Outcome-based contract( OBC) is a kind of contracting mechanism,which allows the customer to pay only when the firm has delivered outcomes,rather than activities and tasks involved. To achieve the higher demand of the...Outcome-based contract( OBC) is a kind of contracting mechanism,which allows the customer to pay only when the firm has delivered outcomes,rather than activities and tasks involved. To achieve the higher demand of the delivering outcome of the contract,the evaluation of contractor's performance was focused on. A reasonable and objective contractor performance evaluation system is constructed by considering various uncertainties. The set pair theory is used to analyze the four-element connection of quality of service contractors. It aims to provide a theoretical basis for the decisionmaker to make confirmation of the equipment contractor who has a better performance and development trend.展开更多
When an expanded-base pile is installed into ground, the cavity expansion associated with penetration of the enlarged pile base is followed by cavity contraction along the smaller-diameter pile shaft. In order to acco...When an expanded-base pile is installed into ground, the cavity expansion associated with penetration of the enlarged pile base is followed by cavity contraction along the smaller-diameter pile shaft. In order to account for the influence of cavity contraction on the change of bearing capacity of expanded-base pile, a theoretical calculation methodology, predicting the setup of expanded-base pile, was established by employing the cavity contraction theory to estimate the shaft resistance of expanded-base pile, and horizontal consolidation theory to predict the dissipation of excess pore pressure. Finally, the numerical solutions for the setup of expanded-base pile were obtained. The parametric study about the influence of cavity contraction on setup of expanded-base pile was carried out, while a field test was introduced. The parametric study shows that the decrements in radial pressure and the maximum pore water pressure after considering cavity contraction are increased as the expanded ratio(base diameter/shaft diameter) and rigidity index of soil are raised. The comparison between calculated and measured values shows that the calculated results of ultimate bearing capacity for expanded-base pile considering cavity contraction agree well with the measured values; however, the computations ignoring cavity contraction are 2.5-3.0 times the measured values.展开更多
Crowdsourcing allows people who are endowed with certain skills to accomplish special tasks with incentive. Despite the state-of-art crowdsourcing schemes have guaranteed low overhead and considerable quality, most of...Crowdsourcing allows people who are endowed with certain skills to accomplish special tasks with incentive. Despite the state-of-art crowdsourcing schemes have guaranteed low overhead and considerable quality, most of them expose task content and user’s attribute information to a centralized server. These servers are vulnerable to single points of failure, the leakage of user’s privacy information, and lacking of transparency. We therefore explored an alternative design for task assignment based on the emerging decentralized blockchain technology. While enabling the advantages of the public blockchain, changing to open operations requires some additional technology and design to preserve the privacy of user’s information. To mitigate this issue, we proposed a secure task assignment scheme, which enables task content preservation and anonymous attribute requirement checking. Specifically, by adopting the cryptographic techniques, the proposed scheme enables task requester to safely place his task in a transparent blockchain. Furthermore, the proposed scheme divides the attribute verification process into public pre-verification and requester verification, so that the requester can check only the identity of the worker, instead of verifying the attributes one by one, thereby preserving the identity of worker while significantly reducing the requester’s calculation burden. Additionally, security analysis demonstrated unrelated entities cannot learn about the task content and identity information from all data uploaded by requester and worker. Performance evaluation showed the low computational overhead of our scheme.展开更多
Roads are the major asset of any country and to conserve them maintenance is essential. The delay of maintenance works can lead the road in the stage of expensive rehabilitation and reconstruction. In Nepal, Departmen...Roads are the major asset of any country and to conserve them maintenance is essential. The delay of maintenance works can lead the road in the stage of expensive rehabilitation and reconstruction. In Nepal, Department of Roads (DoR) is responsible for maintenance of strategic roads of country. The maintenance practice of the road under Department of Road is predominantly based on Strengthen Maintenance Division Process where several maintenance activities like Routine maintenance, Recurrent Maintenance, Periodic Maintenance and Emergency Maintenance are planned and carried out. The maintenance work is based on traditional quantity and unit price based short term maintenance contracts, where maintenance of physical works is outsourced. Client demands the contractor what work is to be done, when to be do it and the extent of the work. The contractor is paid on the basis of a defined output or quantity accomplished, and the schedule of the rates. DoR engineers required full time supervision of work. Pilot based performance based maintenance practice of road started in Nepal in 2003. The study assesses performance road maintenance practices of road maintenance in Nepal on the basis of the framework of cost efficiency, level of service effectiveness and quality of service. The study concluded that implementation of Performance Based Maintenance Contract (PBMC) was not successful in Nepal as Road Asset condition was not maintained to performance standard. One of the reasons is the weak service delivery of contractor alongside weak contract enforcement from the road agency.展开更多
文摘Outcome-based contract( OBC) is a kind of contracting mechanism,which allows the customer to pay only when the firm has delivered outcomes,rather than activities and tasks involved. To achieve the higher demand of the delivering outcome of the contract,the evaluation of contractor's performance was focused on. A reasonable and objective contractor performance evaluation system is constructed by considering various uncertainties. The set pair theory is used to analyze the four-element connection of quality of service contractors. It aims to provide a theoretical basis for the decisionmaker to make confirmation of the equipment contractor who has a better performance and development trend.
基金Project(LQ15E080002)supported by Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of ChinaProjects(5150828251478228)supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China
文摘When an expanded-base pile is installed into ground, the cavity expansion associated with penetration of the enlarged pile base is followed by cavity contraction along the smaller-diameter pile shaft. In order to account for the influence of cavity contraction on the change of bearing capacity of expanded-base pile, a theoretical calculation methodology, predicting the setup of expanded-base pile, was established by employing the cavity contraction theory to estimate the shaft resistance of expanded-base pile, and horizontal consolidation theory to predict the dissipation of excess pore pressure. Finally, the numerical solutions for the setup of expanded-base pile were obtained. The parametric study about the influence of cavity contraction on setup of expanded-base pile was carried out, while a field test was introduced. The parametric study shows that the decrements in radial pressure and the maximum pore water pressure after considering cavity contraction are increased as the expanded ratio(base diameter/shaft diameter) and rigidity index of soil are raised. The comparison between calculated and measured values shows that the calculated results of ultimate bearing capacity for expanded-base pile considering cavity contraction agree well with the measured values; however, the computations ignoring cavity contraction are 2.5-3.0 times the measured values.
文摘Crowdsourcing allows people who are endowed with certain skills to accomplish special tasks with incentive. Despite the state-of-art crowdsourcing schemes have guaranteed low overhead and considerable quality, most of them expose task content and user’s attribute information to a centralized server. These servers are vulnerable to single points of failure, the leakage of user’s privacy information, and lacking of transparency. We therefore explored an alternative design for task assignment based on the emerging decentralized blockchain technology. While enabling the advantages of the public blockchain, changing to open operations requires some additional technology and design to preserve the privacy of user’s information. To mitigate this issue, we proposed a secure task assignment scheme, which enables task content preservation and anonymous attribute requirement checking. Specifically, by adopting the cryptographic techniques, the proposed scheme enables task requester to safely place his task in a transparent blockchain. Furthermore, the proposed scheme divides the attribute verification process into public pre-verification and requester verification, so that the requester can check only the identity of the worker, instead of verifying the attributes one by one, thereby preserving the identity of worker while significantly reducing the requester’s calculation burden. Additionally, security analysis demonstrated unrelated entities cannot learn about the task content and identity information from all data uploaded by requester and worker. Performance evaluation showed the low computational overhead of our scheme.
文摘Roads are the major asset of any country and to conserve them maintenance is essential. The delay of maintenance works can lead the road in the stage of expensive rehabilitation and reconstruction. In Nepal, Department of Roads (DoR) is responsible for maintenance of strategic roads of country. The maintenance practice of the road under Department of Road is predominantly based on Strengthen Maintenance Division Process where several maintenance activities like Routine maintenance, Recurrent Maintenance, Periodic Maintenance and Emergency Maintenance are planned and carried out. The maintenance work is based on traditional quantity and unit price based short term maintenance contracts, where maintenance of physical works is outsourced. Client demands the contractor what work is to be done, when to be do it and the extent of the work. The contractor is paid on the basis of a defined output or quantity accomplished, and the schedule of the rates. DoR engineers required full time supervision of work. Pilot based performance based maintenance practice of road started in Nepal in 2003. The study assesses performance road maintenance practices of road maintenance in Nepal on the basis of the framework of cost efficiency, level of service effectiveness and quality of service. The study concluded that implementation of Performance Based Maintenance Contract (PBMC) was not successful in Nepal as Road Asset condition was not maintained to performance standard. One of the reasons is the weak service delivery of contractor alongside weak contract enforcement from the road agency.
