An Image Design Perspective

Charity fundraising is becoming increasingly reliant on online platforms such as crowdfunding platforms. However, overwhelmingly, crowdfunding campaigns are not meeting their goals. Therefore, it is imperative to examine how the success of charity fundraising campaigns can be improved. In this paper, we focus on the design of project images on a crowdfunding website, which portray the themes and content of the projects. Employing the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, we investigate the relationships between image attributes (S) and image emotions (O), and between image emotions (O) and campaign outcomes (R). We developed and trained a deep neural network model to identify the emotions conveyed in the images, and then implemented it to analyze project images from a popular crowdfunding platform. We applied the obtained image emotions together with the objective image attributes and the project outcome metrics to explore from a design perspective, what image attributes evoke image emotions, and how image emotions are related to the success of charity fundraising projects. Our results confirm these relationships and further suggest that the roles of image emotions on the success of crowdfunding campaigns vary with project characteristics such as the project budget and category. In addition, the image emotions of competing projects on the crowdfunding platform were found to reduce the project’s performance. In an extended study, we conducted an online randomized controlled experiment by manipulating image attributes to reexamine the causal relationships and verify the mediating roles of positive and negative empathies between image emotions and campaign outcomes. This research contributes to the charity fundraising literature from a novel perspective of emotions in project images. It presents new and unique findings regarding the mediation roles of positive and negative empathies and the limitations of the emotion of sadness in certain types of charity fundraising. In addition, our findings provide useful insights for practitioners seeking to design successful online charity campaigns.

Integration of clinical trial development in hematology and oncology fellowship training: Washington university school of medicine experience.

11012 Background: Education in clinical trial design and development is highly variable among Hematology and Medical oncology fellowship programs. The Clinical Trial Development (CTD) program at Washington University in St. Louis (WUSM) is an experiential learning curriculum designed to provide a structured and personalized education to fellows about clinical investigation in Hematology and Oncology. We describe the results of the CTD program and its impact on subsequent academic faculty appointments. Methods: The CTD program was initiated at WUSM in 2002 as a hands-on learning experience for Hematology and Oncology fellows in the design, implementation, evaluation, and publication of clinical trials. Each fellow was required to identify a mentor in their first year of training and propose at least one CTD project, determined as a prospective investigator-initiated clinical trial involving human subjects or materials. Outcome data were collected from an internal registry of fellow CTD projects, Clinical Trials Management System (OnCore), PubMed, ClinicalTrials.gov and e-mail inquiries to fellows and mentors. Descriptive statistics were collected for the characteristics of CTD projects, including the phase of study, site (single center or multicenter), disease subtype, projects that received IRB approval, and projects that resulted in publication. Logistic regression and odds ratios (OR) were also used to assess the association between these characteristics and academic faculty appointments. Results: We included 118 fellows who began fellowship from 2002 to 2021 for this analysis with 16 still in training. Many trials were phase I/II (n = 53; 45%), phase I (n = 34; 29%) and phase II trials (n = 17; 14%) and most trials were single center studies (n = 93; 79%). Disease types of the investigations were evenly distributed between Oncology (n = 60, 51%) or Hematology (n = 58, 49%). Most fellows were successful in obtaining IRB approval for their CTD project (n = 93, 79%) and approximately two thirds of those with IRB approval went on to publish their results in peer-reviewed journals (n = 60, 65%). Forty-five percent of fellows who published their CTD projects were first authors (n = 27) and 38% published in journals with an impact factor of greater than 10. Among the graduating fellows, two-thirds (n = 67, 66%) secured an academic faculty appointment. Fellows with IRB approved CTD projects had significantly higher odds of obtaining an academic faculty appointment (OR 4.96, 95% CI 1.54-15.98, p < 0.05). Conclusions: The CTD program is a well-established clinical investigation program for fellows with a track record of success and impact on subsequent academic faculty appointments. The CTD program is a model that other fellowship programs can emulate for education related to clinical trials.

Theoretical Research on the Influencing Factors of Collaborative Innovation in the Coal Industry: Based on the Collaborative Innovation in China’s Coal Industry

Purpose - Based on the importance of collaborative innovation in solving existing problems in the Chinese coal industry, this study mainly studies the categories of influencing factors of collaborative innovation in the Chinese coal industry.
 Design/Methodology/Approach - Due to the deep vertical intersection and extensive horizontal correlation of existing problems in the Chinese coal industry, collaborative innovation in the Chinese coal industry requires the use of a ““full factor”” collaborative innovation method. This study mainly comprehensively sorts out and analyzes the categories of influencing factors that affect collaborative innovation in the Chinese coal industry from a theoretical perspective. Based on this, a “pyramid spiral” operational process model for all-factor collaborative innovation in ’China’s coal industry has been constructed.
 Findings - Through theoretical analysis and model construction, this paper finds that the influencing factors of collaborative innovation in ’China’s coal industry are mainly divided into objective resource factors, subjective willingness factors, mode selection factors, and operational mechanism factors. Objective resource factors include research personnel, research funds, research facilities, research policies, and achievement transformation channels; Subjective willingness factors include research environment, resource complementarity, interest-driven, value orientation, etc; The factors for mode selection include the characteristics of scientific research projects, the level of research participants, etc; And the operational mechanism factors include team formation mechanism, mode selection mechanism, knowledge sharing mechanism, and achievement evaluation mechanism.
 Research Implications - This study lays a the oretical foundation for empirical research on the mechanism of the influencing factors of collaborative innovation in the Chinese coal industry. Also, it provides reference for constructing the operational mechanism of collaborative innovation in the Chinese coal industry.

한일 경제협력의 변화 과정과 향후 방향

Purpose: The purposes of this study are to identify the process of change in Korea-Japan economic cooperation through cooperation projects carried out by Korea-Japan Cooperation Foundation for Industry and Technology (KJCF) over the past 30 years, and to explore the future direction of Korea-Japan economic cooperation.
 Research design, data, and methodology: This study analyzed the Korea-Japan cooperation projects that KJCF has implemented for 30 years from 1993 to 2022. It classified 819 annual projects of KJCF into three areas based on large classification, 14 project groups based on medium classification, and 187 individual projects based on sub-classification. The three areas of the large classification were Technology Cooperation, Infrastructure-forming Human Exchange, and Trade & Investment Cooperation and Others. This study divided 30 years into three stages: the first stage from 1993 to 2002, the second stage from 2003 to 2012, and the third stage from 2013 to 2022. Then, changes in the economic environment were examined in terms of trade, direct investment, human exchange, and manufacturing competitiveness.
 Results: As a result of the analysis, it was found that the gap in manufacturing competitiveness between Korea and Japan began to be large, but gradually narrowed in the first and second stages, almost closing the gap in the third stage. Under these environmental changes, KJCF has implemented projects suitable for each stage, and the characteristics of the cooperative projects were defined as General-purpose Technology Adoption Type in the first stage, Application Technology Adoption Type in the second stage, and Adopted Technology Utilization Type in the third stage. In the first stage, there was a big difference in manufacturing competitiveness between Korea and Japan, so KJCF promoted projects that helped Korean companies adopt general-purpose technologies from Japan. Then, in the second stage, projects that helped Korean firms adopt application technology from Japan were executed, and in the third stage, projects where Korean companies could utilize the adopted technology were implemented with the manufacturing competitiveness gap almost disappeared. Furthermore, this changing pattern in KJCF projects was also confirmed in the medium classification analysis.
 Implications: This study looked at the process of changing economic cooperation between Korea and Japan through KJCF projects implemented in response to given environment for each period. As a result, it can be said that those projects have contributed to improving the competitiveness of Korean companies. In fact, the competitiveness gap between Korea and Japan has been almost disappeared in the third stage, and this has important implications for the future direction of Korea-Japan economic cooperation. Accordingly, as to the future direction of economic cooperation between Korea and Japan, this study emphasized the need for reciprocal win-win type cooperation and further presented three points from the perspective of government policy and corporate strategy. First, policy support and corporate efforts are needed to revitalize Korea-Japan economic cooperation in new business areas such as IT, software, new energy, etc. Second, the governments need to help industry associations in two countries form foundation for business cooperation and companies need to cooperate each other under the assistance of those associations. Third, it was suggested that the governments need to provide communication infrastructure for Korean and Japanese companies to explore global markets through cooperation and that companies need to implement cooperative strategy for expansion to global markets.

A tale of five cities: The role of municipalities in the market diffusion of wooden residential multistory construction and retrofits

To enhance sustainable urban development, cities may contribute to the market diffusion of wooden multistory residential construction (WMC) and to wood use in the renovations of old multistory residential buildings (i.e., wooden retrofits). For the construction sector, building with wood enables a shift from the dominant concrete-based building regime, which has hindered the industrialization of building processes and the use of prefabricated modules. Although industrial wood construction has become more common in Finland in the 2000s, WMC and especially wooden retrofits have remained niche systems in residential building markets. The aim of our study is to provide information on how municipalities, especially cities at the core of urban development, may contribute to the market diffusion of WMC and wooden retrofits through policy instruments and via their involvement in local business ecosystems (BE). The interview data of the study were mainly gathered from 40 professionals representing the five case cities, but we also included other experts connected to local BEs that linked with the WMC and wooden renovation cases. We employed qualitative methods in the analyses. Our study shows that WMC and wooden retrofits could be catalyzed by both policy instruments and collaboration in BEs. Results show that policy instruments have been more effective when they include characteristics of the building projects (e.g., instrument usability differs between municipalities or private persons as building owners). To be powerful actors, municipalities could take on more active collaborative roles within the local BEs (e.g., as initiators of projects as building owners or as active enablers). As an implication of these results, city-level experimentation could benefit from a full range of policy measures and mixes to accelerate the diffusion of WMC and wooden retrofits.

Research on Risk Evolution Mechanism of Urban River Ecological Governance Project Based on Social Network Analysis

The evolution and transfer of risk elements of urban river ecological management projects are primarily responsible for the difficulty of risk management in these projects. In this paper, we identify 63 risk elements of urban river ecological management projects using in-depth literature reviews and brainstorming. The association among all the risk elements is constructed using an expert survey method, and the risk elements are utilized as network nodes. The relationships between these nodes are then used as network edges (i.e., paths) to construct a complex network model. By using the network visualization and analysis tool anaconda3, we analyze the overall and local characteristic parameters of the risk network. The risk transmission characteristics of the urban river ecological management project are analyzed according to the parameter characteristics to reveal the inner relationships of risk transmission inherent in the complex network. We use the Jinghe ecological management project in Jinghe New City to verify the effectiveness of the proposed model. The study demonstrates that the starting node risk needs to be controlled, and the conduction node that indirectly triggers risk propagation needs to be cut off to achieve risk prevention and control. Accordingly, the risk prevention strategy is proposed, namely, paying close attention to the starting nodes of schedule delay risk, construction cycle risk and cost overrun risk, as well as the conduction risk nodes of project complexity risk, quality assessment risk, construction accident risk and improper drawing design risk. Effective measures should be taken to control the transmission and occurrence of risks based on these two aspects. The study reveals the network evolution of risk factors, which enriches the theory of the risk factor network evolution and evaluation of urban river ecological management projects.

Decision support system for selecting engineering consultants using qualifications-based selection (QBS) and fuzzy TOPSIS

In qualifications-based selection (QBS), consultants are selected according to their competencies rather than price. However, clients are often apprehensive about the subjectivity associated with implementing QBS because non-price criteria are hard to measure. In addition, there is no complete set of all relevant consultant evaluation criteria established. There is also a lack of an automated decision support system for objectively assisting owners in selecting qualified consultants with improved consistency and transparency. In this paper, a comprehensive set of consultant evaluation criteria is identified. Evaluation rules are also established for measuring qualitative criteria, where those rules determine the linguistic performance ratings for the fuzzy TOPSIS model instead of decision-makers, which minimizes subjectivity and increases transparency. The decision support system presented in this paper is flexible, allowing the decision-maker to adjust criteria weights based on the project characteristics and to exclude any non-applicable evaluation rules that may not fit in some projects.

Compensation Method for the Carrier Magnetic Interference of Underwater Magnetic Vector Measurement System

This paper proposed a new compensation method of underwater magnetic vector measurement system which innovatively using the geomagnetic total field as benchmark. Moreover, this method does not require the use of heading angle data in the calculation of the compensation parameters, which avoids errors caused by insufficient accuracy of underwater heading angle. The implementation of these features relies on the new objective function constructed according to the characteristics of the spatial projection of the magnetic vector field on the horizontal plane of the geographical coordinate. The core matrix of the geomagnetic vector ellipsoid model is used as a constraint to determine the range of function solutions. The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm is used to find the optimal solution to the new objective function. Three experiments were carried out to verify the proposed method. In simulation experiment, the deviation between the calculated value and the preset value is less than 0.01%. In field experiment, the standard deviation value of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x, y, z</i> magnetic components and the root mean square error of magnetic total field after compensation are reduced from 1527.38nT, 1397.35nT, 1529.16nT, 574.94nT to 9.86nT (0.65%), 9.99nT (0.72%), 5.63nT (0.38%), 2.14nT (0.37%). The proposed method is finally verified by marine experiment. The standard deviation value of <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">x, y, z</i> magnetic components and the root mean square error of magnetic total field after compensation are reduced from 575.02 nT, 830.60 nT, 620.95 nT, 1702.35 nT to 17.43 nT (1.11%), 14.14 nT (1.70%), 25.17nT (4.10%), 7.18 nT (0.42%).

A consumer emotion analysis system based on support vector regression model.

The effective means to stimulate economic growth is to enhance consumers' consumption capacity. Because many consumers have different consumption habits, they will pay different attention to products. Even the same consumer will have different shopping experiences when buying the same product at different times. By mining the online comments of consumers on the online fitness platform, we can find the characteristics of fitness projects that consumers care about. Analyzing consumers' emotional tendencies towards the characteristics of fitness programs will help online fitness platforms adjust the quality and service direction of fitness programs in a timely manner. At the same time, it can also provide purchase advice and suggestions for other consumers. Based on this goal, this study uses an optimized support vector regression (SVR) model to build a consumer sentiment analysis system, so as to predict the consumer's willingness to pay. The optimized SVR model uses the region convolution neural network (RCNN) to extract features from the dataset, and uses feature data to train the SVR model. The experimental results show that the SVR model optimized by RCNN is more accurate. The improvement of the accuracy of consumer sentiment analysis can accurately help businesses promote and publicize, and increase sales. On the other hand, the increase in the accuracy of emotion analysis can also help users quickly locate their favorite fitness projects, saving browsing time. To sum up, the emotional analysis system for consumers in this paper has good practical value.

Exploring needs and challenges for AI in nursing care – results of an explorative sequential mixed methods study

Background and aimWhile artificial intelligence (AI) is being adapted for various life domains and applications related to medicine and healthcare, the use of AI in nursing practice is still scarce. The German Ministry for Education and Research funded a study in order to explore needs, application scenarios, requirements, facilitators and barriers for research and development projects in the context of AI in nursing care.MethodA sequential explorative mixed methods study including a stakeholder and expert workshop (N = 21), expert interviews (N = 14), an online survey (N = 53) and a Datathon (N = 80) was conducted with an emphasis on qualitative data.ResultsNeeds and application scenarios encompassed the micro- and meso-level of care and derived from typical phenomena inherent to nursing care as well as from skill- and staff mix and consequences arising from staff shortages, from the extend of informal care and an associated need for information and education of informal caregivers and nursing assistants. Requirements for and characteristics of successful research and development projects included regulatory, processual, technological, ethical and legal aspects and supportive eco-systems.ConclusionA key element in the design of research projects remains participatory and demand-driven development that aims to bring AI solutions out of the lab and into practice. However, influencing factors remain that are outside the sphere of influence of individual projects, in particular the creation of resilient legal foundations for data use and the use of AI in practice, standardization of data structures and the establishment of infrastructures for data exchange across institutions and projects.

Combat Response Training Tester Based on Intelligent Force-Measuring Sensor and Digital Circuit

In combat sports, the team members take attack and defense as the core of sports, and the technical movements are not periodic and the application process is irregular. During the competition, observe the opponent’s neutral position, judge timely, and react quickly. At the same time, athletes are required not only to master skilled technical movements but also to have rapid and accurate adaptability. In order to improve athletes’ rapid response ability, according to the rapid response training scheme, a combat response training tester based on a force-measuring intelligent sensor and digital circuit is designed to improve the athletes’ response ability. Firstly, a comprehensive test system of combat trainer is designed based on the intelligent force-measuring sensor and MSP430, which can measure the response time, speed, and strength of boxing. Secondly, a wavelet filtering algorithm is used to filter the sensor measurement data. Finally, the striking force and striking time of each action are recorded by sensors and data acquisition devices to reflect the striking effect and reflect the “accurate” objectives of the project characteristics. Based on the noninterference and anti-interference of e-touch piezoelectric film, it can be made into universal force-measuring sensors of different specifications for fight competitions according to needs. After being connected into a module network in parallel, it can be connected with the microcontroller to determine the hit area. In addition, the team reaction training test device has laid a foundation for the scientific evaluation of improving the team members’ reaction ability and attack defense conversion ability. The launch of the comprehensive ability tester for combat athletes introduces the previous fuzzy evaluation of athletes’ comprehensive ability into a new way of scientific quantitative measurement and evaluation, which will provide a scientific basis for the selection of combat vibration items, the regulation of training process, the inspection of training effect, and the formulation of enrollment and examination standards for sports colleges and universities. The results show that the instrument can obtain the parameters of hitting strength, strength endurance, hitting speed, speed endurance, hitting impulse, and hitting power of sports biomechanics on the group of fighting events, which provides a reliable basis for coaches to implement teaching and training for athletes.

Optimal operation mode selection of sponge city PPP projects using IFSS-prospect theory and VIKOR approach: a case study in China.

The construction of sponge city (SC) public private partnership (PPP) projects is considered to be a feasible measure to solve the "water problems" in China. To ensure the success of SC PPP projects, how to select an appropriate operation mode for SC PPP projects is an urgent problem to be solved. In this paper, first, the evaluation index system of operation mode is established from the aspects of project characteristics, government capabilities, project benefits, project implementation, and cooperative partnership. Second, the DEMATEL method and entropy method are introduced to overcome the drawbacks of a single method, and the combination weights are calculated by game theory. Finally, the decision-making model based on intuitionistic fuzzy soft set (IFSS)-prospect theory and VIKOR approach is constructed to select operation mode for SC PPP projects. In this paper, the framework is applied to select an operation mode for the Qingshan demonstration zone project, and its feasibility and effectiveness are verified through sensitivity analysis and comparative analysis. The results show that BOT is the optimal operation mode for SC PPP projects, and government capabilities and project implementation are critical factors to be considered when selecting an operation mode. This study can provide guidance to the government in the OMS of SC PPP projects and improve the sustainability of the projects.

Hybrid fuzzy arithmetic-based model for determining contingency reserve

Calculating an accurate contingency reserve amount is vital to managing construction project costs and risks. Current methods for determining contingency have limitations in incorporating risk response actions (RRAs), accounting for insufficient quantitative historical data, considering time-dependent variables, and capturing cause-and-effect interactions between risk events (REs) together and with RRAs. This paper presents a hybrid fuzzy arithmetic-based contingency reserve model (HFACRM) that addresses these limitations by 1) considering time-dependent probability and impact values of risk events and RRAs, 2) modeling causal relationships among variables affecting contingency, and 3) addressing subjective uncertainty of linguistic evaluations in risk management. HFACRM considers more realistic complexities and characteristics of projects compared to other models, resulting in a significant improvement in the accuracy and effectiveness of determining contingency reserve. A wind farm power generation project was used as a case study to demonstrate and validate HFACRM.

In Hoc Signo Vinces—an Exploratory Study on the Impact of Religion on Violence in Sport

Does religion continue to spur violence even in contemporary times? This work aims to shed some light on the relationship between belonging to a given religion and violent behavior. Whereas religions often preach love and caring for others (meaning that among believers, a decrease in the level of violence may be registered), at the same time, it could be argued that a religious sense of belonging shapes self-identity and that in challenging situations this increases violence, especially towards foreigners. To test this hypothesis, we gathered data about yellow and red cards from the FIFA World Cup, obtaining a dataset of quasi-experimental data on violence, which we integrated with the Religious Characteristics of States Dataset Project. Via a quantitative analysis that employs different estimators, our results show that the more Christians there are in a country, the more violent its national team will be, whereas the more Buddhists there are, the less violent the team will be. No significant relationship is found with regard to Jews or Muslims. Finally, when investigating Christian confessions, Eastern Christians appear to show the most violent behavior.

Studying the Interplay Between the Durations and Breakages of Continuous Integration Builds

The Continuous Integration (CI) practice allows developers to build software projects automatically and more frequently. However, CI builds may undergo long build durations or frequent build breakages, which we refer to as <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">build performance</i> . Both long durations and frequent breakages of CI builds can impede developers from engaging in other development activities. Prior research has conducted independent studies on build durations or build breakages. However, there is little attention to the possible interplay between reducing build durations and build breakages. In particular, it is unclear from prior studies (i) whether and how build performance is influenced by the context of projects; (ii) whether the actions to reduce build durations would reduce or increase build breakages; and (iii) whether fixing build breakages would lead to longer or faster builds. It is important for developers to understand the practices that make both timely and passing CI builds. In this paper, we conduct experimental and survey studies on the practices that can have dual or inverse associations with two <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">build performance</i> measures: <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">build durations</i> and <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">build breakages</i> . To this end, we extend an existing dataset called <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">TravisTorrent</small> to exclude inactive projects and collect recent builds of active projects. As a result, we study 924,616 CI builds from 588 <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">GitHub</small> projects that are linked with <sc xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Travis CI</small> . In addition, we survey developers who contributed to the projects in our dataset to get their feedback on our experimental observations. First, we investigate project-level metrics and find that project characteristics have a significant association with build durations and breakages. In addition, we investigate how build-level metrics are associated with both build durations and breakages and observe an evident interplay between them. In particular, we observe that actions to fix build breakages (e.g., retrying or waiting for build commands) not only increase build durations but also do not guarantee passing builds. We also find that improving the build performance of a project is dependent on the current build durations and breakages of that project. Furthermore, we analyze how build performance changes over time and observe nearly a third of projects in which one performance measure is sacrificed in favor of the other, especially when not possible to achieve both together. The majority of our experimental observations are confirmed by survey results, which provide useful insights though some survey responses disagree with some of our experimental observations. Our work (a) provides developers with development and building practices to maintain timely and passing CI builds, and (b) encourages researchers to highlight any potential dual or inverse side effects when reporting actionable findings about CI builds.

공공가치관리 관점을 적용한 공공기관 경영평가제도의 메타평가 연구

The performance of publicness pursued by public institutions is difficult to present simply and clearly with a profit and loss statement such as the ‘bottom line’ used by private companies. Nevertheless, the current performance evaluation system of public institutions does not fully consider the characteristics of public projects and policies. Critical discussions are being raised in that it focuses only on the measurement of profitability creation based on short-term performance.&#x0D; Accordingly, this study conducted a meta-evaluation of the overall management evaluation system by applying the perspective of public value management to achieve the mission of creating public value, which is the essential purpose of the establishment and operation of public institutions. An overall review was conducted in terms of the content of public value management. The purpose of evaluation, subject of evaluation, management capacity, governance, performance, and implications for the direction of supplementation were drawn.

Nonlinear time history analysis of a low-story RC building: Comparison of the existing and retrofitted states

The current paper presents a seismic performance assessment of a low-story RC building through the time history analysis and a retrofitting proposal accordingly. The seismic analyses were repeated for the retrofitted building model and the effectiveness of the retrofitting proposal was determined. In the first stage of the study, the design project and material characteristics of the building were examined. Using these data, a 3D model of the building was prepared on the Midas Gen program. Next, a total of 11 earthquake records were selected and scaled for nonlinear time history analysis. Using the analysis results with the codes written on the Matlab program, the damage states of the load-bearing members were determined and the building’s performance was measured. The results indicated that some load-bearing members have insufficient strength and a retrofitting proposal was made accordingly. A building model was then prepared considering the retrofitting proposal and the retrofitted building model was found to satisfy controlled damage performance criteria envisaged in the local seismic code. It is believed that the methodology presented in this study can be effectively used in similar buildings with poor structural strength for identifying structural performance and selecting proper retrofitting practices.

Early Highway Construction Cost Estimation: Selection of Key Cost Drivers

Cost estimates in the early stages of project development are essential for making the right decisions, but they are a huge challenge and risk for owners and potential contractors due to limited information about the characteristics of a future highway project. Whereas previous studies were mainly focused on achieving the highest possible estimation accuracy, this paper aims to propose cost-estimation models that can provide satisfactory accuracy with the least possible effort and to compare the perspectives of owners and contractors as the key stakeholders on projects. To determine cost drivers (CDs) that have a high influence on highway-construction costs and require low effort for their establishment, a questionnaire survey was conducted. Based on the key stakeholders’ perceptions and collected data set, cost-estimation models were developed using multiple-regression analysis, artificial neural networks, and XGBoost. The results show that reasonable cost-estimation accuracy can be achieved with relatively low effort for three CDs for the owners’ perspective and five CDs for the contractors’ perspective. Additional inclusion of input CDs in models does not necessarily imply an increase in accuracy. Also, the questionnaire results show that owners are more concerned about environmental issues, whereas contractors are more concerned about the possible changes in resource prices (especially after recent high increases caused by COVID-19 and the Russia–Ukraine war). These findings can help owners and potential contractors in intelligent decision-making in the early stages of future highway-construction projects.