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Cost overruns (COs) in public sector social housing programs (PSSHPs) will continue unabated without immediate intervention to resolve the ad hoc amalgamation of root cause ontologies. This study applied a fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) multicriteria decision support model to evaluate and prioritize the overall cost overrun risk in PSSHPs. In a Caribbean Small Island Developing State (SIDS) context, a questionnaire survey measuring 41 perceived critical risk factors (CRFs) was used to derive the risk impact and normalized impact values from 150 professional participants. Twenty-two normalized CRFs and four principal risk groups' (PRGs) membership functions were determined using fuzzy synthetic knowledge-based inference procedures. Politically linked contractors and intentionally inferior building contracts caused most PSSHP cost overruns. The FSE risk model reveals that political PRG is the major root cause of COs, followed by socioeconomic, technical, and psychological PRGs. The study found that the overall risk level (ORL) of PSSHPs is high, meaning that government investment in public housing is a high-risk endeavor and ill-informed choices could lead to "wicked" social problems. Defuzzifying cost risks provided deeper insights into the nature and scope of the risk and related management implications that lead to unsustainable decision-making practices and provide opportunities for adequate control strategies to maintain economic viability. This research evidenced the fusion of different CO ontologies and raises awareness of the hidden political risk factors that should be prioritized to achieve sustainable PSSHP decision-making practices. This study adds to the PSSHP's cost overrun knowledge by merging known root causes and criticalities into a practical risk model that gives empirical risk values at several tiers, from individual critical factors to root causes and the overall risk assessment. Many theories and ontologies explain CO causes (e.g., political root causes grounded on agency theory and relativism ontology, psychological root causes based on prospect theory and relativism ontology, and economic root causes based on transaction cost theory and realism ontology). Subjectivity and a growing divide between top researchers and practitioners result from the ad hoc amalgamation of these ontologies. The study expands the theoretical foundations of CO research by tackling the ontological issues through a structured, methodical grouping of root causes based on their ontologies. The defuzzification method applied in this research eliminated subjectivity and bias in SIDS risk assessment. Therefore, construction experts can use this research to identify strategically hidden risks, analyze their effects on the project and society, and design control strategies to limit their economic impacts. This pragmatic tool can be used in the tendering and contract award processes and across the supply and logistic chain to optimize project cost performance and benefit society with value-driven, circular economy–friendly social projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexible pavements are prone to premature deterioration, and researchers are unresolved regarding the importance of the underlying causes resulting in inappropriately selected modeling parameters and increased uncertainty in predicting subsequent behavior and performance. A windshield survey, literature survey, and fuzzy Delphi study were undertaken as complementary approaches to costly conventional investigations to identify reasons for flexible pavement deterioration in the design, construction, and life span phases. Overall, the results revealed that the life span phase consists of the most contributors to pavement deterioration, which is approximately twice as much as the design and construction phases. However, the findings suggest that most causes of deterioration in the life span phase can be attributed to deficiencies in the preceding phases. Experts believe that structural and traffic are the most significant contributors to pavement deterioration, more so than construction, environment, and maintenance factors. Additionally, the surface and subgrade layers were deemed to be the most problematic. Applying the fuzzy Delphi method minimizes the ambiguities associated with the causes of pavement deterioration identified in the literature and is advantageous for limited data. This study proposes measures for improving the design and construction of more sustainable tropical pavements. Improved knowledge of the causes of deterioration is vital for selecting the appropriate design, construction, and maintenance strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As projects evolve into complex and specialized temporary initiatives, accountability shortfalls in material flow are a major reason for schedule and cost overruns in construction. To date, researchers and practitioners are unresolved regarding the causes of material handling challenges and eminent solutions to improve material flow accountability. Consequently, inefficient supply chain management practices persist, leading to ineffective handling methods. This research, therefore, focused on identifying critical material challenges encountered by contractors and presented solutions to alleviate schedule and cost overrun failures. The fuzzy Delphi approach was used to refine opinions and achieve group consensus from 15 specialists on the ranking of material handling problems and potential solutions associated with design-build projects. The research revealed that complexity, material flow, and lack of information sharing are the top three main causes of onsite material problems. Potential solutions identified were a faster response mechanism (as an alternative to a slower build schedule), increasing material handlers' worker power, subcontractors' involvement in the procurement process, and prefabrication. The research highlighted subcontracting as a material handling paradox as apart from being a solution, it creates non-value-added costs in the supply chain and often inappropriately transfers risk. The findings showcased the potential to improve onsite material handling praxis by considering decision-making uncertainties in material flow and recognizing the importance of procurement methods in construction supply chain solutions in resolving scheduling and cost inefficiencies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite alarming injury and fatality rates, construction workers continue to neglect the appropriate use of personal protective equipment (PPE). This research explores safety outcomes concerning knowledge, attitude, and practice in PPE use on Trinidad's construction sites. A questionnaire survey of 100 respondents and 20 interviews with site workers revealed that knowledge of action and attitude were better predictors than practice on the propensity of construction workers to be involved in near-misses and accidents. The research explains why there were no significant differences between safe work practices and the occurrence of near-misses or accidents. In addition, it was found that workers' attitudes toward PPE use were not mediated by on-site experience, but they were more related to their age and if they believed their safety was the responsibility of their supervisor. The research concludes that knowledge of action varied among educational groups; however, there was no significant difference between PPE training and workers with knowledge of PPE usage and calls for changes in the current educational program content and delivery. This research identifies accident causation factors and recommends measures for construction companies to achieve improved safety performance and reduce the risk of accidental injury or death. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For transparency and accountability, public sector clients typically select a contractor using lowest-price open tendering. This paper focuses on improving the selection of a design-build contractor by modeling the inherent uncertainties associated with open tendering. Although there are numerous methods for selecting a contractor, few consider, and even fewer have accounted for, random uncertainties associated with open tendering. In the absence of a structured approach that includes cognitive uncertainty modeling, the risk of choosing a subpar contractor and consequent project failure increases. Cloud theory uses a normal distribution membership function to infuse fuzzy set theory with probability theory. The application of cloud theory in a case study to order the preferred contractors improves decision-making quality and, consequently, confidence in the derived outcome where uncertainty exists. By accounting for both fuzzy and random uncertainties expressed by decision makers, this formulation for contractor selection increases the potential to achieve client performance goals. The proposed new approach reduces the risk of project failure by offering a unique understanding of how to more efficiently choose a designbuild contractor. It narrows the model prediction and practice gap by providing an alternative to selecting the lowest bidder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation is a psychological construct shown to influence an individual's success. Researchers have focused on factors affecting student motivation but have neglected to address the temporal changes in student motivation and the effects of these changes on academic performance. The purpose of this paper is to answer three main questions: What variables motivate students? Do the motivational variables change over time? And is there a relationship between the motivational variables that influence students and their academic performance as measured in grade point average (GPA)? Using a questionnaire survey approach, this study explores self-determinacy theory to evaluate students' progression over a three-year enrollment in an undergraduate civil and environmental engineering degree. The evaluation showed that internal factors are the primary motivators of students with high GPA. Also, students' quality and the quantity of motivation decreased with time in pursuit of a constant goal. Gender differences highlighted that females had superior self-regulatory practices to males. By setting intermediate report deadlines with performance feedback, educators would improve male students' self-regulatory practices through an improvement of their organization and goal setting skills. These findings provide a better understanding of student attrition than previously acknowledged in the literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The process of choosing a project delivery method is infused with cognitive uncertainties associated with the decision maker. Fuzzy uncertainties arise because of imprecise understanding and subsequent representation of these uncertainties by the decision maker, whereas random uncertainties arise from variance of these imprecisions. Since there are no well-defined rules for spontaneous decisions, in order to be consistently confident in the appropriateness of the chosen delivery method, a structured approach incorporating uncertainty is required. Previously unanswered questions such as (1) what are the sources of uncertainty in project delivery decisions, (2) how do decision makers conceptualize uncertainties, and (3) how the use of existing models increase or decrease uncertainty, were investigated. The answer to these questions revealed that while fuzziness has been accounted for in present procurement theory, the modeling of randomness has been neglected. Therefore, a forward normal cloud model that uses a normal distribution membership function was built to rank decision makers' preferences. This proposed approach provides a better conceptualization of project delivery decision making, and is shown to be more sensitive in distinguishing alternatives compared on factors, than the interval analytical hierarchy process (AHP) rough-set approach. Survey results showed statistical significance (p < 0.05) for the model's reliability in choosing the preferred delivery method. Overall, construction decision makers can be confident that conflicting project outcomes will less likely result from their recommendations as the proposed cloud model enables clients to perform quantitative calculations incorporating a wider spectrum of uncertainties in their decision. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]