Today's Projects Research Articles

Inconsistency Management in Heterogeneous Models - An Approach for the Identification of Model Dependencies and Potential Inconsistencies

AbstractIn today's engineering projects, interdisciplinary work leads to an increase in interfaces between different departments and domains. As each stakeholder pursues different goals and tasks, a heterogeneous model landscape is required. In each domain, a variety of different model and software implementations provide the essential basis for efficient work. On the interfaces, the risk of model inconsistencies increases. To handle occurring inconsistencies, various approaches have been presented. For model-based systems engineering projects, rule-based methods are considered as the most suitable technique. However, said approaches require a high manual effort in identifying model dependencies and establishing consistency rules. Unfortunately, in particular these steps are not well described and supported. Therefore, this paper presents an easily applicable approach for the identification of model dependencies in interdisciplinary projects. The method is supported by a software implementation and is directly integrated in engineering workflows. A first industrial case study has shown positive effects of the approach and revealed further research goals.

Influence of structural design variations on economic viability of offshore wind turbines: An interdisciplinary analysis

Offshore wind energy is a seminal technology to achieve the goals set for renewable energy deployment. However, today's offshore wind energy projects are mostly not yet sufficiently competitive. The optimization of offshore wind turbine substructures with regard to costs and reliability is a promising approach to increase competitiveness. Today, interdisciplinary analyses considering sophisticated engineering models and their complex economic effects are not widespread. Existing approaches are deterministic. This research gap is addressed by combining an aero-elastic wind turbine model with an economic viability model for probabilistic investment analyses. The impact of different monopile designs on the stochastic cost-efficiency of an offshore wind farm is investigated. Monopiles are varied with regard to diameters and wall thicknesses creating designs with increased lifetimes but higher capital expenditures (durable designs) and vice versa (cheaper designs). For each substructure, the aero-elastic wind turbine model yields distributions for the fatigue lifetime and electricity yield and different capital expenditures, which are applied to the economic viability model. For other components, e.g. blades, constant lifetimes and costs are assumed. The results indicate that the gain of increased stochastic lifetimes exceeds the benefit of reduced initial costs, if the overall lifetime is not governed by other turbine components' lifetimes.

Cənub qaz dəhlizinin enerji resurslarının şaxələndirilməsində mühüm yeri

Today's large-scale trans-national projects, such as TANAP, TAP, segments of the Southern Gas Corridor segments selected by their geopolitical and economic importance, have been successfully implemented by the initiative of Azerbaijan, with the "Contract of the Century" signed on the initiative of Heydar Aliyev is a logical continuation of the larger oil strategy.

Modeling project criticality in IT project portfolios

Today's IT project portfolios (ITPP) contain many projects and varied interdependencies. Depending on a project's criticality to the ITPP, a failure can have massive consequences. However, existing methods usually only assess overall project portfolio risk and do not account for the criticality of single projects and their dependencies. Applying Bayesian network modeling to ITPPs, we bridge this gap and extend the current body of knowledge for the information systems and project management literatures. Our new method analyzes single projects' criticality in a portfolio context by considering both transitive dependencies and different dependency types in an integrated way. Since we demonstrate that single projects' criticality can vary substantially, being aware of which projects are critical is a key success factor for ITPP management. For practitioners, our method provides a straightforward procedure to enhance ITPP risk management.

Transient Heterogeneous Electromagnetic Simulation With DGTD and Behavioral Macromodel

A novel hybrid field-circuit simulation method is proposed for transient heterogeneous electromagnetic simulations. It adopts the discontinuous Galerkin time domain (DGTD) method and behavioral macromodel trained by artificial neural network to analyze the electromagnetic structure and circuit network, respectively. Due to the feature of DGTD method and behavioral macromodel, the proposed method can handle not only electromagnetic structures with complex geometries and materials but also manage circuits with unknown internal details. It provides a new approach that has the trainable accuracy to meet today's IP projection requestions. It is also the first time for DGTD algorithm to work with the behavior model. Numerical examples have been benchmarked to demonstrate the capability of the proposed method.

Dadaism (Re)activated. Artzins and Dada

The article analyses in what way artzins (independent art and literary journals published in Poland in the 1980s and 1990s) drew inspiration from the Dada tradition, and how they made its philosophy live again. Artzins are seen here both as a medium of literature and art and as specific forms of artistic expression (press art). The article attempts to show why artzins and their authors were interested in reviving the avant-garde and Dada ideas. It also investigates how Dadaism functions today in the form of contemporary works and styles which are influenced by this avant-garde movement. What is more, the article tries to answer the question about the nature and definition of Dadaism shaped and reflected by today's artistic projects.

The practical use of inconsistency information in engineering design tasks - first observations

Today's product development projects require collaboration across different engineering domains in order to be successful. For instance, a project may require software engineers to collaborate with electrical engineers and mechanical engineers. Even though engineers of different domains focus on different parts of the system-under-development, these parts typically cannot work in isolation. Therefore, coordination among these engineers is necessary to ensure that the individual parts of a system work together well when combined. The lack of such coordination leads to inconsistencies and hence the inability to integrate individual parts of the system. Even though approaches for finding such inconsistencies have been developed, it has yet to be shown whether the presentation of inconsistencies is of actual value to engineers. In this paper, we present the results of a practical experiment that assessed the effects of the presence of inconsistent information during development. The results indicate that specific feedback about inconsistency (when performing changes) leads to better engineering results than merely presenting general information about system interconnections.

The practical use of inconsistency information in engineering design tasks - first observations

Today's product development projects require collaboration across different engineering domains in order to be successful. For instance, a project may require software engineers to collaborate with electrical engineers and mechanical engineers. Even though engineers of different domains focus on different parts of the system-under-development, these parts typically cannot work in isolation. Therefore, coordination among these engineers is necessary to ensure that the individual parts of a system work together well when combined. The lack of such coordination leads to inconsistencies and hence the inability to integrate individual parts of the system. Even though approaches for finding such inconsistencies have been developed, it has yet to be shown whether the presentation of inconsistencies is of actual value to engineers. In this paper, we present the results of a practical experiment that assessed the effects of the presence of inconsistent information during development. The results indicate that specific feedback about inconsistency (when performing changes) leads to better engineering results than merely presenting general information about system interconnections.

Discursive construction of Lithuania's “others:” the case of Belarus

This article analyzes discursive representations of Lithuania and of Belarus as Lithuania's “Other” in the context of the recent political crisis in Ukraine. Focusing on the media discourse of Lithuanian intellectuals regarding the historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania (GDL) and its legacy, it examines how Belarus and its role vis-à-vis Lithuania have been depicted. The analysis is informed by the discourse-historical approach within critical discourse analysis, using thematic content and argumentation schemes for studying the images ascribed to the GDL, Belarus, and Lithuania in the selected texts. Focus in the discourse of intellectuals on the GDL as a historical homeland is found to shift from history as a scholarly endeavor to the politics of history and the uses of the past in today's political projects. Belarus and the GDL emerge as topics not only historically and politically salient but also potentially dangerous for Lithuania within the setting of the events in Ukraine.

A Hybrid Transport Concept for the Material Supply of a Modular Manufacturing Environment

Today's research projects propose a modular manufacturing environment for automotive production sites, which adapt itself autonomously and makes manufacturing decisions without the need of human interaction. Tugger trains are an energy-efficient possibility to handle intralogistics material supply due to the bundling of transport volumes but reaches its limits in the proposed automotive manufacturing environments. The spatial nearness of the production units and the necessity of a high-frequented and small-scaled supply lead to the application of small-scaled autonomous transport entities. The main disadvantage of this technology in turn is a higher intralogistics traffic. Therefore, the concluded concept of this paper connects the advantages of both technologies.

The Role of Task Uncertainty in IT Project Team Advice Networks

ABSTRACTAdvice seeking is often the most critical success factor in today's IT project teams. To understand how advice seekers are motivated, we integrate the antecedents of advice seeking—as defined by network theory (Granovetter, 1983)—into a cost/benefit model based on expectancy theory (Vroom, 1964). To contribute to the research on advice network formation, we integrate the role of task uncertainty—one of the defining characteristics of IT projects—into that research (Wallace & Keil, 2004). Based on a controlled quasi‐experiment, this study demonstrates that when task uncertainty is low, individuals with attractive personalities and similar demographics will be sought out for advice more frequently, regardless of their knowledge and resources (i.e., the benefits to the advice seekers). However, when task uncertainty is high, individuals with greater knowledge and access to resources are sought out more often in an advice network. These results provide clarity to prior research that has found mixed results concerning the effectiveness of the traditional antecedents to advice seeking (e.g., knowledge, power, and transactive memory) (e.g., Xu, Kim, & Kankanhalli, 2010a). In addition, project managers may choose to alter their team structure in order to optimize the advice network based on the anticipated level of IT project risk or task uncertainty.

Quasi3D Inversion of Airborne EM Data

Full 3D inversion of AEM data is not generally available to minerals explorers because of limitations in current algorithms and computer resources. Consequently we must resort to approximations to full 3D AEM inversion to support today's exploration projects. One form of approximation is to reduce the dimensionality of the inverse problem from 3D to 1D and while layered earth inversion has proven fast and effective in practice, it has limitations in 3D environments. To address these limitations we propose a physically motivated approximate 3D AEM inversion: Quasi3D inversion. Full 3D EM inversion requires calculation of the 3D induced current in the earth whereas the Quasi3D approximation is based on a full 3D inversion but with a simplified, approximate, induced current flow in the earth. We demonstrate the Quasi3D approximation by comparing its response over the interface of a quarter-space model with the full AEM response, and then demonstrate Quasi3D inversion on a challenging synthetic model and on field data. From our work we conclude that the Quasi3D approximation is an effective and efficient approximation which should aid in the interpretation of AEM data for today's exploration projects.

The data acquisition system for a fixed target experiment at NICA complex at JINR and its connection to the ATLAS TileCal readout electronics

Today's large-scale science projects have always encountered challenges in processing large data flow from the experiments, the ATLAS detector records proton-proton collisions provided by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN every 50 ns which results in a total data flow of 10 Pb/s. These data must be reduced to the science data product for further analysis, thus a very fast decisions need to be executed, to modify this large amounts of data at high rates. The capabilities required to support this scale of data movement is development and improvement of high-throughput electronics. The upgraded LHC will provide collisions at rates that will be at least 10 times higher than those of today due to it's luminosity by 2022. This will require a complete redesign of the read-out electronics and Processing Units (PU) in the Tile-calorimeter (TileCal) of the ATLAS experiment. A general purpose, high-throughput PU has been developed for the TileCal at CERN, by using several ARM-processors in cluster configuration. The PU is capable of handling large data throughput and apply advanced operations at high rates. This system has been proposed for the fixed target experiment at NICA complex to handle the first level processes and event building. The aim of this work is to have a look at the architecture of the data acquisition system (DAQ) of the fixed target experiment at the NICA complex at JINR, by compiling the data-flow requirements of all the subcomponents. Furthermore, the VME DAQ modules characteristics to control, triggering and data acquisition will be described in order to define the DAQ with maximum readout efficiency, no dead time and data selection and compression.

Construction techniques in nineteenth-century Greece and their impact on today's restoration projects

Nineteenth-century architecture is characterised by its emphasis on form. That was particularly intense in Greece, due to the strong ideological context. According to this, the newly independent State should reconnect with the glorious past of classical antiquity. As a result, the resemblance of new buildings to classical models was more important than technical perfection. That conviction often counterbalanced the absence of the latest achievements in construction techniques that had taken place since the Industrial Revolution, since their introduction in Greece was slow, due to financial problems, but also due to the country's geographical isolation from the industrialised countries. The above particularities can be testified not only through field observation, but are also documented by archival sources. This results in buildings with important construction deficiencies, which pose major problems in their restoration. This essay gives examples of related nineteenth-century documents and of today's restoration projects that had to deal with those problems.

An Sna-Bi Based System for Evaluating Virtual Teams: A Software Development Project Case

The dependence of today's collaborative projects on knowledge acquisition and information dissemination emphasizes the importance of minimizing communication breakdowns. However, as organizations are increasingly relying on virtual teams to deliver better and faster results, communication issues come to the forefront of project managers' concerns. This is particularly palpable in software development projects which are increasingly virtual and knowledge-consuming as they require continuous generation and upgrade of shared information and knowledge. In a previous work, we proposed an SNA-BI based system (Covirtsys) that supplements the Analytics modules of the collaborative platform in order to offer a complementary analysis of communication flows through a network perspective. This paper concerns the application of this system on a software development project virtual team and shows how it can bring new insights that could help overcome communication issues among team members.

Does Involving Users in Software Development Really Influence System Success?

Researchers have studied how best to involve users in software development for a long time, primarily in the area of information systems and human-computer interaction. The authors consider the effects of both user participation and user involvement, which they abbreviate to UPI. Existing research describes several benefits of UPI, such as improved quality due to more precise requirements, the prevention of unneeded and expensive features, and an increase in user satisfaction, which leads to higher system use. But even though some researchers consider it to be essential to system success, other studies have found contradicting results. Furthermore, it's not a common practice in today's IT projects to involve users to a large extent. To clarify UPI's effects on system success and to get a deeper understanding of the differences between user participation and user involvement, the authors reviewed the existing UPI literature in software development and conducted a systematic mapping study.

Honoring complexity

PurposeMost micro‐oriented research has assumed that leaders operate within a formally designed, pre‐specified and stable structural hierarchy. In the emerging knowledge economy, however, the watchwords have become flexibility and speed. Today's business practices feature temporary task forces, project teams, joint ventures, and alliances. The authors aim to draw from the political science literature, presenting methodology for examining team leadership in context that augments and enhances the analyses that can be obtained with commonly used correlational/regression models.Design/methodology/approachMore specifically, the authors will develop a detailed analysis of the potential applicability of the set‐theoretic approach for elucidating a configural analysis of team leadership, demonstrating that this method provides insight into the data that complements that provided by regression analysis.FindingsThe authors examine the findings from more traditional approaches to analysis, and set‐theoretic analysis, and demonstrate that set‐theoretic analysis provides additional insights into the phenomena in question.Research limitations/implicationsThe possibilities for future research in the organizational leadership literature using set‐theoretic analysis are endless. The method is appropriate for theory development, theory confirmation, exploration, and more. Our current theoretical models are lacking in complexity, partly due to the limitations of existing methodology, and our advice to organizations would be significantly enriched were we able to establish that there are alternate means to the desired outcome, based on the context. Set‐theoretic methodology promises to enrich and enhance our field, particularly if we use it iteratively with the currently common methodologies, to develop richer and more contextually based theories.Originality/valueSet‐theoretic methods may well provide an additional set of tools for better understanding leadership in the context in which it occurs.

The System Engineering of Interfaces

AbstractThis course is designed for systems engineering practitioners with some practical experience of requirements specification and / or integration. Some previous experience handling interfaces is desirable, but not essential. If you are newly transferred into systems engineering, this training will provide you with the structure and fundamental skills required to grow in your role. It will also work well as a refresher with challenging exercises for those that are well established as a design authority or systems engineering manager. Unresolved interface issues, and mishandling of interface requirements, are huge cost drivers in today's complex system projects. More than just running through a standard process, the thinking behind best practice and cost avoidance is explained. The course capitalizes as much as possible on the instructors' real‐life experience and from delegates' experiences. It incorporates group work to demonstrate the practices and the difficulties that can arise. The style of the course is interactive, based on an exercise for a hypothetical system, rather than delivered by PowerPoint. However, a set of reference notes and slides will be provided. By the end of the course you will be able to: · Identify necessary interfaces using context diagrams and N‐squared charts · Understand how to separate functional design from interface specification · Flow down system design and external interfaces to subsystems and interfaces between them · Specify the characteristics of interfaces · Plan the negotiation of interfaces with other organisations · Construct a complete and coherent documentation set · Manage changes to the design of interfaces · Plan a testing program for interfaces The tutorial is intended for SE practitioners with some practical experience of requirements and / or integration. Some previous experience handling interfaces is encouraged, but not essential.

A fusion of minds

Mystery still surrounds the visit of the astronomer Sir Bernard Lovell to the Soviet Union in 1963. But his collaboration – and that of other British scientists – eased geopolitical tensions at the height of the Cold War and paved the way for today's global ITER fusion project, as Richard Corfield explains.

INFORMATION MANAGEMENT IN INTEGRATED PROJECT DELIVERY

The article discusses the problems of today's construction project management. Despite the implementation of modern technologies and building materials, and the use of software to support engineering analysis and decision-making in construction, efficiency gradually decreases. The article describes a new concept of integrated construction project management (Integrated Project Delivery) and compares it with the previously used management methods, such as Design-Bid-Build and Design & Build. The article also shows the problems associated with the flow of information during the completion of a construction project and the benefits of integrated construction project management in conjunction with the BIM (Building Information Modelling) technology. The article also describes the world's most popular format for data exchange between different software: IFC (Industry Foundation Classes), which allows exchanging information on many aspects of a construction project.