scholarly journals CSCW Challenges in Large-Scale Technical Projects: A Case Study

1992 ◽  
Vol 21 (411) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaj Grønbæk ◽  
Morten Kyng ◽  
Preben Holst Mogensen

<p>This paper investigates CSCW aspects of large-scale technical projects based on a case study of a specific Danish engineering company and uncovers challenges to CSCW aplications in this setting. The company is responsible for management and supervision of one of the worlds largest tunnel/bridge construction projects. Our primary aim is to determine requirements on CSCW as they unfold in this concrete setting as opposed to survey and laboratory investigations. The requirements provide feedback to product development both on specific functionality and as a long term vision for CSCW in such settings.</p><p>The initial qualitative analysis identified a number of bottlenecks in daily work, where support for cooperation is needed. Examples of bottlenecks are: sharing materials, issuing tasks, and keeping track of task status. Grounded in the analysis, cooperative design workshops based on scenanos of future work situations were established to investigate the potential of different CSCW technologies in this setting. In the workshops, mock-ups and prototypes were used to support end-users in assessing CSCW technologies based on con crete, hands-on experiences. The workshops uncovered several challenges. First, support for sharing materials would require a huge body of diverse materials to be integrated, for example into a hypermedia network. Second, daily work tasks are event driven and plans change too rapidly for people to register them on a computer. Finally, tasks are closely coupled to materials being processed thus a coordination tool should integrate facilities for managing materials.</p>

Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (5) ◽  
pp. 1261
Author(s):  
Christopher Gradwohl ◽  
Vesna Dimitrievska ◽  
Federico Pittino ◽  
Wolfgang Muehleisen ◽  
András Montvay ◽  
...  

Photovoltaic (PV) technology allows large-scale investments in a renewable power-generating system at a competitive levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) and with a low environmental impact. Large-scale PV installations operate in a highly competitive market environment where even small performance losses have a high impact on profit margins. Therefore, operation at maximum performance is the key for long-term profitability. This can be achieved by advanced performance monitoring and instant or gradual failure detection methodologies. We present in this paper a combined approach on model-based fault detection by means of physical and statistical models and failure diagnosis based on physics of failure. Both approaches contribute to optimized PV plant operation and maintenance based on typically available supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) data. The failure detection and diagnosis capabilities were demonstrated in a case study based on six years of SCADA data from a PV plant in Slovenia. In this case study, underperforming values of the inverters of the PV plant were reliably detected and possible root causes were identified. Our work has led us to conclude that the combined approach can contribute to an efficient and long-term operation of photovoltaic power plants with a maximum energy yield and can be applied to the monitoring of photovoltaic plants.


Author(s):  
Arndt Wiessner ◽  
Jochen A. Müller ◽  
Peter Kuschk ◽  
Uwe Kappelmeyer ◽  
Matthias Kästner ◽  
...  

The large scale of the contamination by the former carbo-chemical industry in Germany requires new and often interdisciplinary approaches for performing an economically sustainable remediation. For example, a highly toxic and dark-colored phenolic wastewater from a lignite pyrolysis factory was filled into a former open-cast pit, forming a large wastewater disposal pond. This caused an extensive environmental pollution, calling for an ecologically and economically acceptable strategy for remediation. Laboratory-scale investigations and pilot-scale tests were carried out. The result was the development of a strategy for an implementation of full-scale enhanced in situ natural attenuation on the basis of separate habitats in a meromictic pond. Long-term monitoring of the chemical and biological dynamics of the pond demonstrates the metamorphosis of a former highly polluted industrial waste deposition into a nature-integrated ecosystem with reduced danger for the environment, and confirmed the strategy for the chosen remediation management.


Author(s):  
Elizabeth Hartnell-Young

This paper takes a large-scale social perspective in describing a national project in Australia that was premised on local school communities working together and contributing ideas for the benefit of their students, and potentially, the whole country. The project was intended to improve schools’ capacity for educating boys, and in the long-term, the learning outcomes of under-performing boys, using evidence-based and action research methods. It was supported by the web spaces and tools of the National Quality Schooling Framework and Think.com. This paper emphasises the structures and processes teachers engaged in while building knowledge through their daily work, where the resulting ideas became the property of the whole community. Analyses focus on the extent to which an underlying social structure for knowledge building developed in various parts of the nation during the project, making it possible to characterize a process for innovations in education with commitment to continual idea improvement. Résumé Le présent article adopte une perspective sociale à grande échelle pour décrire un projet national en Australie fondé sur la collaboration des communautés scolaires locales et leur contribution d’idées au bénéfice de leurs élèves et, éventuellement, de l’ensemble du pays. Le projet avait pour but de rendre les écoles plus aptes à éduquer les garçons et, à long terme, d’améliorer les résultats d’apprentissage des garçons qui sous-performent à l’aide de méthodes de recherche-action fondées sur des données probantes. Il a bénéficié du soutien des espaces et des outils Web du National Quality Schooling Framework et de Think.com. Le présent article met l’accent sur les structures et les processus que les enseignants ont utilisés dans leur travail quotidien pour la coélaboration de connaissances; les idées qui en ont résulté sont par la suite devenues la propriété de l’ensemble de la communauté. Les analyses portent principalement sur la mesure dans laquelle une structure sociale sous-jacente de coélaboration des connaissances s’est développée en différents endroits de la nation au cours du projet, ce qui rend possible la caractérisation d’un processus d’innovation en éducation avec un engagement envers l’amélioration continue.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taha Sezer ◽  
Abubakar Kawuwa Sani ◽  
Rao Martand Singh ◽  
David P. Boon

&lt;p&gt;Groundwater heat pumps (GWHP) are an environmentally friendly and highly efficient low carbon heating technology that can benefit from low-temperature groundwater sources lying in the shallow depths to provide heating and cooling to buildings. However, the utilisation of groundwater for heating and cooling, especially in large scale (district level), can create a thermal plume around injection wells. If a plume reaches the production well this may result in a decrease in the system performance or even failure in the long-term operation. This research aims to investigate the impact of GWHP usage in district-level heating by using a numerical approach and considering a GWHP system being constructed in Colchester, UK as a case study, which will be the largest GWHP system in the UK. Transient 3D simulations have been performed pre-construction to investigate the long-term effect of injecting water at 5&amp;#176;C, into a chalk bedrock aquifer. Modelling suggests a thermal plume develops but does not reach the production wells after 10 years of operation. The model result can be attributed to the low hydraulic gradient, assumed lack of interconnecting fractures, and large (&gt;500m) spacing between the production and injection wells. Model validation may be possible after a period operational monitoring.&lt;/p&gt;


2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (24) ◽  
pp. 6651-6667 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jing Tang ◽  
Guy Schurgers ◽  
Hanna Valolahti ◽  
Patrick Faubert ◽  
Päivi Tiiva ◽  
...  

Abstract. The Arctic is warming at twice the global average speed, and the warming-induced increases in biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) emissions from Arctic plants are expected to be drastic. The current global models' estimations of minimal BVOC emissions from the Arctic are based on very few observations and have been challenged increasingly by field data. This study applied a dynamic ecosystem model, LPJ-GUESS, as a platform to investigate short-term and long-term BVOC emission responses to Arctic climate warming. Field observations in a subarctic tundra heath with long-term (13-year) warming treatments were extensively used for parameterizing and evaluating BVOC-related processes (photosynthesis, emission responses to temperature and vegetation composition). We propose an adjusted temperature (T) response curve for Arctic plants with much stronger T sensitivity than the commonly used algorithms for large-scale modelling. The simulated emission responses to 2 °C warming between the adjusted and original T response curves were evaluated against the observed warming responses (WRs) at short-term scales. Moreover, the model responses to warming by 4 and 8 °C were also investigated as a sensitivity test. The model showed reasonable agreement to the observed vegetation CO2 fluxes in the main growing season as well as day-to-day variability of isoprene and monoterpene emissions. The observed relatively high WRs were better captured by the adjusted T response curve than by the common one. During 1999–2012, the modelled annual mean isoprene and monoterpene emissions were 20 and 8 mg C m−2 yr−1, with an increase by 55 and 57 % for 2 °C summertime warming, respectively. Warming by 4 and 8 °C for the same period further elevated isoprene emission for all years, but the impacts on monoterpene emissions levelled off during the last few years. At hour-day scale, the WRs seem to be strongly impacted by canopy air T, while at the day–year scale, the WRs are a combined effect of plant functional type (PFT) dynamics and instantaneous BVOC responses to warming. The identified challenges in estimating Arctic BVOC emissions are (1) correct leaf T estimation, (2) PFT parameterization accounting for plant emission features as well as physiological responses to warming, and (3) representation of long-term vegetation changes in the past and the future.


2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Hugo van der Merwe ◽  
Malose Langa

This article examines South Africa’s Community Work Programme (CWP) as a case study of an attempt to address two key dilemmas facing peacebuilding theory and practise: (a) balancing the need to address immediate and long-term causes of conflict and violence and (b) balancing the need for a large-scale systematic approach whilst creating space for local ownership and agency. Drawing on in-depth case studies of six CWP community interventions, it demonstrates how this national public employment sector programme has been shaped into a vehicle for peacebuilding by local actors. Whilst these initiatives still face resistance to local ownership and innovation, they demonstrate how local agency can integrate national developmental priorities with local safety and security priorities.


2011 ◽  
Vol 243-249 ◽  
pp. 6362-6368
Author(s):  
Yan Zhang ◽  
Chang Jiang Liu

In the field of engineering and construction, unqualified construction quality, time delays, cost more than expected phenomena to occur. Because of these characteristics such as its large-scale construction projects, long cycle, the production of single and complex, there is greater risk than the production of general products, the risk increases the difficulty of construction project management, operating costs and the possibility of potential losses, therefore, risk management emerged and become an increasingly important integral part of project management. In this paper, fuzzy analytic hierarchy be used to construction project risk assessment, and to order the sort of each risk in order to prevent significant risks. On an actual project - the new stadium construction in Weifang City risk management case study, the reduction of risk of project failure is expected, but also the project is hoped for other industries to provide some reference for risk management.


2021 ◽  
Vol 855 (1) ◽  
pp. 012015
Author(s):  
B Dams ◽  
D Maskell ◽  
A Shea ◽  
S Allen ◽  
V Cascione ◽  
...  

Abstract Non-residential circular construction projects using bio-based materials have been realised in the United Kingdom. Case studies include the Adnams Distribution Centre, the University of East Anglia’s Enterprise Centre and the British Science Museum’s hempcrete storage facility. The bio-based buildings utilise the natural properties of bio-based materials to insulate and regulate internal environments, particularly with reducing fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity, which can be harmful to sensitive stored products and artefacts. Projects have been successful on both on environmental and physical performance levels; however, they have not led to a subsequent proliferation of non-residential large-scale circular projects within the UK using emerging bio-based materials. This study examines why and uses analysis based upon exclusive interviews with key figures associated with bio-based case studies. Challenges faced include the ability to upscale production by manufacturers of bio-based materials, problems surrounding initial costs, gaining accreditation for materials, the vested interests present in the construction industry and levels of knowledge among clients and construction professionals. Potential upscaling solutions identified include long-term financial savings on running costs and high staff productivity, policies regarding grants, incentives and planning applications and local economic regeneration.


2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maya Vijayaraghavan ◽  
Dorie E. Apollonio

Cigarette smoking contributes substantially to the increased financial- and health-related burdens among adults experiencing homelessness. We describe findings from a case study of a model to increase access to cessation services among adults experiencing homelessness. In partnership with Project Homeless Connect (PHC), we piloted a unique service delivery model that involved providing brief cessation counseling and pharmacotherapy to smokers from this population attending large-scale service events in San Francisco, with the goal of connecting them to long-term smoking cessation care. We participated in three service events between October 2017 and March 2018. We offered brief smoking cessation counseling to 45 individuals, and smoking cessation counseling and pharmacotherapy to 7 individuals experiencing homelessness. This model could improve public health if expanded to other cities, particularly the 200 other cities in the United States offering PHC service events.


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