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Work Zone Intrusion: Technology To Reduce Injuries & Fatalities

Nnaji, Chukwuma; Gambatese, John; Lee, Hyun Woo. (2018). Work Zone Intrusion: Technology to Reduce Injuries & Fatalities. Professional Safety, 63(4), 36 – 41.

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Abstract

WZIAT was first introduced to work zones in 1995 following a Strategic Highway Research Program (SHRP)-sponsored study (Agent & Hibbs, 1996). Since the SHRP program, several WZIATs have been developed, evaluated by departments of transportation (DOTs) and implemented in work zones on many highway projects. [...]the researchers investigated the potential usefulness of WZIATs on reported fatal work zone intrusion cases. [...]the researchers identified and evaluated work zone fatality cases captured in the NIOSH Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) program to determine whether WZIATs could have prevented the reported fatalities. [...]construction and maintenance workers are provided additional reaction time if an intrusion occurs before the activity zone.

Keywords

Research; Fatalities; Highway Construction; Injury Prevention; Traffic Accidents & Safety; Automobile Safety; Roads & Highways; Transportation Planning; Electronic Mail Systems; Researchers; Intrusion; General Contractors; Occupational Health; Vehicles; Studies; Workers; Employees; Construction Industry; Traffic Control; United States--us; Canada; Kansas; Oregon

Dynamic Modal Accessibility Gap: Measurement and Application Using Travel Routes Data.

Guan, Jinping; Zhang, Kai; Shen, Qing; He, Ying. (2020). Dynamic Modal Accessibility Gap: Measurement and Application Using Travel Routes Data. Transportation Research: Part D, 81.

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Abstract

Accessibility is a key concept in transportation research and an important indicator of people's quality of life. With the development of big data analytics, dynamic accessibility that captures the temporal variations of accessibility becomes an important research focus. Few prior studies focus on comparative measures of dynamic accessibility to Points of Interest (POIs) by alternative travel modes. To fill this research gap, we propose a new index called dynamic modal accessibility gap (DMAG), which draws upon available data on residents' real travel routes using different travel modes, as well as the data on POIs. We study the DMAG in the real-travel covered area, assuming POIs are only useful if it is within someone's real-travel covered area. We then apply this DMAG methodology to Shanghai's central city and peripheral area. In both cases, we measure the accessibility for public and private travel modes. As an example, one-week taxi GPS and metro smart card data, and POIs data are used to generate the DMAG index for 30-minute and 60-minute trip durations for weekdays and holidays. Results show that DMAG can reflect the pattern of temporal variations. The proposed DMAG analytical framework, which can be applied at both the user and the system levels, can support urban and transportation planning, and promote social equity and livability.

Keywords

Air Travel; Choice Of Transportation; Urban Transportation; Transportation Planning; Urban Planning; Smart Cards; Inner Cities; Route Choice; Shanghai (china); Dynamic Accessibility; Modal Accessibility Gap (mag); Points Of Interest (pois); Public And Private Travel Modes; Temporal Variations; Scale Residential Areas; Transport; Time; Dimensions; Employment; Indicator; Choice; Boston; Car

Three Pathways to Highly Energy Efficient Buildings: Assessing Combinations of Teaming and Technology

Homayouni, Hoda; Dossick, Carrie Sturts; Neff, Gina. (2021). Three Pathways to Highly Energy Efficient Buildings: Assessing Combinations of Teaming and Technology. Journal Of Management In Engineering, 37(2).

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Abstract

Highly energy efficient (HEE) buildings require a whole-system approach to building design. Scholars have suggested many tools, techniques, and processes to address the cross-disciplinary complexities of such an approach, but how these elements might be best combined to lead to better project outcomes is yet unknown. To address this, we surveyed architects associated with 33 AIA-COTE award-winning projects on the social, organizational, and technological elements of whole-system design (WSD) practices. We then used fuzzy sets-qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to analyze the interdependencies among those elements. We found three distinct pathways for the design and construction of HEE buildings: information-driven, process-driven, or organization-driven. We also found that HEE buildings share some conditions for success, including having shared goals, owners engagement in the design process, and frequent and participatory interorganizational meetings. Our findings can help practitioners strategize and make decisions on incorporating WSD elements associated with their project types. Moreover, these results provide a launchpad for scholars to investigate complementarities among elements facilitating the design and construction process of HEE projects.

Keywords

Buildings (structures); Construction; Design Engineering; Energy Conservation; Fuzzy Set Theory; Innovation Management; Organisational Aspects; Project Management; Team Working; Whole-system Approach; Building Design; Cross-disciplinary Complexities; Social Elements; Organizational Elements; Technological Elements; Whole-system Design Practices; Fuzzy Set; Distinct Pathways; Hee Buildings; Project Types; Construction Process; Hee Projects; Highly Energy Efficient Buildings; Whole-system Design; Energy Efficient Buildings; Building Information Modeling; Integrated Project Teams; Fuzzy Sets-qualitative Comparative Analysis

Would You Trust Driverless Service? Formation Of Pedestrian’s Trust And Attitude Using Non-verbal Social Cues.

Choi, Suji; Kim, Soyeon; Kwak, Mingi; Park, Jaewan; Park, Subin; Kwak, Dongjoon; Lee, Hyun Woo; Lee, Sangwon. (2022). Would You Trust Driverless Service? Formation Of Pedestrian’s Trust And Attitude Using Non-verbal Social Cues. Sensors (14248220), 22(7).

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Abstract

Despite the widespread application of Autonomous Vehicles (AV) to various services, there has been relatively little research carried out on pedestrian-AV interaction and trust within the context of service provided by AV. This study explores the communication design strategy promoting a pedestrian's trust and positive attitude to driverless services within the context of pedestrian-AV interaction using non-verbal social cues. An empirical study was conducted with an experimental VR environment to measure participants' intimacy, trust, and brand attitude toward AV. Further understanding of their social interaction experiences was explored through semi-structured interviews. As a result of the study, the interaction effect of social cues was found, and it was revealed that brand attitude was formed by the direct effects of intimacy and trust as well as the indirect effects of intimacy through trust's mediation. Furthermore, 'Conceptual Definition of Space' was identified to generate differences in the interplay among intimacy, trust, and brand attitude according to social cues. Quantitative and qualitative results were synthesized to discuss implications considering the service context. Practical implications were also addressed suggesting specific design strategies for utilizing the sociality of AV.

Keywords

Pedestrians; Nonverbal Cues; Consumer Attitudes; Social Attitudes; Social Interaction; Attitude (psychology); Autonomous Vehicles; Brand Attitude; Driverless Service; Intimacy; Pedestrian–av Interaction; Social Cues; Trust; Pedestrian-av Interaction; Conversational Agent; Brand Experience; Impact; Automation; Perception; Disclosure; Style; Gaze

Organizational Divisions in BIM-Enabled Commercial Construction

Dossick, Carrie S.; Neff, Gina. (2010). Organizational Divisions in BIM-Enabled Commercial Construction. Journal Of Construction Engineering And Management-asce, 136(4), 459 – 467.

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Abstract

Proponents claim that the adoption of building information modeling (BIM) will lead to greater efficiencies through increased collaboration. In this paper, we present research that examines the use of BIM technologies for mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and fire life safety systems (often referred to as MEP) coordination and how the introduction of BIM influences collaboration and communication. Using data from over 12 months of ethnographic observations of the MEP coordination process for two commercial construction projects and interviews with 65 industry leaders across the United States, we find that BIM-enabled projects are often tightly coupled technologically, but divided organizationally. This means that while BIM makes visible the connections among project members, it is not fostering closer collaboration across different companies. We outline the competing obligations to scope, project, and company as one cause for this division. Obligations to an individual scope of work or to a particular company can conflict with project goals. Individual leadership, especially that of the MEP coordinator in the teams we studied, often substitutes for stronger project cohesion and organization. Organizational forces and structures must be accounted for in order for BIM to be implemented successfully.

Keywords

Technology; Implementation; Viewpoint; Integrated Systems; Construction Industry; Leadership; Information Systems; Information Technology; Communication; Constructability; Mechanical Systems; Electrical Systems

Messy Work in Virtual Worlds: Exploring Discovery and Synthesis in Virtual Teams

Dossick, Carrie Sturts(1). (2014). Messy Work in Virtual Worlds: Exploring Discovery and Synthesis in Virtual Teams. Lecture Notes In Computer Science (including Subseries Lecture Notes In Artificial Intelligence And Lecture Notes In Bioinformatics), 8683, 134 – 142.

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Abstract

The challenges of engineering team collaboration—establishing trust, fostering productive informal communication, cultivating knowledge exchange—are often exacerbated in virtual teams by geographical separation as well as team members’ cultural and linguistic differences. Researchers have observed that powerful collaboration in collocated teams is supported by shared visualizations with which the team engages in informal, flexible and active ways. In studying virtual team interactions in a virtual world known as the CyberGRID, we see that just as with AEC collocated teams, shared visualizations were instrumental for the teams as they define, understand, and generate knowledge when working on interrelated tasks. Emerging from this analysis is an empirically supported theory that while avatar-model interaction supports mutual discovery, more messy interactions of brainstorming, knowledge exchange and synthesis requires flexible, active, and informal shared visualizations. © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2014.

Keywords

Communication; Flow Visualization; Information Technology; Knowledge Management; Visualization; Building Information Model; Bim; Collaboration; Geographical Separation; Global Virtual Teams; Informal Communication; Linguistic Differences; Virtual Team Interactions; Virtual Worlds

Metric-Based BIM Implementation Assessment: A Review of Research and Practice

Abdirad, Hamid. (2017). Metric-Based BIM Implementation Assessment: A Review of Research and Practice. Architectural Engineering And Design Management, 13(1), 52 – 78.

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Abstract

Building information modeling (BIM) is one of the most significant developments in the construction industry, as it introduces new technologies, processes, and interactions into practice. Prior research shows that there is an increasing interest among practitioners and academics to assess maturity, productivity, and performance of BIM implementation. This suggests that as BIM adoption grows, the need for BIM implementation assessment arises to facilitate monitoring, measuring, and improving BIM practices. However, so far, no single study has comprehensively reviewed and reported the existing approaches, metrics, and criteria used for assessing BIM practices. This study aims to review and analyze the literature and synthesize existing knowledge relevant to the topic. The author develops a thematic framework of BIM aspects, BIM goals, and performance evaluation trends to define grounds for assessing BIM implementation. Based on the framework, this research analyzed a total number of 97 references (selected out of 322 studies) to identify, extract, and classify metrics/criteria used for assessing BIM implementation. This study has practical implications for developing future BIM maturity models and BIM assessment tools as it synthesizes the existing developments on this topic, highlights gaps and limitations in metric-based BIM assessment, and provides recommendations for further research and developments.

Keywords

Computer Software; Building Information Modeling; Software Measurement; Performance Evaluation; Bim Assessment; Bim Implementation; Criteria; Metrics; Performance; Buildings (structures); Engineering Information Systems; Structural Engineering Computing; Metric-based Bim Implementation Assessment; Construction Industry; Productivity; Building Information Model; As-built Bim; Laser Scans; Life-cycle; Construction; Design; Project; Objects; Impact

Promoting Public Bike-Sharing: A Lesson from the Unsuccessful Pronto System

Sun, Feiyang; Chen, Peng; Jiao, Junfeng. (2018). Promoting Public Bike-Sharing: A Lesson from the Unsuccessful Pronto System. Transportation Research: Part D, 63, 533 – 547.

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Abstract

In 2014, Seattle implemented its own bike-sharing system, Pronto. However, the system ultimately ceased operation three years later on March 17th, 2017. To learn from this failure, this paper seeks to understand factors that encourage, or discourage, bike-sharing trip generation and attraction at the station level. This paper investigates the effects of land use, roadway design, elevation, bus trips, weather, and temporal factors on three-hour long bike pickups and returns at each docking station. To address temporal autocorrelations and the nonlinear seasonality, the paper implements a generalized additive mixed model (GAMM) that incorporates the joint effects of a time metric and time-varying variables. The paper estimates models on total counts of pickups and returns, as well as pickups categorized by user types and by location. The results clarify that effects of hilly terrain and the rainy weather, two commonly perceived contributors to the failure. Additionally, results suggest that users in the University District, presumably mostly university students, tend to use shared bikes in neighborhoods with a higher household density and a higher percentage of residential land use, and make bike-sharing trips regardless workdays or non-workdays. The paper also contributes to the discussion on the relationship between public transportation service and bike-sharing. In general, users tend to use bike-sharing more at stations that have more scheduled bus trips nearby. However, some bike-sharing users may shift to bus services during peak hours and rainy weather. Several strategies are proposed accordingly to increase bike ridership in the future.

Keywords

Bicycle Sharing Programs; Urban Transportation; Transportation & The Environment; Land Use Planning; Time-varying Systems; Bike-sharing; Built Environment; Generalized Additive Mixed Model; Pronto; Temporal Factors; Built Environment Factors; Bicycle; Impact; Transportation; Walking; Usage

Neurophysiological Testing for Assessing Construction Workers’ Task Performance at Virtual Height

Habibnezhad, Mahmoud; Puckett, Jay; Jebelli, Houtan; Karji, Ali; Fardhosseini, Mohammad Sadra; Asadi, Somayeh. (2020). Neurophysiological Testing for Assessing Construction Workers’ Task Performance at Virtual Height. Automation In Construction, 113.

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Abstract

Falling from heights is the primary cause of death and injuries at construction sites. As loss of balance has a fundamental effect on falling, it is important to understand postural regulation behavior during construction tasks at heights, especially those that require precise focus in an upright standing position (therefore, a dual-task demand on focus). Previous studies examined body sway during a quiet stance and dual tasks to understand latent factors affecting postural balance. Despite the success of these studies in discovering underlying factors, they lack a comprehensive analysis of a task's simultaneous cognitive load, postural sway, and visual depth. To address this limitation, this paper aims to examine construction workers' postural stability and task performance during the execution of visual construction tasks while standing upright on elevated platforms. To that end, two non-intrusive neurophysiological tests, a hand-steadiness task (HST) and a pursuit task (PT), were developed for construction tasks in a virtual environment (VE) as performance-based means to assess the cognitive function of workers at height. Workers' postural stability was measured by recording the mapped position of the Center of Pressure (COP) of the body on a posturography force plate, and the postural sway metrics subsequently calculated. A laboratory experiment was designed to collect postural and task performance data from 18 subjects performing the two batteries of tests in the virtual environment. The results demonstrated a significant decrease in the Root-Mean Square (RMS) of COP along the anterior-posterior axis during the Randomized Pursuit Task (RPT) and maximum body sway of the center of pressure (COP) in the mediolateral direction during both tests. Also, subjects exposed to high elevation predominately exhibit higher accuracy for RPT (P-value = 0.02) and lower accuracy for HST (P-value = 0.05). The results show that the combination of elevation-related visual depth and low-complexity dual tasks impairs task performance due to the elevation-induced visual perturbations and anxiety-driven motor responses. On the other hand, in the absence of visual depth at height, high task complexity surprisingly improves the pursuit tracking performance. As expected, during both tasks, alterations in postural control were manifested in the form of a body sway decrement as a compensatory postural strategy for accomplishing tasks at high elevation.

Keywords

Task Performance; Construction Workers; Test Design; Cognitive Load; Standing Position; Sitting Position; Neurophysiological Test; Postural Stability; Virtual Reality; Workers' Safety At Height; Fall-risk; Reaction-time; Fear; Real; Acrophobia; Balance; Safety

Physical Activity Measurement in Children Who Use Mobility Assistive Devices: Accelerometry and Global Positioning System

Kerfeld, Cheryl I.; Hurvitz, Philip M.; Bjornson, Kristie F. (2021). Physical Activity Measurement in Children Who Use Mobility Assistive Devices: Accelerometry and Global Positioning System. Pediatric Physical Therapy, 33(2), 92 – 99.

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Abstract

Purpose: To explore the usefulness of combining accelerometry, global positioning systems, and geographic information systems, to describe the time spent in different locations and physical activity (PA) duration/count levels by location for 4 children with cerebral palsy (CP) who use assistive devices (AD). Methods: A descriptive multiple-case study. Results: Combining the 3 instruments was useful in describing and differentiating duration by location, and amount and location of PA across differing functional levels and AD. For example, the child classified with a Gross Motor Function Classification System (GMFCS) level II exhibited large amounts of PA in community settings. In contrast, the child classified with a GMFCS level V had small amounts of PA and spent most measured time at home. Conclusions: Combined accelerometry, global positioning system, and geographic information system have potential to capture time spent and amount/intensity of PA relative to locations within daily environments for children with CP who use AD.

Keywords

Cerebral-palsy; Objective Measures; Fitness; Youth; Disabilities; Adolescents; Exercise; Adults; Accelerometer; Cerebral Palsy; Environment; Global Positioning System; Mobility Assistive Devices; Physical Activity