Suitable Project Research Articles

Project Delivery System Selection using the AHP Multi-Criteria Decision Making Method

This study aims to select the most suitable project delivery method for the implementation of construction projects in Iraq. The descriptive analytical approach was used to determine the importance of the criteria considered in this study, namely cost, project duration, and quality, according to owners, contractors, and consultants. A field study was used utilizing questionnaire survey and interviews to determine the degree of importance of these criteria. Then, data regarding 28 projects for the period from 2022 to 2024 were was collected to measure the performance of these criteria. Univariate data analyses were performed to assess the performance of Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) along with the deriving priority scales based on the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) theory. The results of the AHP indicate that the IPD system ranked first with a preference rate of 34.5%.

O Guarani: an acoustically suitable project for a new Opera House

Resumo O artigo apresenta a concepção de um projeto acústico para uma nova casa de ópera, denominada “O Guarani”, a ser implantada na capital federal, Brasília, com cerca de 1000 assentos. O foco principal do artigo é o condicionamento acústico da casa de ópera. São discutidos, inicialmente, os pressupostos básicos do ponto de escuta acústico que uma casa de ópera demanda. Os principais condicionantes, como o tempo de reverberação, devem contemplar tanto a música como a fala, o que é uma característica típica de uma casa do gênero. Definidos os materiais a serem utilizados e a concepção arquitetônica, parte-se, em seguida, para uma simulação computacional acústica, visando a determinação de parâmetros de qualidade acústica, como T 20, C 80 e D 50, para receptores distribuídos na plateia e balcões. Esses parâmetros se mostraram satisfatórios para o uso a que se destina o teatro proposto. Na sequência, é elaborada uma aurilização. Esta é preparada para uma ária da ópera “Don Giovanni”, de Mozart, a partir de uma gravação anecoica de uma soprano, interpretando o personagem D. Elvira, e dez instrumentos musicais acompanhantes. O resultado da aurilização - disponível em um link - parece evidenciar a boa qualidade sonora obtida pelo projeto acústico proposto.

Promoting Effect of Art Design Competition on Teaching Reform of Visual Communication Design Specialty

The art and design competition has brought more practical project experience to graphic communication design. Traditional design education often focuses on teaching theoretical knowledge and basic skills, while practical business projects and design challenges are rarely introduced into the classroom. This paper will introduce the basic concepts and characteristics of art design competition and its application in teaching visual communication design. Through the case analysis of various art and design competitions, we can see how these competitions stimulate students’ innovative thinking, improve students’ design skills, and help students establish professional design concepts. Art and design competitions can not only improve students’ design skills but also help teachers understand the latest trends in the industry. Suggestions have been put forward on how to better utilize art and design competitions to enhance professional level. These suggestions include how to choose a suitable competition project, how to organize and guide students to participate in the competition, and how to transform the results of the competition into teaching resources. Art and design competitions help improve students’ practical abilities and innovative thinking. Compared to traditional teaching methods, art and design competitions place more emphasis on practice and innovation. During the competition, students need to apply their theoretical knowledge, combine it with practical needs, unleash innovative thinking, and complete works with practical application value. This form of competition can encourage students to transform theoretical knowledge into practical abilities, cultivate their innovative thinking and problem-solving abilities.

The 59th Annual Meeting of the Society for Low Temperature Biology, 20-22 September 2023, Vigo, Spain

Involving patients and their tissues in the research pathway is crucial for future heath innovations. There are many challenges including sustainability, logistical organisation whilst maintaining robust ethical oversight. For over a decade, TAPb has developed to become a research infrastructure to facilitate patient-centric studies across the research pipeline (from bench science, translation to human tissue and the sample component of interventional clinical trials). The TAPb platform groups researchers across academic, commercial and clinical trial sectors, and clinical services. This spreads the costs of the core team, and introduces capacity to provide specialised research services in an incremental way. TAPb is a not-for-profit, full cost recovery model that has been implemented across 7 patient clinical services within the Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust. It supports an office of 6 fulltime staff, complemented by a number (currently about 7) part-time staff, to reflect the fluctuations in research demand. The researcher journey starts with TAPb linking NHS standard of care and research requirements to aid study design and feasibility. TAPb then provides suitable ethics and project management to develop timescales and delivery methodologies according to evolving research requirements, throughout the delivery phase. Samples and link-anonymised clinical data, and disease interpretation is provided to place samples in the correct research context. This presentation will provide an overview of the important steps which TAPb office have learnt which can make the infrastructure sustainable. Some examples of the significant research impact will be given as an illustration.

Herding cats: integrative leadership strategies in inter- and transdisciplinary research programs

This paper focuses on the critical role of integrative leadership in inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) research programs. ITD programs have become one of academia’s responses to address contemporary sustainability challenges. Fulfilling the promise of such programs is extraordinarily challenging for all involved participants, but especially for program leaders who have to ensure that the perspectives of the involved program participants become truly integrated and that final and useful synthesis outputs are created. We present six core leadership challenges and respective strategies to address them to advance integration within ITD programs. These challenges include (1) mastering complexity and ambiguity, (2) advancing decision-making with lateral leadership, (3) ensuring responsibility and accountability, (4) setting program boundaries, (5) selecting suitable projects, and (6) dealing with misconceptions. We derived these challenges and respective strategies from both leading and studying in-depth three ITD programs focusing on sustainability issues in Switzerland. With this paper, we intend to promote awareness about the range of leadership challenges in ITD programs and provide actionable knowledge, which can support in particular fellow and future leaders, but also funders and heads of research institutions in their efforts to realize the integrative potential of such programs.Graphical abstractImage 1: © Eawag: Lisa Deutsch & Sabine Hoffmann; Stückelberger Cartoons: Christof Stückelberger, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

A readiness assessment model for human systems management digitalization in industrial organizations

ABSTRACT Human systems management (HSM) in organizations must invest in digitization to remain competitive. Even though there is no denying digitalization is essential for modern industrial organizations, the success of digitalization projects is rarely contingent on chance. HSM digitalization requires more than just technology. It also requires leadership, people, strategy, innovation, and process readiness. Organizations must select the most suitable digitalization project to initiate the transition and begin by increasing and monitoring readiness for a successful transition. A practical approach to a successful transition begins with increasing and monitoring readiness. The literature suggests a lack of analytical assessment models for HSM digitalization readiness in industrial organizations, especially for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This research presents a framework with the general best-worst method (GBWM) to examine decision criteria and help organizations, particularly SMEs, choose the most effective digitalization strategy. A case study demonstrates the applicability and efficacy of the proposed method in assessing HSM digitalization readiness in SMEs.

Economic and Institutional Factors Influencing the Selection of Project Delivery Models for Built Heritage Conservation in India

ABSTRACT Selecting a suitable project delivery method is one of the most critical decisions responsible for project success in heritage conservation. This is an area where projects have greater uncertainties and governance issues in comparison to other building projects. India has a huge inventory of built heritage sites, but the heritage conservation sector is highly fragmented, with a wide range of project delivery methods. This paper discusses the selection of project delivery in the Indian context, using the theoretical lenses of agency theory, transaction cost economics (TCE), and institution theory. A conceptual framework has been proposed to explain the selection based on economical and institutional constructs. Our conclusion is that when institutional factors are weak, projects are executed departmentally or through non-priced contracts. In contrast, strong institutional forces discourage non-priced contracts and replace them with priced contracts.

Decision-Making for Project Delivery System in Construction Projects Based on SWARA-TOPSIS Methods

The owner of construction projects often faces difficulty choosing the appropriate project delivery system. The construction project’s owner must choose a suitable project delivery system throughout the project's early decision-making stages. This choice greatly impacts the success of the project. This paper aims to construct a method for project delivery decisions. This method can provide a reference for the owner to select the proper project delivery system. This research described the factors affecting the decision about the project delivery method through a literature review. These factors were categorized into eight groups: scope, time, quality, cost, risk and relationships, owner organization, project characteristics, and external environmental factors. Then, a combined methodology of Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) and Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) are proposed for project delivery system selection. The SWARA is used to determine the factors’ weights. The TOPSIS technique determines the rank of the alternatives proposed for the delivery system in the various categories. The results showed the most significant factors related to the cost with a weight of 0.335, and the design-build is the closest to the ideal solution and ranked first among the other suggested project delivery systems with a relative closeness of 0.829. This paper stipulates the basis for such a process of decision-making.

A hybrid approach to resolve ambiguity in new product development

Improving technological innovation (TI) capabilities is an integral component of government policies aimed at improving the competitiveness of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). This study aims to address implementation challenges arising from the use of Qualitative Forecasting Method (QFM) in new product development programs and proposes a novel method to aid decision makers (DMs) in their decision-making process. To tackle this issue, a hybrid method is proposed, incorporating Fuzzy Delphi method (FDM), Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP), Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to an Ideal Solution (TOPSIS), and Multi-Choice Goal Programming with utility function (MCGP-U), while introducing prospect theory as a novel approach. is proposed. The proposed method offers several advantages, including effective early planning, accurate identification of key success factors (KSFs), selection of the most suitable project leader, and estimation of the most reasonable resource investment, all of which are critical factors for success in TI for enterprises. The research results show that (1) the proposed method reduces project execution time by 20% compared to the original manual planning, (2) it facilitates the acquisition of KSFs using a rational approach to ensure project success, and (3) it increases the financial returns of the company by 17% compared to the company’s forecast. In summary, this paper makes a significant contribution to practical applications and additionally contributes to decision-making field by introducing prospect theory into the proposed hybrid method.

Design of a Multitask and Terrestrial Robot Challenge for Course Project of Intelligent Robots

Robotics is a highly practical, multidisciplinary, and rapidly developing field of study which lies at the intersection of computer science, automatic control, mechanical engineering, and materials science, as well as other disciplines. Designing a suitable yet challenging robotics course project is incredibly important and beneficial for teaching the subject effectively. Carrying out a practical robotics project helps students consolidate their knowledge and connect concepts across disparate areas of computer science and mechatronics engineering as they design and develop an integrated robotic system. Additionally, a practical project helps deepen a student’s understanding of how recent ground-breaking results in Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be implemented in a real robotic system. This paper provides an overview of a project for the Intelligent Robots graduate course. In the proposed course project, each team programs a small-scale humanoid robot to carry out a multi-task robot challenge on a terrestrial map. The course project is organized into a series of milestones, each of which is related to the corresponding module of the robot (e.g., joint motion, visual servoing, etc.). The students’ performance in the course project over the past three years has been summarized and reviewed. The evaluation results and the student feedback show that the proposed course project is interesting and engaging, and provides the students with a comprehensive opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge in robotics, as well as to implement the findings of contemporary research in AI, to a real robotic system.

Enhancing Project Selection with Neutrosophic TOPSIS: Navigating Uncertainty in Post-Pandemic Decision-Making

This article explores the implementation of Neutrosophic TOPSIS, an advanced decision-making framework that extends classical and fuzzy set theories to handle the complexities of project selection amid uncertainty and indeterminacy. Neutrosophic sets are characterized by three parameters: truth, indeterminacy, and falsehood, which allow for a nuanced assessment of alternatives against defined criteria. Utilizing neutrosophic scales and expert evaluations, this method prioritizes projects by efficiently balancing multiple truth levels and addressing specific challenges such as judicial process optimization and labor education enhancement. The case study within the article demonstrates the application of Neutrosophic TOPSIS to select the most suitable project for improving labor relations and judicial efficiency in a post-pandemic world. The methodology proved effective in identifying the Digital Platform for Labor Education project as the optimal solution, given its alignment with strategic objectives and potential to handle identified challenges robustly. Future work could integrate Neutrosophic TOPSIS with other decision-making models and expand its application to more complex scenarios, potentially incorporating automated tools for a broader and more dynamic evaluation process.

TOWARDS THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECOTOURISM IN THE OULED-NAIL MOUNTAINS: A CASE STUDY OF THE DJELFA MUNICIPALITY IN ALGERIA

Algeria's tourism sector plays a critical role in its economy, especially as the country faces an economic crisis due to its reliance on fossil fuels. However, despite its potential, the tourism industry has remained limited to coastal and desert tourism in the north and south, respectively. Therefore, diversifying the tourism product by exploring inland regions is necessary to restore regional balance and create geographical homogeneity. Djelfa, a city located in the central highlands of the Atlas Mountains, offers unique natural resources and cultural heritage, making it an ideal destination for ecotourism. This study evaluates the potential of Djelfa for tourism planning purposes, using scientific documentation, field survey techniques, and analytical methods like SWOT analysis. In addition, a survey was conducted amongst tourists to collect their opinions on the city's attraction characteristics. The data was processed using principal component analysis (PCA) in SPSS software. The study emphasizes the importance of tourism planning in the area and proposes suitable tourism projects for ecotourism and investment in the Senelba forest site. These projects will positively influence the environment, local population, and lead to real development at the local and national levels while preserving the area's cultural and natural heritage.

An Integrated Neutrosophic Approach for the Urban Energy Internet Assessment under Sustainability Dimensions


 The urgent issue of climate change has resulted in an increasing preoccupation with the transition to low-carbon energy. The urban energy internet (UEI) enables the efficient utilization of renewable energy via the integration of contemporary energy grids, smart energy services, and cyber-physical systems. Consequently, the assessment of urban energy is vital for the construction of low-carbon cities. This study intends to provide an integrated decision-making approach for addressing assessment challenges related to UEI, with a focus on sustainability. The introduced approach adopts the opinions of three experts to express their opinions through semantic terms in evaluating sustainability factors and evaluating UEI projects. Determining the most suitable project for sustainable UEI is a difficult task. In addition, there are multiple sustainability dimensions, including: economic, social, technical, environmental and resource dimension. This paper presents an integrated approach through which experts can use semantic terms to express their opinions to evaluate the priorities of sustainability dimensions that affect the sustainability of UEI projects. Therefore, this study applies a hybrid multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) approach that takes into account multiple dimensions. Also, the uncertainty in the study is handled by type 2 neutrosophic numbers (T2NNs). Initially, the CRiteria Importance through Inter-criteria Correlation (CRITIC) method was used to determine the relative importance of the sustainability dimensions used in the study. Also, the evaluation based on distance from average solution (EDAS) method was used to rank the selected alternatives. The results indicate that the technical dimension is the most important with a weight of 0.384. Finally, a sensitivity analysis was conducted to prove the validity and reliability of the developed framework with differences in weights.

Project portfolio management in telecommunication company: A stage-gate approach for effective portfolio governance

In today's fast-paced business environment, implementing strategies through programs, projects, and business-as-usual activities can be challenging for companies. The telecommunication industry, in particular, faces these challenges as it experiences the effects of digital transformation and fast-changing markets. It requires a flexible and adaptive approach to project portfolio management (PPM) to optimize investments and deliver value. This article presents a successful case study of a PPM process using the Stage-Gate model in a prominent telecommunications company that operates in a dynamic and fast-growing environment. The Stage-Gate PPM model comprises four stages: Proposal Selection, Selection of Nominated Demands, Prioritization, and Categorization of Projects. The model is unique as it can be adapted to different projects and incorporates elements of Agile approaches, such as Portfolio Sprint meetings and artefacts. The study demonstrates the importance of a well-defined PPM process in coordinating short-term and long-term activities and effectively allocating time, money, and resources. The Stage-Gate PPM model can potentially enhance project success rates and bring greater value to companies by ensuring the realization of suitable projects. This article contributes significantly to the existing literature on portfolio management, providing valuable insights and lessons applicable to other companies in the industry to enhance their portfolio management processes. Furthermore, this study can interest scholars and researchers seeking to explore effective portfolio management in other complex and dynamic environments.

The Neglected Remains of the Royal Citadel of Messina, Sicily: A Proposal for a Suitable Conservation and Re-Use Project

Neglected and abandoned heritage sites are a complex research topic, which always requires a thorough understanding of the site’s past and current condition. This article examines how research on history, architecture, and participation can contribute to creating a suitable re-use project for such heritage sites, focusing on a single case study: the Royal Citadel of Messina, Italy. Within the field of history, the city and fortification’s past underscores the importance of the site’s architectural and historical value. An urban analysis and documentation campaign were carried out during the field architecture. The urban analysis focused on the site as a remarkable natural landscape with industrial surroundings. The digital documentation, concentrating on the so-called cistern, emphasized the site’s values. Within a revalorization process, community participation is vital and is, therefore, one of the suggestions to consider in further developments. The last applied method is a comparative case study, namely, the submarine base at Saint-Nazaire, France. Considering the complexity and fragilities of the site, a framework is designed that provides suggestions for the conservation, revalorization, and re-use of the site of the Royal Citadel.

Integrative review of project portfolio management ranking criteria - understanding better the decision-making process

Project portfolio management (PPM) relies on rankings of projects, which can be challenging due to the many factors and people involved. Project prioritization is essential when a business works on multiple projects simultaneously (whether the projects are wholly independent or interdependent). Managing the projects already in the company’s portfolio and selecting new ones to add to the portfolio are among the essential tasks for many companies. The organization must prioritize the proper initiatives within its diversity to attain its goals and objectives. The ranking approach is a way to prioritize the projects by placing them in order from most important to least important by assigning each task a rating based on a set of criteria. These can be very diverse and depend on many factors, such as different financial and non-financial impacts). This study aims to provide a comprehensive assessment of the existing literature on studies in project portfolio management ranking, focusing on the ranking criteria employed and identifying the journals that published the papers we selected for this analysis. Before ranking, it is necessary to specify which criteria are most relevant to suit the organization’s goals. This research presents the main applicable criteria for ranking project portfolios and their sub-criteria to understand the potential of PPM better, leading to selecting more suitable and valuable projects for the organization. Based on this review, exploring the criteria used for the process, identifying the possibilities for their application, and gaining further knowledge of them enable better portfolio management for the company.

Proposed Project Selection & Prioritization Framework during Front-End Planning (FEP) for Revitalization Project Portfolio at Indonesian Oil Refinery Plant

Abstract— Due to their aging, refinery facilities face the threat of suffering from incidents and accidents. Even fatal injury may be caused if running without proper maintenance planning. The revitalization project is performed intended to replace, repair, or increase production capacity at an existing refinery. Like other projects in the construction sector, the revitalization project tends to experience the same common flaws in their performance; project delay, cost overrun, scope creeping, operational mishaps, and canceled or stopped. The best time for a project to experience idea development, conduct scope changes, prepare excellent project engineering, etc., is at the Front-end Planning stage. This paper focused on project selection and prioritization at the Front-end Planning. The focus is then zoomed in to the sub-stage of Front-end Planning (initiation, conceptual, and basic engineering design). The aim is to eliminate the infeasible and unpromising projects that cannot meet the requirement. This focus is necessary before more resources are expended, which can ignite catastrophic events in the organization, primarily financial.The literature reviews have been done on the references to develop a comprehensive framework that decomposes the front-end planning into three sub-phases, providing the platform for project selection in each stage with its different focus and objectives. The new framework is proposed emphasizing the gate review and decision gates for those three sub-stages under the Front-end planning phase. The framework also provides the windows of having different selection criteria at each stage; hence the proper criteria will be efficiently used at the right time. Project proposals must go through a prioritization process since the organization's resource is not unlimited. Project proposals would experience the evaluation and selection as an individual project and, at a subsequent level, would be evaluated as part of the project proposals pool where the Project Management Office will prioritize the suitable projects worth execution.

Probabilistic cost-based decision-making matrix: IDIQ vs. DBB contracting

Public departments of transportation (DOTs) are increasingly adopting alternative contracting methods (ACMs), such as Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) agreements, to shorten project delivery and increase scheduling flexibility. However, the challenge remains to decide when an IDIQ contract would offer better value for money in a project compared to the conventional Design-Bid-Build (DBB) method. This paper proposes an IDIQ project selection framework that incorporates expected construction costs to identify suitable candidate projects. Historical bid data, an alternate cost indexing system, nonlinear regression analysis, and the Monte Carlo simulation technique are used to create and compare IDIQ and DBB probabilistic construction cost estimates. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of the framework using a single-award IDIQ granted through the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MnDOT) and past bidding information for projects awarded between January 2008 and April 2015. Additionally, the paper acknowledges the limitations of the study, including its reliance on MnDOT data, the exclusion of non-cost factors, and the assumption of project homogeneity. The study also provides valuable recommendations for future research to address these limitations and enhance the understanding and practical implementation of IDIQ contracting in the construction industry.

Relevance of the Microbiota on Ocular Diseases: A Bibliometric and Citation Network Analysis

Background: This study aimed to analyze the relevance of different publications about microbiota on ocular diseases and their authors through a citation network analysis. In addition, the different research areas and the most cited publications have been identified. Methods: The bibliographic search was carried out through the Web of Science (WOS) database, using the following search term: “microbiota AND (vision OR eye OR visual)” for the period between 1995 and December 2022. The Citation Network Explorer and the CiteSpace software have been used to analyze the different publications. Results: 705 publications were found in the field of microbiota on ocular diseases, together with 1014 citation networks. The year 2022 was the year with more publications. The first authors with the highest number of publications in the microbiota on the ocular surface field were Chisari G, Chisari CG, and Li Y. This field is multidisciplinary, highlighting “microbiology” and “ophthalmology” as the main research areas. Publications were clustered into three main groups allowing the identification of the main research topics in this field. The principal was the composition and diversity of the bacterial community on the ocular surface of patients with several pathologies. Conclusion: It could be useful for researchers to choose suitable collaborators or projects to promote their research on the role of microbiota on ocular diseases, as well as to know the main research topics that are of major interest today.

Financial Analysis on Guangzhou Automobile Group

In the modern market, being an investment manager requires the ability to select suitable projects. In another words, he or she needs to have a thorough understanding of the selected company. By analyzing a company's profitability and its performance in the market, the investment manager can effectively select projects with more promising development prospects. Taking Guangzhou Automobile Group as an example, this paper briefly explains the process of valuing a company, which some investors can follow when looking at other projects. This paper first introduces the basic situation of this company and analyzes the basic market information of the same track company. Then, this paper analyzes the operation of this company and evaluates it with its competitors. The data analysis shows that the company needs to take measures to improve liquidity. Finally, this paper presents this company's vision and operational plan for the future. In addition, it may help investors understand the process of selecting and evaluating a company.