SeyedAhmad SeyedAlinaghi, Behnam Farhoudi, Bahar Ataeinia, Omid Dadras, Mostafa Hosseini, Sirous Jafari, Elham Mazaheri-Tehrani, Ramin Alasvand, Mohammad Shahbazi and Minoo Mohraz
The aim of this study was to compare the defined indicators of tuberculosis (TB) control program in the intervention and control prisons, after implementation of the national…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of this study was to compare the defined indicators of tuberculosis (TB) control program in the intervention and control prisons, after implementation of the national clinical protocol for TB and HIV management in Iranian prisons, suggesting active health service provision in all steps of service provision.
Design/methodology/approach
This was quasi-experimental study conducted among inmates of two prisons in Iran. Great Tehran prison was purposively chosen as the intervention prison and Karaj prison was purposively chosen as control prison as well. Intervention and control prisons were compared in terms of the TB indicators within three periods (before intervention, during implementation and follow-up period) from October 2013 to June 2014.
Findings
Number of inmates with TB symptoms who underwent TB workup was four times more in intervention prison compared to control prison (9.3 vs 2.5 cases out of 1,000 inmates per month in the case prison compared to the control prison). Such difference was also significant in the intervention prison, comparing before and during the intervention period. The patient finding in case prison increased significantly after the intervention (223.6 vs 81.8 cases out of 100,000 inmates per year). The number of TB cases who received HIV testing increased from 50 to 100%.
Originality/value
Active health service provision has significantly improved indicators in the intervention prison. The authors recommend implementation of this guideline in all prisons of Iran. Integration of other diseases with high burden among prisoners is also recommended in the active health services provision.
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Seied Ahmad Hosseini and Mostafa Zeinoddini
In this paper, a closed-form analytical solution for the prediction of moment-rotation and the rotational stiffness-rotation curves of I-shaped beam to cylindrical column…
Abstract
Purpose
In this paper, a closed-form analytical solution for the prediction of moment-rotation and the rotational stiffness-rotation curves of I-shaped beam to cylindrical column connections, commonly used on offshore platforms, at room and elevated temperatures, are presented.
Design/methodology/approach
An analytical solution for the prediction of moment-rotation and the rotational stiffness-rotation curves of I-shaped beam to cylindrical column connections is presented. The results of this model are compared with those of a non-linear coupled mechanical-thermal finite element model and small-scale experimental tests previously provided by the authors.
Findings
In this paper, a closed-form analytical solution for the prediction of moment-rotation and the rotational stiffness-rotation curves of I-shaped beam to cylindrical column connections, commonly used on offshore platforms, at room and elevated temperatures, is presented. The required yield and plastic moments in this model are provided as an extension to Roark's relationships. The results of this model are compared with those of a non-linear coupled mechanical-thermal finite element model and small-scale experimental tests previously provided by the authors. A reasonable agreement has been found between the analytical model results and the experimental/numerical modeling results.
Originality/value
This article is extracted from the author’s doctoral thesis, and all its achievements belong to the authors of the article.
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Abbas Elmualim, Sherif Mostafa, Nicholas Chileshe and Raufdeen Rameezdeen
This chapter discusses the profound and influential impact the construction industry has on the national economy, together with the huge negative effect it has on the environment…
Abstract
This chapter discusses the profound and influential impact the construction industry has on the national economy, together with the huge negative effect it has on the environment. It argues that by adopting smart and industrialised prefabrication (SAIP), the Australian construction industry, and the construction industry globally, is well positioned to leverage the circular economy to advance future industries with less impact on our natural environment. It discusses aspects of the application of digital technologies, specifically building information modelling, virtualisation, augmented and virtual reality and 3D printing, coupled with reverse logistics as a proponent for advancing the circular economy through smart, digitally enabled, industrialised prefabrication. It further postulates a framework for SAIP for the circular economy.
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Temidayo Oluwasola Osunsanmi, Clinton Ohis Aigbavboa, Wellington Didibhuku Thwala and Ayodeji Emmanuel Oke
The model and existing practice of the construction supply chain (CSC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia was presented in this chapter. The policies and reports that…
Abstract
The model and existing practice of the construction supply chain (CSC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Australia was presented in this chapter. The policies and reports that support the practice of the CSC were examined in both countries. It was discovered from the review of literature that the UK has a more detailed report targeted at improving the CSC than Australia. However, both countries have a common factor affecting their CSC which originates from fragmentation experienced within their supply chain. Construction stakeholders in the UK and Australia believe that collaboration and integration are vital components for improving performance. The majority of the contractors in both countries embrace collaborative working for the sole purpose of risk sharing, access to innovation and response to market efficiency. However, most of the models developed for managing the CSC in the UK are built around building information modelling (BIM). Also, the reviewed studies show that supply chain management practice will be effective following the following principle: shared objectives, trust, reduction in a blame culture, joint working, enhanced communication and information-sharing. Finally, the UK has a more established framework and more CSC models compared to Australia.
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Guiwen Liu, Juma Hamisi Nzige and Kaijian Li
The purpose of this study is to discover the distribution and trends of existing Offsite construction (OSC) literature with an intention to highlight research niches and propose…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to discover the distribution and trends of existing Offsite construction (OSC) literature with an intention to highlight research niches and propose the future outline.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopted literature reviews methodology involving 1,057 relevant documents published in 2008-2017 from 15 journals. The selected documents were empirically analyzed through a topic-modeling technique. A latent Dirichlet allocation model was applied to each document to infer 50 key topics. A machine learning for language toolkit was used to get topic posterior word distribution and word composition.
Findings
This is an exploratory study, which identifies the distribution of topics and themes; the trend of topics and themes; journal distribution trends; and comparative topic, themes and journal distribution trend. The distribution and trends show an increase in researcher’s interest and the journal’s priority on OSC research. Nevertheless, OSC existing literature is faced with; under-researched topics such as building information modeling, smart construction and marketing. The under-researched themes include organizational management, supply chain and context. The authors also found an overload of similar information in prefabrication and concrete topics. Furthermore, the innovative methods and constraints themes were found to be overloaded with similar information.
Research limitations/implications
The naming of the themes was based on our own interpretation; hence, the research results may lack generalizability. Therefore, a comparative study using different data processing is proposed. The study also provides future research outline as follows: studying OSC topics from dynamic evolution perspective and identifying the new emerging topics; searching for effective strategies to enhance OSC research; identifying the contribution of countries, affiliation and funding agency; and studying the impact of these themes to the adoption of OSC.
Practical implications
This study is of values to the scholars, as it could stimulate research to under-researched areas.
Originality/value
This paper justifies a need to have a broad understanding of the nature and structure of existing OSC literature.
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Azin Fathianpour, Mostafa Babaeian Jelodar, Suzanne Wilkinson and Barry Evans
As evacuation is one of the most used response actions to such disasters, it is essential to understand correctly what a resilient evacuation would mean. One critical factor in…
Abstract
Purpose
As evacuation is one of the most used response actions to such disasters, it is essential to understand correctly what a resilient evacuation would mean. One critical factor in evacuation resilience is the resilience level of evacuation infrastructures. Also, UN sustainable development has a goal to build resilient infrastructures. This study aims to investigate the characteristics of resilient evacuation infrastructures.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic methodology for reviewing articles has been implemented to understand how vulnerable cities can be more prepared, especially for pedestrian evacuation.
Findings
This study has developed an evacuation scoring system framework for pedestrians to investigate evacuation infrastructure in terms of different resilience features, such as redundancy, safe-to-fail, readiness and capacity. The most practical evacuation system will be estimated. The output of this study can provide insight into a final output to provide the features of a successful pedestrian evacuation system for future policy drafting for infrastructure strategy decision-makers.
Practical implications
Climate change has made the risks of natural hazards such as tsunamis more intense for humans. Many people in the world live in hazardous environments and are susceptible to disasters. A community must be prepared to mitigate the destructive event and quickly respond to be called resilient.
Originality/value
This is an original work. The researcher has gone through a deep literature review and developed a cluster showing the features a resilient evacuation infrastructure should have.
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Hossein Abbasimehr and Mostafa Shabani
The purpose of this paper is to propose a new methodology that handles the issue of the dynamic behavior of customers over time.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to propose a new methodology that handles the issue of the dynamic behavior of customers over time.
Design/methodology/approach
A new methodology is presented based on time series clustering to extract dominant behavioral patterns of customers over time. This methodology is implemented using bank customers’ transactions data which are in the form of time series data. The data include the recency (R), frequency (F) and monetary (M) attributes of businesses that are using the point-of-sale (POS) data of a bank. This data were obtained from the data analysis department of the bank.
Findings
After carrying out an empirical study on the acquired transaction data of 2,531 business customers that are using POS devices of the bank, the dominant trends of behavior are discovered using the proposed methodology. The obtained trends were analyzed from the marketing viewpoint. Based on the analysis of the monetary attribute, customers were divided into four main segments, including high-value growing customers, middle-value growing customers, prone to churn and churners. For each resulted group of customers with a distinctive trend, effective and practical marketing recommendations were devised to improve the bank relationship with that group. The prone-to-churn segment contains most of the customers; therefore, the bank should conduct interesting promotions to retain this segment.
Practical implications
The discovered trends of customer behavior and proposed marketing recommendations can be helpful for banks in devising segment-specific marketing strategies as they illustrate the dynamic behavior of customers over time. The obtained trends are visualized so that they can be easily interpreted and used by banks. This paper contributes to the literature on customer relationship management (CRM) as the proposed methodology can be effectively applied to different businesses to reveal trends in customer behavior.
Originality/value
In the current business condition, customer behavior is changing continually over time and customers are churning due to the reduced switching costs. Therefore, choosing an effective customer segmentation methodology which can consider the dynamic behaviors of customers is essential for every business. This paper proposes a new methodology to capture customer dynamic behavior using time series clustering on time-ordered data. This is an improvement over previous studies, in which static segmentation approaches have often been adopted. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that combines the recency, frequency, and monetary model and time series clustering to reveal trends in customer behavior.
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Ruchini Senarath Jayasinghe, Raufdeen Rameezdeen and Nicholas Chileshe
The purpose of this paper is to explore the synergies between post-end-of-life of building (PEoLB) concepts and operations to achieve sustainability.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the synergies between post-end-of-life of building (PEoLB) concepts and operations to achieve sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic literature review (SLR) was conducted using 65 articles published between 2006 and 2017, and it has been subjected to descriptive and thematic analysis.
Findings
The descriptive analysis revealed that the majority of the articles were about (60 per cent) PEoLB operations, followed by (23 per cent) PEoLB concepts. Only 17 per cent of the articles have dealt with PEoLB-related strategic approaches. The thematic analysis elaborated on the literature development; interrelationships between PEoLB concepts and operations; impediments of introducing sustainability on these operations, remedial measures and information-based strategic approaches to achieve sustainability. Based on the findings, a conceptual framework for sustainable PEoLB operations is proposed. Furthermore, four areas of potential future research are discussed.
Research limitations/implications
This study presents a future research agenda including best practices to plan PEoLB operations and the development of optimisation models, risk management and information-based strategic approaches.
Practical implications
The proposed conceptual research framework triggers and nurtures potential pathways to introduce sustainable PEoLB operations under sound information flow. This could create a basis for future empirical studies in filling the identified gaps in literature. The framework could also assist practitioners in mitigating risks associated with transportation, storing and contamination of salvaged materials through enhanced information flow. In addition, the framework provides some managerial guidance to organisations seeking ways of establishing sustainability during reverse logistics (RL) operations.
Originality/value
This paper presents an SLR of an emerging area of research that encapsulates closed-loop supply chain through sustainable RL operations. The study highlights the interrelationships between PEoLB concepts and operations. It develops a robust approach to effectively manage the PEoLB operations underpinned by a sound information flow to facilitate sustainability.
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Emmanuel Itodo Daniel, Anthony Babalola, Olugbenga Timo Oladinrin, Lovelin Ifeoma Obi, Olalekan Oshodi and Ashendra Nikeshala Konara Mudiyanselage
Improving construction projects' performance through innovative approaches such as lean construction (LC) and offsite construction (OSC) methods are at the centre of various…
Abstract
Purpose
Improving construction projects' performance through innovative approaches such as lean construction (LC) and offsite construction (OSC) methods are at the centre of various debates. However, there is a limited understanding of the current link between LC and OSC approaches. This study aims to conduct a scientometric analysis on LC and OSC research to unpack and establish the nexus and suggest future research focus.
Design/methodology/approach
Scientometric analysis was used to systematically examine existing literature on LC and OSC to identify possible connections. Relevant publications were extracted from the Scopus database, using inclusion and exclusion criteria. VOSviewer software was used as a visualisation technique to analyse and map the interrelations and connections of the concepts being studied. Bibliograhic data on the 68 selected papers were extracted from the Scopus database.
Findings
The search results cover the period between 2003 and 2021. Descriptive statistics show that the number of published papers has increased yearly. Researchers in the USA and Canada are the most productive authors regarding the number of published papers. The directions for future research suggested are the need to identify best practices for integrating LC and OSC methods, the need for more interdisciplinary and cross-country collaboration among researchers, the use of alternative research methods will provide a better understanding of the benefit of integrating LC and OSC techniques and more research is needed to showcase how the use of lean and offsite construction can facilitate the attainment of net-zero in the construction industry.
Originality/value
This study provides insights into the trends and gaps in knowledge on integrating LC and OSC methods and offers valuable insights to scholars and practitioners in integrating LC and OSC principles. This knowledge is vital for identifying strategies to improve the outcome of construction projects and contribute to the sustainable socio-economic development of cities across the globe.
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Sareh Götelid, Taoran Ma, Christophe Lyphout, Jesper Vang, Emil Stålnacke, Jonas Holmberg, Seyed Hosseini and Annika Strondl
This study aims to investigate additive manufacturing of nickel-based superalloy IN718 made by powder bed fusion processes: powder bed fusion laser beam (PBF-LB) and powder bed…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate additive manufacturing of nickel-based superalloy IN718 made by powder bed fusion processes: powder bed fusion laser beam (PBF-LB) and powder bed fusion electron beam (PBF-EB).
Design/methodology/approach
This work has focused on the influence of building methods and post-fabrication processes on the final part properties, including microstructure, surface quality, residual stresses and mechanical properties.
Findings
PBF-LB produced a much smoother surface. Blasting and shot peening (SP) reduced the roughness even more but did not affect the PBF-EB surface finish as much. As-printed PBF-EB parts have low residual stresses in all directions, whereas it was much higher for PBF-LB. However, heat treatment removed the stresses and SP created compressive stresses for samples from both PBF processes. The standard Arcam process parameter for PBF-EB for IN718 is not fully optimized, which leads to porosity and inferior mechanical properties. However, impact toughness after hot isostatic pressing was surprisingly high.
Originality/value
The two processes gave different results and also responses to post-treatments, which could be of advantage or disadvantage for different applications. Suggestions for improving the properties of parts produced by each method are presented.