Both construction Waste Minimisation (WM) and construction procurement activities play an effective role in attaining sustainability by giving due consideration to the environment, community and social conditions in delivering built assets. The construction industry has a major impact on the environment, both in terms of resource consumption and increasing waste production. Recent figures published by the UK government reveal that construction and demolition activities produce approximately 32% of total waste generated: three times the waste produced by all households combined. However, the current and on-going research in the field of construction WM and management focuses mainly on onsite waste quantification and management; and stakeholders‟ source identification. Little research has been undertaken to evaluate the relationship between Construction Procurement Systems (CPS) and construction waste generation. However, literature emphasises the need for research in this context. This research aims to develop a Procurement Waste Minimisation Framework (PWMF) to enhance WM practices by evaluating the relationship between CPS and construction waste generation. Objectives of the research include: examine construction WM drivers, WM approaches, waste origins and causes; critically review and evaluate current CPS and sustainable procurement practices in the UK; assess the relationship between CPS and construction waste generation; investigate and synthesis Procurement Waste Origins (PWO); examine the most suitable CPS that could potentially embed and sustain WM; develop and validate the PWMF. This research has adopted a survey research design and mixed methods sequential procedure. Data has been gathered through a cross sectional, self-administered postal questionnaire survey (N=258 distributed, n=65 received) and semi-structured interviews (N=17) with procurement managers and sustainability managers from the top 100 UK contracting organisations and quantity surveyors from the top 100 UK quantity surveying organisations. Data analysis techniques include: descriptive statistics; non-parametric tests; and constant comparative method. The PWMF has developed based on the findings of literature review, questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews and adopting key concepts of problem solving methodology. The PWMF validation method includes: validation questionnaire (N=8) and follow-up semi-structured interviews (N=6) with procurement managers, sustainability managers and quantity surveyors. Key findings which emerged from the study include: CPS do have an impact on waste generation in construction; integrated CPS have major potential to integrate WM strategies; four PWO identified (i.e. uncoordinated early involvement of project stakeholders; ineffective communication and coordination; unclear allocation of WM responsibilities; and inconsistent procurement documentation) and associated sub-waste causes; and the developed PWMF enables to diagnose potential waste origins and causes, and WM improvement measures for design and build projects. The study has made recommendations which, if adopted, will lead to significant improvements in WM practices and sustainable procurement practices in construction. The content should be of interest to contractors, clients, and organisations dealing with procurement, waste and sustainability.

The topic of my thesis is the design of a kindergarten in Rajhrad. The building is one storey with a flat roof. In the middle of the building there are technical facilities, a kitchen, a director's office and facilities for staff. On the sides there are classrooms with bathrooms and cloakrooms. The load-bearing masonry is designed of Heluz ceramic blocks. The perimeter masonry is insulated with the ETICS contact insulation system. The roof structure is made of prefabricated floor slabs SPIROLL. The building is covered by a green flat roof. The building will be heated by a gas condensing boiler. It will have an air handling unit located on the roof along with photovoltaic panels. Intelligent LED lighting will be deployed throughout the building. The third part deals with the comparison between masonry construction and the more environmentally friendly clay construction. Specifically, it compares the CO2 production of masonry and clay construction of the same building using the SBToolCZ methodology. The results obtained showed that the clay building produces approximately 30% less CO2 than the masonry building. I created my thesis using ArchiCAD and DEKsoft software.

Este trabalho consiste no desenvolvimento de uma metodologia para a obtenção de representações construtivas de sistemas ordenados de 2ª ordem, baseadas em estruturas de espaços coerentes, com aplicação fundamental na Computação Científica e Matemática Intervalar. Obtêm assim uma representação global para os objetos ditos infinitos relativamente ao conteúdo de informação, como números reais e intervalos reais, de tal forma que possam ser definidos modelos semânticos adequados para os processos computacionais envolvendo tais objetos. Esta representação construtiva é denominada de global, pois é realizada em dois níveis distinguíveis, compreendendo não somente a construção interna dos objetos, no contexto de uma da estrutura de informação, mas também sua estrutura externa de aplicação. A estrutura de informação tem caráter compatível com uma abordagem domínio-teorética, e a estrutura de aplicação e determinada pelo use pretendido do sistema representado. Existe um relacionamento entre os dois níveis de construção, garantindo que cada componente da estrutura de aplicação tenha uma representação interna na estrutura de informação. Os sistemas de representação global resultantes são denominados então espaços coerentes bi-estruturados, e tem a característica adicional de serem gerados por um sistema ordenado basico de universo enumerável. A estrutura de informação é um espaço coerente, com funções lineares e uma estrutura topológica de informação compatível. A estrutura de aplicação - algébrica, de ordem, relacional, funcional, de medidas, topológica, dentre outras - é obtida por um processo construtivo a partir da estrutura do sistema basico. Um espaço coerente bi-estruturado, obtido por esse processo de construção, é a representação global de um dado sistema ordenado de 2ª ordem quando possível recuperar este sistema através do subsistema dos objetos totais do espaço, pela determinação de isomorfismos para a estrutura de aplicação. Da mesma forma, estabelecendo também isomorfismos para o subsistema dos intervalos de elementos do conjunto universo do sistema que esta sendo representado, esse subsistema pode ser recuperado como o subsistema dos objetos quasi-totais do espaço coerente. Apresenta-se também uma abordagem categórica para o processo de construção global, mostrando se que ele determina uma adjunção entre duas subcategorias da categoria SO2 dos sistemas ordenados de 2ª ordem A metodologia proposta se mostrou particularmente interessante na construção do conjunto dos números reais e do conjunto de intervalos reais. Para estes sistemas introduziu-se também uma subestrutura elementar de medidas, pela definição, de forma generalizada, das funções valor absoluto, distância e diâmetro. Foi desenvolvida uma estrutura topológica para os espaços coerentes bi-estruturados, que caracteriza-se também por apresentar dois níveis que se inter-relacionam. Para obter uma caracterização topológica de informação desenvolveu-se a noção de espaços de vizinhanças lineares. No sentido de se obter a caracterização topológica de aplicação, obteve-se, em cada etapa da construção, um espaço de vizinhanças gerado pela função distância generalizada com uma topologia de aplicação associada. Conexões entre as representações de reais e de intervalos de reais e aspectos de computabilidade são referidas de modo preliminar, sugerindo-se este tema como trabalho futuro. Possíveis aplicações dos espaços coerentes bi-estruturados e do processo de construção global a outras áreas da Ciência da Computação são indicadas no final do trabalho. / The aim of this work is to develop a methodology to obtain constructive representations of second order ordered systems, based on coherence space structures, with the main application in Scientific Computation and Interval Mathematics. A global representation for the so-called infinite objects considering the information content they represent, in particularly real numbers and real intervals, is obtained, so that suitable semantical models for real and interval computational processes can be provided. This constructive representation is said to be global. since it is performed in two distinguished levels, dealing with the internal construction of the objects, in the context of an information structure, and, on the other hand, building an external application structure. The information structure is compatible with a domain-theoretic approach, and the application structure is established according the intended usage of the represented system. There exists a relationship between the two levels of the construction, guaranteeing that each component of the application structure should have an internal representation in the information structure. The resulting global representation systems are called bi-structured coherence spaces, and they have the additional feature of being generated by a basic ordered system having a denumerable universe. The information structure is a coherence space endowed with linear functions and a compatible information topological structure. The (algebraic, ordered, relational, functional, measure, topological, etc.) application structure is obtained by the construction process, considering the structure of the basic system as the start point. A bi-structured coherence space, obtained by this construction process, is said to be the global representation of a given second order ordered system if it is possible to recover the latter by the subsystem of the total objects of the former, defining isomorphisms related to the application structure. Following the same pattern, establishing isomorphisms for the subsystem of the intervals of elements of the represented system, it is possible to recover it as the subsystem of quasi-total objects of the bi-structured coherence space. A categorical approach is also presented and it is shown that the global construction process determines an adjunction between two subcategories of the category SO2 of the second order ordered systems. The proposed methodology was shown to be particularly interesting when constructing the sets of real numbers and real intervals. For these systems, an elementary measure structure was introduced in a generalised approach, defining generalised distance, diameter and absolute value functions. The bi-structured coherence spaces were given an interrelated two-level topological characterisation. In order to obtain an information topological characterisation the concept of linear neighbourhood systems was introduced. For the application topological characterisation, at each step of the construction, a neighbourhood system generated by the generalised distance function, with an associated topology, was defined. A brief analysis concerning the connections among other representations of real and real intervals and computability aspects is presented. Other possible applications in Computer Science are indicated.

Este trabalho consiste no desenvolvimento de uma metodologia para a obtenção de representações construtivas de sistemas ordenados de 2ª ordem, baseadas em estruturas de espaços coerentes, com aplicação fundamental na Computação Científica e Matemática Intervalar. Obtêm assim uma representação global para os objetos ditos infinitos relativamente ao conteúdo de informação, como números reais e intervalos reais, de tal forma que possam ser definidos modelos semânticos adequados para os processos computacionais envolvendo tais objetos. Esta representação construtiva é denominada de global, pois é realizada em dois níveis distinguíveis, compreendendo não somente a construção interna dos objetos, no contexto de uma da estrutura de informação, mas também sua estrutura externa de aplicação. A estrutura de informação tem caráter compatível com uma abordagem domínio-teorética, e a estrutura de aplicação e determinada pelo use pretendido do sistema representado. Existe um relacionamento entre os dois níveis de construção, garantindo que cada componente da estrutura de aplicação tenha uma representação interna na estrutura de informação. Os sistemas de representação global resultantes são denominados então espaços coerentes bi-estruturados, e tem a característica adicional de serem gerados por um sistema ordenado basico de universo enumerável. A estrutura de informação é um espaço coerente, com funções lineares e uma estrutura topológica de informação compatível. A estrutura de aplicação - algébrica, de ordem, relacional, funcional, de medidas, topológica, dentre outras - é obtida por um processo construtivo a partir da estrutura do sistema basico. Um espaço coerente bi-estruturado, obtido por esse processo de construção, é a representação global de um dado sistema ordenado de 2ª ordem quando possível recuperar este sistema através do subsistema dos objetos totais do espaço, pela determinação de isomorfismos para a estrutura de aplicação. Da mesma forma, estabelecendo também isomorfismos para o subsistema dos intervalos de elementos do conjunto universo do sistema que esta sendo representado, esse subsistema pode ser recuperado como o subsistema dos objetos quasi-totais do espaço coerente. Apresenta-se também uma abordagem categórica para o processo de construção global, mostrando se que ele determina uma adjunção entre duas subcategorias da categoria SO2 dos sistemas ordenados de 2ª ordem A metodologia proposta se mostrou particularmente interessante na construção do conjunto dos números reais e do conjunto de intervalos reais. Para estes sistemas introduziu-se também uma subestrutura elementar de medidas, pela definição, de forma generalizada, das funções valor absoluto, distância e diâmetro. Foi desenvolvida uma estrutura topológica para os espaços coerentes bi-estruturados, que caracteriza-se também por apresentar dois níveis que se inter-relacionam. Para obter uma caracterização topológica de informação desenvolveu-se a noção de espaços de vizinhanças lineares. No sentido de se obter a caracterização topológica de aplicação, obteve-se, em cada etapa da construção, um espaço de vizinhanças gerado pela função distância generalizada com uma topologia de aplicação associada. Conexões entre as representações de reais e de intervalos de reais e aspectos de computabilidade são referidas de modo preliminar, sugerindo-se este tema como trabalho futuro. Possíveis aplicações dos espaços coerentes bi-estruturados e do processo de construção global a outras áreas da Ciência da Computação são indicadas no final do trabalho. / The aim of this work is to develop a methodology to obtain constructive representations of second order ordered systems, based on coherence space structures, with the main application in Scientific Computation and Interval Mathematics. A global representation for the so-called infinite objects considering the information content they represent, in particularly real numbers and real intervals, is obtained, so that suitable semantical models for real and interval computational processes can be provided. This constructive representation is said to be global. since it is performed in two distinguished levels, dealing with the internal construction of the objects, in the context of an information structure, and, on the other hand, building an external application structure. The information structure is compatible with a domain-theoretic approach, and the application structure is established according the intended usage of the represented system. There exists a relationship between the two levels of the construction, guaranteeing that each component of the application structure should have an internal representation in the information structure. The resulting global representation systems are called bi-structured coherence spaces, and they have the additional feature of being generated by a basic ordered system having a denumerable universe. The information structure is a coherence space endowed with linear functions and a compatible information topological structure. The (algebraic, ordered, relational, functional, measure, topological, etc.) application structure is obtained by the construction process, considering the structure of the basic system as the start point. A bi-structured coherence space, obtained by this construction process, is said to be the global representation of a given second order ordered system if it is possible to recover the latter by the subsystem of the total objects of the former, defining isomorphisms related to the application structure. Following the same pattern, establishing isomorphisms for the subsystem of the intervals of elements of the represented system, it is possible to recover it as the subsystem of quasi-total objects of the bi-structured coherence space. A categorical approach is also presented and it is shown that the global construction process determines an adjunction between two subcategories of the category SO2 of the second order ordered systems. The proposed methodology was shown to be particularly interesting when constructing the sets of real numbers and real intervals. For these systems, an elementary measure structure was introduced in a generalised approach, defining generalised distance, diameter and absolute value functions. The bi-structured coherence spaces were given an interrelated two-level topological characterisation. In order to obtain an information topological characterisation the concept of linear neighbourhood systems was introduced. For the application topological characterisation, at each step of the construction, a neighbourhood system generated by the generalised distance function, with an associated topology, was defined. A brief analysis concerning the connections among other representations of real and real intervals and computability aspects is presented. Other possible applications in Computer Science are indicated.

Este trabalho consiste no desenvolvimento de uma metodologia para a obtenção de representações construtivas de sistemas ordenados de 2ª ordem, baseadas em estruturas de espaços coerentes, com aplicação fundamental na Computação Científica e Matemática Intervalar. Obtêm assim uma representação global para os objetos ditos infinitos relativamente ao conteúdo de informação, como números reais e intervalos reais, de tal forma que possam ser definidos modelos semânticos adequados para os processos computacionais envolvendo tais objetos. Esta representação construtiva é denominada de global, pois é realizada em dois níveis distinguíveis, compreendendo não somente a construção interna dos objetos, no contexto de uma da estrutura de informação, mas também sua estrutura externa de aplicação. A estrutura de informação tem caráter compatível com uma abordagem domínio-teorética, e a estrutura de aplicação e determinada pelo use pretendido do sistema representado. Existe um relacionamento entre os dois níveis de construção, garantindo que cada componente da estrutura de aplicação tenha uma representação interna na estrutura de informação. Os sistemas de representação global resultantes são denominados então espaços coerentes bi-estruturados, e tem a característica adicional de serem gerados por um sistema ordenado basico de universo enumerável. A estrutura de informação é um espaço coerente, com funções lineares e uma estrutura topológica de informação compatível. A estrutura de aplicação - algébrica, de ordem, relacional, funcional, de medidas, topológica, dentre outras - é obtida por um processo construtivo a partir da estrutura do sistema basico. Um espaço coerente bi-estruturado, obtido por esse processo de construção, é a representação global de um dado sistema ordenado de 2ª ordem quando possível recuperar este sistema através do subsistema dos objetos totais do espaço, pela determinação de isomorfismos para a estrutura de aplicação. Da mesma forma, estabelecendo também isomorfismos para o subsistema dos intervalos de elementos do conjunto universo do sistema que esta sendo representado, esse subsistema pode ser recuperado como o subsistema dos objetos quasi-totais do espaço coerente. Apresenta-se também uma abordagem categórica para o processo de construção global, mostrando se que ele determina uma adjunção entre duas subcategorias da categoria SO2 dos sistemas ordenados de 2ª ordem A metodologia proposta se mostrou particularmente interessante na construção do conjunto dos números reais e do conjunto de intervalos reais. Para estes sistemas introduziu-se também uma subestrutura elementar de medidas, pela definição, de forma generalizada, das funções valor absoluto, distância e diâmetro. Foi desenvolvida uma estrutura topológica para os espaços coerentes bi-estruturados, que caracteriza-se também por apresentar dois níveis que se inter-relacionam. Para obter uma caracterização topológica de informação desenvolveu-se a noção de espaços de vizinhanças lineares. No sentido de se obter a caracterização topológica de aplicação, obteve-se, em cada etapa da construção, um espaço de vizinhanças gerado pela função distância generalizada com uma topologia de aplicação associada. Conexões entre as representações de reais e de intervalos de reais e aspectos de computabilidade são referidas de modo preliminar, sugerindo-se este tema como trabalho futuro. Possíveis aplicações dos espaços coerentes bi-estruturados e do processo de construção global a outras áreas da Ciência da Computação são indicadas no final do trabalho. / The aim of this work is to develop a methodology to obtain constructive representations of second order ordered systems, based on coherence space structures, with the main application in Scientific Computation and Interval Mathematics. A global representation for the so-called infinite objects considering the information content they represent, in particularly real numbers and real intervals, is obtained, so that suitable semantical models for real and interval computational processes can be provided. This constructive representation is said to be global. since it is performed in two distinguished levels, dealing with the internal construction of the objects, in the context of an information structure, and, on the other hand, building an external application structure. The information structure is compatible with a domain-theoretic approach, and the application structure is established according the intended usage of the represented system. There exists a relationship between the two levels of the construction, guaranteeing that each component of the application structure should have an internal representation in the information structure. The resulting global representation systems are called bi-structured coherence spaces, and they have the additional feature of being generated by a basic ordered system having a denumerable universe. The information structure is a coherence space endowed with linear functions and a compatible information topological structure. The (algebraic, ordered, relational, functional, measure, topological, etc.) application structure is obtained by the construction process, considering the structure of the basic system as the start point. A bi-structured coherence space, obtained by this construction process, is said to be the global representation of a given second order ordered system if it is possible to recover the latter by the subsystem of the total objects of the former, defining isomorphisms related to the application structure. Following the same pattern, establishing isomorphisms for the subsystem of the intervals of elements of the represented system, it is possible to recover it as the subsystem of quasi-total objects of the bi-structured coherence space. A categorical approach is also presented and it is shown that the global construction process determines an adjunction between two subcategories of the category SO2 of the second order ordered systems. The proposed methodology was shown to be particularly interesting when constructing the sets of real numbers and real intervals. For these systems, an elementary measure structure was introduced in a generalised approach, defining generalised distance, diameter and absolute value functions. The bi-structured coherence spaces were given an interrelated two-level topological characterisation. In order to obtain an information topological characterisation the concept of linear neighbourhood systems was introduced. For the application topological characterisation, at each step of the construction, a neighbourhood system generated by the generalised distance function, with an associated topology, was defined. A brief analysis concerning the connections among other representations of real and real intervals and computability aspects is presented. Other possible applications in Computer Science are indicated.

Gossip is a generic protocol which was designed for spreading information between nodes in large distributed decentralised systems. This protocol can be also used for many different applications including data aggregation, topology construction, etc. This work presents and describes a framework designed for facilitating modelling and simulation of Gossip-based systems.

<p>  </p> <p>Traditional manual code compliance checking process is a time-consuming, costly, and error-prone process that has many shortcomings (Zhang & El-Gohary, 2015). Therefore, automated code compliance checking systems have emerged as an alternative to traditional code compliance checking. However, computer software cannot directly process regulatory information in unstructured building code texts. To support automated code compliance checking, building codes need to be transformed to a computer-processable, structured format. In particular, the problem that most automated code compliance checking systems can only check a limited number of building code requirements stands out.</p> <p>The transformation of building code requirements into a computer-processable, structured format is a natural language processing (NLP) task that requires highly accurate part-of-speech (POS) tagging results on building codes beyond the state of the art. To address this need, this dissertation research was conducted to provide a method to improve the performance of POS taggers by error-driven transformational rules that revise machine-tagged POS results. The proposed error-driven transformational rules fix errors in POS tagging results in two steps. First, error-driven transformational rules locate errors in POS tagging by their context. Second, error-driven transformational rules replace the erroneous POS tag with the correct POS tag that is stored in the rule. A dataset of POS tagged building codes, namely the Part-of-Speech Tagged Building Codes (PTBC) dataset (Xue & Zhang, 2019), was published in the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). Testing on the dataset illustrated that the method corrected 71.00% of errors in POS tagging results for building codes. As a result, the POS tagging accuracy on building codes was increased from 89.13% to 96.85%.</p> <p>This dissertation research was conducted to provide a new POS tagger that is tailored to building codes. The proposed POS tagger utilized neural network models and error-driven transformational rules. The neural network model contained a pre-trained model and one or more trainable neural layers. The neural network model was trained and fine-tuned on the PTBC (Xue & Zhang, 2019) dataset, which was published in the Purdue University Research Repository (PURR). In this dissertation research, a high-performance POS tagger for building codes using one bidirectional Long-short Term Memory (LSTM) Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) trainable layer, a BERT-Cased-Base pre-trained model, and 50 epochs of training was discovered. This model achieved 91.89% precision without error-driven transformational rules and 95.11% precision with error-driven transformational rules, outperforming the otherwise most advanced POS tagger’s 89.82% precision on building codes in the state of the art.</p> <p>Other automated information extraction methods were also developed in this dissertation. Some automated code compliance checking systems represented building codes in logic clauses and used pattern matching-based rules to convert building codes from natural language text to logic clauses (Zhang & El-Gohary 2017). A ruleset expansion method that can expand the range of checkable building codes of such automated code compliance checking systems by expanding their pattern matching-based ruleset was developed in this dissertation research. The ruleset expansion method can guarantee: (1) the ruleset’s backward compatibility with the building codes that the ruleset was already able to process, and (2) forward compatibility with building codes that the ruleset may need to process in the future. The ruleset expansion method was validated on Chapters 5 and 10 of the International Building Code 2015 (IBC 2015). The Chapter 10 of IBC 2015 was used as the training dataset and the Chapter 5 of the IBC 2015 was used as the testing dataset. A gold standard of logic clauses was published in the Logic Clause Representation of Building Codes (LCRBC) dataset (Xue & Zhang, 2021). Expanded pattern matching-based rules were published in the dissertation (Appendix A). The expanded ruleset increased the precision, recall, and f1-score of the logic clause generation at the predicate-level by 10.44%, 25.72%, and 18.02%, to 95.17%, 96.60%, and 95.88%, comparing to the baseline ruleset, respectively. </p> <p>Most of the existing automated code compliance checking research focused on checking regulatory information that was stored in textual format in building code in text. However, a comprehensive automated code compliance checking process should be able to check regulatory information stored in other parts, such as, tables. Therefore, this dissertation research was conducted to provide a semi-automated information extraction and transformation method for tabular information processing in building codes. The proposed method can semi-automatically detect the layouts of tables and store the extracted information of a table in a database. Automated code compliance checking systems can then query the database for regulatory information in the corresponding table. The algorithm’s initial implementation accurately processed 91.67 % of the tables in the testing dataset composed of tables in Chapter 10 of IBC  2015. After iterative upgrades, the updated method correctly processed all tables in the testing dataset. </p>