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Title: A diary study of the disruption experiences of crew members on a jobsite (Working Paper)
Creator: Menches, Cindy L., Chen, Juan
Date: 2012-06-01, 2012-06-01
Description: This article demonstrates the use of a diary technique in a construction setting. The advantage of a diary study over other methods for...
Show moreThis article demonstrates the use of a diary technique in a construction setting. The advantage of a diary study over other methods for capturing subjective experience is its ability to capture the thoughts, decisions, actions, and emotions of individuals in situ – while they are working in their natural setting – at multiple points in time during an individual’s workweek. Hence, the diary method is uniquely designed to answer questions about group-level trends as well as individual behavior. The specific goal of the study reported in this article was to derive an understanding of the types of fast decisions and actions that are made following a workflow disruption and how the disruption impacts the worker’s state of mind. The analyses revealed that there was a group-level positive correlation between experiencing a disruption and initiating a fast improvised decision and action. However, some workers tended to improvise frequently when disrupted while others did not. The analyses also revealed that the workers’ emotions fluctuated throughout the week, and two emotions – determined and interested – tended to decline following a disruption. But, some of the workers also experienced increases in their negative emotions while others did not, suggesting that not all workers react in the same way to disruptions. Consequently, the diary technique provides a novel way to identify the impact of disruptive events on worker decision-making and performance.
Sponsorship: National Science Foundation
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Title: Children's Center for Learning and Joy
Creator: Rao, Sijun
Date: 5/13/2011, 2011-05
Description: This project provide children with the learning chance they can not get in regular schools. The environment help them develop multiple...
Show moreThis project provide children with the learning chance they can not get in regular schools. The environment help them develop multiple intelligences.
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Title: Using ecological momentary assessment to understand a construction worker’s daily disruptions and decisions (Working Paper)
Creator: Menches, Cindy L., Chen, Juan
Date: 2012-06-01, 2012-06-01
Description: Capturing the momentary decisions and actions made by construction workers in response to workflow disruptions is challenging because, until...
Show moreCapturing the momentary decisions and actions made by construction workers in response to workflow disruptions is challenging because, until now, there has not been a minimally-disruptive data collection method that allows workers to identify their decision process “in the moment.” However, an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) method – designed to capture momentary work experiences in natural settings – can provide researchers with detailed information about the daily challenges experienced by workers during the course of performing their tasks. An explanation of the method is provided, along with examples of the types of research questions that can be addressed and appropriate analysis techniques. The EMA method is being used on a federally-funded research program in the United States that is investigating how construction workers adapt to workflow disruptions by improvising their decisions and actions. Consequently, this article demonstrates the use of the method by presenting an idiographic study of William, an electrical construction worker. The evaluation of William’s disruptions, decisions, and actions elucidated an important relationship: every one of William’s disruptions required an improvisational action in order to continue working. The EMA method opens the door to the development of new theories about rapid decisions and subsequent actions on construction sites.
Sponsorship: National Science Foundation
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Title: Children's Center for Learning and Joy - Final Board Report
Creator: Rao, Sijun
Date: 5/13/2011, 2011-05
Description: This project provide children with the learning chance they can not get in regular schools. The environment help them develop multiple...
Show moreThis project provide children with the learning chance they can not get in regular schools. The environment help them develop multiple intelligences.
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Title: Chicago Politicians on Twitter
Creator: Hemphill, Libby, Shapiro, Matthew A., Otterbacher, Jahna
Date: 2012-03-12, 2012-03-12
Description: This paper uses data from 1,042 tweets posted by or mentioning Chicago Aldermen or Mayor Rahm Emanuel to examine how Chicago politicians use...
Show moreThis paper uses data from 1,042 tweets posted by or mentioning Chicago Aldermen or Mayor Rahm Emanuel to examine how Chicago politicians use social media. Twitter provides a public communication medium in which constituents and their representatives can have two-way conversations that others can witness and record, and we used qualitative and social network methods to examine conversations between Chicagoans and representatives in city government. We coded the contents of each tweet over the two-week time period (e.g., official business, fundraising) and created representations of the social networks created by the users’ following behaviors. These networks indicate who receives politicians’ tweets and help identify the audiences for political messaging in social media. Our analysis indicates that Chicago’s Aldermen and Mayor use Twitter for social conversations more often than political ones, and that only a small number of Aldermen dominate the resulting conversation networks.
Sponsorship: Social Network Research Group at IIT, IIT Graduate College
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Title: Children's Center for Learning and Joy - Final Presentation
Creator: Rao, Sijun
Date: 5/13/2011, 2011-05
Description: This project provide children with the learning chance they can not get in regular schools. The environment help them develop multiple...
Show moreThis project provide children with the learning chance they can not get in regular schools. The environment help them develop multiple intelligences.
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Title: Selecting a Compensation Strategy to Control Project Duration: Empirical Comparison of Lump Sum and Reimbursable Strategies (Working Paper)
Creator: Chen, Juan, Menches, Cindy L.
Date: 2012-05-01, 2012-05-01
Description: Reducing project duration is a significant concern for many industries in the speed-to-market era. Numerous studies have examined the effects...
Show moreReducing project duration is a significant concern for many industries in the speed-to-market era. Numerous studies have examined the effects of project delivery methods on speeding up the process of construction. However, no study has quantitatively compared the effect of using different compensation strategies on schedule duration and schedule reduction. Using the data obtained from 175 international construction projects, this paper focuses on examining the influence of compensation strategy (lump sum versus reimbursable) on project duration while specifically taking into account the industry sector (heavy industrial versus light industrial). The results of the study provide empirical evidence that using a reimbursable compensation strategy can potentially shorten the procurement duration, construction duration, and overall project duration of heavy industrial projects. However, reimbursable contracting did not appear to reduce the project duration on light industrial projects.
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Title: Innovative Uses of Native CAD Files
Creator: Menches, Cindy L., Kleps, Stephen M.
Date: 2012-08-31, 2011-08-31
Description: This technical report describes the outcomes resulting from conducting interviews with professional estimators within the electrical...
Show moreThis technical report describes the outcomes resulting from conducting interviews with professional estimators within the electrical construction industry. The purpose of the interviews was to identify whether native files are shared, why sharing does not occur more frequently, how file sharing might benefit the estimating process, and barriers to sharing native CAD files for the purpose of estimating from CAD drawings.
Sponsorship: Electri International
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Title: Doing What I Say: Connecting Congressional Social Media Behavior and Congressional Voting
Creator: Shapiro, Matthew A., Hemphill, Libby, Otterbacher, Jahna
Date: 2012-03-10, 2012-03-10
Description: Public officials’ communication has been explored at length in terms of how such their statements are conveyed in the traditional media, but...
Show morePublic officials’ communication has been explored at length in terms of how such their statements are conveyed in the traditional media, but minimal research has been done to examine their communication via social media. This paper explores the kinds of statements U.S. officials are making on Twitter in terms of the actions they are trying to achieve. We then analyze the correlation between these statements, Congressional communication network structures, and voting behavior. Our analysis leverages over 29,000 tweets by members of Congress in conjunction with existing DW-NOMINATE voting behavior data. We find that pro-social and self-promoting statements correlate with Congressional voting records but that position within the Congressional communication network does not correlate with voting behavior.
Sponsorship: Social Networks Research Group at IIT, IIT Graduate College
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Title: 1997 International Bridge Building Contest
Date: 1997

Title: Crosslinking of Dermis-Derived Hydrogels Increases Stiffness and Alters Resistance to Degradation
Creator: Pilipchuk, Sophia
Date: 2011-09-13, 2011
Description: Hydrogels have been investigated extensively as biomaterials for three-dimensional tissue reconstruction and regeneration. Incorporation of...
Show moreHydrogels have been investigated extensively as biomaterials for three-dimensional tissue reconstruction and regeneration. Incorporation of tissue-specific features into synthetic materials is difficult, due to limited ability to recreate the complex multi-component nature of extracellular matrices (ECM). ECM-rich hydrogels extracted and assembled from soft tissues have been shown to stimulate the formation of vascularized tissue in vitro and in vivo.1,2,3 Hydrogels derived from dermal tissue using this technique contain basement membrane proteins, including laminin 3, collagen IV, and collagen VII, all of which are essential for proper skin function.2 While these materials have significant biological activity, their poor mechanical properties and rapid degradation in vivo hinder their performance in wound healing applications. This study investigates the effect of covalent crosslinking on the mechanical properties, biological activity, and degradation (in vitro and in vivo) of dermal-derived hydrogels. Glutaraldehyde (GA) is a well-known crosslinking agent used in clinically approved products to prolong lifetime and increase strength of materials. Compression tests indicated increasing elastic modulus and yield stress of crosslinked hydrogels with crosslinking time (p<0.05). The crosslinked ECM were resistant to pepsin degradation in vitro. Gels and gel extracts were non toxic, and fibroblasts adhered and spread on gels at all crosslink densities. Crosslinking drastically slowed degradation relative to controls (non-crosslinked gels) in vivo in a subcutaneous implant model relative to control. While degradation was slowed, inflammation was low and mature vascularized tissue formed in the gels, suggesting that the materials retained the ability to induce tissue invasion. These results support the potential use of dermis-derived hydrogels as promising constructs for applications in tissue engineering and suggest that covalent crosslinking can be used to enhance mechanical properties and prolong hydrogel lifetime while inducing vascularized tissue formation.
Based on this research, IIT biomedical engineering undergraduate senior Sophia Pilipchuk was named one of five recipients of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES) Undergraduate Student Award, to be presented in October 2011 at the BMES Annual Business Meeting in Hartford, Connecticut. Up to eight undergraduate students are selected from around the country on the basis of originality, significance, thoroughness of design analysis, and performance evaluation.
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Title: Mathematica Tutorial
Date: 2011, 2011
Description: A tutorial to help you learn the Mathematica tools that are particularly useful in engineering. Note that some of the graphics output has been...
Show moreA tutorial to help you learn the Mathematica tools that are particularly useful in engineering. Note that some of the graphics output has been removed from the download version to reduce the size of the notebook. Evaluate the notebook to regenerate these and complete the notebook.
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