An innovative time-cost-quality tradeoff modeling of building construction project based on resource allocation.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Hu W
PROVIDER: S-EPMC3929567 | biostudies-other | 2014
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other
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Project description:This data article explores the factors that contribute to maintaining steady cost projection on construction projects. The data was obtained using structured questionnaire designed in Likert scale. The responses were solicited from category of construction practitioners. Simple random sampling was employed in the distribution of the questionnaires to the respondents. Data samples were analysed using severity index, ranking and simple percentages. The analysis of the data brought to fore some important data on factors that causes cost overrun, they include: contractor's inexperience, inadequate planning, inflation, incessant variation order, and change in project design. They are critical to causing cost overrun, while project complexity, shortening of project period and fraudulent practices are found to be responsible. The data fall within the percentages of possible consequences of cost overrun when compared with those available in scientific literature. The data can provide insights on how to mitigate the risks of project deviation from initial cost and as-built project.
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Project description:BackgroundThe dominant paradigm for modeling the complexities of interacting populations and food webs is a system of coupled ordinary differential equations in which the state of each species, population, or functional trophic group is represented by an aggregated numbers-density or biomass-density variable. Here, using the metaphysiological approach to model consumer-resource interactions, we formulate a two-state paradigm that represents each population or group in a food web in terms of both its quantity and quality.Methodology and principal findingsThe formulation includes an allocation function controlling the relative proportion of extracted resources to increasing quantity versus elevating quality. Since lower quality individuals senescence more rapidly than higher quality individuals, an optimal allocation proportion exists and we derive an expression for how this proportion depends on population parameters that determine the senescence rate, the per-capita mortality rate, and the effects of these rates on the dynamics of the quality variable. We demonstrate that oscillations do not arise in our model from quantity-quality interactions alone, but require consumer-resource interactions across trophic levels that can be stabilized through judicious resource allocation strategies. Analysis and simulations provide compelling arguments for the necessity of populations to evolve quality-related dynamics in the form of maternal effects, storage or other appropriate structures. They also indicate that resource allocation switching between investments in abundance versus quality provide a powerful mechanism for promoting the stability of consumer-resource interactions in seasonally forcing environments.Conclusions/significanceOur simulations show that physiological inefficiencies associated with this switching can be favored by selection due to the diminished exposure of inefficient consumers to strong oscillations associated with the well-known paradox of enrichment. Also our results demonstrate how allocation switching can explain observed growth patterns in experimental microbial cultures and discuss how our formulation can address questions that cannot be answered using the quantity-only paradigms that currently predominate.
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Project description:We investigated the effect of diet quality on resource allocation in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) by providing females with a high-quality (HQ) or low-quality (LQ) diet for six weeks prior to pairing, and continuing these diets during egg laying and chick rearing. Diet treatments were then reversed and the experiment repeated. When females laid on the HQ diet, egg mass increased with laying order, but the reverse was true on the LQ diet. Females laid significantly more male eggs on the LQ diet compared with on the HQ diet. In addition, female eggs were more frequent at the end of the clutch when on the HQ diet and at the beginning of the clutch when on the LQ diet. These differences in the primary sex ratio are in line with predictions from sex allocation theory, since in this species females are more vulnerable to nutritional stress than males.
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Project description:BackgroundA variety of approaches have been used to contain escalating hospital costs. One approach is intensifying price competition. The increase in price based competition, which changes the incentives hospitals face, coupled with the fact that consumers can more easily evaluate the quality of hotel services compared with the quality of clinical care, may lead hospitals to allocate more resources into hotel rather than clinical services.MethodsTo test this hypothesis we studied hospitals in California in 1982 and 1989, comparing resource allocations prior to and following selective contracting, a period during which the focus of competition changed from quality to price. We estimated the relationship between clinical outcomes, measured as risk-adjusted-mortality rates, and resources.ResultsIn 1989, higher competition was associated with lower clinical expenditures levels compared with 1982. The trend was stronger for non-profit hospitals. Lower clinical resource use was associated with worse risk adjusted mortality outcomes.ConclusionsThis study raises concerns that cost reductions may be associated with increased mortality.
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Project description:A poor quality affects project makespan and its total costs negatively, but it can be recovered by repair works during construction. We construct a new non-linear programming model based on the classic multi-mode resource constrained project scheduling problem considering repair works. In order to obtain satisfactory quality without a high increase of project cost, the objective is to minimize total quality cost which consists of the prevention cost and failure cost according to Quality-Cost Analysis. A binary dependent normal distribution function is adopted to describe the activity quality; Cumulative quality is defined to determine whether to initiate repair works, according to the different relationships among activity qualities, namely, the coordinative and precedence relationship. Furthermore, a shuffled frog-leaping algorithm is developed to solve this discrete trade-off problem based on an adaptive serial schedule generation scheme and adjusted activity list. In the program of the algorithm, the frog-leaping progress combines the crossover operator of genetic algorithm and a permutation-based local search. Finally, an example of a construction project for a framed railway overpass is provided to examine the algorithm performance, and it assist in decision making to search for the appropriate makespan and quality threshold with minimal cost.
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Project description:Organisms depend on a highly connected and regulated network of biochemical reactions fueling life sustaining and growth promoting functions. While details of this metabolic network are well established, knowledge of the superordinate regulatory design principles is limited. Here, we investigated by iterative wet lab and modeling experiments the resource allocation process during the larval development of Drosophila melanogaster. We chose this system, as survival of the animals depends on the successful allocation of their available resources to the conflicting processes of growth and storage metabolite deposition. First, we generated "FlySilico", a curated metabolic network of Drosophila, and performed time-resolved growth and metabolite measurements with larvae raised on a holidic diet. Subsequently, we performed flux balance analysis simulations and tested the predictive power of our model by simulating the impact of diet alterations on growth and metabolism. Our predictions correctly identified the essential amino acids as growth limiting factor, and metabolic flux differences in agreement with our experimental data. Thus, we present a framework to study important questions of resource allocation in a multicellular organism including process priorization and optimality principles.
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Project description:BackgroundThe case mix index (CMI) may reflect the severity of disease and the difficulty of care objectively, and is expected to be an ideal indicator for assessing the nursing workload. The purpose of this study was to explore the quantitative relationship between daily nursing worktime (DNW) and CMI to provide a method for the rational allocation of nursing human resources.MethodsTwo hundred and seventy-one inpatients and 36 nurses of the department of hepatobiliary surgery were prospectively included consecutively from August to September 2022. The DNW of each patient were accurately measured, and the CMI data of each patient were extracted. Among 10 curve estimations, the optimal quantitative model was selected for constructing the nursing human resource allocation model. Finally, the applicability of the allocation model was preliminarily assessed by analyzing the relationship between the relative gap in nursing human resources and patient satisfaction, as well as the incidence of adverse events in 17 clinical departments.ResultsThe median (P25, P75) CMI of the 271 inpatients was 2.62 (0.92, 4.07), which varied by disease type (F = 3028.456, P < 0.001), but not by patient gender (F = 0.481, P = 0.488), age (F = 2.922, P = 0.089), or level of care (F = 0.096, P = 0.757). The median (P25, P75) direct and indirect DNW were 76.07 (57.98, 98.85) min and 43.42 (39.42, 46.72) min, respectively. Among the 10 bivariate models, the quadratic model established the optimal quantitative relationship between CMI and DNW; DNW = 92.3 + 4.8*CMI + 2.4*CMI2 (R2 = 0.627, F = 225.1, p < 0.001). The relative gap between theoretical and actual nurse staffing in the 17 clinical departments were linearly associated with both patient satisfaction (r = 0.653, P = 0.006) and incidence of adverse events (r = - 0.567, P = 0.021). However, after adjusting for other factors, it was partially correlated only with patient satisfaction (rpartial = 0.636, P = 0.026).ConclusionThe DNW derived from CMI can be used to allocate nursing human resources in a rational and convenient way, improving patient satisfaction while ensuring quality and safety.
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