Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Empirical Research on the Success of Production Control in Building Construction Projects

OF DOCTORAL DISSERTATION HELSINKI UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY P.O. BOX 1000, FI-02015 TKK http://www.tkk. fi Author Olli Pentti Petteri Seppänen Name of the dissertation Empirical research on the success of production control in building construction projects Manuscript submitted 13.1. 2009 Manuscript revised 15.6. 2009 Date of the defence 9.10. 2009 x Monograph Article dissertation (summary + original articles) Faculty Faculty of Engineering and Architecture Department Department of Structural Engineering and Building Technology Field of research Construction Economics and Management Opponent(s) Professor Rafael Sacks, Technion Supervisor Professor Jouko Kankainen, Helsinki University of Technology Instructor Professor Jouko Kankainen, Helsinki University of Technology Abstract The topic of this thesis was construction management and improving the production control processes in construction projects. The main goal of the research was to examine empirically how production is currently controlled and to establish the root causes for failure to implement schedules as they are planned. The second goal of the research was to improve the location-based management system and its processes. Three case study project teams were trained in the location-based management tools and processes. Production control data was collected systematically from the project teams from the beginning to the end of all the case projects. These data were used to assess the reliability of the plans on three levels of detail. The actual production control process was followed by direct, personal observation. The project teams were found to use the location-based controlling tools with a push methodology. It was found that cascading delay chains starting at the beginning of the interior construction phase continued until the end of the construction project. The cascading delays typically originated because of labor resource issues. The reason why the cascading delays did not affect the project finish dates was the long end-of-project buffers. These buffers were fully used up in all of the case projects. Many production problems could be forecast using the location-based controlling data. The controlling tools were developed to improve the forecasting of problems by changing the forecasting procedure, and incorporating the look-ahead planning of resources to the forecast. With these modifications, meaningful alarms could be generated earlier, and for more problems. The main contribution of this research was to identify cascading production problems to be a critical contributor to the poor reliability of construction project schedules. By using the location-based forecasts and alarms, it is possible to forecast these problems before they happen and to prevent problems from cascading. This research contributed an improved forecast and alarm system and proposed a systematic process for their use in construction. A practical contribution of this research was the implementation of the improved forecast system in the software package, Vico Software Control 2009.
Wojood: Nested Arabic Named Entity Corpus and Recognition using BERT

This paper presents Wojood, a corpus for Arabic nested Named Entity Recognition (NER). Nested entities occur when one entity mention is embedded inside another entity mention. Wojood consists of about 550K Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) and dialect tokens that are manually annotated with 21 entity types including person, organization, location, event and date. More importantly, the corpus is annotated with nested entities instead of the more common flat annotations. The data contains about 75K entities and 22.5% of which are nested. The inter-annotator evaluation of the corpus demonstrated a strong agreement with Cohen’s Kappa of 0.979 and an F1-score of 0.976. To validate our data, we used the corpus to train a nested NER model based on multi-task learning using the pre-trained AraBERT (Arabic BERT). The model achieved an overall micro F1-score of 0.884. Our corpus, the annotation guidelines, the source code and the pre-trained model are publicly available.
Six Principles for Embracing Gender and Sexual Diversity in Postsecondary Biology Classrooms

Abstract Sexual and gender minorities face considerable inequities in society, including in science. In biology, course content provides opportunities to challenge harmful preconceptions about what is “natural” while avoiding the notion that anything found in nature is inherently good (the appeal-to-nature fallacy). We provide six principles for instructors to teach sex- and gender-related topics in postsecondary biology in a more inclusive and accurate manner: highlighting biological diversity early, presenting the social and historical context of science, using inclusive language, teaching the iterative process of science, presenting students with a diversity of role models, and developing a classroom culture of respect and inclusion. To illustrate these six principles, we review the many definitions of sex and demonstrate applying the principles to three example topics: sexual reproduction, sex determination or differentiation, and sexual selection. These principles provide a tangible starting place to create more scientifically accurate, engaging, and inclusive classrooms.
‘In the circumstances I think we've all managed really well’ an exploration of the impact of the COVID‐19 restrictions on a Child Development Advisor (Portage) Service

Abstract Background The Child Development Advisor (CDA) (Portage) service provides developmental support to children with significant developmental delays and emotional support for their families through fortnightly home visits. However, the onset of the COVID‐19 pandemic and subsequent restrictions imposed to control its spread prevented services from providing face‐to‐face sessions with families and caregivers, thus removing the CDA (Portage) service's primary means of supporting children and their families. This article aims to explore the impact of those changes on a team of CDAs. Methods Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with six CDAs representing the CDA (Portage) service within one NHS Health Board. Findings The CDAs expressed feeling an initial negative impact of the COVID‐19 restrictions on the service, but in the longer term they noticed a number of positive impacts, including caregiver empowerment and improved working with other professionals. Conclusion Despite having their primary means of providing support removed as part of the COVID‐19 restrictions, the service has been able to adapt to continuously support families and promote child development throughout the pandemic and inadvertently developed a service offer that may be more beneficial for both families and professionals in the future.
Structural progression of Alzheimer’s disease over decades: the MRI staging scheme

Abstract The chronological progression of brain atrophy over decades, from pre-symptomatic to dementia stages, has never been formally depicted in Alzheimer’s disease. This is mainly due to the lack of cohorts with long enough MRI follow-ups in cognitively unimpaired young participants at baseline. To describe a spatiotemporal atrophy staging of Alzheimer’s disease at the whole-brain level, we built extrapolated lifetime volumetric models of healthy and Alzheimer’s disease brain structures by combining multiple large-scale databases (n = 3512 quality controlled MRI from 9 cohorts of subjects covering the entire lifespan, including 415 MRI from ADNI1, ADNI2 and AIBL for Alzheimer’s disease patients). Then, we validated dynamic models based on cross-sectional data using external longitudinal data. Finally, we assessed the sequential divergence between normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease volumetric trajectories and described the following staging of brain atrophy progression in Alzheimer’s disease: (i) hippocampus and amygdala; (ii) middle temporal gyrus; (iii) entorhinal cortex, parahippocampal cortex and other temporal areas; (iv) striatum and thalamus and (v) middle frontal, cingular, parietal, insular cortices and pallidum. We concluded that this MRI scheme of atrophy progression in Alzheimer’s disease was close but did not entirely overlap with Braak staging of tauopathy, with a ‘reverse chronology’ between limbic and entorhinal stages. Alzheimer’s disease structural progression may be associated with local tau accumulation but may also be related to axonal degeneration in remote sites and other limbic-predominant associated proteinopathies.
How are children coping with COVID-19 health crisis? Analysing their representations of lockdown through drawings

Spain is one of the European countries most affected of COVID-19, and also the one with the most stringent restrictions for children. This study aims to explore how COVID-19 lockdown affects children by analysing 151 drawings from children in lockdown. Findings were represented in four main categories: (1) Activities; (2) Emotions; (3) Socialization; and (4) Academic. The results indicate the need to manage the lockdown situation taking into account also children’s voices and by placing greater emphasis on social and inclusive policies to help alleviate the possible effects of the pandemic and the lockdown on them.
Inequalities in the disruption of paid work during the Covid‐19 pandemic: A world systems analysis of core, semi‐periphery, and periphery states

Abstract This article reveals the extent of international inequalities in the immediate impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on participation in paid work. Drawing on World Systems Theory (WST) and a novel quasi‐experimental analysis of nationally representative household panel surveys across 20 countries, the study finds a much sharper increase in the likelihood of dropping out of paid work in semi‐periphery and periphery states relative to core states. We establish a causal link between such international disparities and the early trajectories of state interventions in the labor market. Further analysis demonstrates that within all three world systems delayed, less stringent interventions in the labor market were enabled by right‐wing populism but mitigated by the strength of active labor market policies and collective bargaining.
Periods of uncertainty: The experience of at‐risk young adult Arabs during the transition to adulthood in the wake of COVID‐19

Abstract The ongoing COVID‐19 global health crisis has both short‐ and long‐term implications for the lives of young adults worldwide, especially young adults from vulnerable communities. The current exploratory study is the first, to our knowledge, that investigates the impact of the pandemic on the lives of at‐risk young adult Arabs, who are part of a national minority group in Israel. Twenty‐eight at‐risk young adults aged 18 to 25 participated in semistructured interviews regarding the experiences, challenges and barriers they faced as emerging adults during the pandemic. Grounded theory analysis and theoretical thematic analysis were used to analyse the interviews. Findings revealed that the pandemic and the policy decisions made in its wake influenced the young adults' lives in primary areas including their financial and occupational status, their social ties and social support networks, their relationships with their biological families and their future plans and goals. The study's findings shed light on the complex reality of at‐risk young adults during the pandemic and emphasize the increasing vulnerability of this cohort. The challenges they face as members of a collectivist society and of a national minority group are discussed. Implications for policy and practice highlight the need to increase these young adults' occupational and financial opportunities and to design holistic services that take into account their personal and sociocultural characteristics.
The Impact of sport particiaption on the Health of Adolescents During the CoVID-19 pandemic

Background: Since April 2020, some high schools were closed to in-person teaching, and interscholastic and club sports were cancelled in an attempt to slow the spread of COVID-19. While some US adolescents participated in sports since April 2020, other US adolescents did not participate in sports during this time. It is unknown what effect sport participation has had on the health of adolescents. Hypothesis/Purpose: To identify how sport participation during the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the health of adolescents. Methods: Adolescents across the US were recruited via social media to complete an online survey in the spring of 2021. Participants were asked to report their demographics (age, gender, race), whether they participated in school club or school sports since May 2020, type of school they attended (in-person, online, hybrid), and measures of mental health (MH), physical activity (PA) and quality of life (QoL). Assessments included the: General Anxiety Disorder-7 Item (GAD-7) for anxiety, Patient Health Questionnaire-9 Item (PHQ-9) for depression, Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale (PFABS) for physical activity, and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 (PedsQL) for quality of life. Assessment scores were compared for respondents who participated in sports (PAR) with those that did not participate in sports (NoPAR). Univariable comparisons between the groups were made via t-tests or chi-square tests while means for continuous outcome measures were compared between the groups by ANOVA models that controlled for age, gender, race and the type of school attendance. Results: 4,693 adolescents (52% female, Age = 16.1+1.3 yrs., grades 9–12) from 38 states participated in the study with PAR = 4,286 (91%) and NoPAR = 407 (9%). NoPAR participants reported a higher prevalence of moderate to severe levels of anxiety (29.3% vs 21.3%, p<0.001) and depression (40.7% vs 19.8%, p<0.001). NoPAR participants reported lower (worse) PFABS scores (mean 13.2 [95%CI 12.4, 13.9] vs 21.2 [20.7, 21.6] p<0.001) and lower (worse) PedsQL total scores compared to the PAR group (77.9 [76.5, 79.3] vs. 83.2 [82.3, 84.1], p<0.001). Conclusions: Adolescents who did not play a sport during the COVID-19 pandemic reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression, as well as lower physical activity and quality of life scores compared to adolescents who did play a school or club sport. Participation in organized sports may offer an important opportunity to improve physical activity and mental health for adolescents during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Economical and Structural Feasibility of Concrete Cellular and Solid Blocks in Kurdistan Region

Cellular concrete blocks are the major building materials in Kurdistan Region in Iraq. This study is carried out to check the economical and structural feasibility. The integrity of the blocks as well as its industrial production process compared with local and international standards. Recommendations for the concrete block production have been given in this paper. Samples from 10 local factories of total 60 blocks have been collected and tested at Koya University Laboratory. The carried out tests covered the dimensions, compression strength and water absorption of the samples. The results of this research study were compared with the requirements of the Iraqi and European specifications. They showed that the products of all factories do not fulfil the specified requirements. The dimensions of specimens exhibited relatively high deviations with no recommended tolerances for dimensions of the blocks. The results analysis showed that the weight of the 400x200x200mm block size was about 20-23 kg and the size of the represented voids was about 60% of the volume. This study made some regulatory recommendations to standardise the concrete block production in the region.
Infectious viral shedding of SARS-CoV-2 Delta following vaccination: A longitudinal cohort study

The impact of vaccination on SARS-CoV-2 infectiousness is not well understood. We compared longitudinal viral shedding dynamics in unvaccinated and fully vaccinated adults. SARS-CoV-2-infected adults were enrolled within 5 days of symptom onset and nasal specimens were self-collected daily for two weeks and intermittently for an additional two weeks. SARS-CoV-2 RNA load and infectious virus were analyzed relative to symptom onset stratified by vaccination status. We tested 1080 nasal specimens from 52 unvaccinated adults enrolled in the pre-Delta period and 32 fully vaccinated adults with predominantly Delta infections. While we observed no differences by vaccination status in maximum RNA levels, maximum infectious titers and the median duration of viral RNA shedding, the rate of decay from the maximum RNA load was faster among vaccinated; maximum infectious titers and maximum RNA levels were highly correlated. Furthermore, amongst participants with infectious virus, median duration of infectious virus detection was reduced from 7.5 days (IQR: 6.0-9.0) in unvaccinated participants to 6 days (IQR: 5.0-8.0) in those vaccinated (P=0.02). Accordingly, the odds of shedding infectious virus from days 6 to 12 post-onset were lower among vaccinated participants than unvaccinated participants (OR 0.42 95% CI 0.19-0.89). These results indicate that vaccination had reduced the probability of shedding infectious virus after 5 days from symptom onset.
A Study of a Culturally and Contextually Situated Multimedia Approach to Recruit a Hard-to-Reach Spanish-Speaking Population for a Randomized Control Trial (RCT)

Study designs involving randomization can be difficult to communicate to participants, especially those with low literacy. The literature on strategies to explain research concepts is limited, especially for non-English speakers. We measured the effectiveness of a culturally and contextually situated multimedia approach to recruit a cohort of 60 female Mexican immigrants (FMI) to a randomized control trial (RCT) to reduce social isolation and depression. This strategy was designed to explain the concept of randomization, explain what participating in the research study entailed, and ensure informed consent. Potential participants viewed a presentation explaining the study and a video including animation with voice-over explaining the concept of randomization. We administered a pre/post survey. Respondents (N = 59) reported an increase in their understanding of randomization, intention to enroll, and attitude towards participating in research. We conclude that a culturally and contextually situated multimedia approach is an effective model when recruiting underrepresented populations with low literacy for RCTs.
Methods for Communicating the Impact of Parameter Uncertainty in a Multiple-Strategies Cost-Effectiveness Comparison

Purpose Analyzing and communicating uncertainty is essential in medical decision making. To judge whether risks are acceptable, policy makers require information on the expected outcomes but also on the uncertainty and potential losses related to the chosen strategy. We aimed to compare methods used to represent the impact of uncertainty in decision problems involving many strategies, enhance existing methods, and provide an open-source and easy-to-use tool. Methods We conducted a systematic literature search to identify methods used to represent the impact of uncertainty in cost-effectiveness analyses comparing multiple strategies. We applied the identified methods to probabilistic sensitivity analysis outputs of 3 published decision-analytic models comparing multiple strategies. Subsequently, we compared the following characteristics: type of information conveyed, use of a fixed or flexible willingness-to-pay threshold, output interpretability, and the graphical discriminatory ability. We further proposed adjustments and integration of methods to overcome identified limitations of existing methods. Results The literature search resulted in the selection of 9 methods. The 3 methods with the most favorable characteristics to compare many strategies were 1) the cost-effectiveness acceptability curve (CEAC) and cost-effectiveness acceptability frontier (CEAF), 2) the expected loss curve (ELC), and 3) the incremental benefit curve (IBC). The information required to assess confidence in a decision often includes the average loss and the probability of cost-effectiveness associated with each strategy. Therefore, we proposed the integration of information presented in an ELC and CEAC into a single heat map. Conclusions This article presents an overview of methods presenting uncertainty in multiple-strategy cost-effectiveness analyses, with their strengths and shortcomings. We proposed a heat map as an alternative method that integrates all relevant information required for health policy and medical decision making. Highlights To assess confidence in a chosen course of action, decision makers require information on both the probability and the consequences of making a wrong decision. This article contains an overview of methods for presenting uncertainty in multiple-strategy cost-effectiveness analyses. We propose a heat map that combines the probability of cost-effectiveness from the cost-effectiveness acceptability curve (CEAC) with the consequences of a wrong decision from the expected loss curve. Collapsing of the CEAC can be reduced by relaxing the CEAC, as proposed in this article. Code in Microsoft Excel and R is provided to easily analyze data using the methods discussed in this article.
Angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers as potential therapeutic options for pancreatic cancer.

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) has been reported to have a role in carcinogenesis, and therefore it may be of value as a potential therapeutic target in inhibiting tumor growth. It has been shown that inhibition of RAS via angiotensin I-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEIs) and angiotensin II type-1 receptor (ARBs) inhibitors may have a protective effect against several malignancies. Here we provide an overview on the potential value of RAS pathway and targeting via ACE/ARB inhibitors in pancreatic cancer. Whilst the potential role of RAS as a target for the treatment of pancreatic cancer has been reported, the use of candesartan with gemcitabine failed to improve outcomes in pancreatic cancer. Another study of 1-3 years using ARB was found to reduce the risk of pancreatic cancer. In line with these trials, there have been others demonstrating that the ARBs in combination with gemcitabine might improve clinical outcomes in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer. Prospective trials are warranted to investigate this hypothesis.