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PurposeThis paper reports the developments of a project cost control system (PCCS) for construction projects to (1) measure its current level of cost control maturity, (2) examine the relationships between elements within PCCS processes and (3) identify improvement areas.Design/methodology/approachThis study adopts a mixed approach of descriptive analysis and partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) to measure the current maturity level of PCCS and evaluate the relationships between elements within PCSS to identify improvement areas. Further importance-performance matrix analysis (IPMA) of priority constructs was conducted to improve a target construct and identify the most important areas of specific actions at indicator levels. The results of IPMA revealed the contrast that has the greatest importance on the performance of others so that the recommendations can be made accordingly. Data collected in New Zealand were used to develop the research model.FindingsThis study develops structural and measurement models with the constructs including pre-control, in-control and post-control processes, enablers and their proposed interrelationships. Then, data from survey of 184 experienced project cost control team members reveal that post-control has the lowest maturity or weakest areas in the PCCS. Data analysis facilitated by PLS-SEM confirmed that all the constructs in the structural model have positive and significant relationships with each other and suggested that systematic cost analysis reports, communication, skills and experience, defining roles and responsibilities, and top management's support should be the highest priority for improving the PCCS in a more effective manner.Originality/valueThis study presents one of the earliest attempts to develop and test an integrated model that links sub-processes in PCCS and their enablers. Secondly, this research adds to the construction project management literature by empirically verifying the roles of enablers in enhancing maturity level of PCCS.

In New Zealand (NZ), state school properties are owned by the Ministry of Education and operated by school managers with the assistance of external consultants. This study aims to explore relations...

Purpose This paper aims to develop an integrated and comprehensive framework for building and property management (BAPM) for state schools in New Zealand. The results are expected to clarify the complicated process and provide a guide for school boards to manage their property effectively and efficiently. It also seeks to explore the relationship between the key stakeholders and how this impacts the BAPM. Design/methodology/approach In addition, to review literature, qualitative data were obtained through semi-structured interviews with 16 top managers in state schools. The data analysis results were used to develop the framework using the integration definition for process modelling. Findings The findings contribute to understanding the processes in the BAPM in state schools of school board members by adding input, output, control and mechanism elements in each activity of the processes. The systematic models with main activities and people involved are presented as a guide for school boards in state schools in New Zealand. Challenges and issues in the processes are also identified to draw further study for both school boards and the Ministry of Education. Research limitations/implications The research was conducted with the participation of stakeholders who are sampled from top managers in state schools in New Zealand. A larger scale of participants from other schools may generalise the findings further. Practical implications The research findings are based on the needs and requirements of the stakeholders to understand, implement and control the BAPM for their schools and aid them to achieve the best value for money spending on the management. Originality/value The paper highlights the complexity of the BAPM in schools, presents the roles and responsibilities of the school stakeholders and proposes a systematic framework to assist the school managers in this management process.

Book review of "Higher Education for Democracy: The Role of the University in Civil Society"

This study presents an institution-industry collaboration model for BIM training with a case study of a TVET college in Vietnam. The model focuses on the most needed and practical skills to fit with the actual requirements of the labour market. It also helps to educate BIM technicians that meet the industry standards in a reasonable training time. In consultation with the industrial partners, the College defined six learning outcomes and 18 competencies for the BIM program to ensure that students can perform the BIM technician job when finishing the program. The findings present the benefits of the collaboration training model that could provide a better learning environment for students and help to narrow the gap between educational outcomes and industry needs. Furthermore, a questionnaire survey was conducted targeting the industrial partners and graduated students to assess the importance of the designed competencies. Feedback from the participants shows that collaboration and self-development skills are the most critical skills for the BIM technicians, so the BIM program should develop related courses aligned with the learning outcomes.

CanConstrucNZ is a partnership programme between New Zealand universities, government agencies, and professional bodies to develop a smart system that enables mapping future pipeline projects with the industry capacity and capability to advise the stakeholders whether the sector will be capable of delivering the proposed construction projects. Defining the scope of the construction sector itself is the first step of the programme that helps measure the construction sector capacity. This paper compares different definitions and approaches of the construction sector boundaries and discusses similarities and differences in the selected classification systems, usually used to define, collect, and generate data for measuring the construction sector. The findings highlight the need for a more comprehensive classification to help generate the correct level of data for measuring the construction sector’s true scope and size, resulting in better policy initiatives, and informing changes in the industry. The findings of this study recommend future research to develop a customised classification system to represent the value of the New Zealand construction sector in a holistic manner.

Here we report a new ceasium Brønsted ion-exchanged Al-SBA-15 (Cs/AS15) supported heteropoly acid (HPA) H3PW12O40 (HPA-Cs/AS15) material which can be prepared and used as heterogeneous catalyst for the fructone fragrancy synthesis. It was demonstrated that Cs+ was more effective than NH4+ as counter cation of ion-exchanged AS15 support for preparing HPA/AS15 catalyst with higher acidity and HPA leaching stability. HPA-Cs/AS15 material showed high acidity with the maximum NH3 desorption peak appeared at 759.6 °C in the NH3-TPD spectrum, stronger than pure HPA (635.7 °C) and the ammonium Brønsted ion-exchanged Al-SBA-15 supported HPA (HPA-NH4/AS15) (559.1 °C) materials. The HPA leaching stability test showed that the HPA content of HPA-Cs/AS15 catalyst reduced only by 2.55% after five washing times, much less than that of HPA-NH4/AS15 catalyst (49.22%).The higher acidity helped improve the HPA-Cs/AS15 catalyst performance in the fructone fragrancy synthesis. The ethyl acetoacetate conversion over this catalyst was 94.82%, better than those over HPA-NH4/AS15 (93.49%) and pure HPA (89.52%) catalysts, although HPA-Cs/AS15 catalyst had lower HPA content (23.16 wt%) than HPA-NH4/AS15 (24.28 wt%). In addition, it was shown that the reaction conditions such as ethyl acetoacetate:ethanediol reactant molar ratio of 1:1.5, ethanediol used as the diol reactant, and toluene used as the solvent, the fructone fragrancy synthesis reaction over HPA-Cs/AS15 catalyst reached the highest ethyl acetoacetate conversion (95.58%). The toluene’s boiling temperature of 110.6 °C can promote the dispersion and contact abilities of the reactants with HPA molecules presented inside the pores of HPA-Cs/AS15 catalyst.

Purpose Any building refurbishment is challenging and school buildings offer no exception. They are increasingly in need of refurbishment due to their age and evolving teaching and learning. The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of literature on sustainable refurbishment so as to identify key lessons from selected successful refurbishment projects. The review findings are expected to contribute to the development of refurbishment plans in an effective and innovative manner that should extend building’s service life, focus on resource efficiency, and comfort their users. It will also contribute to knowledge base of refurbishment and suggest future directions for research. Design/methodology/approach The paper has undertaken a literature review on the sustainability assessment of buildings and frameworks for sustainable refurbishment. Besides, the work also provides a review of recent successful refurbishment projects to collect and structure systems experiences which can be adopted in developing a sustainable refurbishment strategy for school buildings. Findings Findings include three groups of lessons in terms of reasons, process and barriers in the selected refurbishment projects that assist stakeholders to prepare a suitable refurbishment plan for their school buildings. The potential of 3D scanners and BIM applications in the refurbishment process will also be reviewed in order to develop a proposed framework of 3D scanner vs BIM for the refurbishment process. Recommendations highlight the role of a national strategy as a driving factor for applying the advantages of information technology to enhance optimal solution selection processes to get better and more sustainable results. Originality/value The conceptual framework for 3D scanner and BIM applications within sustainable refurbishment for school buildings is currently under researched, and the findings aimed to address such a gap when considering 3D scanners and BIM applications in the refurbishment process.

Acid leaching and a two-step solvent extraction procedure were developed to produce high purity mixture of La and Ce from iron-rich spent FCC catalyst discharged from Dzung Quat refinery (Vietnam). Acid leaching of the spent catalyst with 2M HNO3 and a solid-to-liquid ratio of 1/3 at 80 °C in 1 h dissolved almost 90% of La while 12% of Al and 25% of Fe were transferred to the leachate. The extraction of RE metals and main impurities such as Al and Fe by a mixture of di-2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) and tributyl phosphate (TBP) was investigated. Experiments showed that it was necessary to remove Fe before extracting RE and the optimum extraction conditions for a high recovery of RE while 0% of Al extraction were pH-1, contact time=10min, and D2EHPA/TBP volume ratio= 4: 1. At these conditions, the extraction yields of La(III) and Ce(III) were 72% and 89%, respectively. A two-step solvent extraction was developed to achieve a high purity of RE mixture, which included (1) the removal of impurity Fe by 25% (v/v) diisooctyl phosphinic acid (DiOPA) in n-octane for 140 min, (2) the extraction of rare earths by a mixture of di-2-ethylhexyl phosphoric acid (D2EHPA) and tributyl phosphate (TBP) in n-octane for 10 min without the need for adjusting the pH of the leaching solution.

This special issue of the International Journal of Education Policy & Leadership (IJEPL), Research in the Canadian Context, marks a significant milestone for the journal. Throughout our twelve-year history, we have sought to publish the best research in leadership, policy, and research use, allowing authors to decide the topics by dint of their research. While this model still serves as the foundation for IJEPL content, we decided to give researchers a chance to engage in deeper conversations by introducing special issues. In our first special issue, researchers discuss their work within the scope of education policy, leadership, and research use within the Canadian context. While many aspects of leadership, teaching, and learning can be seen as similar across contexts, there are also issues of particular concern within national, regional, provincial, or local spheres, particularly when looking at policy and system changes. The researchers featured in this issue provide an important look into education in Canada.PolicyIn the policy realm, Sue Winton and Lauren Jervis examine a 22-year campaign to change special education assessment policy in Ontario, examining how discourses dominant in the province enabled the government to leave the issue unresolved for decades. Issues of access and equity play out within a neoliberal context focused on individualism, meritocracy, and the reduced funding of public services. While Winton and Jervis highlight the tension between policy goals and ideological contexts, Jean-Vianney Auclair considers the place of policy dialogues within governmental frames, and the challenge of engaging in broadly applicable work within vertically structured governmental agencies. One often-touted way to move beyondResearch useWithin the scope of research use, Sarah L. Patten examines how socioeconomic status (SES) is defined and measured in Canada, the challenges in defining SES, and potential solutions specific to the Canadian context. In looking at knowledge mobilization, Joelle Rodway considers how formal coaches and informal social networks nserve to connect research, policy, and practice in Ontario’s Child and Youth Mental Health program.LeadershipTurning to leadership, contributing researchers explored the challenges involved in staff development, administrator preparation, and student outcomes. Keith Walker and Benjamin Kutsyuruba explore how educational administrators can support early career teachers to increase retention, and the somewhat haphazard policies and supports in place across Canada to bring administrators and new teachers together. Gregory Rodney MacKinnon, David Young, Sophie Paish, and Sue LeBel look at how one program in Nova Scotia conceptualizes professional growth, instructional leadership, and administrative effectiveness and the emerging needs of administrators to respond to issues of poverty, socioemotional health, and mental health, while also building community. This complex environment may mean expanding leadership preparation to include a broader consideration of well-being and community. Finally, Victoria Handford and Kenneth Leithwood look at the role school leaders play in improving student achievement in British Columbia, and the school district characteristics associated with improving student achievement.Taken together, the research in this special issue touches on many of the challenges in policy development, application, and leadership practice, and the myriad ways that research can be used to address these challenges. We hope you enjoy this first special issue of IJEPL!

This article reports on a rigorous approach developed for calibrating the Evidence-Based Adequacy Model to suit the Ontario K–12 public education context, and the actual calibrations made. The four-step calibration methodology draws from expert consultations and a review of the academic literature. Specific attention is given to the technical revisions and, importantly, the significant influence of policy(values) and leaders’ decision-making on the calibration process. It also presents emerging implications for leaders and researchers who are considering calibrating the EBAM for use in their educational context. Calibrating the instrument was a necessary step before use in a jurisdiction outside of the United States, where the model was developed, and our team has been the first to outline a methodology and bring Canadian evidence to the discussion.

In this paper, we present the results from our research on Vietnamese Firms capturing the financial decisions of multiple firms in the transformation of the monetary policy. When the economy is affected by the changes of the monetary policy, the responses of firms differ substantially in terms of location. For example, Da Nang’s and Ho Chi Minh’s firms were more responsive than Hanoi’s firms. As a result, a higher level of monetary-policy sensitivity was witnessed in the output. This research also narrates about specific characteristics, such as sizes, capital structures, and how the monetary policy has altered the financial decisions of firms. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2016.v7n6p27

In this paper we prove a generalized version of the Hayman Conjecture for p-adic meromorphic functions in several variables.

Slater determinants provide a convenient basis for expanding many-electron wave functions. In second quantization they are written as a product of creation operators acting on the vacuum. While it is possible to self-consistently determine the Salter determinant that minimizes the energy expectation value, the resulting Hartree-Fock wave function does not contain any correlations. For this we need to consider linear combinations of Slater determinants. Working in Fock space we can produce many-electron states containing correlations while still maintaining the simple product form of the wave function: Introducing Bogoliubov operators that mix electron creation and annihilation operators, we can form second-quantized operators with the same algebraic properties as the ordinary creation and annihilation operators. Product-states of these Bogoliubov operators are many-electron wave functions for which the number of electrons is not fixed. Projected to an N-electron Hilbert space they are given by linear combinations of Slater determinants. The simplest example is the BCS wave function for superconducting systems. We derive the self-consistent Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov equations for finding the best Fock-space product state, implement them numerically and analyze the quality of the resulting wave functions for a number of simple model systems.

Supply chain network are considered as solution for effectively meeting customer requirements such as low cost, high product variety, quality and shorter lead times. The success of a supply chain lies in good strategic and tactical planning and monitoring at the operational level. Strategic planning is long term planning and usually consists in selecting providers and distributors, location and capacity planning of manufacturing/servicing units, among others.

A new approach based on d.c. (difference of convex functions) is presented for signal (1-D) and (2-D) restoration problems. It consists in applying d.c. algorithms (DCA) to suitable d.c. programs. Some choices of starting points for DCA have been discussed. Finally computational results are reported which prove the globality of sought solutions, the robustness and the efficiency of our method with respect to the Graduated NonConvexity algorithm (GNC).

We present a numerical method for solving the d.c. programming problem $$c^* = \min \{ \langle c,x\rangle s.t. f_i (x) \leqslant 0, i = 1,...,m, x \in D\} $$ wherefi, i=1,...,m are d.c. (difference of two convex functions) and D is a convex set in ℝn. An (ɛ, η)-solutionx(ɛ, η) satisfying $$x(\varepsilon ,\eta ) \in D, \langle c,x(\varepsilon ,\eta )\rangle \leqslant c^* + \varepsilon , f_i (x(\varepsilon ,\eta )) \leqslant \eta , i = 1,...,m,$$ can be found after a finite number of iterations. This algorithm combines an outer approximation procedure for solving a system of d.c. inequalities with a simple general scheme for minimizing a linear function over a compact set. As an application we discuss the numerical solution of a fuel mixture problem (encountered in the oil industry).