Expert Builder Research Articles

PROCEDURE, RULES FOR OBTAINING AND PROCESSING DOCUMENTS IN CONSTRUCTION

The resolution of many disputable situations that occur during the construction and operation of buildings and structures is carried out in court by the appointment of a forensic construction and technical expertise. As result of the activity of forensic examination, there is a need to study the design and estimate documentation, determine the types, scope, quality and cost of construction and repair work performed; establishing compliance of their characteristics with the requirements of special codes and rules governing the processes of design, construction, operation, reconstruction during repair, dismantling and disposal of buildings and structures. The objects of research of construction and technical examination are: buildings, structures, engineering and other equipment and documentation to it, in particular, technical passports, inventory; working projects and working documentation; specifications, explanatory notes to the project; conclusions of the state complex examination; local estimates; general information on resources; agreements or contracts; additional agreements; acts of performed contract works; certificates on performed contract works; reports on regulatory write-off of materials; acts of inspection of hidden works; calendar plans or network schedules; work logs; commissioning acts. Carrying out construction and technical expertise in this way there is own characteristics and requires constant improvement of methodology. The expert builder must have a thorough knowledge of the regulatory framework for such work and the procedure for maintaining appropriate documentation to determine the type of construction and repair work. The paper considers the main points of implementation of documents before construction, registration of documentation during construction and documents during the commissioning of the construction object, as well as which regulations provide requirements for their execution.

The Forensic Construction Expert as a Mediator

The issue of out-of-court settlement of disputes between participants in construction is considered. The relevance of the study stems from the excessive number of legal disputes of business entities. This fact requires a new perspective on the existing but still unpopular conciliation procedures, which can mitigate the burden of the judiciary. The mediation procedure seems to be the most attractive to the authors to that end. The article provides a range of advantages of turning the disputants to the mediator in comparison with the traditional judicial process. In this regard, the attention of the authors is focused on the mediator figure itself, the benefits of engaging an expert builder (a person competent in the field of construction who carries out forensic analysis on a permanent basis) are explained.The question of whether the participants in the construction industry are ready to resolve their economic disputes in the pretrial order is considered. According to the authors this is obstructed by: persistent paternalism firmly entrenched in the minds of the disputing parties, traditional distrust to the mediator as not having the authority, the exhaustiveness of the parties’ desire for unquestionable victory in the dispute and not for a compromise the inefficiency of the defensive practice using concealment or falsification of information, etc.In conclusion, the authors note the current unreadiness of the construction industry parties to actively participate in out-of-court settlement of disputes as well as a positive tendency among the Russian builders to using civilized forms of industrial interaction and express the hope that mediation will take its rightful place in the segment of public relations under consideration.

Aid application multicriteria the decision based on AHP Method and Fuzzy Logic in commercial land selection

Abstract The objective of this article is to select land for commercial buildings in Rio de Janeiro city using multiple criteria decision-making techniques. The techniques used were based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Fuzzy Logic methods. These methods were chosen because of functionality, flexibility and great application in engineering problems for decision making involving multiple criteria. Its application was made through an opinion survey with expert builders, where 6 (six) factors for evaluation were selected in 10 (ten) commercial land alternatives. For the analytical operation of the methods, the software used were: Super Decisions and MATLAB®, respectively for each method, presenting the factors classified, in order of priority, in the selection of land, and ranking of the alternatives according to the defined scenario, facilitating in this way the process of selection of land for buildings, establishing a scientific way for the decision process.

It’s Time to Put Our Privileged Jewish Bodies on the Line

If we want to see an end to the Occupation, it’s time to put our privileged Jewish bodies on the line. That’s why hundreds of Jews from around the world will join with the Center for Jewish Nonviolence in the summer of 2017 to engage in civil disobedience and noncooperation with the unjust laws of 50 years of Occupation.After living in Jerusalem for seven years and seeing the daily discrimination against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank while Jewish Israeli life went on largely unperturbed, I knew something more than another educational forum or another policy paper was called for.The majority of the global Jewish world does not see the discrimination, segregation, and humiliation facing Palestinians living under the Occupation. But when Jews from America, Jews from Europe, Jews from Australia, and Jews from Israel stand together in solidarity with Palestinians, we will make the realities of the Occupation visible.When Israeli soldiers and settlers treat Jews from around the globe the same way they treat Palestinians—with arrest and suppression of nonviolent activism—the realities of the Occupation will be impossible to ignore. Why? Because while the global Jewish community is unable or unwilling to identify with Palestinians, they identify with us—because we are Jews.As we mark the shameful anniversary of 50 years of occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence has been invited by our Palestinian partners to join them on Freedom Summer-esque projects. Building a community cinema in the segregated city of Hebron—not because a bunch of Jews from L.A. are expert builders but because our presence deters Israeli security forces from coming down overly harshly on the Palestinians who are otherwise prevented from building. We’re invited to till the soil in the South Hebron Hills—not because a bunch of Jews from New York City are expert farmers, but because our presence deters the neighboring Israeli settlers from harassing the Palestinians and intimidating them from planting their fields. Just as it took the presence of white civil rights activists to step into the segregated South in the 1960s to shake the rest of America out of its complacency around segregation, so too will it take the presence of Jewish civil rights activists in the Palestinian Occupied Territories to open the eyes of the international Jewish community.As a practitioner of nonviolent direct action, I agree with Rabbi Lerner that diaspora Jews must free ourselves from our deference to a moribund diplomatic process. However, there is a second, equally important habit of thinking that we must confront and reconsider: our preoccupation with Jewish views to the exclusion of Palestinians who are actually living under Occupation. Any theory of change that centers only Jewish concerns and leadership is doomed to fail. Fifty years on, we must learn this lesson.Of course Palestinians are entitled to the right to vote for the government that controls their lives. The Israeli government must immediately recognize this right. At the same time, Jewish activists who hope to end the Occupation must stop trying to call the shots, and begin listening and deferring to the vibrant, nonviolent, grassroots movement for equality that already exists among Palestinians.If and when this movement calls for a one person, one vote campaign, the Center for Jewish Nonviolence will be there to provide every resource at our disposal. If the Palestinian nonviolent movement instead decides now is not the time for such a campaign, we will defer to their strategic choices. All Jewish activists hoping to participate meaningfully in ending the occupation should do the same.

A Multi-Criteria Decision Support System for the Selection of Low-Cost Green Building Materials and Components

The necessity of having an effective computer-aided decision support system in the housing construction industry is rapidly growing alongside the demand for green buildings and green building products. Identifying and defining financially viable low-cost green building materials and components, just like selecting them, is a crucial exercise in subjectivity. With so many variables to consider, the task of evaluating such products can be complex and discouraging. Moreover, the existing mode for selecting and managing, often very large information associated with their impacts constrains decision-makers to perform a trade-off analysis that does not necessarily guarantee the most environmentally preferable material. This paper introduces the development of a multi-criteria decision support system (DSS) aimed at improving the understanding of the principles of best practices associated with the impacts of low-cost green building materials and components. The DSS presented in this paper is to provide designers with useful and explicit information that will aid informed decision-making in their choice of materials for low-cost green residential housing projects. The prototype MSDSS is developed using macro-in-excel, which is a fairly recent database management technique used for integrating data from multiple, often very large databases and other information sources. This model consists of a database to store different types of low-cost green materials with their corresponding attributes and performance characteristics. The DSS design is illustrated with particular emphasis on the development of the material selection data schema, and application of the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) concept to a material selection problem. Details of the MSDSS model are also discussed including workflow of the data evaluation process. The prototype model has been developed with inputs elicited from domain experts and extensive literature review, and refined with feedback obtained from selected expert builder and developer companies. This paper further demonstrates the application of the prototype MSDSS for selecting the most appropriate low-cost green building material from among a list of several available options, and finally concludes the study with the associated potential benefits of the model to research and practice.

The Italian Mosaic: The Architect as Historian

Italy. The historic event took place after a lively debate that lasted more than half a century and revolved around questions regarding the roles of the engineer and the architect (as designers, state employees, and teachers) and around the recognition of their professional status. The debate had originated in 1859, at the time of the establishment of the Scuola di Applicazione per gli Ingegneri of Turin and the Istituto Tecnico Superiore of Milan, both of which were commonly called Politecnici and granted degrees in engineering and architecture. However, it was also possible to become architect by following the Corso Speciale Superiore of architecture at the already existing institutes and academies of fine arts. The same degree, therefore, was granted to people of two different educational backgrounds: one, technical and scientific, producing the civil architect of the Politecnici, the other artistic, producing the artist architect of the academies. The two types mirrored two distinct attitudes toward architecture. The first emphasized the technical aspect of buildings, the second their aesthetic appearance, often limited to the design of the faqade and of interiors. ' The intense debate among intellectuals, architects, and functionaries of the Ministry of Education at the turn of the nineteenth century was not so much about the value of one type of training over the other as it was about the need for a new professional category for the individual who was at the same time an expert builder . .. and a knowledgeable and imaginative artist,2 capable of working in architectural and artistic idiom that would define the national iden-

Structural-Geometrical Performance of Wide-Span Space Structures

The family of Space Structures presents a colourful comprehensive variety of building systems, enjoying spatial geometry to enhance structural performance. In general, space structures are designed to provide large free-span volumes for human activities such as sport, commerce, entertainment, culture, storage and military. Such structures have been designed and constructed for over 2,000 years by a large number of skillful architects and engineers as well as expert builders all over the world, using various spatial geometries, construction techniques and building materials. The propagation of building solutions and structural techniques calls for a scientific classification method of space structures according to their characteristics,- mainly their structural performance. Such a classification is essential in order to furnish designers with relevant information needed to select the most appropriate construction system for a specific project. As a first step towards reaching this goal, this paper provides a comparison of space structures structural performance in view of their self-weight per floor area in accordance with the obtained free-span. A structural-geometrical study of 240 modern structures was conducted, leading to an analysis of 32 structures of various construction methods. As a result, a comprehensive graph was evaluated, mapping various building systems and presenting an overview of their comparative structural performance.

Beginning computer-based modelling in primary schools

This paper describes an investigation of how children in primary schools can start to build their own models on a computer and what skills are inherent in this modelling process. The study focused on qualitative modelling using a rule-based expert system shell, Expert Builder, which made the knowledge structure and inference mechanism clearly visible to and manipulable by the user through a graphical user interface. The study was conducted within typical classroom contexts where pupils worked in groups on various activities. Towards the end of the study some of the pupils were able to structure and develop models without any help. An analysis of the pupils' activities was carried out using elements of learning taxonomies developed by Ennis, Kyllonen and Shute and Sternberg. A combination of the approaches of these three taxonomies enabled the clarification of specific modelling skills and general learning skills involved in modelling activities and provides one way of comparing modelling activities in terms of their component skills although it takes no account of the social interactions that also played an important part in the activities in this study. The national curriculum attainment target suggests that being able to build models on a computer is at attainment level 6 or 7 that is only likely to be reached by pupils over the age of 11. This study has shown that computer-based qualitative modelling can be successfully undertaken as collaborative group work by children aged 8–11.

World War II and the West: Reshaping the Economy by Gerald D. Nash

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 397 attempt to demonstrate the relationship between electricity usage and productivity growth through bar and pie charts that unnecessarily aggregate the data across time into “stages.” Such an approach cannot hope to do more than demonstrate a rough correlation between electricity use and productivity. It cannot demonstrate a causal relationship. That would require an analysis along the lines of the growth-accounting framework developed by Edward Denison and the National Bureau of Economic Research, or the use of a multivari­ ate econometric model that explicitly includes other factors. This will be a useful book for historians of technology interested in the role of electrification in a variety of industries. Many will be quite willing to overlook the book’s failure to meet its primary objective. John L. Neufeld Dr. Neufeld is associate professor of economics at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and has published several articles on the history of the electric utility industry. World, War II and the West: Reshaping the Economy. By Gerald D. Nash. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990. Pp. xiii + 288; illustra­ tions, notes, bibliography, index. $32.50. In World War II and the West, Gerald Nash explores the wartime development of industries in the Far West and their contributions to the emergence of a postwar U.S. economy that was far less dependent on the factories and the capital of the East. His focus is on groups of entrepreneurs who developed new methods of production and to­ gether with politicians and officials in Washington contributed to the formulation of public policy. Put into another perspective, Nash outlines the relatively brief industrial phase of the far western economy, which ended its colonial phase as a mere provider of raw materials for distant manufacturers, and the rise of a postindustrial economy of electronics, aerospace, research, and service industries. He aims at providing an overview by probing specific topics but does not cover agriculture and water policies. The author traces the transformations of the far western economy through the building of ships and airplanes to meet the enormous production quotas of the war mobilization. He emphasizes the con­ tributions of entrepreneurs, among them the well-known names of Kaiser, Bechtel, Douglas, and Hughes, for organizing assembly-line production, using prefabricated parts, increasing specialization, and creating research units. The discussion of these technological innovations is laced with references to changes in the entire workforce. Unskilled, or semi­ skilled, workers replaced craftsmen as the core of labor in the 398 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE emerging war industries. Expert builders, who had dominated pro­ duction, gave way to management experts, who in yet another way epitomized the transition from craft industries to mass production. While the division between ownership and management became complete, the enormous demands of the intensified war production sanctioned the novel practice that the rewards for skillful manage­ ment should match those for technological innovations. Nash’s assessment of the effect of these changes on workers is limited to a discussion of the search for laborers, the introduction of women workers into the industries, and the discrimination of western aircraft industry against blacks. The relationship between the entre­ preneurs and the federal government, as well as its various planning boards and investigative committees, receives considerable attention. Quite naturally, the emphasis on that interaction is strong in the sections of the study dealing with the mining, aluminum, magnesium, steel, and oil industries in the wartime West. In these areas of production, the demands of the war economy touched most directly on basic attitudes about the future of the West. The development of industries, the corporate threat to small business, the protection of finite resources, the urge to receive the full share of federal expenditures, the resurgence of western pride after the Depression—these and other issues made western interest groups the allies or adversaries of politicians, administrators, planners, and military men in Washington. Relatively free from controversy was the establishment of the many military facilities in western states (about $650 million of federal money went into the building of installations in Utah alone). An exception was the struggle over the War Depart­ ment’s Canol project intended to tap the...

Learning by building rule-based models

Computer based modelling offers opportunities for the enhancement of the learning environment. A study of teachers' perceptions of the types of modelling activities which they felt could be usefully undertaken by children suggested that many of the tasks fall in the category of qualitative models of logical reasoning. The Modus Project, a collaboration between the Advisory Unit for Microtechnology in Education, Hatfield and King's College, London has implemented a rule based expert system shell, Expert Builder, which makes the knowledge structure and inference mechanism clearly visible to, and manipulable by, the user through a graphical user interface. The shell has been widely tested by the educational institutions which have joined the Modus Club. Results of these investigations have led to an outline of a methodology for expert system modelling as a learning activity. It is hoped that this can be further developed and documented so that teachers can use it with their students and gradually enable the students to undertake more of the modelling process by themselves. The shell, with some minor modifications can be used for a variety of simple modelling activities and the project intends to extend these facilities by combining the environment provided in Expert Builder with that of another modelling environment, Model Builder which provides facilities for quantitative and dynamic modelling.