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Outsourcing of construction professional services in the UK university sector: prediction of consultant performance for the selection process
No full textThis research aims to develop performance predictive conceptual models to forecast performance outcomes of construction consultants in the UK university environment.
The work covers consultancies for new build, refurbishment and maintenance projects. The report uses regression models to predict performance based on the input economic and management factors at the procurement stage.
Each model calculates a performance score for the performance outcomes of time, cost, quality, innovations and working relationship with the client. Performance scores for individual performance outcomes are then added to provide a total quality score
Expressing requests in Cantonese by young children
No full textUse of language appropriately is one of the major functions in communication. It takes time for children to develop this critical ability. Recent research on the pragmatic and discourse abilities of children in different languages and ethnic groups has grown rapidly. A number of studies ( Berman & Slobin 1994; Ninio &Snow 1996; Blum-Kulka & Snow 2002) provide important information on narrative and pragmatic development in children. However, research on the pragmatic development of Cantonesespeaking children is scarce. Request is one of the most commonly found conversational acts in children’s daily life and it forms an important domain in children’s communicative competence. In making a request, the child needs to know the grammatical form and its function, and uses it in the appropriate context. In this study, we reported an investigation of the use of request strategies by young children in Hong Kong. A total of 40 (age 3, and 5) pre-school Cantonese-speaking children (20 per group, half boys and half girls) were recruited from local kindergartens. All children selected were normally developing and were born in Hong Kong with parents speaking Cantonese at home. Following the suggestion of using puppets in role-play (Andersen 2000; Ervin-Tripp 2000), we asked the children to help the puppet to make requests to other puppets in different scenarios with contextual variation in (i) age of addressee, (ii) social status of the addressee, and (iii) setting. Adopting the coding and analysis by Blum-Kulka and her associates in the Cross Cultural Speech Act Realization Project (CCSARP), our study showed that these factors have different effects on the use of strategies by children. Major findings of the study showed that (a) there is a development trend in the use of request strategies in Head Act or preschool children; younger children used more direct than indirect strategies; (b) Girls produced requests with more external modifications of the Head Act than boys. In our presentation, we will discuss our findings in relation to previous work on the request development in the literature
English for foreign language education: pedagogical, academic and sociocultural dimension
No full textLaw and governance: UNHCR refugee status determination and resettlement in Hong Kong and urban Thailand
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Adsorption removal of antiviral drug oseltamivir and its metabolite oseltamivir carboxylate by carbon nanotubes: effects of carbon nanotube properties and media
No full textThis investigation evaluated the adsorption behavior of the antiviral drugs of oseltamivir (OE) and its metabolites (i.e., oseltamivir carboxylate (OC)) on three types of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) including single-walled CNT (SWCNT), multi-walled CNT (MWCNT), and carboxylated SWCNT (SWCNT–COOH). CNTs can efficiently remove more than 90% of the OE and OC from aqueous solution when the initial concentration was lower than 10−4 mmol/L. The Polanyi–Manes model depicted the adsorption isotherms of OE and OC on CNTs better than the Langmuir and Freundlich models. The properties of OE/OC and the characteristics of CNTs, particularly the oxygen functional groups (e.g., SWCNT–COOH) played important roles during the adsorption processes. OE showed a higher adsorption affinity than OC. By comparing the different adsorbates adsorption on each CNT and each adsorbate adsorption on different CNTs, the adsorption mechanisms of hydrophobic interaction, electrostatic interaction, van der Waals force, and H-bonding were proposed as the contributing factors for OE and OC adsorption on CNTs. Particularly, for verifying the contribution of electrostatic interaction, the changes of adsorption partition efficiency (Kd) of OE and OC on CNTs were evaluated by varying pH from 2 to 11 and the importance of isoelectric point (pHIEP) of CNTs on OE and OC adsorption was addressed
Ubiquitous bluetooth mobile based remote controller for home entertainment centre
No full textThis paper describes the use of a mobile Android phone in an experimental way to develop a remote controller for multi-player games which are installed and resided in a Home Entertainment Centre in a ubiquitous computing environment. The Home Entertainment Center could be a Smart TV and the Android mobile is programmed to be a remote control device which is used to send sockets via Bluetooth network to Java based Bluetooth server embedded in a Smart TV to control the movements of the game characters playing in the Smart TV with multimedia effects in all directions and actions, such as shootings, in games along its game play. Our investigation focuses on an extended form of ubiquitous computing which game software developers utilize to develop a game remote controller on mobile phone for multi-players. We call this study an experimental ubiquitous computing application in which the Bluetooth embedded in the Home Entertainment Centre which can be discoverable and paired with, the clients, remote mobile devices and instantaneously send the game data via Bluetooth piconnet to the paired remote mobile devices. Currently, mobile computing feeds data information into the game server. However, designing real-time ubiquitous mobile remote controller with Home Entertainment Centre is still a daunting task and much theoretical and practical research remains to be done to reach the ubiquitous computing era. In this paper, we applied the open-source Android Bluetooth and the Java-Based technology in developing a Bluetooth server multi-player mobile game in distributed ubiquitous computing, which strongly focuses on the emergence of technologies that embrace android mobile and Bluetooth latest technology
Democratization of fashion: a study of co-creation of cultural heritage
No full textThis paper examines how fashion designers incorporate cultural heritage in their designs. Through analyzing four Chinese fashion brands we identified three themes that related to the co-creation of heritage and aesthetics, and the democratization of fashion. Our study advances the current understanding of fashion and cultural heritage in the marketplace
Review: The homecoming of the moon capital: landscape symbols and representations in the tale of Princess Kaguya
No full textThe Tale of Princess Kaguya is centred on a princess of the Capital of the Moon who was sent on Earth by Deva as a form of punishment. The story is vividly set in landscape themed episodes embedded with early garden symbols and representations – which are deeply rooted and shared in East Asian culture (Japan/China)
