Project Workflow Research Articles

TERRESTRIAL LASER SCANNING AND DIGITAL PHOTOGRAMMETRY FOR HERITAGE CONSERVATION: CASE STUDY OF THE HISTORICAL WALLS OF LAGOS, PORTUGAL

Abstract. Conservation planning is a complex process involving a wide range of agents such as architects, engineers, conservators and archaeologists. Their integrated inputs contribute to the definition of criteria for the conservation project and the conservation strategy. In this process, graphical documentation is a common denominator to all involved areas-of-expertise. It provides the basis for the dialog between agents coming from different fields of knowledge that often don’t speak the same technical language nor share the same codes. The way this dialog can be improved through documentation is the main motivation of our study.In this paper we analyze the requirements of digital documentation in Cultural Heritage (CH) conservation strategies, and we tackle the fundamental role of photogrammetry and terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), and integrated implementation throughout the several steps, from the fieldwork to the conservation planning for CH sites. The described process is demonstrated through the case study of ‘the conservation project of the historic walls of Lagos’, in south Portugal.After introduction and related work, the study is structured in four main sections. In the second section, we present the case study and conduct an analysis of existing data and preliminary synthesis of heritage values related to the historic walls of Lagos. Second section corresponds to an overview of the project workflow. This spans from recording and documentation, considering geometry, colour, light, materials and degradation forms; to their analysis and diagnosis, resulting in criteria and guidelines for the intervention actions. Third section emphasises on how the simultaneous use of photogrammetry and TLS in the documentation process, and its relationship with other methods and techniques, introduces a distinctive character in the conservation project. Fourth section is about the documentation process with photogrammetry and TLS. Finally, fifth section focus in the analysis and architectural project.

Method for Evaluating a Building Information Model

This paper discusses a method for evaluating building information models from the point of view of different disciplines. The ultimate goal is to provide a methodology for decision-makers on an Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC) project, where they can follow the status and performance of the BIM model at each project milestone, from different aspects, in a comparable manner. This methodology requires an evaluation method that aggregates data input by the designers. Interpreting BIM models is complex – multi-dimensional, in fact, considering the meta-information added to it. Therefore, the aggregation process is not trivial and may differ in several cases. We build up multi-dimensional diagrams to chart the possible factors of the evaluation, besides introducing aggregation rules and visualizations. For such a method, it was essential to analyze BIM ontologies in order to establish a precise definition for each concept: milestones, building parts, indicator metrics, etc. We describe an example project workflow where our method works in theory, while we give a practical solution how to add the evaluation data to the BIM model with CAAD software.

Development of BIM-Based Innovative Workflow for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Projects in China

Development of BIM-Based Innovative Workflow for Architecture, Engineering and Construction Projects in China

Application of building information modelling for reinforcement waste minimisation

The primary objective of this paper is to explain how successful implementation of building information model/modelling (BIM) can contribute to the reduction of waste in construction projects. Traditional construction processes include highly wasteful activities due to lack of automation and innovation. This paper discusses how reinforcement information can be efficiently managed through BIM to maximise coordination between project parties and using three-dimensional digital models at the site for fabrication and construction. The digital reinforcement modelling process is gaining momentum due to a great number of value additions to achieve potential savings at all stages of the project. This paper also focuses on collaboration, such as integrated project delivery to streamline the project processes and workflows to achieve greater efficiency, and de-risking the construction processes. These BIM approaches can reduce, reuse, recycle and manage the wastes generated during construction through a robust clash-resolution process, data-rich modelling, detailing and prefabrication strategies. The key benefits of BIM are to ensure 100% buildability and provide cost-effective solutions through modern approaches such as value engineering and early contractor involvement. The digital fabrication process can be used to automate the reinforcement fabrication process by establishing a link between the fabrication system and BIM models.

Feasibility of PROMIS CAT Administration in the Ambulatory Sports Medicine Clinic With Respect to Cost and Patient Compliance: A Single-Surgeon Experience.

Background:Pay-for-performance reimbursement models are becoming increasingly popular, but the implementation of a routine patient-reported outcome (PRO) collection system places additional burden on both the patient and the provider. The Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) was developed in an effort to make PRO collection more practical and efficient, but providers may be reluctant to embrace a transition to a PROMIS-based clinical outcome registry.Hypothesis:PROMIS can be successfully incorporated into daily clinical practice, with an overall patient compliance rate of 80%.Study Design:Cross-sectional study; Level of evidence, 3.Methods:As part of routine practice, all patients presenting to a single surgeon’s sports medicine clinic for an appointment were asked to complete a series of PROMIS computerized adaptive tests (CATs), including PROMIS Physical Function, Physical Function–Upper Extremity, Pain Interference, and Depression subscales. Overall compliance was calculated by dividing the number of survey sets completed by the number of eligible clinic visits. Compliance rates were further assessed by patient age, type of clinic visit, and location of injury. Costs associated with this system of routine PRO collection were categorized as start-up or maintenance costs.Results:From August 7, 2017, to December 8, 2017, there were 581 patients (1109 clinic encounters) who met inclusion criteria for the study. Of the 1109 clinic encounters, there was an overall compliance rate of 91.3% (1013/1109 visits during which the patient completed the entire PROMIS survey set). Overall, the full survey set consisted of a mean 15.3 questions and took a mean of 2.6 minutes to complete. Patients who were aged ≥62 years had a significantly lower compliance rate (81.8%; P < .0001) than each of the younger patient quartiles. When analyzing patients by the most common locations of injury (elbow, shoulder, hip, knee), the compliance rate for completing PROMIS was significantly higher for the hip than for the shoulder (95.1% vs 88.9%, respectively; P = .02). The cost of establishing a PROMIS-based registry using our project design and workflow was estimated at $2045, whereas the monthly maintenance cost was $1000.Conclusion:The routine electronic collection of PROMIS scores in the ambulatory orthopaedic clinic resulted in a compliance rate of over 90%, although older patients were generally less compliant than younger patients. Our system of data collection is practical and efficient in a high-volume orthopaedic clinic and places minimal financial burden on the provider.

Shallow Cumulus in WRF Parameterizations Evaluated against LASSO Large-Eddy Simulations

AbstractRepresentation of shallow cumulus is a challenge for mesoscale numerical weather prediction models. These cloud fields have important effects on temperature, solar irradiance, convective initiation, and pollutant transport, among other processes. Recent improvements to physics schemes available in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model aim to improve representation of shallow cumulus, in particular over land. The DOE LES ARM Symbiotic Simulation and Observation Workflow (LASSO) project provides several cases that we use here to test the new physics improvements. The LASSO cases use multiple large-scale forcings to drive large-eddy simulations (LES), and the LES output is easily compared to output from WRF single-column simulations driven with the same initial conditions and forcings. The new Mellor–Yamada–Nakanishi–Niino (MYNN) eddy diffusivity mass-flux (EDMF) boundary layer and shallow cloud scheme produces clouds with timing, liquid water path (LWP), and cloud fraction that agree well with LES over a wide range of those variables. Here we examine those variables and test the scheme’s sensitivity to perturbations of a few key parameters. We also discuss the challenges and uncertainties of single-column tests. The older, simpler total energy mass-flux (TEMF) scheme is included for comparison, and its tuning is improved. This is the first published use of the LASSO cases for parameterization development, and the first published study to use such a large number of cases with varying cloud amount. This is also the first study to use a more precise combined infrared and microwave retrieval of LWP to evaluate modeled clouds.

Quality improvement of neuro-oncology services: integrating the routine collection of patient-reported, health-related quality-of-life measures.

Brain cancer has a strong impact on health-related quality of life (HRQoL), and its evaluation in clinical practice can improve the quality of care provided. The aim of this project was to integrate routine collection of HRQoL information from patients with brain tumor or metastasis in 2 specialized United Kingdom tertiary centers, and to evaluate the implementation process. Since October 2016, routine collection of electronic self-reported HRQoL information has been progressively embedded in the participating centers using standard questionnaires. During the first year, the project was implemented, and the process evaluated, through regular cycles of process evaluation followed by an action plan, monitoring of questionnaire completion rates, and assessment of patient views. Main challenges encountered included reluctance to change usual practice and limited resources. Key measures for success included strong leadership of senior staff, involvement of stakeholders in project design and evaluation, and continuous strategic support to professionals. Final project workflow included 6 process steps, 1 decision step, and 4 outputs. Questionnaires were mostly self-completed (75.1%), and completion took 6-9 minutes. Most patients agreed that the questionnaire items were easy to understand (97.0%), important for them (93.0%), and helped them think what they wanted to discuss in their clinical consultation (75.4%). Integrating HRQoL information as a routine part of clinical assessments has the potential to enhance individually tailored patient care in our institutions. Challenges involved in innovations of this nature can be overcome through a systematic approach involving strong leadership, wide stakeholder engagement, and strategic planning.

Project Workflow Management: A Cloud based Solution-Scrum Console

Today, there is a data workload that needs to be managed efficiently. There are many ways for the management and scheduling of processes, which can impact the performance and quality of the product and highly available, scalable web hosting can be a complex and expensive proposition. Traditional web architectures don’t offer reliability. So in this work a Scrum Console is being designed for managing a process which will be hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) [2] which provides a reliable, scalable, highly available and high performance infrastructure web application. The Scrum Console Platform facilitates the collaboration of various members of a team to manage projects together. The Scrum Console Platform has been developed using JSP, Hibernate &amp; Oracle 12c Enterprise Edition Database. The Platform is deployed as a web application on AWS Elastic Beanstalk which automates the deployment, management and monitoring of the application while relying on the underlying AWS resources such EC2, S3, RDS, CloudWatch, autoscaling, etc.

Automated workflow composition in mass spectrometry-based proteomics.

MotivationNumerous software utilities operating on mass spectrometry (MS) data are described in the literature and provide specific operations as building blocks for the assembly of on-purpose workflows. Working out which tools and combinations are applicable or optimal in practice is often hard. Thus researchers face difficulties in selecting practical and effective data analysis pipelines for a specific experimental design.ResultsWe provide a toolkit to support researchers in identifying, comparing and benchmarking multiple workflows from individual bioinformatics tools. Automated workflow composition is enabled by the tools’ semantic annotation in terms of the EDAM ontology. To demonstrate the practical use of our framework, we created and evaluated a number of logically and semantically equivalent workflows for four use cases representing frequent tasks in MS-based proteomics. Indeed we found that the results computed by the workflows could vary considerably, emphasizing the benefits of a framework that facilitates their systematic exploration.Availability and implementationThe project files and workflows are available from https://github.com/bio-tools/biotoolsCompose/tree/master/Automatic-Workflow-Composition.Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.

Nurturing critical consumers and producers of narrative media

PurposeAcademic libraries have long housed multimedia centers filled with digital media production equipment and software. All too frequently faculty members and students alike have assumed that this technology is the key to effective digital media. It is assumed that because our “digital native” students are constantly immersed in media, they can create effective media instinctively. But, being a prolific consumer of media does not necessarily intuit the capacity to be an effective producer of media, and informed communication skills are of greater importance than a student’s software knowledge. This paper aims to describe partnering with faculty on media assignment design, providing a media instruction and consultation program, and providing spaces and technologies specifically designed to support multimedia literacy.Design/methodology/approachThis paper outlines programmatic and pedagogical strategies demonstrated to improve students’ acquisition of multimedia literacy skills. These strategies are based on the authors’ years of experience teaching and supporting multimedia literacy in the university curriculum and beyond. It concludes with a case study detailing a new program that leverages a library’s services in support of student creativity.FindingsThe paper outlines an eight-step workflow for media projects that is core to our multimedia literacy instruction program.Originality/valueWith digital literacy garnering renewed attention in higher education, academic libraries are ramping up their services in support of these goals. This paper focuses on strategies for deepening students’ media production competencies, rather than just teaching them software skills.

Updating production workflows and adapting systems: Scaling Omeka to meet the needs of a larger-scale archival digital project

This paper addresses the scenario of an academic library working on a larger, grant-funded digital initiative that led to adapting the local instance of Omeka. The adaptations also reflect changes to the larger workflow in place internally. The overview of the new project workflows will be discussed in this paper, and how the Omeka instance has kept up with these changes to date. Many of the modifications were made to the ingest and post-production processes, and one crucial update to the user interface will also be discussed. Kent State University Libraries has been pleased to find the open source solution is quite amenable to system modifications that reflect an agile structure, with the assistance of a skilled library developer. Further, the code is shared via GitHub, with links provided to the specific enhancements in the reference section at the end of this paper.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Survey with Commercial-Grade Instruments: A Case Study from the Eastern Ḫabur Archaeological Survey, Iraq

ABSTRACTLow-altitude photography in archaeology is now common practice at the scale of excavations; however, landscape-scale applications are a relatively new endeavor with promising analytical potential. From 2014–2016, an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a mounted camera was used to document sites recorded as part of the Eastern Ḫabur Archaeological Survey (EḪAS), an archaeological reconnaissance project in western Dohuk Province, Iraqi Kurdistan. The EḪAS team documented over 70 archaeological sites with the UAV, from single-phase artifact scatters, to archaeological remains with standing architecture, to tells that cover more than 30 hectares. Representative examples from this survey are presented here to outline the project workflow and primary output data layers, including digital orthomosaics and digital elevation models. The quality and utility of results are then assessed in relationship to available satellite-based data. Methods for analysis and interpretation are then considered to demonstrate applications in landscape archaeology. An A) orthomosaic and B) shaded relief model with surface collection area (in red) of site EHAS-C045 created from photographs taken from a UAV.

Protocol to Manage Heritage-Building Interventions Using Heritage Building Information Modelling (HBIM)

The workflow in historic architecture projects presents problems related to the lack of clarity of processes, dispersion of information and the use of outdated tools. Different heritage organisations have showed interest in innovative methods to resolve those problems and improve cultural tourism for sustainable economic development. Building Information Modelling (BIM) has emerged as a suitable computerised system for improving heritage management. Its application to historic buildings is named Historic BIM (HBIM). HBIM literature highlights the need for further research in terms of the overall processes of heritage projects, its practical implementation and a need for better cultural documentation. This work uses Design Science Research to develop a protocol to improve the workflow in heritage interdisciplinary projects. Research techniques used include documentary analysis, semi-structured interviews and focus groups. HBIM is proposed as a virtual model that will hold heritage data and will articulate processes. As a result, a simple and visual HBIM protocol was developed and applied in a real case study. The protocol was named BIMlegacy and it is divided into eight phases: building registration, determine intervention options, develop design for intervention, planning the physical intervention, physical intervention, handover, maintenance and culture dissemination. It contemplates all the stakeholders involved.

Surgical teams on GitHub: Modeling performance of GitHub project development processes

Context: Better methods of evaluating process performance of OSS projects can benefit decision makers who consider adoption of OSS software in a company. This article studies the closure of issues (bugs and features) in GitHub projects, which is an important measure of OSS development process performance and quality of support that project users receive from the developer team.Objective: The goal of this article is a better understanding of the factors that affect issue closure rates in OSS projects.Methodology: The GHTorrent repository is used to select a large sample of mature, active OSS projects. Using survival analysis, we calculate short-term, and long-term issue closure rates. We formulate several hypotheses regarding the impact of OSS project and team characteristics, such as measures of work centralization, measures that reflect internal project workflows, and developer social networks measures on issue closure rates. Based on the proposed features and several control features, a model is built that can predict issue closure rate. The model allows to test our hypotheses.Results: We find that large teams that have many project members have lower issue closure rates than smaller teams. Similarly, increased work centralization increases issue closure rates. While desirable social network characteristics have a positive impact on the amount of commits in a project, they do not have significant influence on issue closure.Conclusion: Overall, findings from empirical analysis support the classic notion of Brook’s – the “surgical team” – in the context of OSS project development process performance on GitHub. The model of issue closure rates proposed in this article is a first step towards an improved understanding and prediction of this important measure of OSS development process performance.

An Improved Evaluation of Construction Project’s Labor Need based on Project Workflow

An Improved Evaluation of Construction Project’s Labor Need based on Project Workflow

Digital 3D reconstructed models A proposition for structuring visualisation workflows using semantic technologies for recommendations

It is common for cultural heritage applications to use spatial and/or spectral data for documentation, analysis and visualisation. Knowledge on data requirements coming from the cultural heritage application and technical alternatives to generate the required data based on object characteristics and other influencings factors paves the way for the optimal selection of a recording technology. It is a collaborative process requiring knowledge of experts from cultural heritage domains and technical domains. Currently, this knowledge is structured and stored in an ontology (so-called COSCHKR). It has the purpose to support CH experts not familiar with technologies through prescribing an optimal spatial or spectral recording strategy adapted to the physical characteristics of the cultural heritage object and the data requirements of the targeted CH application. The creation of digital 3D reconstructed models for analysis and visualisation purposes is getting more and more common within humanities disciplines. Therefore, an implementation of mechanisms involved in visualisation applications into this ontology would have huge benefits in creating a powerful recommendation solution. A structured view on such project workflows facilitates a rough match with the existing knowledge representation. Illustrating the overall structure of COSCHKR, this paper addresses and discusses challenges in structuring the processes of cultural heritage visualisation and implementing these into the ontology.

Mechanisms for provenance collection in scientific workflow systems

Scientific workflow management systems run scientific experiments. They manage sequences of complex process transformations and collect provenance information at various levels of abstraction. Collected provenance information from scientific experiments documents how experimental results are derived from input values along with experimental parameters and workflow configurations. Provenance greatly enhances usability and acceptance of workflow systems among scientists, because provenance allows workflow systems to capture process configuration and behaviour at different levels of detail. On this basis, a sufficient level of collected provenance information enables scientists to validate their hypotheses and make a workflow reproducible. Currently SWfMS’s do not use a standard or portable provenance model for either capturing, storing, querying or representing model. There are a variety of design issues in provenance models and mechanisms in workflow system, owing to the variation of design dimensions in workflow architectures. Given this variety, it seems desirable to classify provenance mechanisms in workflow systems. We aim to survey provenance collection mechanisms, that are either a part of scientific workflow system, or of a software infrastructure that supports collection mechanisms in a scientific workflow system. In this paper, firstly, we identify and define a set of design dimensions and conventions for provenance collection mechanisms in the context of working on scientific workflow systems. After this, we survey a set of scientific workflow projects based on our design dimensions with an emphasis on provenance collection mechanisms. Then, those conventions are used in order to evaluate a number of existing provenance collection mechanisms, presented at the end of this paper. This survey provides an understanding of primary design issues for provenance collection mechanisms along with a set of desirable design dimensions.

TDAR

ABSTRACTHundreds of thousands of archaeological investigations in the United States conducted over the last several decades have documented a large portion of the recovered archaeological record in the United States. However, if we are to use this enormous corpus to achieve richer understandings of the past, it is essential that both CRM and academic archaeologists change how they manage their digital documents and data over the course of a project and how this information is preserved for future use. We explore the nature and scope of the problem and describe how it can be addressed. In particular, we argue that project workflows must ensure that the documents and data are fully documented and deposited in a publicly accessible, digital repository where they can be discovered, accessed, and reused to enable new insights and build cumulative knowledge.

IMPROVING PRODUCTIVITY, WORKFLOW MANAGEMENT, AND RESOURCE UTILIZATION IN PRECAST CONSTRUCTION

Construction industry has long dealt with problems such as low productivity, unstable workflow in projects and low utilization rate of resources. Off-site construction, which is a hybrid of mass manufacturing and construction, has significant potential to address aforementioned problems. In order to realize this potential, off-site construction needs to avoid replicating the traditional subcontracting approach and therefore fragmented practice in the construction industry. The current research focuses on restructuring the interaction of resources by using cross-training. Findings show that cross-training resources results in transferring excess capacity from underutilized to over utilized resources in direct or indirect pathways. Such initiatives can significantly improve productivity, workflow management and resource utilization in precast construction that highly specialized resources are not required. The study contributes to the construction management literature by providing insight into dynamics of using multiskilled resources in off-site construction.

Geologic Carbon Storage at a One Million Tonne Demonstration Project: Lessons Learned from the Illinois Basin – Decatur Project

The Illinois Basin – Decatur Project (IBDP) has demonstrated the safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of the process of isolating the carbon dioxide (CO2) stream from biofuels production and storage in a deep saline reservoir at a depth of more than 2,000 meters. Geologic assessment and controls have proven essential to understanding reservoir conditions and predicting CO2 behavior. The injectivity and storage capacity of part of the lower Mt. Simon Sandstone at IBDP have been confirmed. Modeling, microseismic event analysis, and MVA continue to provide significant insights into reservoir response to stored CO2 and the development of commercial-scale project workflows.