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The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the co-seismic and post-seismic behaviors of an existed soil-foundation system in an actual alternately layered sand/silt ground including pore water pressure, acceleration response, and displacement et al. during and after earthquake.

The evaluation is performed by finite element method and the simulation is performed using an effective stress-based 2D/3D soil-water coupling program DBLEAVES. The calculation is carried out through static-dynamic-static three steps. The soil behavior is described by a new rotational kinematic hardening elasto-plastic cyclic mobility constitutive model, while the footing and foundation are modeled as elastic rigid elements.

The shallow (short-pile type) foundation has a better capacity of resisting ground liquefaction but large differential settlement occurred. Moreover, most part of the differential settlement occurred during earthquake motion. Attention should be paid not only to the liquefaction behavior of the ground during the earthquake motion, but also the long-term settlement after earthquake should be given serious consideration.

The co-seismic and post-seismic behavior of a complex ground which contains sand and silt layers, especially long-term settlement over a period of several weeks or even years after the earthquake, has been clarified sufficiently. In some critical condition, even if the seismic resistance is satisfied with the design code for building, detailed calculation may reveal the risk of under estimation of differential settlement that may give rise to serious problems.

Developing a reliable cost estimate at the early stage of construction projects is challenging due to inadequate project information. Most of the information during this stage is qualitative, posing additional challenges to achieving accurate cost estimates. Additionally, there is a lack of tools that use qualitative project information and forecast the budgets required for project completion. This research, therefore, aims to develop a model for setting project budgets (excluding land) during the pre-conceptual stage of residential buildings, where project information is mainly qualitative.

Due to the qualitative nature of project information at the pre-conception stage, a natural language processing model, DistilBERT (Distilled Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers), was trained to predict the cost range of residential buildings at the pre-conception stage. The training and evaluation data included 63,899 building permit activity records (2021–2022) from the Victorian State Building Authority, Australia. The input data comprised the project description of each record, which included project location and basic material types (floor, frame, roofing, and external wall).

This research designed a novel tool for predicting the project budget based on preliminary project information. The model achieved 79% accuracy in classifying residential buildings into three cost_classes ($100,000-$300,000, $300,000-$500,000, $500,000-$1,200,000) and F1-scores of 0.85, 0.73, and 0.74, respectively. Additionally, the results show that the model learnt the contextual relationship between qualitative data like project location and cost.

The current model was developed using data from Victoria state in Australia; hence, it would not return relevant outcomes for other contexts. However, future studies can adopt the methods to develop similar models for their context.

This research is the first to leverage a deep learning model, DistilBERT, for cost estimation at the pre-conception stage using basic project information like location and material types. Therefore, the model would contribute to overcoming data limitations for cost estimation at the pre-conception stage. Residential building stakeholders, like clients, designers, and estimators, can use the model to forecast the project budget at the pre-conception stage to facilitate decision-making.

Knowledge‐based systems (KBS) and multimedia technology (MMT) have been widely used in many industries for years to solve complicated problems. The integration of KBS and MMT, which leads to intelligent multimedia, provides a powerful tool for expertise‐intensive training. Although many tasks in construction demand extensive expertise and years of experience, the use of intelligent multimedia for training on these tasks has, however, hardly been documented in the literature. Aims to demonstrate the feasibility and potential benefits of using intelligent multimedia for expertise‐intensive training in construction. By referring to a case study in strategic cost estimate for building projects, illustrates the facilities that can be offered by the integrated systems. Since strategic cost estimate for a building project at early design stages is an extremely complex task, trainees have to go through a long period of learning before they can be competent in conducting such tasks. Introduces an intelligent multimedia system as a solution to the above problem. Reveals that intelligent multimedia can be deployed to meet the challenges of accurately representing the highly complex expertise in the knowledge base, and facilitating the learning process of the trainees through the highly interactive and non‐linear access to the explicit and transparent expertise.

The purpose of this paper is to present an innovative approach for the development of a methodology to systematically assess the economic performance and for the assessment of the economic sustainability of a building, through the calculation of an economic sustainability index, within the sustainability framework according to the rules defined in EN 16627.

The methodology follows the principle of modularity, where aspects and impacts that influence the economic performance of the building during the phases of its life cycle are assigned to levels. It presents a model based on the construction costs of the building. The methodology in centered in the before use phase and restricted to residential buildings.

Definition of a model for assessing the economic performance and calculation of an economic sustainability index.

The methodology is focused only in the before use phase of the buildings, assuming they have the same functional equivalent. It can be expanded to include the other phases of the building life cycle.

The developed methodology will allow the selection of construction procedures, based on economic sustainability, contributing to more rational and support decisions.

Contributing to a more sustainable society.

The European framework of EN 15643 and EN 16627 for the assessment of building sustainability is new and, as such, not implemented in most practical tools. Also, economic sustainability is not usually considered in detail in existing models. This paper presents a methodology following the framework and, simultaneously, possible to integrate in existing approaches.

Examines the sources and implications of Mikhail Gorbachev′s policies insofar as they have been policies of liberalization. It is principally argued that Marxism has been a Western phenomenon and thereby a vehicle for the export of Western Enlightenment values to Third World countries but also to the Soviet Union itself. The nature and role of Marx′s analyses are considered in that light. So also are the status of nationalism in the USSR, the historical meaning and promise of socialism, the role of the legal‐economic nexus in the social reconstruction of reality in the USSR and in Central and Eastern Europe, the relevance to those developments of the emerging new European and world systems, and the relevance of all these for social economics.

Introduction New Building Regulations came into force in November 1985 and NHBC Building Control Services Ltd was granted Approved Inspector status by the Secretary of State for the Environment.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has had major impacts on the performance of construction projects that have adopted social distancing measures. This study examines the effect of social distancing measures on project schedule performance through job reorganization on construction project sites.

Responses were obtained through a survey of 154 construction projects and analysed using the partial least square structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) technique.

The findings established that social distancing has a negative effect on schedule performance, social distancing has a positive effect on job re-organization and job re-organization has a positive effect on schedule performance. Additionally, the results indicate that job re-organization partially mediates the relationship between social distancing and schedule performance, while social distancing moderates the relationship between job re-organization and schedule performance with low social distancing having the stronger positive effect.

This study contributes theoretically to a greater understanding of the impact of adopting COVID-19 safety measures such as social distancing on the schedule performance of construction projects. The study also shows how social distancing could lead to schedule performance through job reorganization.

This paper aims to present a graphical comparison method for construction schedules, which illustrates the differences for each individual activity. The method overlays the observed differences on a bar chart creating a representation of whether each activity is ahead, on or behind schedule at a given date.

The method is implemented using a Microsoft Project add-in (plug-in). The paper demonstrates the method and its potential uses with three illustration cases: a time impact analysis, an alternative analysis for the selection of subcontractors and a multi-baseline analysis of an as-built schedule.

The cases included in the paper show that the proposed method uses a simplified and familiar attribute comparison for each activity in a schedule. The method affords flexibility in presenting differences between schedules such as the start/finish dates or duration. As the method does not rely on a specific software application or analysis method, it can be implement to different software applications as well as performance or delay analysis techniques. The method also makes it possible to present multiple and selective baseline comparisons overlaid on an updated or as-built schedule.

The method graphically presents a comparison of start dates, durations and finish dates for each activity that can be integrated with any schedule. The method can be used for forensic analysis as well as project control measures during construction. As the method does not rely on any specific performance or delay calculation method, it can be applied to any forensic analysis technique and delay analysis.