Pitfalls in Builder's Risk Insurance for Temporary Structures in Construction

Integrating work sequences and temporary structures into safety planning: Automated scaffolding-related safety hazard identification and prevention in BIM

PurposeThere is evidence of increasing urban floods being aftermath of climate change. The purpose of this paper is to present findings-related analysis of vulnerability of building structures in informal settlements to floods and associated coping strategies.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a case study strategy, supported by field surveys and laboratory experiments. The informal settlement taken as case study is Sunna sub-ward. Field surveys involved interviews, questionnaires and observations and tests were conducted to determine the strength of walls, blocks and mortar.FindingsThe findings reveal that vulnerability of building structures to floods are due to poor quality of materials used in construction of houses which are influenced by income levels, location (lower areas of Sunna sub-ward) and inadequate storm water drainage system. Moreover, socio-economic vulnerabilities do exist in the settlements and are related to lack of peace of mind, outbreak of disease and expenses related to repairing of flood affected houses. Coping strategies used in the sub-ward for built structures are building barrier walls at the front door of the house and use multiple strategies which are supported by reactive and recovery strategies.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings of this study were mostly affected by limited knowledge of respondents on construction materials and processes.Practical implicationsFindings of the paper provide an insight on the effects of climate change on building structures in informal settlements and coping strategies in place to protect buildings. The outputs can be used for any other informal settlement in Dar es Salaam the only limitation is the terrain.Originality/valueThe paper recommends use of quality building materials and technicians/artisans, improvement of surface water drainage and training of residents on the effects of climate change and variability. In addition, promising coping strategies should be adopted while those under-performing should be discouraged as they increase the cost burden among the urban poor.

This study examined the current states and maintenance culture in some selected public buildings in Ibadan. Case study research approach was adopted using researchers' observation and structured interviews as a tool for data collection. Three public buildings (Adeoyo Maternity Hospital, Yemetu, Queen's School, Apata and Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba), were purposively selected. Descriptive and content analysis was used, and the results were presented using pictures and tables. The major findings show that building structures at Adeoyo Maternity Hospital appears neat and physically sound. However, building structures at Lekan Salami Stadium and Queen's School were observed not to be in good working conditions due to insufficient funds and high cost of maintenance work among others. Routine cleaning exercise was identified as the only regular maintenance carried out on these facilities aside Adeoyo maternity hospital where servicing and repairs was done as need be. The study conclusively revealed that maintenance culture in public buildings is observed to be poor on a general note. The study thus recommends that government should respond quickly to maintenance request to keep the building in good working condition and extends its lifespan.

From the prospective of loss prevention, economic risk reduction and catastrophe risk reduction, nuclear insurance risk survey provides professional and foresighted safety improvement recommendations based on the international nuclear and insurance experience. As a common international risk management practice, nuclear insurers provide loss prevention evaluation services, which is considered as peer review by nuclear operators. With the development of Chinese insurance industry and increasing loss prevention demand from Chinese nuclear power plant, Chinese insurance industry gradually integrates international practice, and establishes a systematic, Chinese characterized nuclear insurance survey methodology. This thesis introduces insurance survey background and importance, analyses the areas in which insurance survey could support nuclear power risk management. This paper focuses on risk survey methodology and implementation plan based on insurance service practices, and analyses survey result trends. The methodology has been implemented in nuclear power risk management regime. Recent cases have verified the insurance survey could support nuclear power plant safety improvement. Besides, based on the current practice, this paper suggest the potential ways to improve the interface between insurance risk survey and nuclear power risk management, improve common risk and enhance survey effectiveness.

Sharon Parker, Sean Mullarkely and Paul Jackson, who are researchers in the MRC/ESRC Social and Applied Pyschology Unit at the University of Sheffield, draw on detailed case study evidence to consider the substantial changes to the shop floor roles entailed in high involvement work organisations. They argue that specification of the performance requirements of such roles will facilitate employees taking on appropriate behaviours, reduce role confusion, and enable consistency in human resource practices. They discuss the use of repertory grids to explore the models of effective performance held by production managers and derive nine critical dimensions of shop floor employee performance from the analysis. These contain specific behavioural examples and are grouped around four higher‐order dimensions: ‘process ownership’, ‘social skills’, ‘personal style’, and loss prevention’. These dimensions form the basis of a broader specification of the skills, knowledge and general orientations required by shopfloor employees in high involvement roles.

The implementation of the Reconstruction project/Capacity Building of Road Structures: Cabi-Bumi Rata R.074 DAK Regular Simpang Empat District, Banjar Regency in the process of its work has the potential to experience delays. As a result, there will be an increase in costs due to late fees so that time control is needed so that the project is not late with minimal costs. This study was conducted to determine the time of delay and the cause of delay in the project by conducting an interview so that project time control can be carried out. Furthermore, the results of the interview were analyzed with the Precedence Diagram Method (PDM) whether the late work passed the critical path. Once it is known that the work is late passing the critical path in the 8th week then calculates the residual volume and duration of the remainder then put into the PDM at week 8. From the duration of the remainder is known the duration of the delay and can calculate the cost of the fine. Adding overtime and work shifts was chosen as an alternative to completing delays because with 4-hour overtime the work is still late and continued by calculating daily productivity, productivity after a crash, duration of crashes and cost increase from the two alternatives, the minimum cost of each job was chosen to obtain a duration that matches the duration of the plan with minimal costs. The results of the research that has been carried out by the project have been delayed due to natural factors that cause the Matraman bridge to be cut off and result in mobilization, procurement of materials and equipment delayed in LPA and LPB work on critical lines. Based on the analysis using PDM in the 8th week, the project experienced a delay of 33 days so that the duration increased to 173 days from the 140-day plan duration with a fine of Rp 172,766,051. Efforts that can be made to overcome these delays are by combining adding overtime for 4 hours and adding work shifts. There is an increase in costs for each activity in line with the shortened duration of the delay. The total increase was IDR 121,137,087 and the total cost was IDR 5,356,471,979. With this analysis, the project can be completed on time with a duration of 140 days, the difference in the cost of fines with crashing is IDR 51,628,964 which can be used as a graph of the relationship between cost and time based on cost increase when accelerating. Keywords: Project Delay, PDM, Cost Comparison, and Time.

The way we are currently developing our building structures is unsustainable, with a large amount of greenhouse gas (GHGs) emissions being a direct result of the production and implementation of the materials used in our buildings. The purpose of this honors thesis is to better understand the potential and feasibility of hemp biocomposite materials in construction. A case study will be examined, where a house plan will be taken, and utilized in two homes, one being constructed with conventional materials such as lumber, while the other with hemp biocomposites. Because the same house plan is used in both homes, we can objectively quantify the carbon footprint and monetary cost of both dwellings, and directly compare them. This side by side analysis can allow developers, architects, and hemp-based construction material companies to see the difference in cost and carbon footprint associated with switching to hemp biobased materials. Using professional journals, peer reviewed literature, and interviews with hemp companies, a building product analysis was conducted. This section shows the advantages and potential drawbacks of current building materials, and what are the benefits and drawbacks of transitioning towards hemp biocomposites. Through the building analysis and case study, this thesis is an extensive tool that shows the potential of hemp in future residential home construction. The carbon sequestered through hemp biocomposites is nearly double its conventional counterparts, and its higher cost can be justified as its benefits could be argued to outweigh the difference in total cost when it comes to the price of the home. For the full text, please visit https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/undergraduate_honors_theses/rx913r48x.

This article introduces a novel use of technologies to visualize space and temporary structures in public space as a critical and speculative method for artistic research. Imitation and iconification have been vital in visual culture since civilization began. Science has become proficient in picturing invisible matter and numerical data. However, we are limited to visualizing these data in an iconic, ‘understandable’ way, that is, to some extent, reductionist. A non-naturalistic artistic visualization (NNAVi) method is proposed to discover and present the underlying context of objects and space. First, this article discusses the representational function of artistic images and the artistic use of emerging technologies to represent invisible information. Following the discussion, the case study of the virtual reality (VR) artwork The Last Recreational Land shows how NNAVi can be applied. The case study starts with an exploration of the pandemic’s context and nature and then moves to an explanation of the multisensory and immersive setting of the artwork. Interweaving case studies and theoretical references, the article elaborates on how the VR experience is used as a device to respond to the pandemic. By deconstructing the relationship between visualization, imitation and iconification, the article theorizes NNAVi as a new methodology for artistic research that provides tangible insights into the nature of the pandemic.

Abstract. The vulnerability assessment of buildings in future scenarios is critical to decreasing potential losses caused by debris flows in mountainous areas due to complex topographical conditions that could increase environmental vulnerability to climate change. However, a lack of reliable methods limits the accurate estimation of a physical damage and the associated economic loss. Therefore, an integrated method of physical vulnerability matrix and machine learning model was developed to benefit the estimation of damage degree for buildings caused by a future debris-flow event. By considering the building structures (reinforced-concrete (RC) frame and non-RC frame), spatial positions between buildings and the debris-flow channels (horizontal distance (HD) and vertical distance (VD)), and impact pressure (Pt) on buildings, a physical vulnerability matrix was proposed that links physical damage with the four factors. In order to overcome the difficulty in estimating the possible impact pressure on buildings, an ensemble machine learning (ML) model (XGBoost) was developed with the involvement of geological factors. Additionally, HD and VD were decided based on satellite images. The Longxihe Basin, Sichuan, China, was selected as a case study. The results show that the ML model can achieve a reliable impact pressure prediction because the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), root mean square error (RMSE), and mean absolute error (MAE) values are 9.53 %, 3.78 kPa, and 2.47 kPa, respectively. Furthermore, 13.9 % of buildings in the Longxihe Basin may suffer severe damage caused by a future debris-flow event, and the highest economic loss is found for a residential building, reaching EUR 5.1×105. Overall, our work can provide scientific support for the site selection of future constructions.

Stilt houses are one of the architectural identities of the archipelago that are still commonly found in Indonesia. Stilt houses have proven to be sustainable products because they still exist today after going through various natural disasters. This is inseparable from the stilts house building techniques, including the process of finding and determining the form and implementation of adat (philosophy). So, this research aims to show the existence of post-disaster stilt houses which include tsunami disasters in Aceh and Palu. This research is a case study that uses a comparativeanalysis method to show the influence factors of the existence of stilts houses after disaster in Aceh dan Palu. Based on the results of the study, it is known that the stilt houses in Aceh and Palu have stilt buildings that are sturdy and stable in accepting the force load when a disaster occurs. The key of building sturdiness lies on building structures such as connection systems, foundation type, material type, and the buildings proportion. These factors caused the stilts houses to not suffer severe damage, and in some cases did not show any damage to the buildings after being affected by natural disasters.

A simple time domain calculation method for transient heat transfer models

Spatial spillover effects of urban decline in Southeast Michigan

From the 1950s to 1970s a handful of architects and designers developed the use of glass-reinforced plastic (GRP) for external building skins that expressed the nature and possibilities of the material. External panels were designed as non-structural interchangeable cladding and also as structural folded plates and shells.Many GRP buildings were designed as temporary structures and have long since disappeared. Some have survived and, in England, a few have been recognised with listed status for their architectural quality. At about fifty years of age the condition of polymeric components, such as external panels, fixings and joints, is beginning to present new problems in conservation. The case studies in this paper indicate that early estimates for the design life of GRP buildings and components have been surpassed, and that a range of approaches is available and necessary for their conservation.Innovative plastic buildings and components also remain at risk of damage and demolition from a lack of awareness of their existence and value by heritage protection bodies.

Cybersecurity has become one of the greatest challenges in today’s post pandemic, digital and interconnected world, and also a subject of strategic importance for the insurance industry. There is no doubt that the advance of technology and the increased use of big data and cloud computing have set up an opportunity for insurance business, but they also expanded insurance companies’ vulnerabilities towards cyber risk. As insurers collect a large amount of confidential data, including protected personal sensitive information, they are a natural target for cyber-attacks. On the one hand, the aim of the article is to indicate how the risks associated with digitalisation affect the day-to-day operations in selected business areas of an insurance company, and which methods may be used to manage them, on the other. After a general review of cyber risk based on recent branch reports and survey results, the authors identified its global economic impact with particular regard to financial institutions, and also insurers’ exposure and perception of cyber risk and cybersecurity spending. Moreover, administrative decisions issued by the President of the Personal Data Protection Office in Poland, selected jurisdictions and loss scenarios for insurance companies were examined with a deeper dive into underwriting, selling, administration and claims handling processes. The results of the literature study show that cyber risk is recognized to be one of the most significant non-financial risks (in terms of the source, not result of the risk) for insurers and that many proactive security measures can be implemented. However, due to the high vulnerability to leaks of confidential personal and financial data or unauthorized system access, which may cause not only financial loss, but also business interruptions and reputational damage, in the authors’ opinion, loss prevention and reduction are insufficient. Thus, both insurance and non-insurance methods of external financing cyber risk results were indicated. On this basis, the cyber insurance is considered by the authors to be the best tool providing both prevention and financial compensation in case of cyber incidents, also in insurance companies.

If we believe there is a crisis regarding global warming, pollution, and social injustice, and if we want to act on it, we need to open our minds, change our attitudes, and start preparing with our young students. Together we need to develop a way of thinking that implies the use of a new set of values that differs from today’s mind-set and values that caused this crisis in the first place.With this in mind we proposed a group of students and professors to consider building structures with an alternative material: bamboo, a material with which neither students nor professors had any experience in. During the course of this exercise the conceived structures developed from simple to complex designs, from required forms to free ones designed by the students, from small 1:100 scaled models to bigger 1:20 ones.Not theory but the practice itself generated a tremendous amount of enthusiasm within the group of students and within the group of professors. Knowledge of the stability of skeletal structures was gained in a playful way; theoretical thinking-errors were immediately tested by the practical execution of the newly developed model. The existence of alternative construction materials, in this case bamboo, the feel for the material and its numerous possibilities for construction purposes were being revealed! For the involved students and professors the practical aspects of this exercise created more awareness and knowledge on the topic than any theoretical lecture could.