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This paper aims to provide an initial determination of the date of construction, locations and a typology of design of the pill‐boxes of the Gin Drinker's Line constructed by the colonial Hong Kong Government.

Post‐war aerial photos taken by the Royal Air Force and R.C. Huntings were examined and site visits made to locate and measure the pill‐boxes. Relevant archive materials were consulted to help interpret findings.

A total of 76 pill‐boxes, most in ruins due to post‐war destruction for obtaining their steel bars, were mapped on a 1:25,000 scale to give a good idea of the nature of the Gin Drinker's Line. The study finds that, of these, 50 have survived. The pill‐boxes predated those built in the UK to anticipate of German landing.

The paper demonstrates how aerial photos can be used for historical research and conservation planning. Though the locations of the pill‐boxes identified are subject to detailed site surveying, the basic pattern of pill‐box distribution has been identified.

This is the first attempt to map the Gin Drinker's Line and classify its pill‐boxes. The findings are useful references for the actual conservation of colonial heritage in Hong Kong as part of China, as well as for further inquiry into the military history of the Second World War.

The user churn (UC) of rural public digital cultural services (RPDCS) indicates that rural users no longer use RPDCS or have switched to other services. The purpose of this study is to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's UC and to contribute toward bridging the rural digital divide.

Based on the stimulus-organism-response theory, this study proposes a theoretical framework to investigate the factors influencing RPDCS's user churn. A total of 120 RPDCS users were initially recruited and 90 representative participants were chosen. Data were collected from the 90 respondents and 20 follow-up interviews. To examine the proposed framework and validate the correlations between these factors and UC, an analysis of variance (ANOVA) and multiple regression analysis were used. In addition, recommendations are made to avoid the UC of RPDCS to bridge the rural digital divide.

The results indicate that the UC of RPDCS was stimulated by both physical and ability divides and RPDCS ineffectiveness, resulting in increased churn rates and an exacerbated digital divide. Thus, avoiding the UC of RPDCS is an important way to bridge the rural digital divide, which includes both the physical and ability divides.

This study adds new knowledge about RPDCS and distinguishes it from previous research on public digital cultural services. In addition, the authors discuss how to avoid the UC of RPDCS, to bridge the rural digital divide.

Early involvement of the construction team is increasingly utilized in demanding projects to incorporate versatile expertise in their planning. For public owners this is a challenge since they are obliged to use competitive, transparent team selection based on the ‘most economically advantageous’ criterion which ensures that both price and quality viewpoints are taken into account. In the case of early involvement, the price component naturally does not include the total price, but may consist only of the fee-percentages of competing service providers. This study examines such a selection situation in project alliancing in the European context and seeks to find a way to integrate the fee component in a multi-criteria selection system and determine reasonable fees for different levels of capabilities. The study builds on the performance difference between different capabilities, derived from a survey of practitioners, and determines an indifference curve arithmetically for the planning of a selection method. The influence of the owner‘s risk attitude and risk premiums are also considered exploratively based on the pricing methods of the theory of finance.

The aim of this paper is to research the acceptance mechanism of building information modeling (BIM) technology and to explore the differences among Architecture/Engineering/Construction (A/E/C) professionals with different individual characteristics. The proposed acceptance mechanism of BIM technology is intended to be used by industry stakeholders to propose decisions and measures, and improve the degree of BIM adoption.

Traditional hypothesis testing is adopted by the current study to empirically research the specific mechanism of A/E/C professionals accepting BIM technologies. In the one phase, a conceptual model based on technology acceptance model (TAM) and technology organization environment (TOE) theory was established and a large-scale questionnaire survey was conducted. In the other phase, structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to analyze acquired sample data, so as to empirically test the validity of the proposed linkage.

The results show first that perceived ease of use has no significant influence on perceived usefulness, and perceived usefulness has no significant effect on behavior intention as well. Second, BIM technical features and government BIM policies have positive effects on perceived usefulness, BIM technical features and organization supports have positive effects on perceived ease of use. Third, the BIM acceptance mechanism of A/E/C professionals is diverse from respondents with different characteristics, e.g. regions and working time.

The authors highlight the large sample size, as well as the nationwide context, of the questionnaire survey. Meanwhile, acceptance differences among A/E/C professionals with different demographic characteristics have been clarified using profound data and t-test. The findings of this study enrich the research on the acceptance mechanism of BIM technology, and contribute to relevant stakeholders taking targeted measures to promote the effective application of BIM technology nationwide.

Among developing countries, the Republic of China in Taiwan (hereinafter Taiwan) has been experiencing economic growth accompanied by improving income distribution. Between 1964 and 1980, the average annual growth rate of the real gross national product was 9.92 per cent (Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), 1982, p. 23). In the same period, the income ratio between the top 20 per cent and the bottom 20 per cent of families dropped from 5.33 to 4.17 and the Gini coefficient decreased from 0.36 to 0.30 (CEPD, 1982, p. 54; Directorate‐General of Budget Accounting and Statistics, 1980, (DGBAS), p. 44). To put it somewhat dif‐ferently, in 1964 the lowest fifth of households received 7.71 per cent of total personal income, and the highest fifth 41.07 per cent. But in 1980, the income share of the lowest fifth increased to 8.82 per cent while that of the highest fifth decreased to 36.80 per cent. The condition of greater equality in income distribution appears more obvious in the capital city of Taipei. In 1981, for instance, its Gini coefficient was estimated to be only 0.28 (Taipei Bureau of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, 1981, (TBBAS), P. 24).

The purpose of this study is to verify whether the trading strategy can beat the “buy-and-hold” strategy for the securitized real estate indices of six Asian economies: Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia.

This paper constructs a trading strategy from the Shiryaev-Zhou index and tests the strategy on the securitized real estate indices of six emerging Asian economies: Hong Kong, China, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia. The authors compare the resulting profits from using the trading strategy with the resulting profits from using the “buy-and-hold” strategy. The authors consider three cases: no transaction costs, 0.1 percent transaction costs, and 0.2 percent transaction costs.

The results show that the trading strategy the authors constructed generally outperforms the “buy-and-hold” strategy even in the presence of transaction costs. In particular, the authors have a new finding as follows: Thailand and Malaysia's securitized real estate indices fell drastically during the period of observation. However, applying the trading strategy to these two securitized real estate indices can still earn a profit.

The trading strategy is particularly useful in protecting investors from huge loss in adverse market conditions. The results can be applied to the field of finance/investment that investors can construct a trading strategy similar to the authors to earn more profits.

This study will consider cases where both buying and selling costs exist, so the scenario is more like stock transactions in real-life equity markets. Furthermore, in this paper, for each securitized real estate index, the authors plot a graph to show the holding and non-holding periods under the trading strategy. This would help the authors explain the resulting profit under the trading strategy. This kind of graphical analysis was neglected by Hui and Yam.

This paper aims to give a brief review on behavioral economics and behavioral finance and discusses some of the previous research on agents' utility functions, applicable risk measures, diversification strategies and portfolio optimization.

The authors also cover related disciplines such as trading rules, contagion and various econometric aspects.

While scholars could first develop theoretical models in behavioral economics and behavioral finance, they subsequently may develop corresponding statistical and econometric models, this finally includes simulation studies to examine whether the estimators or statistics have good power and size. This all helps us to better understand financial and economic decision-making from a descriptive standpoint.

The research paper is original.

Course credentialing essentially involves the implementation of digital badges. A number of studies have recently been conducted that clarify this philosophy and promote their adoption in learning programmes. The research presented in this chapter contributes to the body of knowledge on learning and teaching regarding the comparative analyses of learning outcomes, multidimensional credentialing and digital badges relevant to the pedagogy of construction management. The aim of this research was to determine the maturity of multidimensional credentialing within its online pedagogy in particular. A review of literature pertaining to course multi-disciplining, accreditation, credentialing and digital badges had been conducted. Comparative analyses were performed to allocate learning outcomes of the tertiary institution and two accrediting bodies onto each unit in the online delivery mode of a Construction Management Bachelor Degree course. These analyses had yielded three matrices that could assist decision-making on how to assess learning in each unit. The results revealed that almost all units in this course had implemented at least one tertiary institution and accrediting body learning outcome.

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance is critical to address construction activities’ environmental and social impacts. This study aims to evaluate the level of CSR implementation across various categories within the context of the Vietnamese construction industry.

The literature review and semi-structured interviews were conducted to determine Vietnamese construction organizations’ most commonly implemented CSR activities. A total of 252 valid responses were then obtained through a questionnaire survey. In addition, the fuzzy synthetic evaluation (FSE) method was used to evaluate the extent to which CSR categories have been implemented in construction companies.

The findings revealed 31 commonly implemented CSR activities of the Vietnamese construction firms, which were grouped into four categories. Of the four categories, the FSE analysis showed that stakeholder CSR was the most critical category, followed by ethical CSR, philanthropic CSR and environmental CSR.

This research provides valuable CSR activities to construction companies that intend to develop sustainably. Moreover, the proposed prioritization methodology offers practitioners a reliable and easy-to-use evaluation tool that clearly understands CSR performance within their organizations.