Promoting sustainable urban development in fast growing city-regions : practices from Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong

The Asia‐Pacific region is characterised by rapid population growth and urbanisation. These trends often result in an increasing consumption of land, which in turn lead to spatially expansive and discontinuous urban development. As a consequence, local communities and the environment face strong pressures. Many cities in the region have developed policies to tackle the issue of rapid growth and its associated consequences, for example climate change. The broad aim of this paper is to identify the nature, trends and strategies of growth management in major Asia‐Pacific city‐regions, and their implications for natural resource management and infrastructure provision. More specifically, this research seeks to provide insights on sustainable urban development practice, particularly on the promotion of compact urbanisation within the Asia‐Pacific’s fastest growing regions. The methodology of the paper includes a detailed literature review and a comparative analysis of existing strategies and policies. The literature review focuses on the key concepts related to sustainable urban growth management. It also includes existing applications of urban growth management approaches and planning information system in managing growth. Following the literature review, the paper undertakes a comparative analysis of the strategies of major Asia‐Pacific city‐regions of Kuala Lumpur and Hong Kong in terms of their approaches to sustainable urban development. The findings of the paper provide a clear understanding of the necessity of sustainable urban development practices. It contributes to the development of a substantial base for further research. Ultimately, this research aims to shed light on sustainable urban development by providing insights on the management of growth, natural resources and urban infrastructures.

The development of a new four-year Construction Technology and Management Stream at QUT

This paper focuses on the development and delivery of a core construction management (CM) unit, which forms the capstone of a four-unit CM stream in an undergraduate programme in the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology. UDB410 (Construction Management) is a final year unit that consolidates skills students have learned throughout their degree, hopefully graduating them as work-ready construction managers. It was developed in consultation with the Queensland Chapter of the Australian Institute of Building (AIB) and is a final year unit in the undergraduate Bachelor of Urban Development (CM) course. The unit uses various tools such as the OSIRIS business database (Bureau van Dijk Electronic Publishing, 2009), the AROUSAL (UK Version) construction business simulation (Lansley, 2009) and the Denison Organisational Culture Survey (Denison, 2000) to facilitate the development of skills in managing a construction company. The objectives of the paper are: • To track the rationale and development of the UDB410 unit sand describe the way in which this final year unit integrates learning from other parts of the course within which it is located as well as capping-off the CM stream of core units; • To highlight the difficulties of blending a balance of technology and management in a single unit; and • To explain how partnering with the construction industry benefited the learning quality of the unit.

Career development and personal functioning differences between work-bound and non-work bound students

We surveyed 506 Australian high school students on career development (exploration, planning, job-knowledge, decision-making, indecision), personal functioning (well-being, self-esteem, life satisfaction, school satisfaction) and control variables (parents’ education, school achievement), and tested differences among work-bound, college-bound and university-bound students. The work-bound students had the poorest career development and personal functioning, the university-bound students the highest, with the college-bound students falling in-between the other two groups. Work-bound students did poorest, even after controlling for parental education and school achievement. The results suggest a relationship between career development and personal functioning in high school students.

User-designer collaboration during the early stage of the product development process

As an understanding of users' tacit knowledge and latent needs embedded in user experience has played a critical role in product development, users’ direct involvement in design has become a necessary part of the design process. Various ways of accessing users' tacit knowledge and latent needs have been explored in the field of user-centred design, participatory design, and design for experiencing. User-designer collaboration has been used unconsciously by traditional designers to facilitate the transfer of users' tacit knowledge and to elicit new knowledge. However, what makes user-designer collaboration an effective strategy has rarely been reported on or explored. Therefore, interaction patterns between the users and the designers in three industry-supported user involvement cases were studied. In order to develop a coding system, collaboration was defined as a set of coordinated and joint problem solving activities, measured by the elicitation of new knowledge from collaboration. The analysis of interaction patterns in the user involvement cases revealed that allowing users to challenge or modify their contextual experiences facilitates the transfer of knowledge and new knowledge generation. It was concluded that users can be more effectively integrated into the product development process by employing collaboration strategies to intensify the depth of user involvement.

Linking resource acquisition and development processes to resource-based advantage : bricolage and the resource-based view

We investigate the relationship between bricolage – an approach to a firm’s resource development – and the firm’s strategic resource position as depicted by the resource-based view (RBV). The RBV is concerned with the resource characteristics of firms that lead to sustainable competitive advantage. Alternatively, bricolage is a process of resource use and development characterised by using resources at hand, recombining resources and making do. Based on a sample of approximately 700 nascent and 700 young firms we find that higher levels of bricolage behaviour tend to lead to more advantageous strategic resource positions.

An innovative learning model for teaching architectural technology using building information modelling : a Queensland University of Technology perspective

In architecture courses, instilling a wider understanding of the industry specific representations practiced in the Building Industry is normally done under the auspices of Technology and Science subjects. Traditionally, building industry professionals communicated their design intentions using industry specific representations. Originally these mainly two dimensional representations such as plans, sections, elevations, schedules, etc. were produced manually, using a drawing board. Currently, this manual process has been digitised in the form of Computer Aided Design and Drafting (CADD) or ubiquitously simply CAD. While CAD has significant productivity and accuracy advantages over the earlier manual method, it still only produces industry specific representations of the design intent. Essentially, CAD is a digital version of the drawing board. The tool used for the production of these representations in industry is still mainly CAD. This is also the approach taken in most traditional university courses and mirrors the reality of the situation in the building industry. A successor to CAD, in the form of Building Information Modelling (BIM), is presently evolving in the Construction Industry. CAD is mostly a technical tool that conforms to existing industry practices. BIM on the other hand is revolutionary both as a technical tool and as an industry practice. Rather than producing representations of design intent, BIM produces an exact Virtual Prototype of any building that in an ideal situation is centrally stored and freely exchanged between the project team. Essentially, BIM builds any building twice: once in the virtual world, where any faults are resolved, and finally, in the real world. There is, however, no established model for learning through the use of this technology in Architecture courses. Queensland University of Technology (QUT), a tertiary institution that maintains close links with industry, recognises the importance of equipping their graduates with skills that are relevant to industry. BIM skills are currently in increasing demand throughout the construction industry through the evolution of construction industry practices. As such, during the second half of 2008, QUT 4th year architectural students were formally introduced for the first time to BIM, as both a technology and as an industry practice. This paper will outline the teaching team’s experiences and methodologies in offering a BIM unit (Architectural Technology and Science IV) at QUT for the first time and provide a description of the learning model. The paper will present the results of a survey on the learners’ perspectives of both BIM and their learning experiences as they learn about and through this technology.

Ex vivo investigation of novel wound healing therapies and development of a 3-D human skin equivalent wound model

It has previously been found that complexes comprised of vitronectin and growth factors (VN:GF) enhance keratinocyte protein synthesis and migration. More specifically, these complexes have been shown to significantly enhance the migration of dermal keratinocytes derived from human skin. In view of this, it was thought that these complexes may hold potential as a novel therapy for healing chronic wounds. However, there was no evidence indicating that the VN:GF complexes would retain their effect on keratinocytes in the presence of chronic wound fluid. The studies in this thesis demonstrate for the first time that the VN:GF complexes not only stimulate proliferation and migration of keratinocytes, but also these effects are maintained in the presence of chronic wound fluid in a 2-dimensional (2-D) cell culture model. Whilst the 2-D culture system provided insights into how the cells might respond to the VN:GF complexes, this investigative approach is not ideal as skin is a 3-dimensional (3-D) tissue. In view of this, a 3-D human skin equivalent (HSE) model, which reflects more closely the in vivo environment, was used to test the VN:GF complexes on epidermopoiesis. These studies revealed that the VN:GF complexes enable keratinocytes to migrate, proliferate and differentiate on a de-epidermalised dermis (DED), ultimately forming a fully stratified epidermis. In addition, fibroblasts were seeded on DED and shown to migrate into the DED in the presence of the VN:GF complexes and hyaluronic acid, another important biological factor in the wound healing cascade. This HSE model was then further developed to enable studies examining the potential of the VN:GF complexes in epidermal wound healing. Specifically, a reproducible partial-thickness HSE wound model was created in fully-defined media and monitored as it healed. In this situation, the VN:GF complexes were shown to significantly enhance keratinocyte migration and proliferation, as well as differentiation. This model was also subsequently utilized to assess the wound healing potential of a synthetic fibrin-like gel that had previously been demonstrated to bind growth factors. Of note, keratinocyte re-epitheliasation was shown to be markedly improved in the presence of this 3-D matrix, highlighting its future potential for use as a delivery vehicle for the VN:GF complexes. Furthermore, this synthetic fibrin-like gel was injected into a 4 mm diameter full-thickness wound created in the HSE, both keratinocytes and fibroblasts were shown to migrate into this gel, as revealed by immunofluorescence. Interestingly, keratinocyte migration into this matrix was found to be dependent upon the presence of the fibroblasts. Taken together, these data indicate that reproducible wounds, as created in the HSEs, provide a relevant ex vivo tool to assess potential wound healing therapies. Moreover, the models will decrease our reliance on animals for scientific experimentation. Additionally, it is clear that these models will significantly assist in the development of novel treatments, such as the VN:GF complexes and the synthetic fibrin-like gel described herein, ultimately facilitating their clinical trial in the treatment of chronic wounds.

Life cycle modelling and design knowledge development in 3D virtual environments : final report

Experience plays an important role in building management. “How often will this asset need repair?” or “How much time is this repair going to take?” are types of questions that project and facility managers face daily in planning activities. Failure or success in developing good schedules, budgets and other project management tasks depend on the project manager's ability to obtain reliable information to be able to answer these types of questions. Young practitioners tend to rely on information that is based on regional averages and provided by publishing companies. This is in contrast to experienced project managers who tend to rely heavily on personal experience. Another aspect of building management is that many practitioners are seeking to improve available scheduling algorithms, estimating spreadsheets and other project management tools. Such “micro-scale” levels of research are important in providing the required tools for the project manager's tasks. However, even with such tools, low quality input information will produce inaccurate schedules and budgets as output. Thus, it is also important to have a broad approach to research at a more “macro-scale.” Recent trends show that the Architectural, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry is experiencing explosive growth in its capabilities to generate and collect data. There is a great deal of valuable knowledge that can be obtained from the appropriate use of this data and therefore the need has arisen to analyse this increasing amount of available data. Data Mining can be applied as a powerful tool to extract relevant and useful information from this sea of data. Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Data Mining (DM) are tools that allow identification of valid, useful, and previously unknown patterns so large amounts of project data may be analysed. These technologies combine techniques from machine learning, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, statistics, databases, and visualization to automatically extract concepts, interrelationships, and patterns of interest from large databases. The project involves the development of a prototype tool to support facility managers, building owners and designers. This final report presents the AIMMTM prototype system and documents how and what data mining techniques can be applied, the results of their application and the benefits gained from the system. The AIMMTM system is capable of searching for useful patterns of knowledge and correlations within the existing building maintenance data to support decision making about future maintenance operations. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system on building models and their maintenance data (supplied by industry partners) utilises various data mining algorithms and the maintenance data is analysed using interactive visual tools. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system to help in improving maintenance management and building life cycle includes: (i) data preparation and cleaning, (ii) integrating meaningful domain attributes, (iii) performing extensive data mining experiments in which visual analysis (using stacked histograms), classification and clustering techniques, associative rule mining algorithm such as “Apriori” and (iv) filtering and refining data mining results, including the potential implications of these results for improving maintenance management. Maintenance data of a variety of asset types were selected for demonstration with the aim of discovering meaningful patterns to assist facility managers in strategic planning and provide a knowledge base to help shape future requirements and design briefing. Utilising the prototype system developed here, positive and interesting results regarding patterns and structures of data have been obtained.

Rebuilding Native Nations Strategies for Governance and Development

This is a review of the book titled 'Rebuilding Native Nations. Strategies Governance and Development', edited by Miriam Jorgensen.

Life Cycle Modelling and Design Knowledge Development in 3D Virtual Environments

Experience plays an important role in building management. “How often will this asset need repair?” or “How much time is this repair going to take?” are types of questions that project and facility managers face daily in planning activities. Failure or success in developing good schedules, budgets and other project management tasks depend on the project manager's ability to obtain reliable information to be able to answer these types of questions. Young practitioners tend to rely on information that is based on regional averages and provided by publishing companies. This is in contrast to experienced project managers who tend to rely heavily on personal experience. Another aspect of building management is that many practitioners are seeking to improve available scheduling algorithms, estimating spreadsheets and other project management tools. Such “micro-scale” levels of research are important in providing the required tools for the project manager's tasks. However, even with such tools, low quality input information will produce inaccurate schedules and budgets as output. Thus, it is also important to have a broad approach to research at a more “macro-scale.” Recent trends show that the Architectural, Engineering, Construction (AEC) industry is experiencing explosive growth in its capabilities to generate and collect data. There is a great deal of valuable knowledge that can be obtained from the appropriate use of this data and therefore the need has arisen to analyse this increasing amount of available data. Data Mining can be applied as a powerful tool to extract relevant and useful information from this sea of data. Knowledge Discovery in Databases (KDD) and Data Mining (DM) are tools that allow identification of valid, useful, and previously unknown patterns so large amounts of project data may be analysed. These technologies combine techniques from machine learning, artificial intelligence, pattern recognition, statistics, databases, and visualization to automatically extract concepts, interrelationships, and patterns of interest from large databases. The project involves the development of a prototype tool to support facility managers, building owners and designers. This Industry focused report presents the AIMMTM prototype system and documents how and what data mining techniques can be applied, the results of their application and the benefits gained from the system. The AIMMTM system is capable of searching for useful patterns of knowledge and correlations within the existing building maintenance data to support decision making about future maintenance operations. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system on building models and their maintenance data (supplied by industry partners) utilises various data mining algorithms and the maintenance data is analysed using interactive visual tools. The application of the AIMMTM prototype system to help in improving maintenance management and building life cycle includes: (i) data preparation and cleaning, (ii) integrating meaningful domain attributes, (iii) performing extensive data mining experiments in which visual analysis (using stacked histograms), classification and clustering techniques, associative rule mining algorithm such as “Apriori” and (iv) filtering and refining data mining results, including the potential implications of these results for improving maintenance management. Maintenance data of a variety of asset types were selected for demonstration with the aim of discovering meaningful patterns to assist facility managers in strategic planning and provide a knowledge base to help shape future requirements and design briefing. Utilising the prototype system developed here, positive and interesting results regarding patterns and structures of data have been obtained.

Report on the Development and Validation of the Best Practice Decision Matrix

The Co-operative Research Centre for Construction Innovation (CRC-CI) is funding a project known as Value Alignment Process for Project Delivery. The project consists of a study of best practice project delivery and the development of a suite of products, resources and services to guide project teams towards the best procurement approach for a specific project or group of projects. These resources will be focused on promoting the principles that underlie best practice project delivery rather than simply identifying an off-the-shelf procurement system. This project builds on earlier work by Sidwell, Kennedy and Chan (2002), on re-engineering the construction delivery process, which developed a procurement framework in the form of a Decision Matrix

Strategy for the development of investment decision-making framework for road asset management for queensland department of main roads

The aim of this project is to develop a systematic investment decision-making framework for infrastructure asset management by incorporation economic justification, social and environmental consideration in the decision-making process. This project assesses the factors that are expected to provide significant impacts on the variability of expenditures. A procedure for assessing risk and reliability for project investment appraisals will be developed. The project investigates public perception, social and environmental impacts on road infrastructure investment. This research will contribute to the debate about how important social and environmental issues should be incorporated into the investment decision-making process for infrastructure asset management.

Parametric building development during early design stage

Objectives The objectives of this project were two-fold: • Assess the ease with which current architectural CAD systems supported the use ofparametric descriptions in defining building shape, engineering system performance and cost at the early stages of building design; • Assess the feasibility of implementing a software decision support system that allowed designers to trade-off the characteristics and configuration of various engineering systems to move towards a “global optimum” rather than considering each system in isolation and expecting humans to weigh up all of the costs and benefits. The first stage of the project consisted of using four different CAD systems to define building shells (envelopes) with different usages. These models were then exported into a shared database using the IFC information exchange specifications. The second stage involved the implementation of small computer programs that were able to estimate relevant system parameters based on performance requirements and the constraints imposed by the other systems. These are presented in a unified user interface that extracts the appropriate building shape parameters from the shared database Note that the term parametric in this context refers to the relationships among and between all elements of the building model - not just geometric associations - which will enable the desired coordination.

Development of diagnostic and prognostic algorithms for SF6 puffer circuit breakers from transient waveforms : a validation proposal

- This paper presents a validation proposal for development of diagnostic and prognostic algorithms for SF6 puffer circuit-breakers reproduced from actual site waveforms. The re-ignition/restriking rates are duplicated in given circuits and the cumulative energy dissipated in interrupters by the restriking currents. The targeted objective is to provide a simulated database for diagnosis of re-ignition/restrikes relating to the phase to earth voltage and the number of re-ignition/restrikes as well as estimating the remaining life of SF6 circuit-breakers. The model-based diagnosis of a tool will be useful in monitoring re-ignition/restrikes as well as predicting a nozzle’s lifetime. This will help ATP users with practical study cases and component data compilation for shunt reactor switching and capacitor switching. This method can be easily applied with different data for the different dielectric curves of circuit breakers and networks. This paper presents modelling details and some of the available cases, required project support, the validation proposal, the specific plan for implementation and the propsed main contributions.