Search

This paper aimed at utilizing GIS software in calculating pavement condition index (PCI) values, using four different interpolation methods: IDW, spline, trend and kriging. The case study covers four major streets in Nablus city with a total length of about 6.50 km. The PCI values were calculated using the ASTM conventional method. The four streets were divided into equal 100-meter sections. The PCI values were also calculated for each point of defect in both directions of the streets. The results of the four methods (point by point of defects) were compared manually with the conventional method (ASTM procedure). The results showed that the spline method had a strong correlation with the conventional method in terms of multiple R and R-square calculation (multiple R for left 0.918, right 0.947 and R2 for left 0.843, right 0.897). This method also fitted the data better than the other methods, as seen from the linear regression model results, in addition to producing the minimum error value. The results indicated that by identifying the PCI value, it would be possible to select the proper pavement maintenance and corresponding cost for each point of defect. This in turn would help in prioritizing pavement sections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of Building Information Modeling (BIM) technology has facilitated storage and reuse of information throughout the lifecycle of construction projects. Despite its benefits, construction industry has witnessed several obstacles in adopting BIM technology in terms of people management. This paper investigates how ADKAR model (an acronym for five stages of effective lasting people change: awareness, desire, knowledge, ability, and reinforcement) can contribute to successful adoption of BIM in construction sector. This study was conducted in two main stages: a rigorous literature review process followed by data collection using eight in-depth interviews with construction project managers. Data was analyzed following Bryman and Bell's [(2007). Business Research Methods. Oxford: Oxford University Press] steps for thematic analysis. The results from interviews combined with results of literature review contribute to the development of an integrated conceptual model of change management. The conceptual model identifies two main phases of determinants for successful change management process towards the adoption of BIM technology using ADKAR model. Firstly, engineers as designers with different specialist (i.e., architectural, civil, electrical, mechanical), engineers as contractors, and clients require the enhancement of all five dimensions of ADKAR for a lasting change. Secondly, government requires the enhancement of three main dimensions of ADKAR model, namely awareness, desire, and reinforcement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since March 5, 2020, the West Bank has faced a real crisis due to the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It has infected 581,678 people and caused 5,382 deaths so far, which has resulted in negative impacts on public health and other aspects of daily life. Based on the data provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, we inferred the spatial distribution patterns of the pandemic condition in different communities using Geographic Information System (GIS) analysis for pattern and clustering by studying the impact of urban factors on the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases. Ten urban factors were selected (i.e., population, population density, aging ratio, the hierarchy of services, health services, land use, commercial services, road density, green areas, and open spaces) to check their relation to pandemic severity using a linear model, where five factors showed a globally-significant relation. Then, the Geographically Weighted Regression' model (GWR) was adopted to define their unevenly distributed effects in the urban areas on the northwest bank. Among the five factors, the population factor has the most significant impact on the epidemic situation with a positive correlation. However, a negative correlation has been stated between the area of commercial services per person, population density, hierarchy of services, and health services. Finally, we provide recommendations that coordinate various urban factors to mitigate the pandemic spread. This paper will help decision-makers plan and develop different areas in Palestine and worldwide by better understanding the transmission, occurrence, and diffusion of the COVID-19 pandemic in urban areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Finding a method to evaluate people's emotional responses to urban spaces in a valid and objective way is fundamentally important for urban design practices and related policy making. Analysis of the essential qualities of urban space could be made both more effective and more accurate using innovative information techniques that have become available in the era of big data. This study introduces an integrated method based on geographical information systems (GIS) and an emotion-tracking technique to quantify the relationship between people's emotional responses and urban space. This method can evaluate the degree to which people's emotional responses are influenced by multiple urban characteristics such as building shapes and textures, isovist parameters, visual entropy, and visual fractals. The results indicate that urban spaces may influence people's emotional responses through both spatial sequence arrangements and shifting scenario sequences. Emotional data were collected with body sensors and GPS devices. Spatial clustering was detected to target effective sampling locations; then, isovists were generated to extract building textures. Logistic regression and a receiver operating characteristic analysis were used to determine the key isovist parameters and the probabilities that they influenced people's emotion. Finally, based on the results, we make some suggestions for design professionals in the field of urban space optimization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents two complementary methods: an approach to compute a network data-set for indoor space of a building by using its two-dimensional (2D) floor plans and limited semantic information, combined with an optimal crowd evacuation method. The approach includes three steps: (1) generate critical points in the space, (2) connect neighbour points to build up the network, and then (3) run the optimal algorithm for optimal crowd evacuation from a room to the exit gates of the building. Triangulated Irregular Network (TIN) is used in the first two steps. The optimal evacuation crowd is not based on the nearest evacuation gate for a person but relies on optimal sorting of the waiting lists at each gate of the room to be evacuated. As an example case, a rectangular room with 52 persons with two gates is evacuated in 102 elementary interval times (one interval corresponds to the time for one step for normal velocity walking), whereas it would have been evacuated in not less than 167 elementary steps. The procedure for generating the customized network involves the use of 2D floor plans of a building and some common Geographic Information System (GIS) functions. This method combined with the optimal sorting lists will be helpful for guiding crowd evacuation during any emergency. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Information mined from building information models as well as associated geographical data and Geographic Information System (GIS) analyses can increase the success of construction processes and asset management, including buildings, roads, and public facilities. The integration of information from both domains requires high expertise in both spheres. The existing B.Sc and M.Sc. programs linked to the built environment at the Technical University of Munich offer courses for the Building Information Model (BIM) and GIS that are distributed among study programs in Civil Engineering, Architecture, and Geomatics. Students graduating as professionals in one of these domains rarely know how to solve pre-defined technical problems associated with the integration of information from BIM and GIS. Students in such programs seldom practice skills needed for the integration of information from BIM and GIS at a level that is needed in working life. Conversely, the technologies in both domains create artificial boundaries that do not exist in reality—for example, water and electricity would not be of use if the utilities terminated in front of buildings. To bring a change and bridge the gap between BIM and GIS, a change in the teaching methods of BIM/GIS needs to be considered. The Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a master's course (M.Sc. course) for students in Geoinformatics which focuses on competencies required to achieve BIM/GIS integration. This paper describes the course development process and provides a unique perspective on the curriculum and subjects. It also presents the course objective, course development, the selection and development of learning materials, and the assessment of the intended learning outcome of the course. The developed course is validated through a questionnaire, and feedback is provided by participants of the BIM/GIS integration workshop representing a panel of experts in the domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Information models from the domains Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Urban Information Modeling (UIM) are generally considered as information silos due to their heterogeneous character. These information silos can be bridged through linking where corresponding objects are identified and linked subsequently. However, whether two objects are considered as corresponding might depend on the scenario for which the links are created. The dependency of the link creation and the scenario refers to the term contextual linking and is analyzed in this paper with respect to building and city models. Therefore, different situational aspects influencing the link creation are discussed. Afterwards, the issue of contextual linking is demonstrated based on three different integration scenarios. In summary, this paper has three major outcomes: First, this paper introduces an application-oriented perspective on information integration and emphasize the role of the application when linking heterogeneous information models. Second, this paper shows that linking heterogeneous information models from the domains BIM and UIM at instance level depends on the scenario. Third, the results of the discourse about contextual linking serve as a framework supporting the design and development of artifacts for linking heterogeneous information models from the domains BIM and UIM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several tasks in urban and architectural design are today undertaken in a geospatial context. Building Information Models (BIM) and geospatial technologies offer 3D data models that provide information about buildings and the surrounding environment. The Industry Foundation Classes (IFC) and CityGML are today the two most prominent semantic models for representation of BIM and geospatial models respectively. CityGML has emerged as a standard for modeling city models while IFC has been developed as a reference model for building objects and sites. Current CAD and geospatial software provide tools that allow the conversion of information from one format to the other. These tools are however fairly limited in their capabilities, often resulting in data and information losses in the transformations. This paper describes a new approach for data integration based on a unified building model (UBM) which encapsulates both the CityGML and IFC models, thus avoiding translations between the models and loss of information. To build the UBM, all classes and related concepts were initially collected from both models, overlapping concepts were merged, new objects were created to ensure the capturing of both indoor and outdoor objects, and finally, spatial relationships between the objects were redefined. Unified Modeling Language (UML) notations were used for representing its objects and relationships between them. There are two use-case scenarios, both set in a hospital: "evacuation" and "allocating spaces for patient wards" were developed to validate and test the proposed UBM data model. Based on these two scenarios, four validation queries were defined in order to validate the appropriateness of the proposed unified building model. It has been validated, through the case scenarios and four queries, that the UBM being developed is able to integrate CityGML data as well as IFC data in an apparently seamless way. Constraints and enrichment functions are used for populating empty database tables and fields. The motivation scenarios also show the needs and benefits of having an integrated approach to the modeling of indoor and outdoor spatial features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studio is critically important for design education, but few attempts have been made to demonstrate the parallels between studio factors and design performance. This paper adopts a coherent set of analyses to investigate the major studio factors and attempts to quantify the networking interactions among them. First, it describes how architectural studio is usually organised based on some major factors. Next, a theoretical model is established according to the described hypotheses and their mutual interactions. Third, the research method and statistical analysis with structural equation modelling (SEM) are presented. Finally, the results of this empirical examination are presented for discussion and suggestions. Our findings reveal that studio tutorials have no significant effect on undergraduate's design performance. In contrast, students’ subjective intention plays a more important role in shaping their behaviour, indicating the importance of transferring those exterior forces into internal benefits when the studio instructor attempts to optimise the pedagogy. These findings are also inspiring for all creative disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluated the use of Three-dimensional (3D) Computer Visual Materials (CVM) to support user participation in the early design stages for a private house. A qualitative approach was identified in two stages. Firstly, a semistructured interview with a sample of architectural firms was conducted, and secondly, data was collected from conversational dialogues between an architect and a list of clients. The results revealed that various stages of the design process have different responses with respect to the use of Visual Material (VM) and its impact on user participation. In addition, there appeared to be a direct relationship between the Level of Details (LoDs) and specific design stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluated the use of Three-dimensional (3D) Computer Visual Materials (CVM) to support user participation in the early design stages for a private house. A qualitative approach was identified in two stages. Firstly, a semistructured interview with a sample of architectural firms was conducted, and secondly, data was collected from conversational dialogues between an architect and a list of clients. The results revealed that various stages of the design process have different responses with respect to the use of Visual Material (VM) and its impact on user participation. In addition, there appeared to be a direct relationship between the Level of Details (LoDs) and specific design stages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Long-standing attention has been given to urban vitality and its association with the built environment (BE). However, the multiplicity and complex impacts of BE factors that shape urban vitality patterns have not been fully explored. For this purpose, multisource data from 1025 communities in Wuhan, China, were combined to explore the BE vitality nexus. A deep learning method was explored to segment street-view images, on which a composite indicator of urban vitality was developed with social media data. Then, six dimensions of BE factors, neighbourhood attributes, urban form and function, landscape, location, and street configuration, were incorporated into a spatial regression model to systematically examine the composite influences. The results show that population density, community age, open space, the sidewalk ratio, streetlights, shopping and leisure density, integration, and proximity to transportation are positive factors that induce urban vitality, whereas the effects of road density, proximity to parks, and green space have the opposite results. This study contributes to an improved understanding of the BE nexus. Managerial implications for mediating the relationship between planning policies and urban design strategies for the optimization of resource allocation and promotion of sustainable development are discussed. • Explore the BE-vitality nexus by integrating advanced methods and multi-dimensional BE factors. • Combine a rich variety of big-data to clarify the composite effects of BE factors on urban vitality. • Compose a composite indicator to measure urban vitality by joining street movements and social media data. • Integrate spatial regression and GWR models to reduce the bias caused by spatial autocorrelation and heterogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]