A Dictionary of Construction, Surveying and Civil Engineering

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Asset Management ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Civil Engineering ◽  
Legal Aspects ◽  
Engineering Management ◽  
Value Engineering ◽  
Hydraulic Failure ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Management Techniques

Over 8,000 entries This is the most up-to-date dictionary of its kind, covering the key areas of construction and civil engineering. This new edition has been fully updated to span the subjects of sustainability, new technologies, disaster management, and building software, and provides authoritative and reliable definitions to a wide range of terms. More than 600 new entries have been added to include terms such as asset management, hydraulic failure, sustainable development, and value engineering, providing broad coverage of construction and civil engineering, management techniques and processes, as well as legal aspects such as contracts and procurement. Detailed illustrations complement the text, and a further reading section is included to guide the reader towards suggested materials. Written by a team of more than 130 experts from around the world, this dictionary is an authoritative resource for engineering students, construction professionals, and surveyors.

Impression management and legitimacy strategies: The BP case

2013 ◽  
pp. 35-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giovanna Michelon
Keyword(s):  
Impression Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Legitimacy Theory ◽  
British Petroleum ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Management Techniques ◽  
Disclosure Tone ◽  
The Empirical Analysis ◽  
A Company ◽  
Texas City

The aim of this paper is to study if and how impression management varies during different phases of the legitimation process, in particular during the legitimacy building and legitimacy repairing phases (Suchman, 1995). We aim at understanding whether and how the disclosure tone adopted by a company in the two different moments is diverse and thus functional to the intrinsic objective of the each phase. The empirical analysis focuses on the case of British Petroleum Plc. We investigated the impression management practices undertaken by the company both during the preparation of the rebranding operation, i.e. a situation in which the company is trying to build legitimacy; and during the happenings of two legitimacy crises, like the explosion of the refinery in Texas City and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The evidence appears in line with the theoretical prediction of legitimacy theory. Results show that while the company tends to privilege image enhancement techniques during the legitimacy-building phase, it uses more obfuscation techniques when managing a legitimacy-repairing process. Moreover, the analysis suggests that the company makes more extensive use of impression management techniques in the disclosures addressed to shareholders, investors and other market operators than in the disclosures addressed to the wide range of other stakeholders.

Site specific agricultural soil management with the use of new technologies

2013 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-67
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
Digital Interface ◽  
Appropriate Treatment ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Soil Variation ◽  
Soil Information ◽  
Remote Sensing Techniques ◽  
Agricultural Areas

<p>The Soil Science Institute of Thessaloniki produces new digitized Soil Maps that provide a useful electronic database for the spatial representation of the soil variation within a region, based on in situ soil sampling, laboratory analyses, GIS techniques and plant nutrition mathematical models, coupled with the local land cadastre. The novelty of these studies is that local agronomists have immediate access to a wide range of soil information by clicking on a field parcel shown in this digital interface and, therefore, can suggest an appropriate treatment (e.g. liming, manure incorporation, desalination, application of proper type and quantity of fertilizer) depending on the field conditions and cultivated crops. A specific case study is presented in the current work with regards to the construction of the digitized Soil Map of the regional unit of Kastoria. The potential of this map can easily be realized by the fact that the mapping of the physicochemical properties of the soils in this region provided delineation zones for differential fertilization management. An experiment was also conducted using remote sensing techniques for the enhancement of the fertilization advisory software database, which is a component of the digitized map, and the optimization of nitrogen management in agricultural areas.</p>

Digital Authoritarianism and the Future of Human Rights

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Tiberiu Dragu ◽  
Yonatan Lupu
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Theoretic Model ◽  
Human Rights Abuses ◽  
Human Rights Regime ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
The Future ◽  
Technological Developments ◽  
Game Theoretic ◽  
Strategic Context

Abstract How will advances in digital technology affect the future of human rights and authoritarian rule? Media figures, public intellectuals, and scholars have debated this relationship for decades, with some arguing that new technologies facilitate mobilization against the state and others countering that the same technologies allow authoritarians to strengthen their grip on power. We address this issue by analyzing the first game-theoretic model that accounts for the dual effects of technology within the strategic context of preventive repression. Our game-theoretical analysis suggests that technological developments may not be detrimental to authoritarian control and may, in fact, strengthen authoritarian control by facilitating a wide range of human rights abuses. We show that technological innovation leads to greater levels of abuses to prevent opposition groups from mobilizing and increases the likelihood that authoritarians will succeed in preventing such mobilization. These results have broad implications for the human rights regime, democratization efforts, and the interpretation of recent declines in violent human rights abuses.

scholarly journals Engineering students’ attitudinal beliefs by gender and student division: a methodological comparison of changes over time

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Madison E. Andrews ◽  
Anita D. Patrick ◽  
Maura Borrego
Keyword(s):  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
Focal Point ◽  
Value Engineering ◽  
Longitudinal Analyses ◽  
Utility Value ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Targeted Interventions ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Over Time

Abstract Background Students’ attitudinal beliefs related to how they see themselves in STEM have been a focal point of recent research, given their well-documented links to retention and persistence. These beliefs are most often assessed cross-sectionally, and as such, we lack a thorough understanding of how they may fluctuate over time. Using matched survey responses from undergraduate engineering students (n = 278), we evaluate if, and to what extent, students’ engineering attitudinal beliefs (attainment value, utility value, self-efficacy, interest, and identity) change over a 1-year period. Further, we examine whether there are differences based on gender and student division, and then compare results between cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses to illustrate weaknesses in our current understanding of these constructs. Results Our study revealed inconsistencies between cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of the same dataset. Cross-sectional analyses indicated a significant difference by student division for engineering utility value and engineering interest, but no significant differences by gender for any variable. However, longitudinal analyses revealed statistically significant decreases in engineering utility value, engineering self-efficacy, and engineering interest for lower division students and significant decreases in engineering attainment value for upper division students over a one-year period. Further, longitudinal analyses revealed a gender gap in engineering self-efficacy for upper division students, where men reported higher means than women. Conclusions Our analyses make several contributions. First, we explore attitudinal differences by student division not previously documented. Second, by comparing across methodologies, we illustrate that different conclusions can be drawn from the same data. Since the literature around these variables is largely cross-sectional, our understanding of students’ engineering attitudes is limited. Our longitudinal analyses show variation in engineering attitudinal beliefs that are obscured when data is only examined cross-sectionally. These analyses revealed an overall downward trend within students for all beliefs that changed significantly—losses which may foreshadow attrition out of engineering. These findings provide an opportunity to introduce targeted interventions to build engineering utility value, engineering self-efficacy, and engineering interest for student groups whose means were lower than average.

scholarly journals Gemini Principles-Based Digital Twin Maturity Model for Asset Management

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (15) ◽  
pp. 8224
Author(s):  
Long Chen ◽  
Xiang Xie ◽  
Qiuchen Lu ◽  
Ajith Kumar Parlikad ◽  
Michael Pitt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Asset Management ◽  
Questionnaire Survey ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Maturity Model ◽  
Maturity Models ◽  
Digital Twin ◽  
Project Level

Various maturity models have been developed for understanding the diffusion and implementation of new technologies/approaches. However, we find that existing maturity models fail to understand the implementation of emerging digital twin technique comprehensively and quantitatively. This research aims to develop an innovative maturity model for measuring digital twin maturity for asset management. This model is established based on Gemini Principles to form a systematic view of digital twin development and implementation. Within this maturity model, three main dimensions consisting of nine sub-dimensions have been defined firstly, which were further articulated by 27 rubrics. Then, a questionnaire survey with 40 experts involved is designed and conducted to examine these rubrics. This model is finally illustrated and validated by two case studies in Shanghai and Cambridge. The results show that the digital twin maturity model is effective to qualitatively evaluate and compare the maturity of digital twin implementation at the project level. It can also initiate the roadmap for improving the performance of digital twin supported asset management.

A Bridge Built of Paper—A Master’s-Course Project for Civil Engineering Students

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-5
Author(s):  
Jörg Lange ◽  
Aaron von der Heyden ◽  
Ulrich Knaack ◽  
Evgenia Kanli
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Civil Engineering

Hydraulic segmentation does not protect stems from acute water loss during fire

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A Hoffmann ◽  
Amanda C Rodrigues ◽  
Nicholas Uncles ◽  
Lorenzo Rossi
Keyword(s):  
Water Uptake ◽  
Water Loss ◽  
High Water ◽  
Fire Plume ◽  
Magnolia Grandiflora ◽  
Hydraulic Failure ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Transport Path ◽  
Measured Water

Abstract The heat plume associated with fire has been hypothesized to cause sufficient water loss from trees to induce embolism and hydraulic failure. However, it is unclear whether the water transport path remains sufficiently intact during scorching or burning of foliage to sustain high water loss. We measured water uptake by branches of Magnolia grandiflora while exposing them to a range of fire intensities, and examined factors influencing continued water uptake after fire. Burning caused a 22-fold mean increase in water uptake, with greatest rates of water loss observed at burn intensities that caused complete consumption of leaves. Such rapid uptake is possible only with steep gradients in water potential, which would likely result in substantial cavitation of xylem and loss of conductivity in intact stems. Water uptake continued after burning was complete, and was greatest following burn intensities that killed leaves but did not consume them. This post-fire uptake was mostly driven by rehydration of the remaining tissues, rather than evaporation from the tissues. Our results indicate that the fire-plume hypothesis can be expanded to include a wide range of burning conditions experienced by plants. High rates of water loss are sustained during burning, even when leaves are killed or completely consumed.

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