Investigation of barriers to entry into the design-build market in the People’s Republic of China (PRC)

Although the design-build (DB) system has been demonstrated to be an effective delivery method and has gained popularity worldwide, it has not gained the same popularity in the construction market of China. The objective of this study was, theretofore, to investigate the barriers to entry in the DB market. A total of 22 entry barriers were first identified through an open-ended questionnaire survey with 15 top construction professionals in the construction market of China. A broad questionnaire survey was further conducted to prioritize these entry barriers. Statistical analysis of responses shows that the most dominant barriers to entry into the DB market are, namely, lack of design expertise, lack of interest from owners, lack of suitable organization structure, lack of DB specialists, and lack of credit record system. Analysis of variance indicates that there is no difference of opinions among the respondent groups of academia, government departments, state-owned company, and private company, at the 5% significance level, on most of the barriers to entry. Finally, the underlying dimensions of barriers to entry in the DB market were investigated through factor analysis. The results indicate that there are six major underlying dimensions of entry barriers in DB market, which include, namely, the competence of design-builders, difficulty in project procurement, characteristics of DB projects, lack of support from public sectors, the competence of DB owners, and the immaturity of DB market. These findings are useful for both potential and incumbent design-builders to understand and analyze the DB market in China.

Current state of the application of infrared optical methods for assessing articular cartilage

This paper reviews the current state in the application of infrared methods, particularly mid-infrared (mid-IR) and near infrared (NIR), for the evaluation of the structural and functional integrity of articular cartilage. It is noted that while a considerable amount of research has been conducted with respect to tissue characterization using mid-IR, it is almost certain that full-thickness cartilage assessment is not feasible with this method. On the contrary, the relatively more considerable penetration capacity of NIR suggests that it is a suitable candidate for full-thickness cartilage evaluation. Nevertheless, significant research is still required to improve the specificity and clinical applicability of the method if we are going to be able to use it for distinguishing between functional and dysfunctional cartilage.

Integrated approach for HP-LNG pump diagnosis and prognostics based on health state probability estimation

This paper presents an innovative prognostics model based on health state probability estimation embedded in the closed loop diagnostic and prognostic system. To employ an appropriate classifier for health state probability estimation in the proposed prognostic model, the comparative intelligent diagnostic tests were conducted using five different classifiers applied to the progressive fault levels of three faults in HP-LNG pump. Two sets of impeller-rubbing data were employed for the prediction of pump remnant life based on estimation of discrete health state probability using an outstanding capability of SVM and a feature selection technique. The results obtained were very encouraging and showed that the proposed prognosis system has the potential to be used as an estimation tool for machine remnant life prediction in real life industrial applications.

PySSM : a Python module for Bayesian inference of linear Gaussian state space models

PySSM is a Python package that has been developed for the analysis of time series using linear Gaussian state space models (SSM). PySSM is easy to use; models can be set up quickly and efficiently and a variety of different settings are available to the user. It also takes advantage of scientific libraries Numpy and Scipy and other high level features of the Python language. PySSM is also used as a platform for interfacing between optimised and parallelised Fortran routines. These Fortran routines heavily utilise Basic Linear Algebra (BLAS) and Linear Algebra Package (LAPACK) functions for maximum performance. PySSM contains classes for filtering, classical smoothing as well as simulation smoothing.

Juggling competing public values : resolving conflicting agendas in social procurement in Queensland

Organisations within the not-for-profit sector provide services to individuals and groups government and for-profit organisations cannot or will not consider. This response by the not-for-profit sector to market failure and government failure is a well understood contribution to society by the nonprofit sector. Over time, this response has resulted in the development of a vibrant and rich agglomeration of services and programs that operate under a myriad of philosophical stances, service orientations, client groupings and operational capacities. In Australia, these organisations and services provide social support and service assistance to many people in the community; often targeting their assistance to clients facing the most difficult of clients with complex problems. Initially, in undertaking this role, the not-for-profit sector received limited sponsorship from government, relying on primarily on public donations to fund the delivery of services. (Lyons 2001). Over time governments assumed greater responsibility in the form of service grants to particular groups: ‘the worthy poor’. More recently, government has engaged in widespread procurement of services from the not-for-profit sector, which specify the nature of the outcomes to be achieved and, to a degree, the way in which the services will be provided. A consequence of this growing shift to a more marketised model of service contracting, often offered-up under the label of enhanced collaborative practice, has been increased competitiveness between agencies that had previously worked well together (Keast and Brown, 2006). One of the challenges which emerge from the procurement of services by government from third sector organisations is that public values such as effectiveness, efficiency, transparency and professionalism can be neglected (Jørgensen and Bozeman 2002), although this is not always the case (Brown, Furneaux and Gudmundsson 2012). While some approaches to the examination of social procurement - the intentional purchasing of social outcomes (Furneaux and Barraket 2011) - assumes that public values are lost in social procurement arrangements (Bozeman 2002; Jørgensen and Bozeman 2002), alternative approach suggest such inevitability is not the case. Instead, social procurement is seen to involve a set of tensions (Brown, Potoski and Slyke 2006) or a set of trade offs (Charles et al. 2007), which must be managed, and through such management, public values can be potentially safeguarded (Bruin and Dicke 2006). The potential trade-offs of public values in social procurement is an area in need of further research, and one which carries both theoretical and practical significance. Additionally, the juxtaposition of policies – horizontal integration and vertical efficiency – results in a complex, crowded and contested policy and practice environment (Keast et al., 2007),, with the potential for set of unintentional consequences arising from these arrangements. Further the involvement of for-profit, non-profit, and hybrid organisations such as social enterprises, adds further complexity in the number of different organisational forms engaged in service delivery on behalf of government. To address this issue, this paper uses information gleaned from a state-wide survey of not-for-profit organisations in Queensland, Australia which included within its focus organisational size, operational scope, funding arrangements and governance/management approaches. Supplementing this information is qualitative data derived from 17 focus groups and 120 interviews conducted over ten years of study of this sector. The findings contribute to greater understanding of the practice and theory of the future provision of social services.

Preliminary Research Findings : Volunteers in Queensland State Government

As 2001 was the International Year of the Volunteer as it seemed timely to look at the legal, social and political frameworks which provide for the long term growth of volunteers. The focus of this research is on the nature and extent of volunteers in the Queensland State Government. The social capital debate (expanded by Robert Putnam in 1995) is about citizens’ participation in extracurricular activities and has been extended to mean a collective intelligence – a capacity as a people to create the society we want. The volunteer phenomenon has been used to indicate social and ethical concern.

A novel CDVM based high-voltage converter using low power solid-state switches and a tuned resonant circuit designed for pulsed power applications

A novel concept of producing high dc voltage for pulsed-power applications is proposed in this paper. The topology consists of an LC resonant circuit supplied through a tuned alternating waveform that is produced by an inverter. The control scheme is based on the detection of variations in the resonant frequency and adjustment of the switching signal patterns for the inverter to produce a square waveform with exactly the same frequencies. Therefore the capacitor voltage oscillates divergently with an increasing amplitude. A simple one-stage capacitor-diode voltage multiplier (CDVM) connected to the resonant capacitor then rectifies the alternating voltage and gives a dc level equal to twice the input voltage amplitude. The produced high voltage appears then in the form of high-voltage pulses across the load. A basic model is simulated by Simulink platform of MATLAB and the results are included in the paper.

Something rotten in the state of Minnesota: or the morality of backwoodsmen: 'A Simple Plan'

'A Simple Plan' is a deceptively complex and multilayered film, combining elements of Celtic mythology with the morality play and the windfall fantasy gone disastrously wrong. Despite its blending of realism and heavyhanded symbolism, and its abundant trans-textual gestures, 'A Simple Plan' is in many ways defiantly not a 90s movie: its leading characters are fashionably flawed, but they are neither sensitive, nor honourable, nor heroic; there are no startling special effects or intricate timeshifts; and it desperately gives the impression of depth, of being emphatically more than mere superficial excess. At a stretch it almost appears to be a throwback to the 1930s Production Code emphasis on the role of cinema in moral instruction; while good hardly triumphs over evil, venality is painfully and emphatically punished. But in other ways it is a quintessential late 90s film: an American/British/Japanese/German/French co-production, 'A Simple Plan' acts most palpably as a commentary on the moral, economic and social condition of the United States at the end of the American century.

Clinical utility of mental state screening as a predictor of intellectual outcomes 6 months after diagnosis of type 1 diabetes

Background Screening tests of basic cognitive status or ‘mental state’ have been shown to predict mortality and functional outcomes in adults. This study examined the relationship between mental state and outcomes in children with type 1 diabetes. Objective We aimed to determine whether mental state at diagnosis predicts longer term cognitive function of children with a new diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. Methods Mental state of 87 patients presenting with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes was assessed using the School-Years Screening Test for the Evaluation of Mental Status. Cognitive abilities were assessed 1 wk and 6 months postdiagnosis using standardized tests of attention, memory, and intelligence. Results Thirty-seven children (42.5%) had reduced mental state at diagnosis. Children with impaired mental state had poorer attention and memory in the week following diagnosis, and, after controlling for possible confounding factors, significantly lower IQ at 6 months compared to those with unimpaired mental state (p < 0.05). Conclusions Cognition is impaired acutely in a significant number of children presenting with newly diagnosed type 1 diabetes. Mental state screening is an effective method of identifying children at risk of ongoing cognitive difficulties in the days and months following diagnosis. Clinicians may consider mental state screening for all newly diagnosed diabetic children to identify those at risk of cognitive sequelae.

The role of insulin in advanced prostate cancer

Advanced prostate cancer is a common and generally incurable disease. Androgen deprivation therapy is used to treat advanced prostate cancer with good benefits to quality of life and regression of disease. Prostate cancer invariably progresses however despite ongoing treatment, to a castrate resistant state. Androgen deprivation is associated with a form of metabolic syndrome, which includes insulin resistance and hyperinsulinaemia. The mitogenic and anti-apoptotic properties of insulin acting through the insulin and hybrid insulin/IGF-1 receptors seem to have positive effects on prostate tumour growth. This pilot study was designed to assess any correlation between elevated insulin levels and progression to castrate resistant prostate cancer. Methods: 36 men receiving ADT for advanced prostate cancer were recruited, at various stages of their treatment, along with 47 controls, men with localised prostate cancer pre-treatment. Serum measurements of C-peptide (used as a surrogate marker for insulin production) were performed and compared between groups. Correlation between serum C-peptide level and time to progression to castrate resistant disease was assessed. Results: There was a significant elevation of C-peptide levels in the ADT group (mean = 1639pmol/L)) compared to the control group (mean = 1169pmol/L), with a p-value of 0.025. In 17 men with good initial response to androgen deprivation, a small negative trend towards earlier progression to castrate resistance with increasing C-peptide level was seen in the ADT group (r = -0.050), however this did not reach statistical significance (p>0.1). Conclusions: This pilot study confirms an increase in serum C-peptide levels in men receiving ADT for advance prostate cancer. A non-significant, but negative trend towards earlier progression to castrate resistance with increasing C-peptide suggests the need for a formal prospective study assessing this hypothesis.

On the significance of omitted variables in intersection crash modeling

Advances in safety research—trying to improve the collective understanding of motor vehicle crash causes and contributing factors—rest upon the pursuit of numerous lines of research inquiry. The research community has focused considerable attention on analytical methods development (negative binomial models, simultaneous equations, etc.), on better experimental designs (before-after studies, comparison sites, etc.), on improving exposure measures, and on model specification improvements (additive terms, non-linear relations, etc.). One might logically seek to know which lines of inquiry might provide the most significant improvements in understanding crash causation and/or prediction. It is the contention of this paper that the exclusion of important variables (causal or surrogate measures of causal variables) cause omitted variable bias in model estimation and is an important and neglected line of inquiry in safety research. In particular, spatially related variables are often difficult to collect and omitted from crash models—but offer significant opportunities to better understand contributing factors and/or causes of crashes. This study examines the role of important variables (other than Average Annual Daily Traffic (AADT)) that are generally omitted from intersection crash prediction models. In addition to the geometric and traffic regulatory information of intersection, the proposed model includes many spatial factors such as local influences of weather, sun glare, proximity to drinking establishments, and proximity to schools—representing a mix of potential environmental and human factors that are theoretically important, but rarely used. Results suggest that these variables in addition to AADT have significant explanatory power, and their exclusion leads to omitted variable bias. Provided is evidence that variable exclusion overstates the effect of minor road AADT by as much as 40% and major road AADT by 14%.

State convergence and keyspace reduction of the mixer stream cipher

This paper presents an analysis of the stream cipher Mixer, a bit-based cipher with structural components similar to the well-known Grain cipher and the LILI family of keystream generators. Mixer uses a 128-bit key and 64-bit IV to initialise a 217-bit internal state. The analysis is focused on the initialisation function of Mixer and shows that there exist multiple key-IV pairs which, after initialisation, produce the same initial state, and consequently will generate the same keystream. Furthermore, if the number of iterations of the state update function performed during initialisation is increased, then the number of distinct initial states that can be obtained decreases. It is also shown that there exist some distinct initial states which produce the same keystream, resulting in a further reduction of the effective key space

Strategy taxonomy and classification system development : study of two state governments

There is limited understanding about business strategies related to parliamentary government's departments. This study focuses on the strategies of departments of two state governments in Australia. The strategies are derived from department strategic plans available in public domain and collected from respective websites. The results of this research indicate that strategies fall into seven categories: internal, development, political, partnership, environment, reorientation and status quo. The strategies of the departments are mainly internal or development where development strategy is mainly the focus of departments such as transport, and infrastructure. Political strategy is prevalent for departments related to communities, and education and training. Further three layers of strategies are identified as kernel, cluster and individual, which are mapped to the developed taxonomy.