Browsing by Author "Dzeng, Ren-Jye"

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3D Game-based Training System for Hazard Identification on Construction Site
(2015)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Hsueh, Hsien-Hui
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Chang, Rui-Na
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
The construction industry is one of the most hazardous industries. Potential hazards are common in construction sites due to the variability and open elevated working environment. Hazard identification, detecting and correcting potential hazards before an accident occurs, is one of practical and effective methods that are commonly adopted. However, hazard identification relies on tacit knowledge that requires sufficient experience. The current training of trainees (e.g., inspectors and students) in general still relies on lectures to provide them with the knowledge on safety management, regulation, and past accidental cases. Such traditional lectures are not effective in nourishing the required identification ability. This research created a 3D digit construction site model, and developed an interactive hazard-identification game that allows trainees to have realistic hands-on identification experience. We also designed an experiment to evaluate the learning effects and satisfactions of the hazard-identification game as compared with the traditional lectures. The results showed that the hazard-identification game was significantly (p < 0.001) better than the traditional lectures in safety education and training. Also, the students satisfied with the game-based training courses significantly (p < 0.001) more than the other students satisfied with the traditional courses. Virtual environment provides the feasibility of creating various types of job sites and hazards depending on the training objectives, and allows trainees to learn by experiencing in a safe environment. This research establishes and develops a game-based hazard identification training system, which can improve trainees\' learning effectiveness and learning satisfaction. The training system can also improve workers\' and site managers\' hazard awareness, and help them find hazards in their workplace.
A feasibility study of using smartphone built-in accelerometers to detect fall portents
(2014-03-01)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Fang, Yi-Cho
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Chen, I-Chung
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Fall accidents contribute to nearly half of all fatalities in the construction industry in Taiwan. Detecting fall portents using a smartphone, which many people carry daily, may help reduce fall accidents if the accuracy is acceptable. We designed two experiments with three algorithms to evaluate how well a smartphone can detect both falls and fall portents in a tiling operation scenario. The experiments show that work-related motions barely affected the detection of falls, and the result had a sensitivity and specificity of 100% and 96.1%, respectively. However, for detecting portents, the work-related motions had quite a large impact on the gyroscope-based algorithm, which demonstrated an accuracy rate of only 4.3%, but had only limited impact on the accelerometer-based algorithm, which still show acceptable accuracy rates of 73.5% and 88.5%. We conclude that using a smartphone to detect falls and portents in a construction site is feasible. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A hybrid system for planning the development level of resort
(2009-04-01)
Lee, Hsin-Yun
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
In today's world, a resort is a popular place that provides not only relaxation and recreation but also beautiful surroundings, high quality food, even facilities to exercise and do other healthy activities. Planning the development level is one of the more important processes in a resort development project. However, planners often subjectively overestimate the project or cater to the preferences of the investors, resulting in an over-developed or imbalanced development. This paper provides a system that helps the planner to search for near-optimal amenity development level. Integrating genetic algorithms and simulation, it employs a dual-loop optimization model to propose advice to be used in the planning stage. Because the complex and dynamic analysis is done by the system instead of by the planner, it speeds up the decision-making process of the planning stage. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
A smartphone-based detection of fall portents for construction workers
(2014-01-01)
Fang, Yi-Cho
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
The construction industry accounts for nearly half of all industry-related fatalities in Taiwan. Identified as the leading cause of such fatalities for several decades, falls also contribute to almost half of work-related fatalities. Given the strenuous nature of construction work, workers are prone to loss of awareness and balance, increasing the safety risk and number of fall accidents. Previous studies have indicated that loss of awareness may be the major cause of occupational injuries or fatalities, and identified the strong correlation between falls and loss of balance. Thus, real-time monitoring of the mental and balance conditions of workers may help identify fall portents, and thus prevent falls from happening. This paper describes a framework for developing a personal safety monitoring system based on a smartphone, which receives external signals wirelessly from motion sensors and brain wave sensors attached to a vest and inside a helmet, and transmit these signals to a monitoring server for further analysis. This paper also presents an experiment with preliminary findings regarding the detection of fall portents, using the internal motion sensors of a smartphone. In the experiment, participants performed a tiling task on a scaffold under four physiological statuses. We identified the fall portents based on the self-awareness of the participants, hazardous actions performed by the participants, and outsider observations by experiment administrators. An accelerometer-based threshold algorithm was tested, and its performance was evaluated against the identified fall portents. The results indicated that the work-related motions had a limited impact on the detection algorithm. The accuracy for the sleepiness, fatigue, normal, and inebriation statuses were 92.3%, 90.4%, 77.3%, and 68.8%, respectively. The algorithm exhibited an overall accuracy of 86%, thus, we conclude that using a smartphone to detect fall portents in a working scenario is feasible, and deserves further investigation. (C) 2014 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Accelerometer-based fall-portent detection algorithm for construction tiling operation
(2017-12-01)
Fang, Yi-Cho
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Fall accidents are a major safety issue and a perennial problem in the construction industry. However, few studies have focused on detecting fall portents, identification of which may prevent falls from occurring. This study developed an accelerometer-based fall portent detection system that employed a hierarchical threshold based algorithm. We designed tiling experiments to evaluate the performance of the proposed system. The participants performed the tasks under normal, inebriation, and sleepiness conditions on a scaffold while four accelerometers were attached to their chest, waist, arm, and hand. The results revealed that the traditional threshold-based algorithms had unacceptable accuracies of less than 30.66%. Most false warnings could be attributed to misidentifications of work-related motions. However, the work-related motions had a limited effect on the hierarchical threshold-based algorithm, which exhibited a satisfactory detection rate and accuracy of 76.86% and 79.13%, respectively.
Activity and value orientated decision support for the development planning of a theme park
(2007-11-01)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Lee, Hsin-Yun
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
The development of a large theme park usually includes multiple phases. The combination and development ordering of facilities in these phases have a great impact on the attractiveness of the theme park. Examples of such facilities are attractions, food service, accommodation, and supporting facilities. Some of these facilities although highly profitable, cannot attract visitors on their own, while others may boost the visitor count, yet by themselves do not make a profit. This research considers the values that each development activity brings to the project, and prioritizes feasible alternatives based on their net present values. Based on the integration of simulation and the genetic algorithm, a decision support system has been developed to determine the combination and ordering of facilities, and the resources needed for each development step. This development plan will provide investors with systematic and quantitative information that will help them to determine the development portfolio of each facility under the constraint of the funding program. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
An Activity-Based Simulation Model for Assessing Function Space Assignment for Buildings: A Service Performance Perspective
(2015-12-01)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Wang, Wei-Chih
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Hsiao, Fan-Yi
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Xie, Yan-Qing
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土木工程學系
Function space assignment determines the function of all spaces and is essential to the design of a remodeled building. Optimization of function space assignment that relies upon users\' activities is difficult due to the lack of quantifiable and detailed data about users\' activities. In this paper, an activity-based simulation process model consisting of five phases is proposed and applied to an actual project. The phases include activity data collection, activity simulation, space movement pattern mining, function-space assignment optimization, movement simulation and assessment. The process also allows the building administrator to adjust the optimized assignment to accommodate hard-to-quantify preferences via a variety of indexes such as movement distance, corridor flow, and other space usage-related indexes. Results from application of the proposed model to an actual remodeling project indicated that the model offered the administrator a better assignment than the contracted architect, with a 5.79% increase in the objective function and a 23.92% decrease in movement distance. The adjusted assignment based on service-related indices, such as noise interference, further improved service by accounting for parameters that were not easily included in the objective function for optimization.
An Automated IoT Visualization BIM Platform for Decision Support in Facilities Management
(2018-07-01)
Chang, Kai-Ming
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Wu, Yi-Ju
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Building information modeling (BIM) is the digital representation of physical and functional characteristics (such as geometry, spatial relationship, and geographic information) of a facility to support decisions during its life cycle. BIM has been extended beyond 3D geometrical representations in recent years, and now includes time as a fourth dimension and cost as a fifth dimension, as well as such other applications as virtual reality and augmented reality. The Internet of Things (IoT) has been increasingly applied in various products (smart homes, wearables) to enhance work productivity, living comfort, and entertainment. However, research addressing the integration of these two technologies (BIM and IoT) is still very limited, and has focused exclusively on the automatic transmission of sensor information to BIM models. This paper describes an attempt to represent and visualize sensor data in BIM with multiple perspectives in order to support complex decisions requiring interdisciplinary information. The study uses a university campus as an example and includes several scenarios, such as an auditorium with a dispersed audience and energy-saving options for rooms with different functions (mechanical/electrical equipment, classrooms, and laboratory). This paper also discusses the design of a common platform allowing communication among sensors with different protocols (Arduino, Raspberry Pi), the use of Dynamo to accept sensor data as input and automatically redraw visualized information in BIM, and how visualization may help in making energy-saving management decisions.
Application of project-based change management in construction: a case study
(2015-01-02)
Chen, Chun-Sung
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Tsui, Yu-Kun
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Wang, Wei-Chih
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土木工程學系
Real-time information is vital to enhance dynamic control and management via information sharing and analysis in order to reduce construction conflicts and project delays. However, most construction project management programs are ineffective for project prompt responses, especially with respect to change management. This work presents a novel construction project management system called the web project-based change management (WPCM) system. The WPCM system responds to changes in information efficiently in order to facilitate change management among project participants (e.g. general contractor, suppliers, and subcontractors) in a construction project environment. Capable of increasing information sharing in construction change management, web-based technology can also provide cost savings via the Internet. A case study involving a commercial building project in Taiwan demonstrates the effectiveness of both the proposed WPCM system and information sharing in change control during the construction phase. In addition to increasing the efficiency of change control and management for a general contractor, as well as dynamic project tracking and management, the proposed system enables subcontractors and suppliers to access and manage the change information timely. Future work should implement the system functions comprehensively and apply the system to additional projects more strictly for further verification of its reliability.
Application of RFID tracking to the optimization of function-space assignment in buildings
(2014-04-15)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Lin, Chong-Wey
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Hsiao, Fan-Yi
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Function-space assignment, which allocates a function for each space in a facility, is one of the most important factors in determining the usability performance of a building. Most architects renovate a building based on their personal perception of how the occupants might use the building instead of quantitatively analyzing their use behaviors. This study developed a function-space assignment optimization model based on the occupants' movement data as tracked by REID technology. The model mines the movement data by constructing patterns and calculating the relation values between functions. The search for the best assignment is based on the fast messy genetic algorithm (fmGA) with the objective function incorporating the preference of space size and the minimization of the distance for movement required by the occupants during the performance of their daily activities. The proposed model incorporated building-block filtering mechanism in the fmGA problem-solving process to generate enough copies of the good building blocks so more copies would remain for subsequent processing. The paper also describes two experiments that evaluate the performance of the model and compare the performances of the models with and without the building-block filtering mechanism. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Building a construction procurement negotiation training game model: Learning experiences and outcomes
(2014-11-01)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Lin, Ken-Yu
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Wang, Pei-Ru
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交大名義發表
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National Chiao Tung University
Game-based education is a promising method for encouraging student learning. Although learning construction procurement and negotiation require hands-on practice, in most construction management courses at the college level, this subject is taught by using lectures and case studies. In this study, a construction procurement and negotiation game was developed, and paper-based and web-based versions were implemented. The game enables students to play the role of contractors or suppliers and generate profits by negotiating and procuring or selling reinforcing steel in a simulated market with a probabilistic nature. The experimental results indicate that playing both versions of the game increased student learning motivation, satisfaction and outcomes. Students awarded the web-based game higher assessment scores than they did for the paper-based game. Students playing either version of the game also achieved higher test scores than students who were taught using the traditional approach did. However, for students with work experience, playing the paper-based game resulted in higher scores than the web-based game scores.
C-Negotiation Game: An educational game model for construction procurement and negotiation
(2017-03)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Wang, Pei-Ru
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Construction procurement and negotiation is one of the key subjects in construction management education. However, most related courses involve only lectures without engaging students in real cases. Although educational games have been reported to be effective in motivating students\' learning, a limited number of studies have focused on developing a realistic negotiation game as a teaching instrument in a class. We developed a web-based negotiation game, named C-Negotiation Game, for enabling students to make simulated decisions in construction procurement and negotiation processes. The game enables students to play the role of either contractor or supplier, schedule the required procurement, evaluate prospective negotiating parties, conduct parallel negotiations, allocate materials to projects, and manage the cash flow. The game is also equipped with randomization features such as assigning random quality performance levels to different suppliers. An experiment was conducted using 72 participating students, and the results indicated a significant improvement of at least 20.16% in the students\' posttest scores regardless of the pretest scores. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
CONCEPTUAL COST ESTIMATIONS USING NEURO-FUZZY AND MULTI-FACTOR EVALUATION METHODS FOR BUILDING PROJECTS
(2017)
Wang, Wei-Chih
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Bilozerov, Tymur
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Hsiao, Fan-Yi
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Wang, Kun-Chi
During the conceptual phase of a construction project, numerous uncertainties make accurate cost estimation challenging. This work develops a new model to calculate conceptual costs of building projects for effective cost control. The proposed model integrates four mathematical techniques (sub-models), namely, (1) the component ratios sub-model, fuzzy adaptive learning control network (FALCON) and fast messy genetic algorithm (fmGA) based sub-model, (2) regression sub-model, and (4) multi-factor evaluation sub-model. While the FALCON- and fmGA-based sub-model trains the historical cost data, three other sub-models assess the inputs systematically to estimate the cost of a new project. This study also closely examines the behavior of the proposed model by evaluating two modified models without considering fmGA and undertaking sensitivity analysis. Evaluation results indicate that, with the ability to more thoroughly respond to the project characteristics, the proposed model has a high probability of increasing estimation accuracies more than the three conventional methods, i.e., average unit cost, component ratios, and linear regression methods.
Construction safety training via e-Learning: Learning effectiveness and user satisfaction
(2010-09-01)
Ho, Chun-Ling
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
In Taiwan, promoting knowledge of "Labor Safety" which relates to life and work right is very important. Safety training and learning effectiveness become essential issues of adult learning. To reduce the costs of educational training, enterprises have also started to aggressively introduce e-learning education training. Unlike the construction industry, few studies have investigated the effectiveness of e-learning and conventional learning. This study tested the effectiveness of the safety education to prevent falls by different learning modes used to assess safety behavior and learning effectiveness during the education training period. According to the average pass rate, satisfaction degree of course and total number of unsafe behavior, the e-learning mode improves learning effectiveness. Additionally, when the e-learning mode is introduced in the construction safety education training, the labor can use the teaching material more independently and multimedia system, such as animated teaching materials, case teaching, and repeated course learning, to reduce the error rate of operation, property loss rate, and light (heavy) injury. Under this condition, the e-learning mode is positively associated with the learning effectiveness of construction safety education training. High learning effectiveness promotes safe behavior during construction operations. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Design of Track Alignment Using Building Information Modeling
(2011-11-01)
Huang, Shih-Fang
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Chen, Chun-Sung
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
In recent decades, the spreadsheet and computer-aided mapping are the major tools for track alignment design. These traditional methods can meet the design criteria, but when the design factors and the change order must be satisfied at the same time, the process is always complicated and redundant. Building information modeling (BIM) is mainly applied on the generation and management of building data. It utilizes the object-oriented concept to increase the efficiency of information management in the building life cycle. The track-alignment data also have topographic relation that is similar to the building. There is a much closer relation between the topological, sharp, and position of track entities than that of the building components. This paper discusses the feasibility of applying a real-time, dynamic, three-dimensional building information model to design the alignment; compares the traditional alignment method with the BIM alignment method to find out the differences; and analyzes the precision by using alignment data of east and west main tracks of Qidu Switchyard of Taiwan Railways Administration. Moreover, the paper proves that the BIM can simplify track-alignment design, increases the abilities of computer-aided design and automation, and greatly shortens the design period. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)TE.1943-5436.0000287. (C) 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.
Evaluating Ancillary Business Scale for PPP-BOT Projects: A Social Housing BOT Case in Taiwan
(2019-03-01)
Huang, Chih-Yao
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Due to budgetary constraints, the government releases the right to ancillary business development for private investors to increase profits in PPP projects. However, the ancillary business scale is not specified in the regulations, and there is little relevant research on modeling the scale. Thus, our research aims to create a model with mathematical analysis to evaluate the ancillary business scale. The model is constructed based on the discounted cash flow model to calculate the ancillary business scale attracting private investors with a case study of a social housing project. For this case, the calculated ancillary business minimum scale (ratio of ancillary business to project in total floor area) based on the 7-year (2009-2016) and 17-year (2000-2016) data are 30.81% and 52.79%, respectively; neither is able to meet the scale listed in the tender condition regulated by the government, i.e., 25%. Moreover, this study performs a sensitivity analysis on the expected rate of return and rent discount of the case. The government needs to raise the proportion of ancillary businesses or to increase the rent of social housing to successfully attract private investors.
Experimental study on collision avoidance procedures for plastic waste cleaner USV
(2019-01-01)
Harada, Kazumasa
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Watanabe, Keisuke
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Utsunomiya, Koshi
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Shimpo, Masatoshi
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
Sea plastic waste is a big issue and cleaning them is very important. We are developing a USV cleaner that collects plastic waste for cleaning at the port. There are many ships in the port and the USV needs to design a collision avoidance procedure appropriately. To develop a collision avoidance procedure, several experiments must be performed. In this paper, we will first introduce a low-cost tank experiment system to study USV collision avoidance procedures. This system consists of a ceiling camera and a robotic ship. The ceiling camera is installed above the tank and uses image processing to calculate the heading and COG coordinates of each ship. This is intended to emulate GNSS indoors. The catamaran was designed and manufactured using a 3D printer, taking into account the size of the tank and the capacity of the ship. The catamaran has a single board computer and a wireless communication device. Each ship receives coordinates via wireless communication from a computer that calculates the coordinates in the tank. Next, the results of tank experiments using the above system are introduced. When the experiment starts, the ceiling camera calculates the ship's position and sends the position data to each ship in increments of 10 [Hz]. When the ship receives the position, it moves forward while maintaining the bow and speed until a collision is detected. When each ship finds a possible collision, it changes the navigation mode from normal mode to collision avoidance mode. This experiment confirmed that the ceiling camera position detection, catamaran thrust, and wireless communication were all functioning properly. Finally, we introduce the conceptual design of the Catamaran USV used to clean plastic waste in port areas.
Extracting Knowledge for Searching for and Identifying Hazards on Construction Site
(2015-01-01)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Fang, Yi-Cho
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
The construction industry accounts for a high number of accidents. Although identifying hazards before construction starts or during construction is widely employed to prevent accidents, it typically fails because of insufficient safety experience. The experience helps in training novice inspectors, although extracting and describing tacit knowledge explicitly is difficult. This study created a 3-D virtual construction site, and designed a hazard-identification experiment involving 14 hazards (e.g., falls, collapses, and electric shocks), and an eye-tracker was used to compare the search patterns of the experienced and novice workers. The results indicated that experience assisted the experienced workers in assessing hazards significantly faster than the novice workers could; however, it did not improve the accuracy with which they identified hazards, indicating that general work experience is not equivalent to safety-specific experience, and may not necessarily improve workers' accuracy in identifying hazards. Nevertheless, the experienced workers were more confident in identifying hazards, they exhibited fewer fixations.
Function-space assignment and movement simulation model for building renovation
(2015-07-04)
Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Wang, Wei-Chih
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Hsiao, Fan-Yi
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Building renovation is an effective way to revive the use of a building, the use efficiency of which is primarily determined by its layout. However, in architectural practice, architects and building owners renovate buildings based on their personal subjective perceptions of how occupants use the building instead of systematically analyzing their use behaviors. This study proposes a model, called the Function-space Assignment and MOvement Simulation (FAMOS) model, which integrates radio frequency identification (RFID), fast messy genetic algorithms (fmGA), and movement simulation techniques to solve the function-space assignment problem. The RFID equipment is specifically used to track the occupants\' movement data in a building, the fmGA is employed to identify the optimal result of function assignment, and the movement simulation technique is adopted to verify the result and support the decision-making of function-space assignment. This study presents a real case study to demonstrate the use of FAMOS and compare its assignments with those generated by a renovation architect. The objective function showed that FAMOS\'s version had a 14.80% higher objective value than the architect\'s version. The experiment also showed that FAMOS helped the architect find the best assignment or improve their assignment based on desired objectives such as preferred space size, minimized movement distance, or removal of corridor congestion.
Integration of simulation-based cost model and multi-criteria evaluation model for bid price decisions
(2007-04-01)
Wang, Wei-Chih
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Dzeng, Ren-Jye
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Lu, Yu-Huang
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土木工程學系
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Department of Civil Engineering
Several criteria affect bidding decisions. Current bidding models determine a markup based on a fixed project construction cost. This work presents a novel bid price determination procedure that is built by integrating a simulation-based cost model and a multi-criteria evaluation model. The cost model is used to consider cost uncertainties and generate a bid price cumulative distribution, whereas the multi-criteria evaluation model applies pairwise comparisons and fuzzy integrals to reflect bidder preferences regarding decision criteria. The relationship between the two models is based on a practical phenomenon in that a bidder has a high probability of winning when criteria evaluations favor his bid, and, consequently, the bidder would bid a low price, and vice versa. The merits of the proposed procedure are demonstrated by its application to two construction projects in Taiwan.