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Delays and cost overruns are frequent problems in the construction industries of both developed and developing countries. Studies aimed at identifying the causes are often undertaken with just a broad appreciation of the construction process and frequently do not deal with multicultural issues when considering the reasons for overruns. The paper critically reviews existing attempts to uncover the
Following a brief discussion on aspects of visual appearance and roles respectively, two user studies are presented and discussed. Both focus on learner experiences and explore the reciprocal relation between visual appearance of virtual agents and their pedagogical roles. The paper concludes with some preliminary guidelines for the early stages of the design process of virtual pedagogical agents.
The present international standards for safety, protective and occupational footwear EN ISO 20344 – 20347 classify footwear as cold protective by a pass/fail test where the limits are set for an allowed 10 °C temperature drop inside the footwear at a sole location during 30 minutes at a temperature gradient of about 40 °C. In a test of five footwear including a summer sandal it was shown that all
Particle generation from humans is a severe problem when working in cleanrooms and other controlled environments. Data regarding the number of particles generated by humans are few and there are no detailed references as to how these studies have been performed. An experimental method to determine the particle release from a human being in a cleanroom was developed and used to describe the variati
This paper presents a summary analysis of data regarding evacuation model users experiences and needs obtained via an online survey. The survey was available in 6 languages: English, German, Chinese, Spanish, Italian and Russian. The different versions allowed the survey to be accessible to an international participant base. The survey was developed by the team at www.Evacmod.net ; an evacuation m
The Gaia mission of the European Space Agency (ESA) will produce high-precision astrometry for 10^9 objects up to 20th magnitude. The volume of data generated (about 150TB of compressed raw data) and the complexity of the relationships between them make the scientific processing a challenging task. This paper presents the basic concepts of the core of the astrometric data reduction, the AGIS syste
We report a new set oftheoretical transition probabilities in Y II, obtained using a multiconfiguration relativistic Hartree-Fock method including core polarization. The overall quality of the calculations is assessed by comparisons with new and previous lifetime measurements. In this paper, we report new measurements of five lifetimes in the 4d5p and 5s5p configurations, in the energy range of 32
BACKGROUND: The objective of lung transplantation (LTx) is to prolong life, but the survival benefit for patients with severe α(1)-anti-trypsin deficiency (PiZZ) and emphysema is still unclear. The aim of this study was to assess whether PiZZ patients who have undergone lung transplantation (the lung transplant group, TxG) do better than patients who have continued on the usual medical therapy (th
BackgroundIncidence of condyloma, or genital warts (GW), is the earliest possible disease outcome to measure when assessing the effectiveness of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination strategies. Efficacy trials that follow prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria may not be fully generalizable to real-life HPV vaccination programs, which target a broader segment of the population. We assesse
The ESA space astrometry mission Gala, due for launch in early 2012, will in addition to its huge output of fundamental astrometric and astrophysical data also provide stringent tests of general relativity. In this paper we present an updated analysis of Gaia's capacity to measure the PPN parameter gamma as part of its core astrometric solution. The analysis is based on small-scale astrometric sol
The early science results from the new generation of high-resolution stellar spectroscopic surveys, such as Galactic Archaeology with HERMES (GALAH) and the Gaia European Southern Observatory survey (Gaia-ESO), will represent major milestones in the quest to chemically tag the Galaxy. Yet this technique to reconstruct dispersed coeval stellar groups has remained largely untested until recently. We
New laminar burning velocity measurements of 85: 15% (by volume) H-2-CO and H-2-N-2 mixtures with O-2-He oxidizer are reported at lean conditions and elevated pressures (1-10 atm). Experiments are conducted using the heat flux method at initial temperature of 298 K. In this technique a near adiabatic flame is stabilized by balancing the heat loss from the flame to the burner with heat gain to the
We report preliminary experimental and computational studies of the temporal evolution of the harmonics, generated in xenon, by 50-ps pulses from a Nd: YLF laser, amplified in Nd: glass amplifiers, and focused to produce intensities in the range 1013--5 {\texttimes} 1013 W cm{\textminus}2. Measurements were made of the temporal profiles of the seventh- and ninth-order harmonics using a specially m
Contextual Analysis through inquiries into Contextual Dependency is a way to specify and discuss more general issues of unequal distribution of power overall and the importance of gender issues as a specific example. This gives an Information Systems analyst an opportunity to ask some important questions. The sense making activities involved includes efforts to 'visualise' and communicate individu
Recent observations by the Goddard High-Resolution Spectrograph on the Rubble Space Telescope have dramatically improved our knowledge of the abundance of the heaviest elements in Mercury-Manganese (HgMn) stars (c.f. Leckrone et al. 1992 and Wahlgren et al. 1995). Explaining the observed abundance and isotope anomalies requires improved calculations of radiatively driven diffusion. We briefly revi
