A user driven data mining process model and learning system

This paper deals with the problem of using the data mining models in a real-world situation where the user can not provide all the inputs with which the predictive model is built. A learning system framework, Query Based Learning System (QBLS), is developed for improving the performance of the predictive models in practice where not all inputs are available for querying to the system. The automatic feature selection algorithm called Query Based Feature Selection (QBFS) is developed for selecting features to obtain a balance between the relative minimum subset of features and the relative maximum classification accuracy. Performance of the QBLS system and the QBFS algorithm is successfully demonstrated with a real-world application

Secure communication protocol for preserving E-tendering integrity.

This paper presents a secure communication protocol which can be used as the framework for an e-tendering scheme. This protocol is focused on securing the integrity of tendering documents and ensuring that a secure record of document generation is kept. Our protocol provides a mechanism to manage e-tendering contract evidence as a legal record in a unique and effective manner. It is the starting point of reliable record keeping. To a certain extent, it also addresses existing security problems in the traditional tendering processes.

Way-Finding in the Built Environment

The Way-fi nding in the Built Environment project is a worldwide review identifying those way-fi nding systems and technologies that could be used to make it easier and safer for people with a sensory impairment (and in particular a vision impairment) to fi nd their way around buildings and large public spaces. The project makes recommendations on how these technologies and systems may be incorporated, by law or otherwise, into Australia’s building and construction practice. Way-fi nding aims to ensure that people with a sensory impairment know where they are in a building or an environment, where their desired location is, and how to get there from their present location. It is unlawful to discriminate against people with a disability under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992.

Decision support in using fibre reinforced polymer (FRP) composites in rehabilitation of concrete bridge structures

This paper compares and reviews the recommendations and contents of the guide for the design and construction of externally bonded FRP systems for strengthening concrete structures reported by ACI committee 440 and technical report of Externally bonded FRP reinforcement for RC structures (FIB 14) in application of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites in strengthening of an aging reinforced concrete headstock. The paper also discusses the background, limitations, strengthening for flexure and shear, and other related issues in use of FRP for strengthening of a typical reinforced concrete headstock structure such as durability, de-bonding, strengthening limits, fire and environmental conditions. A case study of strengthening of a bridge headstock using FRP composites is presented as a worked example in order to illustrate and compare the differences between these two design guidelines when used in conjunction with the philosophy of the Austroads (1992) bridge design code.

Comparison between ACI 440 and FIB 14 design guidelines in using CFRP for strengthening of a concrete bridge headstock

This paper compares and reviews the recommendations and contents of the guide for the design and construction of externally bonded FRP systems for strengthening concrete structures reported by ACI committee 440 and technical report of Externally bonded FRP reinforcement for RC structures (FIB 14) in application of carbon fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) composites in strengthening of an aging reinforced concrete headstock. The paper also discusses the background, limitations, strengthening for flexure and shear, and other related issues in use of FRP for strengthening of a typical reinforced concrete headstock structure such as durability, de-bonding, strengthening limits, fire and environmental conditions. A case study of strengthening of a bridge headstock using FRP composites is presented as a worked example in order to illustrate and compare the differences between these two design guidelines when used in conjunction with the philosophy of the Austroads (1992) bridge design code.

Construction projects immediate health check : a CSF & KPI approach

Many factors have the potential to influence human health. These factors need to be monitored to maintain health. As is the case with human health, construction projects have a number of critical factors that can facilitate a broad evaluation of project health. In order to use these factors as an indication of health, they need to be assessed. This assessment can help to achieve desired outcomes for the project. This paper discusses the approach of assessing Critical Success Factors (CSFs) using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to ascertain the immediate health of a construction project. This approach is applicable to all phases of construction projects and many construction procurement methods. KPIs have been benchmarked on the basis of industry standards and historical data. The robustness of the KPIs to assess the immediate health of a project has been validated using Australian and international case studies.

Towards a building sustainability assessment framework

This paper provides an overview of a new framework for a design stage Building Environmental Assessment (BEA) tool and a discussion of strategic responses to existing tool issues and relative stakeholder requirements that lead to the development of this tool founded on new information and communication technology (ICT) related to developments in 3D CAD technology. After introducing the context of the BEA and some of their team’s new work the authors • Critique current BEA tool theory; • Review previous assessments of stakeholder needs; • Introduce a new framework applied to analyse such tools • Highlight and key results considering illustrative ICT capabilities and • Discuss their potential significance upon BEA tool stakeholders.

A national building products inventory

Australia has no nationally accepted building products life cycle inventory (LCI) database for use in building Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) assessment (BEA) tools. More information about the sustainability of the supply chain is limited by industry’s lack of real capacity to deliver objective information on process and product environmental impact. Recognition of these deficits emerged during compilation of a National LCI database to inform LCADesign, a prototype 3 dimensional object oriented computer aided design (3-D CAD) commercial building design tool. Development of this Australian LCI represents 24 staff years of effort here since 1995. Further development of LCADesign extensions is proposed as being essential to support key applications demanded from a more holistic theoretical framework calling for modules of new building and construction industry tools. A proposed tool, conceptually called LCADetails, is to serve the building product industries own needs as well as that of commercial building design amongst other industries’ prospective needs. In this paper, a proposition is examined that the existing national LCI database should be further expanded to serve Australian building product industries’ needs as well as to provide details for its client-base from a web based portal containing a module of practical supply and procurement applications. Along with improved supply chain assessment services, this proposed portal is envisaged to facilitate industry environmental life cycle improvement assessment and support decision-making to provide accredited data for operational reporting capabilities, load-based reasoning as well as BEA applications. This paper provides an overview of developments to date, including a novel 3-D CAD information and communications technology (ICT) platform for more holistic integration of existing tools for true cost assessment. Further conceptualisation of future prospects, based on a new holistic life cycle assessment framework LCADevelop, considering stakeholder relationships and their need for a range of complementary tools leveraging automated function off such ICT platforms to inform dimensionally defined operations for such as automotive, civil, transport and industrial applications are also explored.

Integrating eco-efficiency assessment of commercial buildings into the design process : LCADesign

The ability to assess a commercial building for its impact on the environment at the earliest stage of design is a goal which is achievable by integrating several approaches into a single procedure directly from the 3D CAD representation. Such an approach enables building design professionals to make informed decisions on the environmental impact of building and its alternatives during the design development stage instead of at the post-design stage where options become limited. The indicators of interest are those which relate to consumption of resources and energy, contributions to pollution of air, water and soil, and impacts on the health and wellbeing of people in the built environment as a result of constructing and operating buildings. 3D object-oriented CAD files contain a wealth of building information which can be interrogated for details required for analysis of the performance of a design. The quantities of all components in the building can be automatically obtained from the 3D CAD objects and their constituent materials identified to calculate a complete list of the amounts of all building products such as concrete, steel, timber, plastic etc. When this information is combined with a life cycle inventory database, key internationally recognised environmental indicators can be estimated. Such a fully integrated tool known as LCADesign has been created for automated ecoefficiency assessment of commercial buildings direct from 3D CAD. This paper outlines the key features of LCADesign and its application to environmental assessment of commercial buildings.

LCADesign : an integrated approach to automatic eco-efficiency assessment of commercial buildings

Buildings consume resources and energy, contribute to pollution of our air, water and soil, impact the health and well-being of populations and constitute an important part of the built environment in which we live. The ability to assess their design with a view to reducing that impact automatically from their 3D CAD representations enables building design professionals to make informed decisions on the environmental impact of building structures. Contemporary 3D object-oriented CAD files contain a wealth of building information. LCADesign has been designed as a fully integrated approach for automated eco-efficiency assessment of commercial buildings direct from 3D CAD. LCADesign accesses the 3D CAD detail through Industry Foundation Classes (IFCs) - the international standard file format for defining architectural and constructional CAD graphic data as 3D real-world objects - to permit construction professionals to interrogate these intelligent drawing objects for analysis of the performance of a design. The automated take-off provides quantities of all building components whose specific production processes, logistics and raw material inputs, where necessary, are identified to calculate a complete list of quantities for all products such as concrete, steel, timber, plastic etc and combines this information with the life cycle inventory database, to estimate key internationally recognised environmental indicators such as CML, EPS and Eco-indicator 99. This paper outlines the key modules of LCADesign and their role in delivering an automated eco-efficiency assessment for commercial buildings.

Life cycle inventory for Australian building materials

This paper discusses challenges to developers of a national Life Cycle Inventory (LCI) database on which to base assessment of building environmental impacts and a key to development of a fully integrated eco-design tool created for automated eco-efficiency assessment of commercial building design direct from 3D CAD. The scope of this database includes Australian and overseas processing burdens involved in acquiring, processing, transporting, fabricating, finishing and using metals, masonry, timber, glazing, ceramics, plastics, fittings, composites and coatings. Burdens are classified, calculated and reported for all flows of raw materials, fuels, energy and emissions to and from the air, soil and water associated with typical products and services in building construction, fitout and operation. The aggregated life cycle inventory data provides the capacity to generate environmental impact assessment reports based on accepted performance indicators. Practitioners can identify hot spots showing high environmental burdens of a proposed design and drill down to report on specific building components. They can compare assessments with case studies and operational estimates to assist in eco-efficient design of a building, fitout and operation.

Selection method for sustainable building

For a sustainable building industry, not only should the environmental and economic indicators be evaluated but also the societal indicators for building. Current indicators can be in conflict with each other, thus decision making is difficult to clearly quantify and assess sustainability. For the sustainable building, the objectives of decreasing both adverse environmental impact and cost are in conflict. In addition, even though both objectives may be satisfied, building management systems may present other problems such as convenience of occupants, flexibility of building, or technical maintenance, which are difficult to quantify as exact assessment data. These conflicting problems confronting building managers or planners render building management more difficult. This paper presents a methodology to evaluate a sustainable building considering socio-economic and environmental characteristics of buildings, and is intended to assist the decision making for building planners or practitioners. The suggested methodology employs three main concepts: linguistic variables, fuzzy numbers, and an analytic hierarchy process. The linguistic variables are used to represent the degree of appropriateness of qualitative indicators, which are vague or uncertain. These linguistic variables are then translated into fuzzy numbers to reflect their uncertainties and aggregated into the final fuzzy decision value using a hierarchical structure. Through a case study, the suggested methodology is applied to the evaluation of a building. The result demonstrates that the suggested approach can be a useful tool for evaluating a building for sustainability.

Redefining life cycle for a building sustainability assessment framework

Understanding the differences between the temporal and physical aspects of the building life cycle is an essential ingredient in the development of Building Environmental Assessment (BEA) tools. This paper illustrates a theoretical Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) framework aligning temporal decision-making with that of material flows over building development phases. It was derived during development of a prototype commercial building design tool that was based on a 3-D CAD information and communications technology (ICT) platform and LCA software. The framework aligns stakeholder BEA needs and the decision-making process against characteristics of leading green building tools. The paper explores related integration of BEA tool development applications on such ICT platforms. Key framework modules are depicted and practical examples for BEA are provided for: • Definition of investment and service goals at project initiation; • Design integrated to avoid overlaps/confusion over the project life cycle; • Detailing the supply chain considering building life cycle impacts; • Delivery of quality metrics for occupancy post-construction/handover; • Deconstruction profiling at end of life to facilitate recovery.

LCADesign

LCADesign software package is a real-time environmental impact calculator for commercial property that works directly from the building designer's model. It enables developers, building designers, architects, engineers, builders, manufacturers and government bodies to optimise the eco-impact of a building as the design model evolves instead of waiting months for expert analysis. By integrating with the Building Information Models (BIMs) generated by 3D computer-aided drafting, LCADesign builds eco-efficiency into the design stage and measures the environmental values and risks of materials in commercial buildings

A comparative study : regulatory requirements on subdivisions for increasing passive cooling

A major project in the Sustainable Built Assets core area is the Sustainable Sub-divisions – Ventilation Project that is the second stage of a planned series of research projects focusing on sustainable sub-divisions. The initial project, Sustainable Sub-divisions: Energy focused on energy efficiency and examined the link between dwelling energy efficiency and sub-divisional layout. In addition, the potential for on site electricity generation, especially in medium and high-density developments, was also examined. That project recommended that an existing lot-rating methodology be adapted for use in SEQ through the inclusion of sub divisional appropriate ventilation data. Acquiring that data is the object of this project. The Sustainable Sub-divisions; Ventilation Project will produce a series of reports. The first report (Report 2002-077-B-01) summarised the results from an industry workshop and interviews that were conducted to ascertain the current attitudes and methodologies used in contemporary sub-division design in South East Queensland. The second report (Report 2002-077-B-02) described how the project is being delivered as outlined in the Project Agreement. It included the selection of the case study dwellings and monitoring equipment and data management process. This third report (Report 2002-077-B-03) provides an analysis and review of the approaches recommended by leading experts, government bodies and professional organizations throughout Australia that aim to increase the potential for passive cooling and heating at the subdivision stage. This data will inform issues discussed on the development of the enhanced lot-rating methodology in other reports of this series. The final report, due in June 2007, will detail the analysis of data for winter 2006 and summer 2007, leading to the development and delivery of the enhanced lot-rating methodology.