Early Implementation of Building Information Modeling into a Cold-Formed Steel Company: Providing Novel Project Management Techniques and Solutions to Industry

The ability of building information modeling (BIM) to positively impact projects in the AEC through greater collaboration and integration is widely acknowledged. This paper aims to examine the development of BIM and how it can contribute to the cold-formed steel (CFS) building industry. This is achieved through the adoption of a qualitative methodology encompassing a literature review, exploratory interviews with industry experts, culminating in the development of e-learning material for the sector. In doing so, the research team have collaborated with one of the United Kingdom’s largest cold-formed steel designer/fabricators. By demonstrating the capabilities of BIM software and providing technical and informative videos in its creation, this project has found two key outcomes. Firstly, to provide invaluable assistance in the transition from traditional processes to a fully collaborative 3D BIM as required by the UK Government under the “Government Construction Strategy” by 2016 in all public sector projects. Secondly, to demonstrate BIM’s potential not only within CFS companies, but also within the AEC sector as a whole. As the flexibility, adaptability and interoperability of BIM software is alluded to, the results indicate that the introduction and development of BIM and the underlying ethos suggests that it is a key tool in the development of the industry as a whole.

X/Y

A collaboration with the Sonic Arts Research Centre (QUB) and Tinderbox Theatre Company, this lab explores how writers can collaborate with experts in sonic design. The collaboration will result in an initial performance on March 12 2014 (entitled 'X/Y') at the Sonic Arts Research Centre that is open to the public. The audience's comments will then be fed back into the creative process for re-drafting and re-recording. A final performance is planned for the Belfast Festival.

The Evidence Debate for Behavioural Interventions for Autism

For more than fifty years evidence has been accrued regarding the efficacy of applied behaviour analysis-based interventions for individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Despite this history of empirical evidence, some researchers and ASD experts still are reluctant to accept behavioral interventions as best practice for ASD. In this paper, we consider both random control trials and single subject experimental designs as forms of evidenced-based practice (EBP). Specific application of these methods to ASD research is considered. In an effort to provide scientifically based evidence for interventions for ASD, EBP standards have been debated without a consensus being achieved. Service users of ASD interventions need access to sound empirical evidence to choose appropriate programmes for those they care for with ASD rather than putting their hopes in therapies backed by pseudoscience and celebrity endorsements.

The role of facilities manager in sustainable practice in the UK and Ireland

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of facilities managers in sustainable practice. It also analyzes the change in facilities management (FM) in terms of sustainability.

Design/methodology/approach – This research adopted a combination of literature review and expert interviews. Empirical data were collected through in-depth interviews with 40 industrial experts in the UK and Ireland.

Findings – The analysis of interview results shows a sustainable movement in the context of FM. Facilities managers play important roles in sustainable practice, including integrating all sustainability considerations, linking strategic level with operational level, incorporating FM knowledge and experience into design, disseminating sustainable knowledge and educating people and encouraging sustainability through innovation.

Research limitations/implications – This research goes beyond the limitations of existing studies that are characterized by a lack of positioning facilities managers in sustainability.

Practical implications – Sustainable delivery represents a direction of FM development. This research describes what facilities managers can do and how they should do for sustainable delivery of FM, based on which improvements are made and benefits are maximized.

Originality/value – This research provides a deeper insight into the FM role in the sustainable agenda. The findings of this research help industrial practitioners and academic researchers to better understand sustainable FM.

Dry computational approaches for wet medical problems

This is a report on the 4th international conference in 'Quantitative Biology and Bioinformatics in Modern Medicine' held in Belfast (UK), 19-20 September 2013. The aim of the conference was to bring together leading experts from a variety of different areas that are key for Systems Medicine to exchange novel findings and promote interdisciplinary ideas and collaborations.

Towards utilizing Model-Driven Engineering of Composite Applications for business performance analysis

Composite Applications on top of SAPs implementation of SOA (Enterprise SOA) enable the extension of already existing business logic. In this paper we show, based on a case study, how Model-Driven Engineering concepts are applied in the development of such Composite Applications. Our Case Study extends a back-end business process which is required for the specific needs of a demo company selling wine. We use this to describe how the business centric models specifying the modified business behaviour of our case study can be utilized for business performance analysis where most of the actions are performed by humans. In particular, we apply a refined version of Model-Driven Performance Engineering that we proposed in our previous work and motivate which business domain specifics have to be taken into account for business performance analysis. We additionally motivate the need for performance related decision support for domain experts, who generally lack performance related skills. Such a support should offer visual guidance about what should be changed in the design and resource mapping to get improved results with respect to modification constraints and performance objectives, or objectives for time.

Adaptive NormalHedge for robust visual tracking

In this paper, we propose a novel visual tracking framework, based on a decision-theoretic online learning algorithm namely NormalHedge. To make NormalHedge more robust against noise, we propose an adaptive NormalHedge algorithm, which exploits the historic information of each expert to perform more accurate prediction than the standard NormalHedge. Technically, we use a set of weighted experts to predict the state of the target to be tracked over time. The weight of each expert is online learned by pushing the cumulative regret of the learner towards that of the expert. Our simulation experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed adaptive NormalHedge, compared to the standard NormalHedge method. Furthermore, the experimental results of several challenging video sequences show that the proposed tracking method outperforms several state-of-the-art methods.

Measuring Interactions in Networks: Evidence from Soccer Teams

This paper contributes to the literature on centrality measures in economics by defining a team game and identifying the key players in the game. As an illustration of the theory, we create a unique data set from the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament. To capture the interaction between players, we create the passing network of each team. This all allows us to identify the key player and key groups of players for both teams in each game. We then use our measure to explain player ratings by experts and their market values. Our measure is significant in explaining expert ratings. We also find that players having higher intercentrality measures, regardless of their field position have significantly higher market values.

Management and diagnosis of psychogenic cough, habit cough, and tic cough: A systematic review

BACKGROUND: Several pharmacologic and nonpharmacologic therapeutic options have been used to treat cough that is not associated with a pulmonary or extrapulmonary etiology.

METHODS: We conducted a systematic review to summarize the evidence supporting different cough management options in adults and children with psychogenic, tic, and habit cough. Medline, EMBASE, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Scopus were searched from the earliest inception of each database to September 2013. Content experts were contacted, and we searched bibliographies of included studies to identify additional references.

RESULTS: A total of 18 uncontrolled studies were identified, enrolling 223 patients (46% male subjects, 96% children and adolescents). Psychogenic cough was the most common descriptive term used (90% of the studies). Most of the patients (95%) had no cough during sleep; barking or honking quality of cough was described in only eight studies. Hypnosis (three studies), suggestion therapy (four studies), and counseling and reassurance (seven studies) were the most commonly used interventions. Hypnosis was effective in resolving cough in 78% of the patients and improving it in another 5%. Suggestion therapy resolved cough successfully in 96% of the patients. The greatest majority of improvements noted with these forms of therapy occurred in the pediatric age group. The quality of evidence is low due to the lack of control groups, the retrospective nature of all the studies, heterogeneity of definitions and diagnostic criteria, and the high likelihood of reporting bias.

CONCLUSIONS: Only low-quality evidence exists to support a particular strategy to define and treat psychogenic, habit, and tic cough. Patient values, preferences, and availability of potential therapies should guide treatment choice.

STOPP/START criteria for potentially inappropriate prescribing in older people: version 2

PURPOSE: screening tool of older people's prescriptions (STOPP) and screening tool to alert to right treatment (START) criteria were first published in 2008. Due to an expanding therapeutics evidence base, updating of the criteria was required.

METHODS: we reviewed the 2008 STOPP/START criteria to add new evidence-based criteria and remove any obsolete criteria. A thorough literature review was performed to reassess the evidence base of the 2008 criteria and the proposed new criteria. Nineteen experts from 13 European countries reviewed a new draft of STOPP & START criteria including proposed new criteria. These experts were also asked to propose additional criteria they considered important to include in the revised STOPP & START criteria and to highlight any criteria from the 2008 list they considered less important or lacking an evidence base. The revised list of criteria was then validated using the Delphi consensus methodology.

RESULTS: the expert panel agreed a final list of 114 criteria after two Delphi validation rounds, i.e. 80 STOPP criteria and 34 START criteria. This represents an overall 31% increase in STOPP/START criteria compared with version 1. Several new STOPP categories were created in version 2, namely antiplatelet/anticoagulant drugs, drugs affecting, or affected by, renal function and drugs that increase anticholinergic burden; new START categories include urogenital system drugs, analgesics and vaccines.

CONCLUSION: STOPP/START version 2 criteria have been expanded and updated for the purpose of minimizing inappropriate prescribing in older people. These criteria are based on an up-to-date literature review and consensus validation among a European panel of experts.

Electronic voting in the French legislative elections of 2012

This chapter presents an analysis of the unprecedented use of electronic voting by expatriates during the French 2012 legislative elections, when they elected their own representatives (referred to here as ‘deputies’), to the National Assembly in Paris for the first time, in 11 newly created overseas constituencies.
The study is presented within the broader perspective of electronic voting in France more generally, and in the historical context of extra-territorial voting by French expatriates. The authors discuss the main issues and controversies that arose during the 2012 elections, and in a final section analyse the results. The authors conclude by drawing attention to recent developments in electronic voting in France since the 2012 elections, which suggest that although there was much criticism expressed by experts of electronic voting as to the security and transparency of the system used, the official discourse that acclaimed the experience as a success, appears to have convinced its target audience.

Cases, Materials and Text on National, Supranational and International Non-Discrimination Law

This casebook, the result of the collaborative efforts of a panel of experts from various EU Member States, is the latest in the Ius Commune Casebook series developed at the Universities of Maastricht and Leuven. The book provides a comprehensive and skilfully designed resource for students, practitioners, researchers, public officials, NGOs, consumer organisations and the judiciary. In common with earlier books in the series, this casebook presents cases and other materials (legislative materials, international and European materials, excerpts from books or articles). As non-discrimination law is a comparatively new subject, the chapters search for and develop the concepts of discrimination law on the basis of a wide variety of young and often still emerging case law and legislation. The result is a comprehensive textbook with materials from a wide variety of EU Member States. The book is entirely in English (i.e. materials are translated where not available in English). At the end of each chapter a comparative overview ties the material together, with emphasis, where appropriate, on existing or emerging general principles in the legal systems within Europe.
The book illustrates the distinct relationship between international, European and national legislation in the field of non-discrimination law. It covers the grounds of discrimination addressed in the Racial Equality and Employment Equality Directives, as well as non-discrimination law relating to gender. In so doing, it covers the law of a large number of EU Member States, alongside some international comparisons.
The Ius Commune Casebook on Non-Discrimination Law
- provides practitioners with ready access to primary and secondary legal material needed to assist them in crafting test case strategies.
- provides the judiciary with the tools needed to respond sensitively to such cases.
- provides material for teaching non-discrimination law to law and other students.
- provides a basis for ongoing research on non-discrimination law.
- provides an up-to-date overview of the implementation of the Directives and of the state of the law.
This Casebook is the result of a project which has been supported by a grant from the European Commission's Anti-Discrimination Programme.

European Recommendations for Primary Prevention of Congenital Anomalies: A Joined Effort of EUROCAT and EUROPLAN Projects to Facilitate Inclusion of This Topic in the National Rare Disease Plans

Congenital anomalies (CA) are the paradigm example of rare diseases liable to primary prevention actions due to the multifactorial etiology of many of them, involving a number of environmental factors together with genetic predispositions. Yet despite the preventive potential, lack of attention to an integrated preventive strategy has led to the prevalence of CA remaining relatively stable in recent decades. The 2 European projects, EUROCAT and EUROPLAN, have joined efforts to provide the first science-based and comprehensive set of recommendations for the primary prevention of CA in the European Union. The resulting EUROCAT-EUROPLAN 'Recommendations on Policies to Be Considered for the Primary Prevention of Congenital Anomalies in National Plans and Strategies on Rare Diseases' were issued in 2012 and endorsed by EUCERD (European Union Committee of Experts on Rare Diseases) in 2013. The recommendations exploit interdisciplinary expertise encompassing drugs, diet, lifestyles, maternal health status, and the environment. The recommendations include evidence-based actions aimed at reducing risk factors and at increasing protective factors and behaviors at both individual and population level. Moreover, consideration is given to topics specifically related to CA (e.g. folate status, teratogens) as well as of broad public health impact (e.g. obesity, smoking) which call for specific attention to their relevance in the pre- and periconceptional period. The recommendations, reported entirely in this paper, are a comprehensive tool to implement primary prevention into national policies on rare diseases in Europe.

Laboratizing the border: The production, translation and anticipation of security technologies

This paper critically interrogates how borders are produced by scientists, engineers and security experts in advance of the actual deployment of technical devices they develop. This paper explores the prior stages of translation and decision-making as a socio-technical device is conceived and developed. Drawing on in-depth interviews, observations and ethnographic research of the EU-funded Handhold project (consisting of nine teams in five countries), it explores how assumptions about the way security technologies will and should perform at the border shape the way that scientists, engineers, and security experts develop a portable, integrated device to detect CBRNE threats at borders. In disaggregating the moments of sovereign decision making across multiple sites and times, this paper questions the supposed linearity of how science comes out of and feeds back into the world of border security. An interrogation of competing assumptions and understandings of security threats and needs, of competing logics of innovation and pragmatism, of the demands of differentiated temporalities in detection and interrogation, and of the presumed capacities, behaviours, and needs of phantasmic competitors and end-users reveals a complex, circulating and co-constitutive process of device development that laboratises the border itself. We trace how sovereign decisions are enacted as assemblages in the antecedent register of device development itself through the everyday decisions of researchers in the laboratory, and the material components of the Handhold device itself.

Methodologies for the Development of the Management of Cough: CHEST Guideline and Expert Panel Report

BACKGROUND: This series of guidance documents on cough, which will be published over time, is a hybrid of two processes: (1) evidence-based guidelines and (2) trustworthy consensus statements based on a robust and transparent process.

METHODS: The CHEST Guidelines Oversight Committee selected a nonconflicted Panel Chair and jointly assembled an international panel of experts in each clinical area with few, if any, conflicts of interest. PICO (population, intervention, comparator, outcome)-based key questions and parameters of eligibility were developed for each clinical topic to inform the comprehensive literature search. Existing guidelines, systematic reviews, and primary studies were assessed for relevance and quality. Data elements were extracted into evidence tables and synthesized to provide summary statistics. These, in turn, are presented to support the evidence-based graded recommendations. A highly structured consensus-based Delphi approach was used to provide expert advice on all guidance statements. Transparency of process was documented.

RESULTS: Evidence-based guideline recommendations and consensus-based suggestions were carefully crafted to provide direction to health-care providers and investigators who treat and/or study patients with cough. Manuscripts and tables summarize the evidence in each clinical area supporting the recommendations and suggestions.

CONCLUSIONS: The resulting guidance statements are based on a rigorous methodology and transparency of process. Unless otherwise stated, the recommendations and suggestions meet the guidelines for trustworthiness developed by the Institute of Medicine and can be applied with confidence by physicians, nurses, other health-care providers, investigators, and patients.