1,721,102 research outputs found
The role of neural networks in early stage cost estimation in the 21st century
No full textThe impact of technology on all areas of science and industry in the latter half of the twentieth century has been enormous, and the building industry has been no exception. However, early stage cost estimation has been little affected by these advances in comparison to most of the rest of the industry, and is still largely based on a combination of simple models and professional judgement. This paper reports how research currently being undertaken at UMIST could change this practice significantly. A neural network model which is able to estimate the total cost of construction to the client is being developed. This model considers forty variables which define the project at this early stage. Some of these variables would not usually be considered within the estimation of the cost. Perhaps most significantly, by including procurement it is able to evaluate the cost of different procurement routes inclusive of the client’s administrative costs. How the neural network improves on existing modelling techniques by its use of existing project data is explained, and its role in early stage cost estimation in the 21st century outlined
The role of neural networks in early stage cost estimation in the 21st century
No full textThe impact of technology on all areas of science and industry in the latter half of the twentieth century has been enormous, and the building industry has been no exception. However, early stage cost estimation has been little affected by these advances in comparison to most of the rest of the industry, and is still largely based on a combination of simple models and professional judgement. This paper reports how research currently being undertaken at UMIST could change this practice significantly. A neural network model which is able to estimate the total cost of construction to the client is being developed. This model considers forty variables which define the project at this early stage. Some of these variables would not usually be considered within the estimation of the cost. Perhaps most significantly, by including procurement it is able to evaluate the cost of different procurement routes inclusive of the client’s administrative costs. How the neural network improves on existing modelling techniques by its use of existing project data is explained, and its role in early stage cost estimation in the 21st century outlined
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
PROJECT SCHEDULE OPTIMISATION FOR SAFETY MANAGEMENT IN CONSTRUCTION
No full textIn construction project management, safety management processes are of capital importance for project success. Project schedule is the baseline for project control, therefore construction scheduling has to address safety related issues of construction activities. The schedule model should demonstrate that scheduled process provides a safe working environment to construction workers, in terms of interferences with other activities, space requirements, hazard protection and availability of temporary facilities. Therefore, avoiding time-space conflicts of activities is an important requirement to be fulfilled by project schedule. A schedule evaluation and optimisation procedure is proposed with the aim of improving safety management of construction process. Safety assessment and optimization of the project schedule is achieved converting the original schedule in an activity network plotted on resource – space chart and in a flowline chart, based on a Location Breakdown Structure. Therefore, time – space conflicts of activities related to trades and locations can be detected, and the safety of the scheduled processes can be improved. In the control phase, resource – space charts of the controlling schedule can provide useful documentation of the project status for construction safety coordination. The proposed schedule safety assessment and optimization procedure is performed on a case study of a building renovation project
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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