A Study of Prospective Barriers,Benefits and Measures for Building Information Modeling(BIM)Adoption in Nepalese AEC Industry

The construction industry needs modern construction methodology and technology to improve sustainability and production performance.Building Information Modelling(BIM)technology supports improving the quality of products by reducing design and construction defects,risks to the health and safety of workers,and reduce overall project cost and delivery time.The BIM has capabilities,but it is still undiscovered and unable to exploit the full scale of its benefits in the Architectural Engineering and Construction(AEC)industry.There is a trend to adopt the BIM level 1,which is limited to 2D and only in a few cases 3D models uses in the design and construction of residential and commercial buildings,particularly in Nepal.Hence,this paper focuses on providing insight into the BIM benefits and identifies the potential barriers while adopting BIM Level 3 in Nepal.This was accomplished by developing a 4DBIM model of a multi-story residential building in Nepal and conducting the industry survey via focus group with the AEC professionals based on the developed 4DBIM model.A comprehensive literature review was conducted and presented the findings of the BIM benefits and barriers while adopting BIM.The study found that commercial and governmental projects can immediately be adopted BIM technology.It is concluded that the unavailability of skilled BIM users and the lack of proper policies for BIM adoption are key barriers in Nepal.Hence,the new policy is required to achieve and exploit the full scale of the BIM benefits and improve the project delivery in terms of quality,cost and time including the health and safety of workers and the sustainability of the AEC industry.

A Study of Challenges and Benefits of Lean Construction(LC)Principles in Omani Construction Industry

There are frequent failures in the project delivery in time and increasing the waste in Oman construction industry.Lean Construction(LC)principles which are lean thinking in design and construction process may be a possible solution.Hence,the paper is aimed on exploring the status of the LC practices and its impact on Omani Construction Industry(OCI).The paper presents barriers,potential benefits,and the measures of suitability and acceptability of LC principles.A quantitative research approach was adopted and research data was collected using an online questionnaire survey in Oman.The data were analysed and results are presented in tables and charts followed by critical discussions.The survey found that onethird of the construction professionals have a good awareness and half of them having a higher level awareness about LC practices.More than one third of the construction organisations are adopting LC principles with a high consensus on the suitability and acceptability,and they recognised that time commitment is necessary for the successful implementation and achieve benefits.The study concludes that the reduction in project delivery time and construction at site waste is the key advantage of implementing LC priciples in design and construction stages in the omani construction industry.

Analysing Delay Impact from Potential Risk Factors on Project Delivery of Oil and Gas Pipeline:A Case Study in IRAQ

The aim of this paper is to present the design and specifications of an integrated Delay Analysis Framework(DAF),which could be used to quantify the delay caused by the Risk Factors(RFs)in Oil and Gas Pipelines(OGPs)projects in a simple and systematic way.The main inputs of the DAF are(i)the potential list of RFs in the projects and their impact levels on the projects and the estimated maximum and minimum duration of each task.Monte Carlo Simulation integrated within@Risk simulator was the key process algorithm that used to quantify the impact of delay caused by the associated RFs.The key output of the DAF is the amount of potential delay caused by RFs in the OGP project.The functionalities of the developed DAF were evaluated using a case study of newly developed OGP project,in the south of Iraq.It is found that the case study project might have delayed by 45 days if neglected the consideration of the RFs associated with the project at the construction stage.The paper concludes that identifying the associated RFs and analysing the potential delay in advance will help in reducing the construction delay and improving the effectiveness of the project delivery by taking suitable risk mitigation measures.

Meta流行病学研究：指南中专家意见的意义

指南常会使用术语“专家意见（Expert Opinion，EO）”来支撑推荐意见，本研究旨在探究EO型推荐意见的来源和证据类型。我们检索了不同数据库和网站近10年发表的含有EO型推荐意见的指南。共命中1106篇文献，纳入69篇指南（含2390条推荐意见，其中907条为EO型推荐意见），大多数EO型推荐意见（91％）未说明采用EO的理由，EO型推荐意见最常引用的证据大都是不足以回答指南问题的研究（40％为随机对照试验，38％为观察性研究，2％为病例报告或病例系列）。