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The purpose of this paper is to identify best practice relating to the effective management of materials in an urban, confined construction site, using structural equation modelling.

A literature review, case study analysis and questionnaire survey are used, with the results scrutinised using confirmatory factor analysis in the form of structural equation modelling.

The following are the leading strategies in the management of materials in a confined urban site environment: consult and review the project programme, effective communication and delivery, implement site safety management plans and proactive spatial monitoring and control.

With the relentless expansion of urban centres and the increasing high cost of materials, any potential savings made on-site would translate into significant monetary concessions on completion of a project.

As on-site project management professionals successfully identify and implement the various strategies in the management of plant and materials on a confined urban site, successful resource management in this restrictive environment is attainable.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the use of the big data technologies for health and safety risks analytics in the power infrastructure domain with large data sets of health and safety risks, which are usually sparse and noisy.

The study focuses on using the big data frameworks for designing a robust architecture for handling and analysing (exploratory and predictive analytics) accidents in power infrastructure. The designed architecture is based on a well coherent health risk analytics lifecycle. A prototype of the architecture interfaced various technology artefacts was implemented in the Java language to predict the likelihoods of health hazards occurrence. A preliminary evaluation of the proposed architecture was carried out with a subset of an objective data, obtained from a leading UK power infrastructure company offering a broad range of power infrastructure services.

The proposed architecture was able to identify relevant variables and improve preliminary prediction accuracies and explanatory capacities. It has also enabled conclusions to be drawn regarding the causes of health risks. The results represent a significant improvement in terms of managing information on construction accidents, particularly in power infrastructure domain.

This study carries out a comprehensive literature review to advance the health and safety risk management in construction. It also highlights the inability of the conventional technologies in handling unstructured and incomplete data set for real-time analytics processing. The study proposes a technique in big data technology for finding complex patterns and establishing the statistical cohesion of hidden patterns for optimal future decision making.

The purpose of this study is to commence the discourse on the non-inclusiveness of the dynamics of reputation within the construction industry by identifying and examining the key product and process drivers of reputation in mega-construction projects.

Data was collected through an exploratory sequential mixed methods approach which commences with a qualitative study and culminates with a quantitative study to identify product and process drivers of reputation in mega-construction projects.

The findings suggest that “project quality”, “robust social and environmental sustainability plan”, “project team competence and interpersonal relationship” and “project process efficacy” are the four key drivers influencing the reputation of mega-construction projects.

The findings of this study are solely based on the perception of UK construction practitioners; therefore, the results may only be considered valid in this context. The identification of these key drivers provides a pathway where stakeholders, professionals and organisations can identify and prioritise critical issues associated with enhancing and sustaining the reputation of mega-construction projects.

Findings of this research make a significant contribution to the discourse on the concept of reputation within the construction industry by identifying its specific drivers of reputation.

The aim of this study is to construct a model that can be used to predict the architect's overall performance in the Nigeria building delivery process and to provide adequate understanding of the criteria which constitute the model. Architect performance criteria were identified from existing literature within the domain of architect responsibilities and developed into a two‐part questionnaire survey. The survey involves clients of recently completed building projects in Nigeria. The first part of the questionnaire survey consists of 71 clients which were used to construct the model while the second part consists of another 17 clients which were used to validate the model. Based on this data, a predictive discriminant analysis model of two‐group cases (good and poor performance) was developed. The model shows that the predicted architect's overall performance is significantly correlated with the actual validated client ratings (0.783 at 99% confidence interval). The results show that if architects want to achieve good performance, they should give a high level of performance to ‘effective communication of design to contractor and other participants’; ‘effective constructability review’; ‘assistance in quality management strategies and clarity and consistency of specification with drawings’. The study would give architects a fore knowledge on how to ensure good performance in their future enterprise.

Competency-based measure is increasingly evident as an effective approach to tailoring training and development for organisational change and development. With design stage widely reckoned as being decisive for construction waste minimisation, the purpose of this paper is to identify designers’ competencies for designing out waste.

Due to paucity of research into competency for construction waste mitigation, this study corroborates verbal protocol analyses (VPA) with phenomenological research.

Combining findings from the two methodological approaches, competencies for designing out waste are grouped into five categories, three of which are largely task related and two being contextual competencies. The study suggests that design task proficiency, low waste design skills and construction-related knowledge are indispensable task competencies, while behavioural competence and inter-professional collaborative abilities are requisite contextual competencies for designing out waste. In concurrence with task-contextual theory of job performance, personality variables and cognitive abilities are found to influence one another. This suggests that both task and contextual competencies are not only important, they are less mutually exclusive with respect to designing out waste.

This study implies that apart from commitment and dedication of designers to waste minimisation, design and firm practices are expected to be adapted to the industry’s standard.

Basis for training needs of design professionals as well as redeployment criterion are further elaborated in the paper. By enhancing competencies identified in this study, construction waste would not only be significantly designed out, adequate cost saving could be made as a result of waste reduction.

There have been speculations as to whether environmental friendly buildings are always healthy. Using lifecycle assessment (LCA) methodology, the purpose of this paper is to investigate lifecycle relationship between building sustainability and its environmental health impacts

In order to achieve this, a block of classroom was modelled with the aid of Revit software, and its lifecycle global warming potential (GWP) and human health impacts were analysed using green building studio and ATHENA impact estimator tools. Sensitivity analyses of the block of classrooms were then carried out by varying the building materials and energy use pattern of the original typology. The LCA was performed for seven alternative typologies that were achieved through variation in the building materials and energy use patterns.

For all the eight building typologies, the study shows a direct relationship between GWPs and human health impacts. This confirms that the more sustainable a building, the less its tendency for having negative health effects on building operatives, occupants and the wider environment. Again, the more green a building in terms of its materials and energy use pattern, the healthier the building becomes.

The human health impacts was evaluated by measuring amount of particulate matter (PM2.5) produced by the buildings while environmental impact was evaluated by measuring global warming (KgCO₂) potentials of the buildings throughout its lifecycle. The study has been based on the impacts of building materials and energy use patterns over the entire lifecycle of the buildings and materials used for construction.

The study established a positive relationship between GWP of building and its human health impacts. Thus, all arguments relating to the relationship between building sustainability and health are laid to rest by the paper.

The UK construction industry produces up to one third of all waste to landfill. This study aims to identify specific project practices impeding the reduction of waste in construction projects as well as uncovering potential waste solutions throughout the project delivery process. The rationale being that for such a drastic reduction in waste to landfill, holistic and extensive measures would be required.

A two‐way methodological approach was used. This comprised qualitative unstructured interviews and a quantitative questionnaire survey of three major stakeholders in the UK construction industry: clients, architects and contractors.

Design factors remain the major cause of impediments to waste reduction to landfill. Critical impediments include clients making waste prevention a top priority in projects, overly complex designs, waste taking a low priority compared to project time and costs, lack of concerns by designers for buildability, among others. Critical solutions include early supply chain involvement in design process, choosing materials for their durability, early communication of design changes to all parties, longer project programmes and better lead times, among others.

In all, the target of halving construction waste to landfill based on the 2008 benchmark is achievable but would require construction companies to take it upon themselves to implement the proposed solutions suggested by this study.

The value of this research is to provide UK construction companies with solutions to reduce waste and aid the reaching of the landfill target, as landfill is decreasing as a solution to waste. In addition the cost savings on reducing waste could be crucial for companies in this current economic climate.

The overall intent of this research is to identify critical factors influencing architects' and design engineers' (AE) motivational level in design firms.

Motivational theories from the literature on organizational behaviour were examined to identify possible attributes influencing motivation. These attributes were put together in a questionnaire survey of architects and engineers in Northern Ireland design practices. Using factor analysis and regression modelling, four critical factors were identified. The model was validated to determine how well the factors can predict the AE motivational level.

The results show that the four factors are favourable project working condition, organisational support, design process efficacy and effort recognition.

Design firms and their managers play an important role in ensuring that their designers are motivated in completing their project.

Owners and managers of design firms can use the identified factors to improve the motivation of their architects and design engineers, thus developing a quality workforce.

The purpose of this paper is to identify, clarify and tabulate the various managerial issues encountered, to aid in the management of the complex health and safety concerns which occur within a confined construction site environment.

This is achieved through conducting extensive qualitative and qualitative research in the form of case studies, interviews and questionnaire survey.

The leading managerial issues in the management of health and safety on a confined construction site are found to be: “Difficulty to move materials around site safely”; “Lack of adequate room for the effective handling of materials”; “Difficulty in ensuring site is tidy and all plant and materials are stored safely”; “Close proximity of individuals to operation of large plant and machinery”; and joint fifth “Difficulty in ensuring proper arrangement and collection of waste materials on‐site” along with “Difficulty in controlling hazardous materials and equipment on site”.

The resulting implication for practice of these results can be summarised by identifying that with sustained development of urban centres on a global scale, coupled with the increasing complexity of architectural designs, the majority of on‐site project management professionals are faced with the onerous task of completing often intricate designs within a limited spatial environment, under strict health and safety parameters.

The subsequent value of the findings are such that just as on‐site management professionals successfully identify the various managerial issues highlighted, the successful management of health and safety on a confined construction site is attainable.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the performance of natural Jordanian zeolite tuff to remove ammonia from aqueous solutions using a laboratory batch method and fixed-bed column apparatus. Equilibrium data were fitted to Langmuir and Freundlich models.

Column experiments were conducted in packed bed column. The used apparatus consisted of a bench-mounted glass column of 2.5 cm inside diameter and 100 cm height (column volume = 490 cm3). The column was packed with a certain amount of zeolite to give the desired bed height. The feeding solution was supplied from a 30 liter plastic container at the beginning of each experiment and fed to the column down-flow through a glass flow meter having a working range of 10-280ml/min.

Ammonium ion exchange by natural Jordanian zeolite data were fitted by Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms. Continuous sorption of ammonium ions by natural Jordanian zeolite tuff has proven to be effective in decreasing concentrations ranging from 15-50 mg NH₄-N/L down to levels below 1 mg/l. Breakthrough time increased by increasing the bed depth as well as decreasing zeolite particle size, solution flow-rate, initial NH₄+ concentration and pH. Sorption of ammonium by the zeolite under the tested conditions gave the sorption capacity of 28 mg NH₄-N/L at 20°C, and 32 mg NH₄-N/L at 30°C.

This research investigates the performance of natural Jordanian zeolite tuff to remove ammonia from aqueous solutions using a laboratory batch method and fixed-bed column apparatus. The equilibrium data of the sorption of Ammonia were plotted by using the Langmuir and Freundlich isotherms, then the experimental data were compared to the predictions of the above equilibrium isotherm models. It is clear that the NH₄+ ion exchange data fitted better with Langmuir isotherm than with Freundlich model and gave an adequate correlation coefficient value.