Research Bank

Browsing Built Environment by Date Added

Unitec Research Bank

Browsing Built Environment by Date Added

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  • New Zealand quantity surveying practices – Continuing to adapt in a changing environment 
    Boon, John (COBRA 2001: The Construction, Building and Real Estate Research Conference of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, 2001)
    The management of four New Zealand Quantity Surveying firms is examined using a five part framework. Comparison is made between current practice and that observed during research in 1996. It is concluded that the firms are ...
  • An academic managing an IT project using construction knowledge 
    Boon, John (Project Management Institute of New Zealand Annual Conference, 2001)
    The author is a construction project manager with considerable experience who became an academic, teaching in the area of construction management about nine years ago. Since then he has widened his academic interests to ...
  • River flow forecasting using gene expression programming models 
    Fernando, Achela; Shamseldin, Asaad; Abrahart, Robert (HIC 2012 - 10th International Conference on Hydroinformatics: "Understanding Changing Climate and Environment and Finding Solutions", 2012)
    River flow forecasting models provide an essential tool to manage water resources, address problems associated with both excesses and deficits, and to find suitable solutions. With changing climate and environmental ...
  • Use of GIS to rationalise pressure in water supply systems 
    Fernando, Achela; Zhang, Xiujuan; Brown, N. (Rainwater and Urban Design 2007, 2007)
    Water is a valuable resource needing conservation. Excessive water pressure in water distribution systems causes leakages leading to substantial losses of treated water. It also places additional strain on networks reducing ...
  • Combined sewer overflow forecasting with feed-forward back-propagation artificial neural network 
    Fernando, Achela; Zhang, Xiujuan; Kinley, Peter F. (12th International Conference on Computer Science, 2006)
    A feed-forward, back-propagation Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model has been used to forecast the occurrences of wastewater overflows in a combined sewerage reticulation system. This approach was tested to evaluate its ...
  • Comparison of planning and consenting procedures for water resources projects in Sri Lanka and New Zealand 
    Fernando, Achela; Werellagame, Induka B. (4th Conference of the Asia Pacific Association of Hydrology and Water Resources, 2008)
    This paper compares and contrasts dam & reservoir water resources development projects between a developing and a developed country taking into consideration the drivers, approval processes, potential conflicts among ...
  • Comparison of two data-driven approaches for daily river flow forecasting 
    Fernando, Achela; Shamseldin, Asaad; Abrahart, Robert (MODSIM2011, 19th International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, 2011)
    Ongoing research on the use of data-driven techniques for rainfall-runoff modelling and forecasting has stimulated our desire to compare the effectiveness of transparent and black-box type models. Previous studies have ...
  • Role of hidden neurons in a RBF type ANN in stream flow forecasting 
    Fernando, Achela; Shamseldin, Asaad (MODSIM 2007 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, 2007)
    Although the use of Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) in hydrological forecasting is widespread, the use of ANNs is occasionally treated with some scepticism due to its “Black Box” nature. Their use has posed some discomfort ...
  • The effect of the raingauge distribution on stormwater models 
    Cooper, M.R.; Fernando, Achela (18th World IMACS Congress and MODSIM09 International Congress on Modelling and Simulation, 2009)
    It is well known that the accurate representation of spatial variation of rainfall within a catchment is important in achieving reliable outcomes from stormwater models. Various guidelines recommend different densities of ...
  • An evidence-based predictive tool for motivating engagement, completion, and success in freshmen engineering students 
    Fernando, Achela; Mellalieu, Peter (22nd Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, 2011)
    In general, teachers deploy several methods to encourage their students to engage early with their learning during their course of study. These methods include: presentation of previous years’ pass/fail rates; feedback ...
  • Multi-model forecasting: Using gene expression programming to develop explicit equations for rainfall-runoff modelling combinations 
    Fernando, Achela; Abrahart, Robert; Shamseldin, Asaad (European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2009, 2009)
    Two previous studies have evaluated eight multi-model forecasting strategies that combined hydrological forecasts for contrasting catchments: the River Ouse in Northern England and the Upper River Wye in Central Wales. The ...
  • Use of gene expression programing for multi-model combination of rainfall-runoff models 
    Fernando, Achela; Shamseldin, Asaad; Abrahart, Robert (Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, 2012)
    This paper deals with the application of an innovative method for combining estimated outputs from a number of rainfall-runoff models using Gene Expression Programming (GEP) to perform symbolic regression. The GEP multi-model ...
  • Ecosensitive stormwater system design for sub-division 
    Fernando, Achela; Iszard, Mark; Islam, Nazrul (5th South Pacific Stormwater Conference, 2007)
    Stormwater management is a contentious aspect of development in the 21st century. Although hydrological neutrality before and after a development is sought, it is acknowledged that any alterations to land form result in a ...
  • Use of a supercomputer to advance parameter optimisation using genetic algorithms 
    Fernando, Achela; Jayawardena, Amithirigala (Journal of Hydroinformatics, 2007)
    Parameter optimisation is a significant but time consuming process that is inherent to conceptual hydrological models representing rainfall-runoff process. This study presents two modifications to achieve optimised results ...
  • Investigation of the internal functioning of the radial basis function neural network river flow forecasting models 
    Fernando, Achela; Shamseldin, Asaad (Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, 2009)
    This paper deals with the challenging problem of hydrological interpretation of the internal functioning of ANNs by extracting knowledge from their solutions. The neural network used in this study is based on the structure ...
  • Employee preferences for work-life benefits in a large New Zealand construction company 
    Thurnell, Derek; Morrison, Emily (Australasian Journal of Construction Economics and Building, 2012)
    The construction industry is a challenging environment in which to work, with job characteristics that are linked to work-life conflict, and it is important for its future sustainability that initiatives to support employee ...
  • Emotional intelligence and the value management facilitator 
    Thurnell, Derek (20th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2004)
    The importance of the facilitator in the Value Management (VM) process has not been accorded sufficient emphasis in the literature to date, particularly in the construction management field. This paper aims to develop a ...
  • Subcontractors’ perceptions regarding bid shopping in Auckland, New Zealand 
    Thurnell, Derek; Lee, Ivan (25th Annual ARCOM Conference, 2009)
    Main contractors use bid shopping to reduce a subcontractor's quoted price. The literature suggests that this is a practice disliked by many subcontractors and that the subcontractor's loss of revenue and margin is an ...
  • Mega-events or hallmark events: Rugby World Cup 2011 on Auckland’s infrastructure 
    Shahwe, Tutsirai (Bachelor of Construction, 2011)
    This research report looks at how Auckland has transformed itself in the lead up to the Rugby World Cup 2011 (RWC), and explored briefly the impacts and planning processes. Internationally, mega events have been used by ...
  • Sustainable retrofit in the New Zealand residential sector 
    McKechnie, Stuart (Bachelor of Construction, 2010)
    A large proportion of New Zealand’s existing housing stock performs poorly, particularly in terms of energy efficiency. As homeowners tend to be reluctant to invest in sustainable retrofit activities, policy interventions ...