ICCREM 2013: Construction and Operation in the Context of Sustainability

In recent years, the production and operation scale of the Chinese construction enterprises have been expanding and the ENR ranking is sharply rising; however, compared with foreign contractors with the similar resource allocation, the benefit of Chinese contractors lags far behind. Specifically, the asset scale and employee number are expanding whilst the innovation ability is weak, presenting a serious imbalance between the input and output. This phenomenon cannot but be introspected. To improve the sustainable development situation of Chinese contractors and lead them on the right way from the scale to the capability, the financial capabilities of domestic and foreign large contraction contractors in recent five years are compared and analyzed in this paper (ratio analysis, trend analysis, Dupont analysis, etc.) and the gap is quantified from a sustainable financial perspective. The focus is placed on the key reason for far backward profitability and corresponding countermeasures are proposed.

In recent decades, international construction projects have grown to mega scale and are in need of a more complex process with higher technical requirements. However, rewards from the projects have been decreasing because of the intensive competition in the international market. For this reason, constructability assessment needs to improve the performance during the pre-construction phase. Constructability is a kind of management technique to reduce the re-work or conflict in the construction phase based on a review of the risks of the precedent phase, and influences factors to improve construction performance. To this aim, this paper developed a constructability assessment model between the design and construction phases for international construction projects. The proposed model contains the relationships between 8 latent variables and 34 observed variables based on structural equation model techniques with statistical significance test. As a result, the relationships were analyzed by direct/in-direct effects to assess the constructability of a project, and defined the priorities of each variable. Consequently, if the project manager uses the proposed model with their own experience and knowledge during the set up of the construction plans or management points, then constructability and project performance will be enhanced.

Last Planner System has been critiqued for an inconsistent application of flows. Central for this critique was that the sequence of activities was determined based on only duration and interrelationships. In an attempt to improve the on-site scheduling processes, an in-depth analysis of selection criteria was carried out. Six flows are identified as relevant: workforce, material, and machinery which comprise the needed resources and safety, climate conditions, and space which affect the pace of the work. Because of the importance to progress in the workflow, and the on-schedule completeness of activities, all six flows need to be systematically controlled. The output of the analysis is a list of recommendations of how to refine the schedules by including the six flows in the Phase Scheduling, Look-Ahead, and Commitment levels.

Under the background of economic globalization and market competition, many enterprises regard contractors as a part of enterprise resource management in order to realize the whole value chain of the lowest cost, the greatest benefit. Because of the chooser's subjectivity in contractor selection and the incompleteness in obtaining the contractors information, it is hard to make the best choice by traditional method, which eventually influences the interest of the owner. On the circumstance of incomplete information in the contractor selection, the improved grey correlation evaluation model is advanced based on the AHP and GRA. At the same time, it will do the optimized selection. The evaluation model, which changes a qualitative problem into a quantified one, relatively solved many complex and multi-factor, decision-making problems in the process of selecting and evaluating contractors, such as incomplete information, excessive evaluating index and some related or repeated index. We can confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the method through the instance analysis of the choice of construction contractors.

Many world cities experienced a boom in the manufacturing sector after WWII. Industrial developments mushroomed and provided economic prosperity and job opportunities. Increasing competitions among world cities and the trend of globalization, however, caused many industrial buildings to be obsolete and hence, dilapidated. As a result, current building stocks become the testimony of heydays of industrial prosperity of many cities in the developed and developing countries. A new challenge in the 21st century is to revitalize the dilapidated or even vacant building stock and continue to contribute its functions and roles in the cities. The objectives of this paper are: to study the emergence and unique building forms of industrial premises in Hong Kong, to analyze its difficulties and potential of converting industrial building to residential uses, and to suggest alternative proposals for dealing with strategy for adaptive-reuse. The paper adopted a case study approach with the study of the historical and social context of industrial development, changing market and social conditions, and regulatory framework which affect the existing hindrances for adaptive re-use. In addition to literature review, site and field observations and selected group interviews will be used to gather views for analysis. Recommendations and alternative proposals are the outcomes.

Due to advances in technologies and protocols of the World Trade Organization (WTO), more contractors from developing countries are succeeding in finding a space in the global market. This paper identifies and analyzes the patterns and influences related to the Pakistani contractor's decision to internationalize, motivating factors, foreign market selection and entry mode selection. Multiple case study approach, based on the five Pakistan-based construction firms have been used in this research. The case studies are based on direct interviews with the company's chief executives, postal questionnaire survey and the corporate reports. The findings showed that the motives for the international expansion of the surveyed firms were both pro-active and re-active. Pakistani contractors have shown more interest in Gulf and African countries. They opted for the international joint ventures as their preferred choice of entry mode strategy as it was easier to establish, know local laws, required low resource commitments and can easily share risk.

Planning and scheduling, in the forms of both pre-assembly construction as well as increase in cost and time, are all themes that haven't been studied in a trend-analysis with the purpose of finding gaps and research directions in the literature. The aim of this paper is to analyze these trends in the literature to find which journals have published the most relevant articles, how the trends of publications have been the last decade and, finally, which year includes the most new results. The trend-analysis is conducted in four stages (which include input, process, analysis, and output) where 561 papers were found. By following the stages, 61 A-papers were found relevant to the trend-analysis. The main finding of the trend analysis indicates that 2006 was the year in which the most publications were published. Finally, it was found that 42.6% of the A-papers were published in the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management.

The global demand for increase in construction activity necessitates the need for a better contract strategy to promote best performance. The challenges associated with best performance are identified as misalignment of objectives, fragmented association between contracting parties and risk-averse behaviors. Many researchers from different countries have advocated for the use of incentives as motivational tools to resolve these challenges in order to achieve the performance objectives. In South Africa, the stakeholders have continuously expressed concern over the use of incentives. Some have attributed the use of incentives as for the `big guys' in the construction industry, which has attracted sympathy amongst government and regulatory bodies. The quest to discard the use of incentive mechanisms in South African construction industry is ongoing, but if successful, will be the `faith of best performance' in the industry. This paper reviews the current practices of incentive mechanisms in South African construction industry, the challenges confronting the use of incentives and the impact on South Africa construction industry. The study is part of ongoing research which is focused on resolving the current issues on incentives and also identifies the way forward in promoting best performance in the industry.

Since the introduction of value methodology (VM) into the construction industry, VM has gained popularity among both industrial and academic professionals. VM has been applied by various stakeholders at different levels of project development with different tools in attaining value for money, supported by academic research into this management approach and its applications. However, there is little research work analysing the development of scholarly research in the field of VM in construction. This paper presents the findings of a comprehensive review of 45 papers published between January 1993 and March 2013. Content analysis was carried out on papers published in top academic journals in the area of construction engineering and management. The findings revealed that the majority of research works have focused on the applications of VM, with less attention given to the aspect of theory development to support the applications in the future. It is recommended that scholars should explore this niche area, focusing on theory development and its applications of VM in the construction industry.

Building codes and standards are viewed as the essential infrastructure to protect public health, safety and welfare, keep construction costs down, provide consistent minimum standards in construction, and contribute to the well-being of the community. This paper discusses the development, use, and application of building codes and standards in the global market. The development philosophy and principles were clarified. The steps to follow and understand the codes were specified which demonstrate a clear and complete strategy to maximize the effect of the codes and standards. Consideration is also given toward the implementation and enforcement programs that are essential for proper use and application, including code adaption process, implementation of the adopted code, training, personnel certification, building department accreditation, plan review services, building product evaluation, laboratory accreditation, jurisdiction authority and mandate, and the law and penalty for non-compliance, which are part of the code enforcement but critical to ensure the implementation of codes and standards.

In order to guarantee the scientificalness, systematicness and applicability of village and town construction standard system, solve the current problems such as standards inadequacy, standards confusion and standards misarrange, and provide a theory basis for establishing village and town construction standard system in China. Analysis of requirements engineering on village and town construction standard system in China is urgent needed. This article draws on the research ideology in the field of software requirements engineering. Start from the present situation of villages and towns construction in China. To explore the demand problems' framework of village and town construction Standard system, accordingly analyze on the Requirement Engineering of Village and Town Construction Standard System, establish the reference model of village and town construction standard system requirements, and further study on the characteristic of village and town construction standard system requirements in China.

Scheduling in onsite construction is based on commitments. Unmet commitments result in non-completions which leads to waste. Moreover, it is important that commitments are realistic to avoid both positive and negative variation in duration. Negative variation is destructive to plans and schedules and results in delays, while positive variation is destructive to productivity by creating unexploited gaps between activities, thus inducing unexploited capacity. By registering non-completion at three construction sites, the magnitude of activities inducing negative variation has been mapped. In total, 5424 activities have been registered whereof 1450 activities ended up as non-completions. Thus,27% of the scheduled activities did not finish on schedule. Both positive and negative variation can be minimized by improving the quality of the commitments. Moreover, positive variation can be exploited by: (a) ensuring that the crew finishing an activity too early can continue their work and (b) ensuring that any connecting activity can start as fast as possible.

Since the Vocational Qualification System for Registered Structural Engineer (VQS-RSE) in China was implemented in 1997, the management level of structural engineering design staff and engineering design quality have been improved significantly. However, many problems still exist in its implementation process. Firstly, the current status of Chinese VQS-RSE is presented by literature review and inquiring governmental officials. Then, through expert interviews, critical problems facing Chinese VQS-RSE is analyzed. Finally, suggestions on perfecting Chinese VQS-RSE are provided based on the summary of experts' viewpoints. We hope this study can arouse the attention of international experienced professionals to the problems of Chinese VQS-RSE and that they might give more effective and efficient solutions to these problems. The results of this paper also have significant implications for other developing countries' establishment or reform of VQS-RSE.

Green retrofit design (GRD) has two major aims: to improve energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in existing buildings that are to be sustainably retrofitted. The gap between architects and engineers is evident at the pre-design stage as architects understand little about energy models while engineers use them to conserve energy. However, the goal for both architects and engineers is to develop sustainable building forms that are sensitive to the environment and conserve energy. This paper presents the current technology development for GRD and provides a decision support model to help architects get involved in reducing carbon emissions at the pre-design stage. The GRD process is demonstrated and discussed from the aspect of retrofitting a commercial building and different standards used to verify the results. The aim of this research is to provide a decision-making framework for architects to use at the pre-design stage so as to enhance GRD energy conservation, and thereby contribute to the goal of sustainability. Building information modeling (BIM) inter-operability is also discussed as part of the technology development trend.

Today, the use of concrete and its production become matters of environmental concern throughout the world. One of the major problems is emission of CO₂ gas into the atmosphere during the manufacturing of cement. Hence, replacement of concrete components by alternative materials has been desired by the construction industry. In the past, flyash has been the most common replacement for cement. This study, however, suggests replacing all major components of concrete to the extent that would satisfy the standard strength requirements. The paper uses both literature review and focus group interview to develop a set of tools for evaluating a sustainable concrete design and construction. Discussion in this paper will not only give a direction to produce more sustainable concrete, but also simultaneously addresses the two important issues of economy and environmental friendliness.

This paper analyses the present situation and problems of green construction in China. It researched from the perspective of control method to guarantee the implementation of green construction, namely: (1) assessing the relative effectiveness of green construction scheme through the DEA evaluation model in the prior control; (2) implementing process control through dynamic monitoring in construction stage; and (3) applying fuzzy evaluation method and some incentive measures to the control afterward. Then it practiced the control system on a practical project. It provides a feasible method for the development of green construction.

Since the Brundtland report in 1987, sustainability has been an issue in all parts of the world, and the focus is increasing in these years. In the same period, the building industry has in the same period also been under heavy pressure to increase productivity in the same pace as other manufacturing industries. An important question, then, is how well these two highly relevant areas can go hand in hand. By means of comparing the main ideas and drivers behind sustainability and industrialization, respectively, common threads, possible synergies and evident barriers are put forward in this discussion paper. The main method is a review to track past merits in the two domains and to detect knowledge gaps that have research potential. A strategic research agenda focusing on energy-efficient construction management is outlined showing the need for future focus on combining industrialization in construction management with sustainability and energy concerns in construction management.

Sustainability of construction projects is one of the most important preconditions to ensure human society's sustainable development; yet, research on measurement and evaluation of construction projects' sustainability is still very weak. This article reviews relative research achievements, studies the implication of sustainability of construction projects, and then establishes an evaluation index system from resource, environment, economic, technological and social aspects. It uses AHP and fuzzy mathematics methods to set up a fuzzy overall evaluation model, and a practical case is used to demonstrate the application of the developed model.

In recent years, the levels of air tightness and insulation of residential houses are becoming better for energy saving and, hence, living comfort has been improved. However, the problem of dust particle, due to the lack of ventilation rate, has become increasingly serious. The term `dust particle' includes the spore of mold or corpses and the feces of mites and so on, which are the cause of allergy, asthma and unspecific hypersensitivities. In this study, experiments and simulations were performed to study the flow and diffusion fields affected by different locations and shapes of outlets in green building. Two kinds of ventilation strategies, ceiling exhaust and slit exhaust, were considered. In the experiments, the characteristics of airflow within the whole room are generally similar except airflow close to the outlet. In the simulations, the characteristics of airflow are similar for both experimental and simulation results. And the volume-averaged concentration of dust particle in the breathing zone increased once before it gradually decreased. From the data we can also conclude that the volume-average concentration of dust particle in the breathing zone using slit exhaust strategy is lower than that of ceiling exhaust type in green building.

Due to the negative impact on the environment, particularly in terms of energy consumption and environmental load, the construction industry is the focus of attention for many researchers. By using life cycle assessment method, this study found the life cycle energy performance of a green office building in China in order to examine the achievements of green building technology and to identify the key points of green building construction and operation. After analyzing five scenarios, the result shows that the embodied energy of the case study office building ranged from 2.52 to 9.76 GJ/m², and the operation energy was 0.21 GJ/m² yr. The findings suggest that it is necessary to use materials with high embodied energy intensity or frequent usage rate to conserve energy during the construction phase of a building, and to adopt energy saving equipment and new energy sources during occupation.

As the general understanding of sustainable development goes deeper, the theory on green building gets continuously promoted. However, development of green building started late and was not well promoted in China. The situation of limitation on laws and regulations, as well as not enough publicity efforts, have set up barriers during the process. The article mainly focuses on the situation, reasons, and solutions to the barriers existing when promoting the theory of green building. The problems mentioned should and could be solved with the proper solutions provided in the article, which could make the existing solutions more systemic and scientific.

The first stage of sustainable construction has been going on for perhaps 15 years and has made big progress. Various research states that green buildings have been produced to lower the impacts on the environment and enhance the health quality of the occupants. Studies also show that universities and colleges put emphasis on the importance to build green buildings in their campus because of its various benefits, such as lower operating costs, higher property value, etc. But, are occupants happy about the indoor environment of green buildings? The aim of this research is to investigate the relationships between indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and study/work performance of occupants in the Tyree Energy Technologies Building (TETB), a six-star green educational building in the University of New South Wales, Sydney. This study adopted a case study design combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Questionnaire survey and archival records have been used for data collection. A structured online questionnaire survey was carried out by distributing emails to the occupants of TETB. A non-probability purposive sampling was used to select the sample of participants. Correlation coefficients and multiple linear regressions were used to analyze the results. It was found that occupants were satisfied with the overall indoor environment of the building. However, they are not satisfied with the room/space layout and the indoor air quality. The results showed that all indoor environment variables as well as the overall indoor environment satisfaction are significantly correlated with the occupants' study/work performance. It is identified that thermal quality, acoustic quality and room/space layout were the main components of IEQ that contribute to the overall study/work performance of the occupants. The findings of this study can provide guidance for designers and facilities manager to improve the indoor environment of TETB.

The construction industry shares a considerable portion of energy and natural resource consumption both in the U.S. and around the world. Therefore, it represents the best chance to reduce environmental impacts. Building design has gone through significant changes in order to find the most appropriate combination of materials and equipment not only to satisfy schedule and cost constraints, but also to minimize the environmental impact of construction projects. Global warming potential (GWP), being one of the most important environmental factors, is one of the major types of environmental impacts of construction projects. Construction operations, especially material and equipment selections, need more attention in order to reduce and control their contribution to GWP. As equipment is among the main elements using fossil fuel, the difference in its selection and utilization can have a valuable impact in decreasing the global warming potential during construction. This study aims at analyzing the effect of equipment selection on the GWP of construction projects. The analysis includes three steps. First, alternative combinations of material and equipment are defined. Secondly, the life-cycle GWP is calculated by using life-cycle assessment software and inventories. Then, equipment GWP is calculated based on the selection of different construction methods (i.e. materials and equipments). Finally, the contribution of equipment GWP is analyzed for different material and equipment alternatives. This paper includes a case study to reflect the dynamics of equipment utilization and its effect on GWP. It has been found that equipment utilization and its effect on GWP is mainly dependent on material selection and can have 0-100% contribution depending on the usage and installation of materials. However, it is extremely important to reflect equipment utilization differences among activity alternatives, as it has contributed to 6% of the total GWP values in the case study.

A hospital renovation construction project has a total of twenty-four main activities. The project has a resource limitation and specified contract time. The efficient schedule of this project is arranged using the new resource-constrained scheduling problem (RCSP) which is aimed to determine the optimum project resource utilization. This new RCSP shifts the start time of the activities and determines the alternatives of precedence relationships of some activities to obtain optimal solutions. The model is developed using Microsoft Excel and the Genetic Algorithm optimization. Five schedule performance indices (i.e. project duration, maximum daily resource demand, release and re-hire resources, resource idle days, and resource fluctuation moment) are used to evaluate the solutions. The results show that the model which uses a suitable weighting proportion can improve solutions with the efficient resource utilization profiles, lower resources required, and shortened project duration. Hence, this model can help planners choose both suitable activities' start times and relationship options.

In China, large amounts of construction wasteareproduced by the large-scale urban construction, the new rural construction and road construction currently, among which waste concrete is the largest. Waste concrete is permanent garbage that can not be broken down by environment itself through natural circulation. This makes the recycling of waste concrete a necessity, which is not only a good solution to the environmental problems caused by waste concrete, but also a good way to protect the mine gravel and other natural resources. This article puts forward the concept of recycled concrete by thinking of the contradictions of modern building materials. Subsequently, starting from the necessity of recycling waste concrete, it leads to the research progressing situation of the subject at home and abroad. Compared with some developed countries, it points out the problems of China and other countries in the study. Through the integration of existing qualitative description of the recycled concrete, it gives a relatively systematic and comprehensive overview of its performance. Afterwards, based on the available information and school laboratory facilities, we: (1) design and perform experiments; (2) gather and analyze data; (3) find the best ratio between recycled aggregate and natural aggregate; (4) make evaluation of their economic benefit, social benefit, environmental protection, and market prospects for application;and, at last (5) make recommendations for the development and use of recycled concrete.

Most of the previous research on determining the reliability level of building structures focused on the initial state of the structures, while the influence of the construction process and the service period has been ignored. In this research, a multi-criteria approach is used to determine the reliability level of building structures. Taking into consideration sustainable development and environmental protection, and based on the structure safety of its whole service period, an optimal resolution equation for determining structure liability level is established. Analysis was carried out on the time-dependent performance of structure reliability by using parameters to reflect structure maintenance and reinforcement during the structure life cycle. The effect of construction quality is also discussed and the method to improve structure reliability is presented according to the variability of construction quality. The paper concluded that the reliability level of structure system should be based on the analysis of the whole life of structures and proposed to use a range of values to describe the reliability level of building structures.

A construction process is not a strictly linear one, but a primarily cyclical one with cycle-to-cycle feedback and knowledge accumulation. The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) has supported this process. Complex and multidisciplinary projects can be greatly improved by the adoption of Building Information Modeling (BIM) combined with simulation capabilities- Virtual Construction. This article introduces Virtual Construction in the construction phase as the communication tool between stakeholders and construction site. Then it analyses the current status of Virtual Construction - the Levels of Detail (LOD) of the 3D model may be different from the LOD of the schedule. The author establishes a linking process based on the respective LOD of 3D model and schedule so that the linking of the two components together can create the 4D model which automatically gives a very clear idea and overview of the construction in various stages. At last, it takes Chengdu Financial City as an example to present the adoption of Virtual Construction in the construction phase. The research results can be expected as draft functions for improving the application of Virtual Construction and has important realistic significance for taking the competitive advantage of BIM in the context of Chinese built environment.

To define a resilient maintenance budget, facility managers need to possess a profound knowledge of legal requirements and technical standards, as well as relevant economic influences involved in the maintenance of technical building facilities. TheGerman working group for machine and electrical technology in state and municipal organisations (AMEV), therefore, initiated a state-funded quantitative research project based on the empirical data of 140 federal buildings to gain more knowledge about influences, interdependencies and economic figures on the maintenance of technical building equipment, as well as recommendations on servicing and inspection intervals according to the German standards. The major goal was to complete a scientifically sound analysis and evaluation of the key influencing factors to improve the accuracy and reliability of future budget calculations over the long term. To do so, it was possible to develop an empirical database volume of almost 10,000 datasets for maintenance as a basis of investigation. Based on the dataset, numerous correlation and cluster analysis were conducted to identify relevant influencing factors, such as the "age of the facility", the "building height" or the "type of use". As a result, these influences will be incorporated in the future calculation procedure by weighted correcting factors.

Absorptive capacity is an ability to acquire, assimilate, transform and exploit fresh external knowledge, and finally apply it to commercial ends. However, the study on how related factors affect the absorptive capacity in innovation network is still not much. This paper develops a hypothesis testing model of construction network to explore the absorptive capacity of construction networks where external innovations exist, and seeks the ways of developing and promoting social networks consisting of stakeholder organizations. This model is based on the hypothesis that absorptive capacity could influence network position and tie strength among the stakeholders to untangle the effects of absorptive capacity in promoting knowledge transferring and sharing among network nodes. The result indicates that network structure and knowledge stock can influence innovation performance through absorptive capacity; absorptive capacity plays a certain role of intermediary. This study is useful as an aid for assessing and developing strategies to improve construction network's capacity, thus to enhance working ability and innovation performances.

The building and construction industry has been steadily adopting the concept of sustainable design. Consequently, the design phase of a building project has become a critical stage in determining how sustainability goals of a project will be accomplished. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a quantitative method to determine environmental impacts of materials, products, processes or buildings. However, it is often a challenge to quantify use phase building energy consumption in life cycle assessment due to the dynamic nature of this phase. Energy consumption is an important factor in the life cycle of a building project. Much research acknowledges that buildings are responsible for a significant amount of energy consumption in the USA and in countries around the world. There is currently an increasing demand from both public and private sectors to deliver buildings that are energy efficient. A feasible set of tools in dealing with the energy efficiency analysis during design are energy simulation programs, which allow the evaluation of energy performance of different building designs and the selection of the most appropriate alternatives. This research is focused on developing a framework for integrated analysis of building designs using life cycle assessment and energy simulation by extending the existing SimulEICon. Such a framework allows tracking design parameters (such as energy consumption and costs) during the entire design phase of a project. Construction and building life cycle-related data are stored in an alternatives database which includes the probability distributions of individual parameters and the possible combinations among such parameters. Monte Carlo simulation is used to address data uncertainty and availability. The energy simulation software, Energy Plus is used in order to calculate use phase energy consumption. Genetic algorithm optimization is applied to address the issue of selecting optimal solutions from a large number of possible design alternatives during the decision-making process at the design phase. A case study is presented to demonstrate the feasibility and potential of the framework.

The new building energy saving work is one of the important tasks on the special plan of building energy saving. Evaluation of China for energy-saving design effect of new buildings is still in the initial stage. China has not established a complete comprehensive evaluation system for new building energy saving design. In order to build a comprehensive evaluation model of new residential building, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to determine the index weight. As well, the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method is used to carry on the comprehensive evaluation. In addition, the paper uses this model to make an empirical analysis of Shi Jiazhuang Wanda Plaza, No. E2-1, which evaluates the design level of its energy saving. This model has the certain reference value for the construction of the standardization of building energy-saving work in China.

Structural equation modelling (SEM) has been accepted as a useful technique for testing and modelling the inherently complex and multi-dimensional relationships among a number of variables that cannot be directly observed. SEM requires "sufficient" sample size to be able to produce plausible results. Despite the prescription of sample sizes between 100 and 400 as being large enough, there exists some level of inconsistency between the concomitant sample sizes used in construction management research. Available evidence from the literature shows that most construction management research used less sample sizes than the recommended minimum. The aim of this study is to understand the reasons for the inconsistencies in sample size and how they affect the validity of the results obtained in construction management research. This study, based on extensive literature review, obtained information on sample sizes in relation to model parameters, and model fit indices. Key among the findings is that some of the fit indices are directly proportional to sample size. Therefore, there is the risk of accepting invalid models with very "small" sample sizes. Similarly, there is the risk of rejecting valid models with very "large" sample sizes. The paper surmises that the impact of sample sizes on the model fit indices depends on the complexity of the specified theoretical model. It is, therefore, recommended that researchers should pay more attention to relevant theory and model complexity than to the prescriptive numbers in determining the minimum and maximum sample sizes required for their research.

Based on the present situation of building energy conservation design in China and the characteristics of hot summer and warm winter zones, the influencing factors of building energy conservation design in hot summer and warm winter zones is analyzed in this article. The analysis covers: energy conservation technology (which includes design standards for energy conservation, building envelope structure and materials of energy conservation); economic influencing factors (which include internal and external economic laws); and social cognitive factors (which include the awareness of governments, developers and citizens). Conclusions made on various kinds of measures (which include the courage of using passive control methods, promotion of economic incentive policy and improvement of social cognition) should be taken for the situation that building energy conservation design has not been valued in hot summer and warm winter zones.

With the fast development of urban sprawl and renewal in China, many buildings are "non-nature" short-lived (i.e. demolished after only a few years). For this concern, this research explores the influencing factors of short-lived buildings and provides the scientific foundation for sustainable urban management and planning. Cases for this research are 1734 buildings demolished in the Jiangbei District, the middle region of Chongqing City. Internal and external factors for the short-lived buildings are indentified by applying logistic analysis. The results indicate that nine factors have significant influence on short-lived buildings. This research also found that buildings with low density, utilization and compensation while having high land development potential are more likely to become short-lived buildings.

From the viewpoint of the system and security, we put forward the concept of lean construction system vulnerability through the common interpretation of system and vulnerability. Combined with the characteristics of project management, this paper analyzed the existence of the dimension of vulnerability in the lean construction system and initially proposed its vulnerability assessment function model. Specific to space of the vulnerability that lean construction system to be promoted, we present the CCPM and agile management tedchnology to the optimization design of lean construction system and put forward a promotion framework. The optimization process of the lean construction system shows that ensuring the unity of safety and efficiency needs the realization of the balance of rigidity and flexibility in lean construction system.

A significant proportion of energy is consumed in the building sector. A prodigious amount of this energy is utilized to provide proper temperature in buildings. One growing energy-efficient building technology which isused for wall, partitions and flooring is called structural insulated panel (SIP). SIPs have several advantages, such as good mechanical properties and relatively low cost. However, the OSB used in the conventional SIPs can cause serious environmental implications. In order to alleviate these implications and other shortcomings of OSB-based SIPs, one natural (kenaf) and one synthetic (glass) fiber are proposed to be used in a structural skin layer of SIPs. The environmental performance of kenaf fiber-based and glass fiber-based SIPs are then compared. The environmental impact analysis follows the life cycle assessment framework of ISO 14040-14043, including goal and scope definition, inventory analysis, impact assessment and interpretation. Based on the 12 impact categories in the Building for Environmental and Economic Sustainability (BEES) set of impact categories, LCA results indicate that kenaf-based SIP has fewer negative environmental impacts in terms of all impact categories.

Due to the complexity, multi-objectives and integration of construction projects, conflict between the owner and contractor is inevitable. The interactionist view of conflict encourages the organization to maintain a minimum level of conflict - enough to promote organization communication and creativity. Design-Bid-Build (DBB) is a traditional project delivery system, still widely used in construction industry, and conflict in DBB projects is quite common. Therefore, this research empirically validates the relationship between owner-contractor conflict and schedule performance in DBB projects. Through questionnaire survey, 90 valid data were obtained with the participation of managers from the Chinese Top 100 contracting enterprises and mega-project owners with rich project management experience. The hypothesis was tested using correlation analysis and non-linear regression analysis. The results reveal that the owner-contractor conflict in DBB projects influences the project schedule performance with an inverted U-shaped relationship. A moderate level of owner-contractor conflict in DBB projects could promote communication among project participants, improve the quality of decision making, and stimulate creativity and innovation, thus improving the schedule performance. However, too many conflicts will reduce organization effectiveness and cohesiveness, which make it difficult to complete the project in time. To reach an optimum level of schedule performance, project managers should alter their traditional prejudice towards conflict as a negative factor, and manage the conflict strategically rather than simply eliminate it.

As an alternative project delivery method (PDM) to the traditional Design-Build-Bid (DBB), Design-Build (DB) has seen expanded application in the construction industry for two decades. Up to now, it has been a mainstream delivery method for construction projects. However, it does not mean that DB is suitable for all projects. It is necessary to make a rational decision for the application of DB in a specific project according to its characteristics. This paper studies the selection of project delivery methods between DB and DBB from the perspective of Value-Added. With DBB as the comparison object, this study analyzes the Value-Added advantages of DB, including integration of design and construction, single contract relationship, etc., and discusses the main Value-Added ways of DB. Taking into account the feature that project production and transaction are interlaced with each other, this paper then analyzes the main factors influencing the Value-Added of DB versus DBB, as well as the impact features of these factors on various Value-Added ways based on project transaction element analysis.Value-Added analysis for DB versus DBB is carried out, and the estimation method of the Value-Added generated from all kinds of ways is discussed. Also, the decision-making method is put forward for the adoption ofDB.

The definitions of the concepts about project governance are vague and different. The research conclusions are also inconsistent. These differences are not conducive to the development of project contractual governance. Following the analytical framework of "transactional attributes-governance mechanism-economic efficiency" of Transaction Cost Economics (TCE), this paper discusses the existing literature from three perspectives. The first one is the meaning and measures of contract forms. The second is how the asset specificity, uncertainty and complexity affect the selection of the contract form. The third is whether the contract selection can improve the project performance or save the transaction cost of the project based on TCE. In the last part of this paper, the implications for the future research are put forward.

Public-private partnership (PPP) is widely used in the world. Many researchers claimed that PPP can contribute to sustainability in nature as it promotes long-term productive use of resources. The briefing stage is important to a PPP project because it is the stage when private sector funds are injected into projects. In considering this, the paper aims at identifying the finance-related critical factors that could lead to the success of the project in the briefing stage. Six finance-related factors were identified based on a comprehensive review of literature followed by personal interviews. The importance of these factors was rated using a questionnaire survey in Hong Kong and Australia. Because some background variables should be taken into account when rating these factors, a custom-made weighted ranking method was developed which enabled an estimation of the weighted importance of finance-related factors. A comparative study of the results between Hong Kong and Australia was conducted. Discussion is provided to describe how these factors can help improve the briefing stage of PPP projects.

In the international construction industry, Angola Mode is an effective approach for Chinese construction firms to finance construction projects in Africa. This approach was devised by the China Export-Import Bank with the intention for the replacement of infrastructure with oils. An Angola Mode-Based project is composed of a number of stakeholders including the Chinese Government, Angolan Government, owners of Angola, Chinese contractors, China Export-Import Bank, and Chinese oil companies. A close cooperation between these stakeholders can guarantee the success of project construction. The study aims to recognize the stakeholders involved and analyze the interaction between various stakeholders of Angola Mode projects from the perspective of business processes and cash flow. The relationships between different stakeholders are detected in line with the theory of game theory, and the game path relation chain is concluded as the result. The research findings can help derive some strategies for Chinese construction firms to make sure that the Angola Mode can be run fluently.

This paper categorizes the four different types of interface management: time interface, relational interface, information interface and environmental interface. On the basis of the categorization, the influencing factors index system is established and the DEMATEL model is constructed. By using the DEMATEL model, the key impact factors of project interface management are obtained. As an example, the paper analyzes the interface management influencing factors of the White fish bubble highway of Harbin, using DEMATEL model, and the result shows: engineering design, managers' communication skills, IT ability to apply, information-sharing platform and profit are the most important factors of the interface management of the project, which is in accordance with the actual result.

The paper describes the follow-up audit of government investment project (GIP) and the theory of synergistic effect to actualize governance audit in a project originally, which builds the objective system of follow-up audit on the realistic level of thinking. It analyzes the audit objectives of the synergetic optimization problem among subsystems and puts forward a follow-up audit model designed to improve overall performance of the project under the concept of synergy audit. The following conclusions can be drawn from the discussion. The optimization of follow-up audit objective subsystems may be unable to improve overall project performance. The key to increasing the overall performance of the project is whether the optimization of objective subsystems enhances its overall synergy. As a realization of governance audit, the concept of synergy audit will bring practical significance to the overall performance of the project. With Earned Value audit, it's feasible to introduce the project synergetic degree as a quantitative audit evaluation index.

This article researches the design change management in large-scale projects from the perspective of general construction contractors, and establishes a frame of design change management corresponding system which includes three levels: (1) strategic-level, based on partnering theory; (2) method-level, composed of three aspects: department organization, contract management and information communication; and (3) means-level combined with virtual construction technology and change management software. Furthermore, this paper summarized the problems and gave a series of references in design change management of general construction contractors.

With the increasing complexity of the construction process, there was a large amount of information in the construction process which had to be collected, analyzed and processed in a timely manner, and the efficiency of construction management should be improved. Construction was also a typical collaborative work, and the information should be exchanged and shared between the construction main bodies and the different workers. In this paper, the conception of collaborative construction was illustrated and expounded. Moreover, the frame of collaborative construction based on ubiquitous computing was established and the function of each module was described in this paper. In the future, research, ubiquitous computing and BIM could be combined for the collaborative construction.

Mobile technology, by its nimble characteristic, adapted to the needs of the construction site management and has a broad prospect in the construction industry. In this paper, the framework for the implementation of mobile IT for Scaffolding Safety Management is designed, which comprises a logic model and a physical model. The logic model analyzes the scaffolding safety management process. The physical model shows system designers a clear structure for designing mobile for scaffolding safety management, which includes six ostensive factors and a hidden factor. A case study is carried out in a mobile IT system for scaffolding safety management. On the basis of the logic model and physical model, this paper: (1) identifies scaffold environment, safety managers and information; (2) chooses the sensor, wireless networks and mobile devices; and (3) designs a mobile IT application for the case.

With the development of information technology, many industries have greatly improved their production efficiency. At the same time, production efficiency in the construction industry has not only failed to grow, but is actually on the decline. The main reason for this problem is interoperability, which is the exchange and sharing of construction project information between the participants and the different application software in the project life cycle. At present, Building Information Model (BIM) is considered to be an effective way to solve the problems in the construction project life cycle. The integrated BIM information is a significant improvement in all processes where project participants have to use and communicate complex, accurate and interrelated construction project information. This paper first expounded the background, which is during the construction project life cycle management. The degree of information sharing and collaboration of construction units is low, which is the main reason for low efficiency in the construction industry. Then, a BIM-based information integration model is proposed. The information interchange of construction units is realized in this model. The efficiency of project management is improved.

Collective self-organised (CSO) housing refers to the process of a collective of individuals that organize, finance, plan and commission their own housing projects. CSO housing can refer both to new construction, and retrofitting/refurbishment processes. The unique feature of CSO housing is the fact that CSO housing projects are undertaken by a group of non-professional clients. In common building practice, even professional clients have difficulties in choosing the (cost) optimal solutions for energy-efficient buildings, even when supported with tools to perform analyses of design alternatives based on total cost of ownership (TCO) calculations. For non-professional clients, this challenge is much more significant. In order to help non-professional clients in CSO housing projects, TCO-based decision support tools are needed. This paper investigates in what stages of the CSO process information on TCO could support the decision that need to be made by the group of clients. The functional requirements of two different decision support tools, based on TCO calculations of design alternatives for energy-efficient CSO housing, are established. This paper refers to the on-going EU research project PROFICIENT under the Energy-efficient Building (EeB) programme.

In view of the present situation that Construction Project Management curriculum emphasizes on theoretical teaching and lack practice teaching, A Teaching Practice Model integrated BIM technology with Sand Table Simulation is designed. The purpose of using the BIM technology is to exercise the operational skills of the students for understanding BIM software and make them master more deeply the dynamic construction process of construction products. By means of using the Sand Table Simulation, students can not only experience personally the whole process of Construction Project Management, but also feel all kinds of responsibilities and tasks as a Project Manager. Through the application of the model not only the students' on-site practice teaching is replaced, but also more important is to stimulate students' interest in learning and to cultivate the students' creativity and initiative.

Taking a perspective from a whole building lifecycle, occupier's actions could account for about 50% of energy. However occupants' activities influence building energy performance is still a blind area. Building energy performance is thought to be the result of a combination of building fabrics, building services and occupants' activities, along with their interactions. In this sense, energy consumption in built environment is regarded as a socio-technical system. In order to understand how such a system works, a range of physical, technical and social information is involved that needs to be integrated and aligned. This paper has proposed a semiotic framework to add value for Building Information Modelling, incorporating energy-related occupancy factors in a context of office buildings. Further, building information has been addressed semantically to describe a building space from the facility management perspective. Finally, the framework guides to set up building information representation system, which can help facility managers to manage buildings efficiently by improving their understanding on how office buildings are operated and used.

Collaboration between industry and universities seems to have become increasingly important for industrialized countries. To realize the maximized profits through such collaboration, it is important to have a fruitful and healthy collaboration. SandT achievements collaboration platform in Wenzhou (China) is a new-fashioned form. This paper analyzes the collaboration relationship and explores the influence of collaboration on small- and medium-sized private enterprises (SMEs). Following a survey of 523 private SMEs and 61 universities, the results indicate that private SMEs can improve economic performance through the collaborations with universities on the platform. Furthermore, the economic performance of private SMEs is positively related with collaborated projects, (i.e. the more collaboration, the better economic performance). The results also reveal that SMEs choose different collaboration models on platform, which will produce different effect on economic performances of enterprises.

Although it has been evolving for centuries and researchers have dedicated themselves to seeking innovative solutions for decades, the construction industry still faces diverse challenges in making effective decisions to promote faster, safer, cheaper and more accurate construction processes. However, nowadays it is widely believed that the emergence of Building Information Modeling (BIM) can lead to greater efficiency through incremental collaboration. The data in BIM models is very useful and can be analyzed to optimize the design, planning and construction processes. However, since BIM increases the project design cost and requires a steep learning curve, owners, designers, and contractors are concerned about the cost of projects. The increased cost may limit the use of BIM in construction projects. This study used a case study to depict how the use of BIM techniques can help reduce project costs and optimize project schedules, benefiting all the stakeholders of a construction project. The analysis of project cost and time control is on a full project life cycle cost instead of just construction cost. The research concludes with recommendations for the future use of BIM as a project control tool.

Digitalization is the next trend of development in the construction industry, with increasingly more information being digital in nature. Addressing this development within our industry is Building Information Modelling (BIM). The currency of inter-dependent cooperation within BIM and the construction industry is information. However, cost estimators still have little knowledge about how to leverage information within semantic rich information models, e.g. IFC. This paper introduces a new philosophic stance for cost estimation to address the development of model-based cost estimation. It addresses the importance of contextual information and the needs of extension of pricing information according to the general process of cost estimation by using the IFC standard. Information requirement, as specified in IFC for cost estimation, is established and instances of IFC relationship have been identified. The knowledge of cost estimation is demonstrated and discussed. Initial analysis of the IFC schema has been completed, including analysis classification & inheritance structure. It can be concluded that the IFC standard has the capacity fully facilitate the cost estimation within an ideal environment, and the direction of automating cost estimation for BIM has been pointed out.

The building industry in Denmark is accused of moving towards a conflict culture. The aim of this survey is, therefore, to investigate how the parties in the building industry experience this. The study answers the following two questions: Can unfavorable communications in a building project team lead to disagreements and conflicts between the parties? Is the building sector marked by mistrust? The study is based on a questionnaire survey for the most common trade groups in the Danish construction industry, where 167 respondents completed the survey. The investigation shows that the degree of misunderstanding and conflicts depends on the way of communicating, and the degree of trust between the parties in a building project team depends on how familiar the parties are with each other. The results indicate that the building industry has to seek new ways of working together to obtain a better communication and more trust to each other.

The Clouds Computing Assisted Instruction (CCAI) is the cloud computing technologythat schools and teachers use to provide the cloud services (the education) and build personalized teaching and learning environment. How the civil engineering limited CAD experiment resources meet the growing demand for experimental teaching is the critical problem at present. In this paper, the author proposes that a CAD experimental platform based on cloud computing is an effective way to solve this problem. And the author sets forth the whole framework of the platform, the main function modules and specific subordinate of Hadoop.

This paper elaborates on the background and the core ideas of the Partnering model. A questionnaire and some interviews were carried out for gaining the conditions of actual relationships between the general contractors and other parties. It investigates the problems during the work progress management and analyses the foundation to implement the Partnering model in China, which includes the advantage of the Chinese culture, the long-term and stable cooperative relations, etc. In order to carry out the Partnering model, this paper raises the corresponding measures and the suggestions.

In the evaluation of the Architecture, Engineering and Construction (AEC)) projects information management model, the paper used two rounds of the Delphi method to construct an evaluation index system of the model, used the questionnaire survey and expert interview to collect data needed for evaluation, and used SPSS and AMOS software for reliability and validity analysis, structural equation model analysis and correlation and regression analysis, etc. According to these analyses, evaluation results of related indicators of AEC projects information management model are discussed deeply. The research provides solutions and suggestions for improvement of AEC projects information management model, and further research on Smart Construction Theory.

With all the advances in professionalism, methods, technology, and human resource training, we should have seen an increase in productivity. However, this has not happened and the construction industry is losing the battle to be competitive and has instead become a high-cost, low-productivity sector. By applying the theory that insufficient cooperation is the result of low trust, the aim was to investigate how conditions for formation of positive and lasting trustful relationships can be created. A questionnaire survey including clients, contractors, architects, engineers and client design advisor was carried out. The analysis showed that the ability to be trustful can be developed through the experience of different factors (e.g. control mechanisms, mutual respect, repeated cooperation, shared understanding and communication). Furthermore, the ability to trust other parties depends on knowledge of others' skillsets. Interdisciplinary collaboration through education would limit the formation of negative stereotypes, and the overall trust level increases due to more and better knowledge of other disciplines.

Complex creativity is an important source of contemporary corporate innovation; whether to generate high-level and high-quality ideas is an important guarantee to maintain the competitiveness of the corporation. The architectural design creativity is very important in the architectural design process and also is the most creative working process. With the support of computers and the help of information technology, complex creativity support system (CCSS) is a human-computer interaction system that can develop creative strains into high-level complex creativity which can be implemented, and also can help creative teams to complete complex creative tasks. Based on the achievements of the domestic and foreign scholars, the paper makes an introduction of the concept and rationale of CCSS according to the formation and development of creativity and its characteristics, and puts forward the theory and methods for constructing CCSS. These facilitate the improvement of creative level of architecture and the fulfillment of the system in the future.

The Chinese government has spent a large amount of money to meet the huge demand for houses and infrastructures in the rapid urbanization process. These public-funded projects face more challenges due to a lack of sophistication in the project management process. Thus, the Chinese State Council issued a regulation in 2004 requiring public projects to use the Agent Construction Method (ACM). In this method, the public sector should employ a specialized management firm to help manage the project and secure time, quality, and cost. However, how project participants share risk and solve disputes is still unclear in the ACM. This paper establishes a framework of dispute resolution based on the risk factors. To determine the risk factors of public projects, a questionnaire was designed and conducted among management staff in different types of organizations such as public sectors, management firms, and facility users. Sixty-four effective questionnaires were collected. After the statistical analysis, 32 risk factors were identified and classified into 5 groups as: undertaken by public sector; primarily undertaken by public sector; shared; primarily undertaken by management firms; and undertaken by management firms. The related disputed resolution process was also illustrated.

This paper selects 68 real estate listed companies of 2008 in Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets as research samples. A system was created to analyze and predict China's real estate listed companies' financial risk using factor analysis. On the basis of the system, we establish the Logistic financial risk early warning model, and finally test the predictive ability of the model with the sample data of 2011. The results show that the comprehensive early warning indicators can basically reflect the actual situation of listed companies.

International construction involves uncertainties similar to domestic construction projects, as well as risks specific to the host country. International contractors usually establish partnerships with a local firm in order to reduce risks and obtain knowledge of current local business practices and general knowledge of the local economy, politics and customs since they are unfamiliar with these institutional environments. Selecting an appropriate partner and considering the political, economic and socio-economic environment of a foreign country is essential for the formation and operation of a successful venture. Industry-related factors and project- related factors are the common risk factors that affect both domestic and international construction projects. In this respect, host country-related factors, industry-related factors and project-related factors are considered as the main parameters of the partner selection process for international construction joint ventures (ICJVs), and the criteria of these factors are determined through literature review. The aim of this study is to assess the priorities of the determined risk factors in partner selection for ICJVs. Analytical network process (ANP) is selected as the most appropriate tool for this study as it allows interdependencies between components of a problem. A two-phase survey was conducted. Within the context of this study, the priorities and the weights of the determined risk factors are revealed. As a result, political stability, socio-economic stability, force majeure, inflation, government policy to construction sector and the strength of the legal system are found to be most important determinants of the partner selection process. The paper is relevant to both industry practitioners and researchers. Industry practitioners may assume the weighted criteria for partner selection or apply ANP approach to determine the priorities of their own set of selection criteria. It is also possible to add or remove a risk criterion according to the conditions of the specified country.

Real estate enterprises are capital-intensive. Capital gives a great impetus to the development of real estate enterprises. Under the current macro-control policies, however, the financing channels of real estate enterprises are getting narrower and narrower. It is becoming more and more difficult to finance, which leads to rising risk. The paper measures financing risk of real estate enterprises through the quantity model of financing risk that obeys normal distribution. It concludes that the real estate financing risk has increased by a large margin with frequent introduction of macro-control policies these years. Financing risk is the main one in real estate enterprises, which means macro-control policies can strongly affect real-estate financing risk. On the basis of the researches about financing risk, this paper puts forward relevant policy suggestions to prevent financing risk and promote stable and healthy development of real estate industry.

Aiming to help Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects improve their performance, an approach to evaluate Residual Value Risk (RVR) for Public-Private Partnership (PPP) projects was developed. When a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) project is transferred to the government, there emerges the question about the identification of value of the project, which is closely related to the Residual Value Risk (RVR). The methods of case-based reasoning (CBR), and a case-based residual value risk reasoning system of PPP projects (RVR-CBR System) is built with the help of my CBR3.0 workbench. This approach is mostly based on historical PPP experiences and knowledge. The findings can provide new methods and perspectives for research on residual value risk of PPP projects, and has practical significance for PPP's application in infrastructure.

A method based on Attribute Hierarchy Model (AHM) and dynamic fuzzy comprehensive evaluation is put forward aimed at the fact that factors influencing metro project financing risk have characteristics such as complexity, diversity and a quite subjective and partial evaluation process, in which case a new idea integrating the attribute hierarchy model and dynamic fuzzy evaluation model is brought out. This paper uses the AHM method to classify a variety of ingredients in the financing risk, establishes an index system of financing risk, determines the weight of each factor, then develops a fuzzy comprehensive evaluation model on metro financing risk on the basis of fuzzy mathematics theory. This model demonstrates a combination of the qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis. It proceeds to apply this empirical research to a case study to testify that this model is scientific and feasible.

Contractor's risk management capability (RMC) has a great influence on the risk level of construction projects. This paper aims to develop a model to evaluate contractor's RMC in metro projects. This study proposes contractor's RMC should be evaluated according to objective passive and subjective initiative RMC evaluation. The contractor's RMC coefficient is also related to both objective passive and subjective initiative coefficients. Objective passive RMC evaluation is to evaluate contractor's objective comprehensive strength to resist risk. The evaluation indices in metro projects are identified through a comprehensive literature review and the weightings for each of the critical index are determined through the Delphi questionnaire survey. A fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (AHP) is then established to assess contractor's objective passive RMC in metro projects. Subjective initiative coefficient reflects contractor's subjective willingness to control risk, and it is measured by confidence surveys evaluation method. Finally, contractor's RMC evaluation model in metro projects is built.

Value Management (VM) studies often encounter a problem that key stakeholders of a construction project are geographically dispersed and it is difficult to assemble them in a specific location on appointed time to conduct such VM studies. Therefore, virtual VM workshop is proposed to enable online participation of project stakeholders. This paper presented major risks in conducting virtual VM workshop for construction projects. In order to identify these risks, the critical success factors (CSFs) were identified first. A literature review, an experimental study and a follow-up questionnaire survey were conducted to identify the CSFs and the problems. Meanwhile, a Virtual VM System (VVMS) has been developed in this research to support the implementation of VM workshops. Finally, 7 major risks of virtual VM workshops are identified, and how to measure these risks in virtual VM studies is also discussed.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials' (AASHTO) publication titled, "A Policy on Geometric Design of Highways and Streets" (Green Book), provides guidance to the designer by referencing a recommended range of values for critical dimensions for the design of highway facilities. For various reasons, it may be necessary to design a section of highway with substandard values for some elements. Such design exceptions require appropriate assessment and justification of the potential impacts to highway safety and operations. As most design exceptions involve highway geometric dimensions that do not meet the requirements of the design standards, it is essential to understand the safety implications of these geometric dimension shortfalls. This paper presents the results of evaluating the effects of geometric elements in design exceptions on highway safety with the methods provided in the Highway Safety Manual. The safety effects are assessed in terms of expected crash rates of individual substandard elements as well as the combined substandard elements.

The construction stage of a building construction project consumes large amounts of resources and energy, which is more serious than other stages in environmental pollution. In order to control environmental pollution in the construction stage, the article establishes an index system of environmental risk factors in the construction stage and puts forward the environmental risk assessment model based on the grey system theory. Finally, it proves validity of the model through empirical analysis.

Risk management is significant for successful construction project management. Effective risk assessment can improve construction enterprises' competitiveness and profitability to a great extent. The information of previous projects is a very precious resource for construction project risk management. In order to facilitate project participants to query required information among numerous project documents efficiently, this paper introduces ontology as the modeling approach for information exchange and researches on semantic retrieval based on this ontology. After studying how to construct risk domain ontology using the seven-footwork modeling method first, this paper then researches on projects' document processing and querying sentences' expansion. Finally, this paper designs a semantic retrieval system framework based on construction project risk domain ontology and makes the ontology's conceptual knowledge and the documents' contents related, which can improve the information's semantic expression ability and realize the intellectualization of project risk management.

The real estate industry has a high investment, high-risk, long life cycle, high-yield characteristics, through the invasion of the financial crisis facing the industry adjustment, financial risk has become a lot of real estate company survival and development of the urgent need to address the real problem. Characteristics and genesis of the financial risk of the real estate companies, financial risk assessment system was built for the industry characteristics, the causes of the financial risk for the real estate industry targeted preventive measures.

The rapid and continuous transformation as an outcome of the information economy has also brought along major innovations for construction companies and it has rapidly changed the industrial structure, environment and modes of operation of the construction business, which dates back to old times. Changing environmental conditions have also led to a highly comprehensive transformation process for the strategies of the companies which assume roles at different levels of the construction process (Haan et al. 2010). Under these new and competitive market conditions, construction companies are expected to have pre-designed and planned growth and financial strategies. Taking into consideration multiple aspects of the strategies in interaction will ensure choosing effective strategies. In this context, this study aims to identify the effects of two factors - growth and competitive strategies- on a set of financial strategies. A questionnaire survey was conducted to gather data from construction professionals, who were asked to rate the importance level of predicted financial strategies on predicted competitive and growth strategy combinations. Multiple analysis of variance (MANOVA) was employed to see the main and interactive effects of competitive and growth strategies on major financial strategies. MANOVA allows us to see the combination of which competitive and growth strategy types would make the biggest difference for financial strategy. The results indicate that competitive strategies such as cost leadership and differentiation have a greater effect on financial strategies than growth strategies such as penetrating into a new market or new project types. However, the joint interaction effect of competitive and growth strategies have been found to be much influential than the effect of competitive strategies alone.

University research teams are the typical entities of knowledge creation, in which knowledge sharing activities are crucial for promoting the team abilities of knowledge utilization and knowledge creation. This paper attempts to explore the relationship between the factors of leadership trait, style and support behavior and knowledge sharing of team members. In addition, research teams are in the organizational environment of colleges, which are influenced by organizational support, such as policies and measures drafted by colleges. We also introduce a variable of organizational support to analyze its role in the relationship between team leaders and knowledge sharing of team members. We carry out an empirical study by questionnaires in 9 universities in China. The results show that different factors of leadership traits, different leadership style and different leadership support behavior have important and complex impacts on the knowledge sharing of team members. Meanwhile, the level of organizational support can moderate the effects mentioned above.

This paper proposes to adopt data envelopment analysis (DEA) based on Malmquist total factor productivity (TFP) indices methods to evaluate the effect of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) on acquirers in short-term and long-term windows. Based on analysis of 32 M&A deals conducted by Chinese real estate firms from 2000-2011, the study results demonstrate that the effect of M&A on developers' performance is positive. Through M&A, the developers' Malmquist TFP experienced a steady growth; their technology had noticeable progress immediately after acquisition; and their technical efficiency suffered a slight decrease in the short-term after acquisition, but then achieved a marked increase in the long-term with realization of integration and synergy. However, there is no evidence that the real estate firms have achieved scale efficiency improvement after M&A in either short-term or long-term.

The market competition in 21st century is the competition of the supply chain, and the reasonable choice of supplier is the key to improving the overall competitiveness of the supply chain. Currently, theorists have had some research on supplier selection, but there are still some deficiencies, especially that the evaluation index system is not comprehensive and quantitative evaluation methods are not practical. So, based on the relevant research and investigation, the author constructs a more comprehensive indicator system of supplier choice and builds the supplier selection model applying Preference Ranking Organization Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) with Weight Given by Entropy. This study will be helpful to enrich the supplier quantitative selection theory of supplier chain, and also has some practical value.

Based on the purpose of researching the influence of the dividend policy on the value of the real estate company, this paper analyses the dividend policy and its features, taking our country as an example. It selected 132 real estate companies in China as a sample using the statistical analysis and the least square method positive analysis with the dividend distribution and enterprise value data of financial statement of the companies from 2007 to 2010 to get the conclusion below. Firstly, the enterprise value of the listed companies has positive correlation with whether they pay dividends or not. Secondly, a cash dividend has more significant effect on the enterprise value compared to a stock dividend. Thirdly, the mixed dividend policy impacts the enterprise value more remarkably than a single one. Meanwhile, the paper puts forward some policy suggestions about the distribution of dividend to increase the enterprise value.

Monetary Policy is the main tool of the national macro-control. This paper combines the time-lag of Monetary Policy in real estate-listed companies to divide the time of different Monetary Policy, selects 51 real estate listing companies' data in Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchange as the sample, and then targets the difference Monetary Policy to study on the correlation between capital structure and firm value with factor regression and linear regression. The empirical results showed: (1)Capital structure and firm value showed a negative correlation; and (2) The degree of relevance between capital structure and firm value under tightened Monetary Policy is stronger than under loose Monetary Policy.

Real estate belongs to capital-intensive industry. Some small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have weak financing abilities because they have difficulty accessing capital due to various reasons. This paper focuses on finding factors affecting SME financing abilities and analyzes reasons for SMEs' financing difficulties. Based on related financing theories and domestic and foreign research, this paper uses linear regression model to find out these factors. This paper selects real estate enterprises listed on the small- and medium-sized plate in China as a study sample and observes their financing strategies for the last decade. This study explains how these factors influence real estate SME financing abilities and their choices of financing strategies. It helps improve financing abilities of real estate SMEs to compete with well-funded large enterprises. It has positive significance on financing management of real estate SMEs.

Due to the separation of the ownership and management for the corporation, shareholders need to supervise and constrain the management level through certain mechanisms. Corporate performance is the most significant sign to evaluate an executive's ability. If the performance is unsatisfactory, shareholders will clamor to replace the incompetent executive. Numerous executives' replacement phenomenon appears in the listed companies. We need to study deeply how the reason, frequency and number of the executive replacement will affect the corporate performance. This paper makes use of the data from real estate listed companies in China (years 2006 to 2011), stating the frequency and number of the executives replaced and corporate performance, using Empirical Analysis Methods to study the intrinsically linked among executives replacement, corporate performance and board characteristics. The results show that ROA and LOSS have significant negative correlations with executives replacement; LnBs, Ind and LSP have significant positive correlations with executives replacement; ROE has no significant correlation with executives replacement. Finally, according to the conclusions put forward, a feasible suggestion to the executives replacement for the real estate listed company.

Internal control disclosure (ICD) becomes more and more important for Chinese enterprises, especially for real estate enterprises. Previous literature is lacking for empirical research for the ICD - enterprise value relationship. This paper divided the internal control disclosure level into three dimensions, including: perfection, transparency and quality. In addition, we formulated a composite evaluation index system for internal control disclosure perfection. Using 150 samples from real estate industry in 2010 and 2011, this paper empirically validated the relationship between internal control disclosure level and enterprise value. Also, we take corporate governance control variables into consideration. The result indicated a positive relationship between internal control disclosure level and firm value. We finished by providing advice for the development of the real estate industry based on internal control disclosure policy.

Since the reform and opening up, the economy of China has had sustained and rapid development. As a new industry, the real estate enterprise maintained good growth trend in the process of development in the past. But, as the real estate prices continuously rise and incomes of ordinary people slowly increase, the contradiction between the slow growth and fast rising becomes deeper and deeper. Macroeconomic policies to rein in overheating growth of house prices increasingly strengthen. Real estate enterprises face both opportunities and challenges. It is important to keep the income stability. Earnings stability is affected by many factors, among them, the allocation of resources plays a very important role. According to the data of real estate companies listed in recent years, this paper attempts to analyze the relationship between assets structure and the stability of earnings. To study the law and explore its causes, this paper discusses how to optimize the asset structure.

Actual tax burden is an important factor that affects construction enterprises' performance. To control construction enterprises' tax burden and maintain it at a reasonable level is very important to the development of enterprises. There are many influencing factors that affect enterprises' tax burden. To lower construction enterprises' tax burden, make enterprises keep reasonable profit space, and promote the development of construction enterprises, we must find these factors and then analyse these factors first. This paper selects construction industry listed company from year 2008 to year 2011 in China as samples. The paper adopts descriptive statistical analysis and multiple regression method to establish a multiple regression model to do empirical research. It then finds those influencing factors that affect construction enterprises' tax burden,"how"each factor affects construction enterprises' tax burden, and "how much" each factor affects. Lastly, the paper comes up with countermeasures and recommendations to reduce construction enterprises' actual tax burden and improve economic efficiency of construction enterprises based on the result of empirical study.

On the basis of the current comprehensive evaluation system and method both in domestic and abroad, this paper established an evaluation system, which contained value at risk (VaR), market occupancy and 12 financial indexes, to evaluate the comprehensive performance of Chinese listed real estate companies. First, the eviews 6.0 is used to calculate the value at risk of 50 sample companies. Then, SPSS is used to conduct the factor analysis and 5 factors are extracted among 14 indexes. At last, a rank of each factor and comprehensive score are showed and some comments are made according to the result.

The relationship between soundness and listed real estate company is explained. Related domestic and abroad literature is reviewed and model of gains & stock returns relationship is analyzed. Data in 2008-2011 of listed real estate companies is divided into two groups and used to do empirical research. The result shows that the use of soundness in listed real estate companies is not very significant. Besides, the causes are explained and advice is proposed.

Earnings management refers to the earnings manipulation from management within the range allowed by the Accounting Standards and the Companies Act, or through the restructuring of business activities or transactions. Earnings management of listed enterprises is the problem which stakeholders pay great attention to. Mismanagement and excessive earnings management not only affect the investment behavior of investors, but also hinder the healthy development of China's securities market. As there is a large number of listed companies in China, earnings management studies have included a wide range of industries, but rarely involved in the construction enterprises. This paper chose listed construction enterprises in China from 2007 to 2011 as the study sample, using modified JONES models, and selecting relevant variables to construct a multiple regression model. The empirical study carried out on the samples proves the existence and universality of earnings management. Finally, combining with the current actual situation in our country, the paper put forward policy suggestions from several aspects in order to reach the purpose of constraint management, and excessive earnings management behavior.

Real estate business performance directly determines the development of this industry, so discussion on this problem has attracted an increasing amount of attention. This paper measures performance of the listed real estate companies by selecting 52 listed companies as the research sample. Firstly, select twelve main financial indicators which can show the solvency ability, operation ability, profitability and growth ability from 2011 Annual Financial Statements. Then, with the help of SPSS statistical software, use the factor analysis method to conduct the empirical analysis. Empirical results show that the first four factors' accumulation contribution rate reached 82.487%, so choose and name them for profit development factor, operating factor, paying debt factor and profitability factor, respectively. Based on the calculation results, we can get these 52 companies' scores and rankings. The results are consistent with the current situation. That means the performance evaluation system which this study designed is quite desirable. It can truly reflect the performance level of the real estate listed companies in China.

This paper, based on the analysis of influencing factors of demand for real estate, forecasts and analyzes Xi'an real estate demand and carries on empirical studies. In this paper, we use the SPSS software to implement correlation analyses for various factors and build demand forecasting models with the multiple regression function for selected independent variables by regression analysis. Besides, we forecast independent variables by using the unary linear regression method. Finally, we reach the conclusion that Xi'an demands for real estate will be rising in the next four years.

With the rapid development of China's economy and the continuous expansion of the scale of commercial housing, the price of commercial housing has been undergoing a greater fluctuation, which has significantly affected economic and social development. Not only is the price fluctuation of commercial housing directly related to the development of the real estate relevant industries, but it also influences the local and foreign workers' desires for settling in the city and their cost of living, which is not conducive to the sustainable development of the local economy. Therefore, studying the factors affecting the price fluctuation of commercial housing has important theoretical and realistic significance. To analyze the various factors affecting the price of commercial housing, this paper starts from the running of the commercial housing market: production, circulation and consumption. Using the method of grey relational analysis, this paper takes Harbin for example, and selects the price of commercial housing-related factors in Harbin from 2000 to 2010. The results show that the main factors affecting the price of commercial housing in Harbin are GDP, the per capita savings deposits, the per capita disposable income of urban and rural residents, cost of construction and installation, investment in real estate development, and so on. Finally, in view of the above factors, some appropriate suggestions for the healthy development of commercial housing market in Harbin are put forward.

Based on study of the sentiment index of consumers, the questionnaires of the potential demand in Dalian residential market were designed in order to quantify the consumers' confidence in purchasing houses and to predict the trend of real estate market. The surveys were both conducted in Fall Real Estate Trade Fair in 2011 and Spring Real Estate Trade Fair in 2012. The calculating method of the consumers' confidence index is established through verifying the credibility and validity of the questionnaires. The research shows that there is no heavy potential demand in the Dalian residential market, and most prospective consumers keep a "wait and see" attitude towards the market. The results also indicate that the cautious policies of investment and the macro-control of the rapid rising house price should be put into practice by the government and the house developing businessmen.

Along with monetization reform of real estate of China, real estate prices have been rising since 1998. How the fundamentals influence the price of real estate has become the focus of academic circles and industry. This paper first identifies the linkages among real estate price, RMB exchange rate, money supply, interest rate and GDP using the monthly data from December 2005 to August 2012 with co-integration and Grainger test, and further establish the state space model in terms of the variables determined to investigate relationships not only the long-run equilibrium but changing with time among variables. The result shows variables above except interest rate have significant impacts on real estate price.

The dividend policy characteristics of China's real estate industry are introduced over the last decade, through analysis of data on the Shanghai & Shenzhen A-share listed real estate companies from 2001 to 2011. The reasons, which produce these characteristics, are analyzed from three points including the industry, national macro policies and ownership structure. Studies show that there are three characteristics in the China real estate industry: existence of many undistributed dividend companies in the past years, cash dividend mainly used for the form of dividend payment, and continuously declining dividend payout ratio. The dividend policy is extremely unstable and relatively discontinuous in the intra-industry. On the basis of research, relevant countermeasures and suggestions are put forward from the perspectives of the regulators, listed real estate companies and investors.

Due to the tax exemption policy in China, the holding cost of real estate is low, which leads to the imbalance between housing supply and demand. Therefore, the old tax system does not adapt to real estate development anymore. Combined with the soaring housing price, the tight local budget, and the large income gap in China, the reform pilots of property tax in Shanghai, Chongqing came into being in this situation. With summarizing the current research status of the domestic and foreign property tax, this paper does contrastive analysis on the effect of property tax implemented in Shanghai, Chongqing based on the basic theory of property tax, and evaluates the obstacles to reform property tax system in China. Therefore, when implementing property tax reform, we should balance the relationships of the related stockholders in real estate market well, establish a unified tax system, make appropriate and favorable policy and popularize the advantages of property tax. These tips proposed in the paper will also contribute to implementing property tax in other cities of China.

In recent years, the real estate industry has played a more and more important role in the national economy along with its continuous development and grandness. Thus, the real estate industry has gradually become one basic and backbone industry of our national economy. However, it can easily induce speculation and market foam in the real estate trade. Therefore, it needs the government who can intervene and regulate the real estate market, using appropriate and long-term economic means. Of course, all must act on the premise that the government has fully played the role of market mechanism. The means of tax policy is undoubtedly the most direct and effective control measure. This paper has researched the determinants which can influence the effective tax rate of the real estate enterprises, based on comprehensive research in the related tax burden theory and the current situation of the development of real estate industry in China. At last, this paper puts forward some relevant countermeasures and suggestions, according to the empirical results from the aspects of real estate listed company.

Strengthening the monitoring of the housing market could avoid investment risks and prevent economic bubbles in China. Based on a series of new regulation policies issued by the State Council, prosperity index and econometric analysis were adopted in this paper the housing market monitoring systems with reference to foreign and domestic relevant theories. This study proposed a new approach of housing monitoring index system, which included housing investment amount, new land developed size, housing completely constructed size, housing sales size, land developed size and so on. This paper established weights of indicators in the index system based on their economic significance and correlations to analyze new trend in housing market development to ensure a stable real estate market.

As for multi-stage investment decision-making in real estate investment projects, the traditional NPV method can not exactly evaluate flexible value of management. With the introduction of the real option theory, in consideration of both uncertain factors and competitive factors, this paper created real option game model of real estate investment decision, proposed the option game model and analysis method under continuous time. This provide as guidance to most strategic analysis of real estate investment. A basic model and investment rule of option game under duopoly and uncertain factors are also put forward.

In order to study the different factors that influence Beijing's and Harbin's commercial housing prices, firstly we use statistical analyses to compare the changes on the prices of two cities in 2000-2009. Then, according to the principles of data representativeness, availability and reliability, we chose seven variables of the population, the income, the land prices, the completion area, sales area, GDP, the lending rates as explanatory variables and establish respective fitting equations with the housing prices based on the stepwise regression model. The result is that the most significant variables on Beijing's housing prices are land prices and population. Meanwhile, the GDP, the lending rates and sales area affect Harbin's significantly. On this basis, we introduce the dummy variable of national macro-control policy and find it has a positive correlation with Harbin's housing prices, but it has no significant effects on Beijing's. Then we analyze the reasons that lead to the situation. Finally, some corresponding suggestions are proposed to help stabilize the housing prices of two cities.

Taking Shenzhen City as an example, this paper built the commercial residence price system dynamics models, confirmed the changing trends of the main factors such as the commodity residence price, the per capita disposable income, the housing development investments and GDP by the simulation, analyzed the influence degree and time sequence of the main factors influencing commodity residence price in a long term and in a short term. So that the macro-economic control means for controlling commercial residence prices can be determined by the government at different periods. And it will also provide the corresponding determining basis for consumers and real estate developers when buy and invest. The results show that, in a long term only, the growth rate of the commodity residence price is generally lower than that of the per capita disposable income, the housing development investments and GDP growth rate; the annual average growth rate of the commodity residence price is the closest to that of the per capita disposable income.

The real estate industry has become a pillar industry of China's national economy and it is closely related to economic development. Firstly, the paper studies the influencing factors of the development of China's real estate market by principal component analysis and two principal components are extracted. Secondly, the paper studies linear relationship between the price of the real estate market and the principal component by regression analysis and makes appropriate explanations for the results. Thirdly, the paper gets the conclusion that gross domestic product (GDP), real estate development investment, completion area of the residential real estate, urban population, the money supply, residential sales area of real estate and the price of real estate are positively correlated while the exchange and the price of real estate is negatively correlated. Finally, the paper put forward some suggestions which will good for the healthy development of China's real estate.

Based on 596 high-rise residential buildings in Guangzhou, the influencing factors of housing price were measured by spatial autoregressive model. The spatial distribution map was drawn by Kriging, and its disciplines were summarized. We found that: Location, neighborhood and structure features on contribution to unit price were 9.79%, 29.22% and 60.99% respectively in a standard housing of Guangzhou. The urban core area of Guangzhou was surrounded by the contour line of 20000 Yuan/m², and its shape looked like a sea turtle. The area whose contour line was 15000 Yuan/m² covered the urban build-up area of Guangzhou, and its shape looked like a piece of Pizza.

In the past decade, the housing prices of some major cities have been rising rapidly. To suppress rising prices, the pilot reforms of individual estate tax have been launched in Chongqing and Shanghai since 2011. This paper analyzes the effect of individual estate tax in the housing market. First, Shanghai and Chongqing's reform policies are compared and get differences. Next, according to the supply-demand theory and empirical research, we study the effect of individual estate tax on demand and price. The conclusions are that individual estate tax has limited effect on the demand of house. The effect of the price is not as obvious as predicted before, but the rapid rising housing prices are under control. Finally, the paper proposes some policy suggestions to accelerate the spread of individual estate tax in China.

In recent years, the "failure" of China's monetary policy on controlling the real estate market has raised a problem: Can the real estate market be effectively controlled by the monetary policy? This paper analyzed the mechanism of monetary policy on the real estate prices by the VAR model. The results indicated that the monetary policy will affect real estate prices through interest rates, bank credit and monetary supply. The paper also showed that there're long-term relationships between monetary policy and monetary supply as well as monetary policy and the real estate prices by making Granger test and impulse responses. Based on the fact that monetary policy can control the real estate prices, the paper puts forward to corresponding policies.

In the market of the green marketing in the real estate, because of the asymmetric information between real estate developers and consumers that leads to adverse selection, it is very important to solve it. The paper firstly analyzed there are real estate developers of low quality in the market, and then, according to the characteristics of the green marketing in the real estate, signal model is applied to the market of the green marketing in the real estate in order to relieve or eliminate the negative impact of the adverse selection problem in the market of the green marketing in the real estate. As a result this paper will put forward some suggestions to make the high quality of the real estate developers get more profits, not be squeezed by low quality of the real estate developers.

Real estate is a pillar industry of the national economy, and it plays an important role in the national economy. Commercial housing price is the most direct and the most scientific reflection of the real estate market conditions. Therefore, a scientific forecast of the price of commercial housing is very necessary. The irregular fluctuation of change in housing price makes it difficult to forecast, so this paper uses gray system prediction model to predict the price index of a certain period in the future. The results show that housing price continued to increase from 2004 to 2012, but the rise has signs of slowing down because of the implementation of national regulatory policy. The results of model prediction can give a true picture of housing price changing trend, which indicates that the gray forecasting model can effectively ensure the accuracy and effectiveness.

There is much research focused on the spillover effect of housing price fluctuations. This paper points out that there are three main kinds of research methods. One is to test the cointegration relation between house prices; the second is to test the stability of the ratio between local house prices and national average house price; and the third way is to construct a Global VAR model to analyze the lagged effects of one district's housing price fluctuation on the others'. The defects of the former research are figured, and an econometric research in this field will be helpful to make a right decision on real estate macro-controlling policy.

Tenure choice is the vital households' decisions of great importance not only for the households but also for the country in which they resides. There is extensive literature on tenure choice and access to home-ownership coming from scholars of different areas. According to their study, we summarize the factors influencing the households' transition to home-ownership. The householder's age, gender, marital status, educational background, wealth, income, parental socio-economic characteristics, as well as the household's life cycle stage and life course events all can influence the process at the micro-level. The economic environment and local housing market circumstance such as inflation rate, housing price, average rental cost, new construction, etc. as well as relevant policies and systems like loan policies and tax system can influence the transition at macro-level.

In Nigeria, admittance to mortgage loans has been one way by which citizens access good quality housing. To facilitate this, the Federal Government introduced a National Housing policy in which the sources of finance for housing were enunciated. A two-tier financing approach was adopted, with the Federal Mortgage Bank (FMB) serving as apex bank. Primary Mortgage Institutions (PMIs) draw from the apex bank while individuals source loans for housing from the PMIs. Only public sector employees who contribute to the National Housing Fund (NHF) could access loans for their housing. This paper evaluates the factors responsible for poor access to loans for housing by the citizens in Nigeria. A survey of selected states was undertaken through stratified purposive sampling, check-list was administered for responses by officials of the Federal Mortgage Bank and Mortgagors. The only hypothesis of the study assumes no significant difference between respondents' views on factors impeding access to mortgage by majority of the citizens in Nigeria. Chi-square was used for the analysis. Thirty impediments were found to be responsible for poor access to the said loans during the period under review (1992-2012) in the States studied. Eighteen impediments were traced to low-income earners, four to the mortgage institution, and eight to the Federal and State governments of Nigeria. The results have exposed the inability of current lending plan to meet the housing needs of low-income earners who constitute the majority in Nigeria. It is recommended that the mortgage system be restructured and given wider powers for better performance.

There is a fundamental link between theory and measurement advising that confirmation of measures should be the first stage of theory testing. The aim of this paper was to confirm the factorial validity of the neighbourhood features for use in a residential satisfaction study amongst South Africa low-income housing occupants'. The study was conducted amongst the occupants' of subsidized low-income in South Africa. Data used in the study was obtained from a Delphi and field questionnaire study. Primary data were collected by a face-to-face administered questionnaire survey conducted among 751 low-income housing residents' in three metropolitan and one district municipality in the Gauteng Province of South Africa. Data gathered via the questionnaire survey were analyzed using structural equation modelling (SEM) which was used to assess the factor structure of the constructs. SEM analysis revealed that the rho coefficient and the Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency were over 0.70 criterions for acceptability. Further finding was that neighbourhood features influence on the residents' satisfaction was not statistically significant and hence was weak in the prediction of the residents' satisfaction with their houses. However, due to the idiosyncratic dataset used in the study, it remains to be seen if the evaluated indicator factors of neighbourhood features can replicate to other cross-cultural datasets. If this is the case, the paper makes a significant contribution towards understanding neighbourhood features on subsidized low-income housing projects. This study provided significant insight into how residents' satisfaction with their houses could be improved.

Based on real estate data of Qingdao City from 2001 to 2011 and systems engineering theory, this paper comprehensively evaluates real estate market development of Qingdao, established an evaluation model on house prices vs. real estate market development to analyze the effect of real estate macro-control policy in China. The results show that the control effect is unfavorable. Consequently, the authors point out that we should focus on using economic means and land policy to adjust the real estate market and reduce administrative intervention; moreover, we should ensure the real estate macro-control policy stable and consistent, only in this way can the real estate market realize sustained and healthy development.

The real estate project-groups have a large scale, are highly interrelated and have complex formation. According to the characteristics above, in this paper, the author analyzed difficulties in implementation of project progress control from the perspective of real estate enterprises. This paper used space network structure model on the base of project-group management theory and synergy theory, put forward the method and process of the real estate enterprise project-group progress control. In addition, this paper proposed collaborative process and adjusting method of progress management based on project-group management office (PMO) as the core to ensure the realization of project schedule objectives.

With the growth of population, industrialization and rapid urbanization, the indemnificatory apartment has caused more and more close attention from the society and the government. The paper analyzes the indemnificatory apartment's current situation of construction in China, points out that the indemnificatory apartment plays an active role in promoting social equity and improving social efficiency. Meanwhile, there are some problems during the implementation of the indemnificatory apartment, so some suggestions on these issues are proposed.

Following the outbreak of the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis in 2007 and a worldwide financial and economic crisis triggered afterwards, major developed western countries have been suffering from a loss heavier than ever. Nevertheless, Germany was exposed to a comparatively minor impact and has recovered rather quickly, for which the reason should be that the house prices in the U.S. and major developed European countries had undergone a constant rise for up to a decade starting from the late 1990s. On the contrary, Germany had been maintaining a long-term stable tendency. This paper compares the house prices between the U.S., the Euro zone and Germany, and analyzes the relationship between their long-term interest rates and GDP growth rates, so as to reveal the impact mechanism of house price fluctuations on financial crisis, and to predict the reform direction of the Chinese housing market by synthesizing Germany's experience in this regard.

With the tremendous development of Internet and the vigorous rising of electronic commerce, real estate has embraced great opportunities. In this paper, the general situation of electronic commerce applied in real estate enterprise was firstly analyzed. Successively, the feasibility of electronic commerce applied in real estate enterprise was indicated. Moreover, the patterns of electronic commerce applied in real estate enterprise were illustrated and analyzed. Ultimately, the potential issues were pointed and amending advices were provided.

Affordable housing is the state for the realization that is important policy of residence has the room. As the security measures for housing construction continue to accelerate, and the reasonable distribution of affordable housing has become the focus of attention. From the scientific distribution of affordable housing and the use of game theory, this paper sorts out the existing process of indemnificatory housing assignment problem, puts forward the strict qualification examination, improves the allocation standard, puts forward the improvement measures to increase supervision, and strives for affordable housing allocation fairness and justice.

Construction of large public housing communities has been having a great effect on urban social space in China. On the basis of the historical data of Nanjing from 2002 to 2012, this paper analyzed the evolution of the public housing spatial structure. The current public housing communities have three characteristics that are remote, centralized and large-scale. Although the construction of public housing can effectively solve the housing problems of low-income groups, meanwhile, it increased the differentiation of urban space and residential segregation. According to the relations between residents and facilities for transportation, working, shopping and education in the public housing communities, this paper provided some approaches to facilitate the urban social space in Nanjing, such as decentralized construction, developing a multi-center city with perfect facilities, building mixed-income communities, and so on.

Solving the housing problems of urban low-income groups and households with housing difficulties is an important measure to construct a harmonious and well-off society. Meanwhile, the construction of indemnificatory housing is one of the main measures to solve the housing difficulties of low-income families. The pace of indemnificatory housing investment in China has been sped up significantly since 2008, but there still exists a big gap compared with the demand for indemnificatory housing. This article analyzes the demand for indemnificatory housing through the calculation of the housing affordability index of different income levels of the population, and points out that there is a big imbalance between supply and demand in China's indemnificatory housing. So, management system and mode of financing of indemnificatory housing should be innovated and corresponding policy proposals should be put forward.

The current real estate regulation measures have little effect, all prices frequently have a trend to rebound, the real estate market mechanisms are not straightened out, and the housing problem has become a major livelihood issue of current national attention. One important reason why China's housing problem is becoming more and more serious is the presence of alienation and misleading issues of housing development goals. Rapid urbanization aggravated the contradiction between supply and demand for urban housing. Totally depending on the market is bound to cause the housing distribution polarization and form a vicious spiral and income gap. Thus the goal of "a house to live in" cannot be achieved. Levying progressive building taxes on housing tenure according to housing area per capita can restrain the behavior of occupying too much housing. The government has the responsibility to provide basic housing security and can promote the achievement of housing goals through various channels.

Since the reform and opening-up, the social class structure significanly changed in China. The changes were classified by professional, such as the differentiation among economic resources, organization resources and cultural resources. The low-income groups in the bottom of this society mainly include residents in poverty, migrant workers, unemployed and half-unemployed people. The government-launched housing system reform in the 80s to improve living conditions. Series policies such as economically affordable housing, low-rent housing, and public rental housing are adopted. However, many issues occurred in the process of housing security implementation. The policy cannot cover all underclass and some residents cannot get housing security which makes the implementation effect of the existing system not obvious and unacceptable. So, this part of families' basic rights becomes the focus of the housing safeguard field. This paper attempts to discuss the housing security system problems from the low-income groups and to provide regulation and suggestions for the establishment of new rules.

After several rounds of regulation and the vigorous development, whether or not the regional real estate markets fall into crisis depends on the health of the markets. Starting from analyzing the health standard of the real estate market, this paper selects primarily the evaluation index of the real estate market health. Based on the statistical data of Heilongjiang Province of China in recent ten years,the primary indexes are classifiedby clustering methodology and the evaluation index system is constructed. By systematized method, the health interval of the Heilongjiang real estate market is determined from five perspectives of price, size, supply and demand, structure, and the dynamic analysis of 12 development indexes of real estate market is done.

The post-evaluation of a residential real estate project is to make investigations in previous work, project construction, and the management situation after the construction by the related organizations. The judgement can be made to find the disparity between the actual conditions and the planned goal of the project and the reason(s) for deviation. Thus, we can summarize the experience of success and failure, then make feasible countermeasure and measure to create the condition by effective information feedback in time, which can help perfect project localization, project implementation and management, and project surveillance for the future. By post-evaluation, we may reduce decision-making blindness of the project, improve the benefit of investment and, simultaneously, may also give the improvement comment for later period management of the residential real estate project. Taking the comprehensive evaluation investment of a residential real estate project for example, and by analyzing the structure index weights and structure fuzzy evaluation matrix as well as using weighted averaging model in fuzzy comprehensive evaluation, this study highlights the effective comprehensive evaluation of a residential real estate project.

Due to the issue of high-price, an obstacle of urbanization, this paper rethinks the real-estate macro-control policies, which was initiated in 2003 and has been employed ever since. Firstly, the model of Classical Factor Analysis is improved and the model of Modified Factor Analysis (MFA) is established for a comprehensive evaluation on China's real estate macro-control policies and an effective avoidance of high weightings on original variables. Then, taking data from 2003-2012 in Shanghai's real estate market, this paper boils down the market index (directly influenced by the policies) into China's comprehensive evaluation index system of real-estate macro-control policies on the basis of MFA and its practical economic significance. Factor score in each first-level index and the overall score are calculated. Finally, the evaluation is conducted in accordance with real data and respective control policies, thus strategic suggestions are as well presented on the future real-estate macro control.

Literature has established FM as one of the most thriving disciplines in the property and construction industry domain. The general submission is that it has transformed over the years from what was traditionally perceived to be mere facilities maintenance to a profession that integrates the management of an organization's buildings and infrastructure across the three levels of management, thereby creating an environment that supports the primary objectives of that organization. Previous studies have equally emphasized the importance of outsourcing as a viable strategy for improving performance through value creation in organisations. This study develops a conceptual model in an attempt to understand the attributes of outsourcing decision and their links to FM services performance. The hypothesized model employs structural equation modeling methodology to examine the direct and indirect associations between latent constructs of outsourcing decision (comprising 31 items or attributes) and their relative impact on FM services performance operationalized as quality performance QP, time performance TP, and value performance VP. Based on empirical data from Nigeria's FM industry, the result of the final structural equation model is expected to provide clear understanding of underlying relationships between outsourcing decision factors and their interactions with service-level performance in the context of FM services provision, thereby enhancing existing body of knowledge on the concepts of outsourcing and facilities management.

Establishing a reasonable evaluation system is the foundation of improving investment efficiency. This paper firstly analyses the current situation of government investment efficiency on infrastructure construction projects, then illustrates the process through different stages based on input- output theory, and gives definition of government investment efficiency at the same time. Finally, it builds up the evaluation index system from three points of view (capital efficiency, time efficiency and functional efficiency) which will hopefully improve the performance of infrastructure construction investment in China.

The equal layout of the village and town's public service facilities plays a significant role in improving resident's livelihood. Currently, the configuration of medical and educational facilities in most villages and towns has gradually improved, but the configuration of public culture and sports facilities - as an important component of public service facilities - is generally in great need. First, this paper analyzes the demands of the village and town's residents in culture and sports facilities. Second, it proposes the layout that integrates culture and sports facilities, combined with the status quo of the current limited domestic resources that can be invested in public services. Third, it uses P-median model, which belongs to location configuration models, to study the configuration of the public culture and sports facilities for different sizes of village and town. Then, it builds the configuration matrix of culture and sports facilities for different sizes of village and town, in order to make the most of utility.

The last decade has seen unprecedented demand to host major sports events. Although the venues for large sports events can be well used during events time, concern exists on how to effectively and sustainably operate it in the long run. The objective of the research presented in this paper is to develop a multi-functional arena management model in order to increase the effectiveness of sports and entertainment venue business. To that end, firstly a review of the literature is conducted to identify the existing sports facility management practice and explore their implementation. Afterwards, a model for the management of sports and entertainment facility is presented. Based to the theoretical assumptions and a study of the existing practice three alternatives are suggested and implicated in the multiple criteria evaluation: in-house, outsourced and combined facility management options. The findings reveal that success is based upon effective and efficient management of considerable costs while combining in-house and outsourced options for sports and entertainment facility operation and maintenance.

Intellectual properties are the most active and valuable production factors of the current society. People usually deal with intellectual property for transactions, transfer, pledge financing, securitization and legal compensation problem, etc. Intellectual property valuation is the key link to solve these problems. At present, income discount approach is the method which is most commonly used. However, it has some shortcomings, such as: (1)the application premise is harsh and (2) the discount rate is difficult to determine. This article presents the improved model based on the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method for the purpose of solving those shortcomings of income discount approach. This improved model divides the process of intellectual property value evaluation into two steps. First, we add the discount rate gotten by the GM (1,1) dynamic forecasting method into the income approach discount formula and obtain the initial evaluation value. Second, we rectify the deviation by using fuzzy synthetic evaluation model and obtain the final evaluation value. After the construction of the theoretical model, we apply the model into actual cases and reach reasonable evaluation results.

For urban nightscape lighting, an inappropriate design may bring a huge impact on the impression of a city and cause visual stress which may cause the experience of unpleasant visual symptoms. What is more, in some situations the repetitive flashing lights are capable of inducing a photosensitive epileptic seizure. Accordingly, it is very important to manage the dynamic lighting from the perspective of urban planning. This paper focuses on studying the relevant background information and the existing management system about the dynamic lighting in China and Japan. By summarizing the relevant information and present status of the dynamic lighting guideline, some problems and deficiencies will be discussed and improvement suggestion will be provided for urban nightscape planning.

This paper addresses the framework of the decision-making process involved with psychological impacts generated by emergency personnel in a natural disaster. When their predefined task procedures cannot solve problems of city power supply facilities damage, emergency personnel have to rely on their own decision. Through investigations and surveys with emergency personnel in power grid corporation of S city, time pressure, fuzzy information, and disaster emotion were considered as the three most influential psychological factors in emergency response. Also, a simulated natural disaster scenario (typhoon) was suggested to set up for this study. Based on process tracing technology, this paper discusses the influence inthe behavioral decision-making process under time pressure, fuzzy information and emotion intervention, separately. Furthermore, the framework integrates the decision comparison between behavioral pattern and theoretical models. Additionally, implications of emergency behavioral decision making, process tracing operations and limitations of the study are discussed.

This paper analyzed an ecological infrastructure project from the viewpoint of the economy and proposed the improved operational coefficient model of the project. It elaborated on the evaluation methods of projects and their adaptability to the evaluation of ecological environment projects, and it constructed the evaluation system based on social benefits. This paper constructed a measuring model and used the multi-level fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method to evaluate the direct or indirect investment return of the ecological infrastructure project and purely social net benefits.

The article researches and analyses the allocation and use of the rural public facilities, and finds that most of them can't meet the demand of the peasants. This article also presents problems of a shortage of rural public facilities and their low quality, as well as an imbalanced regional allocation, poor dynamic adaptability to meet demands, and an excess supply and partial short supply existing side by side. Aiming at the problems above, this article proposes supporting standards and an innovative configuration mode as some countermeasures.

Nuclear emergency is the last line of defense for nuclear safety. After the Fukushima nuclear accident, most countries have made new preparations for nuclear emergency. It is the massive development planning for nuclear power and the safety risk of military nuclear facilities that make the significance of nuclear emergency prominent. Our country has accomplished some achievements on nuclear emergency, but some weakness still exists. It is suggested that our country should reinforce legal construction of nuclear emergency, funds input for nuclear emergency, the research and development of the special technology and equipment, and building the assault force for nuclear emergency rescue, all of which will meet the new situation of nuclear safety and nuclear emergency at post-Fukushima age in our country.

Knowledge management plays a critical role in promoting competitive advantages and enhancing performance of project management. As a new organizational form of knowledge, Community of Practice (CoP) greatly enhances the sharing, learning and spreading of domain knowledge. This article presents a comprehensive understanding and recognition of CoP in infrastructure project management. By investigating methodology and procedures of adopting CoP in infrastructure project management, it is conducive to drive strategy, popularize successful cases and recruit more capable personnel. The nucleus of this article is to propose an approach or a framework to apply CoP to project management during the acquiring, sharing, absorbing, updating, utilizing and recycling phases, which develops a lifecycle of both explicit and implicit knowledge management. Influencing factors on the implementation of CoP in infrastructure project management are discussed, including aspects of personnel collaboration, commitment, IT strategy and performance evaluation. The results of this study provide valuable information to practitioners, scholars and educators for improving construction performance of infrastructure project.

This paper employs a spatial hedonic house price model that is capable of incorporating temporal dynamics within the model specification in addition to the location, the neighborhood and structural variations of house prices within the Ede municipality in the Netherlands. The dataset includes transaction prices and other information regarding houses sold within the municipality. The impact of distance from the town center on values of housing units is examined and the variants of the monocentric and polycentric models are estimated. Additional tests employed to search if there is spatial autocorrelation in the residual series suggest use of the spatial autoregressive error model (SEM) as appropriate. The estimation results are then used to shed light on the urban structure of the municipality. The spatial model suggests that the polycentric structure reflected in the non-spatial model may be an outcome of spatial dependence. The spatial model also indicates that the Bennekom sub-center is preferred to the Ede town which was purposely planned as the formal urban center. The cluster of neighborhood in which the housing units are located is the most important location variable compared to district and distances from the town centers. House prices are also sensitive to trend and the cyclical variation of income.

Urban land supply system is so important. It is the standard institution of national urban land management. In recent years, the relationship of changes in the urban land supply system and fluctuation in the housing price has become a hot topic. By comparing the way of urban land supply between mature market economy countries and China, analyzing the way of urban land supply influence on housing price, currently, we find some problems in the way of China's land supply. Meanwhile, the paper puts forward some relevant suggestions and measures to improve the way of urban land supply.

Currently, housing issues in large cities in China are being widely discussed and a new special group called "new college graduates" is getting much attention as representative of young educated adults from the media, but only a little done in academia field. In this paper, this group is taken as objective and Beijing is selected as deputation of large cities in China. The study is based on an investigation on residential satisfaction of new college graduates in Beijing. The impacts of individual social-economic characteristics, residence types and residential environment on residential satisfaction are detected using a Multinomial Logit Model (MLM). Personal characteristics of the group are defined from five aspects as financial, local identity, job, education and family support by Principal Component Analysis (PCA). Residence types are five kinds as self-owned housing, self-rent (family-rent), co-rent, dormitory of company and living in parents' housing. Besides, thirteen basic indices of residential environment indicating health, safety, convenience and comfort are used by subjective scoring. It was found that residential satisfaction is influenced by individual local identity, financial capability, residence type and environment index on comfort, convenience and health. Additionally, interior environment has a greater effect on residential satisfaction than exterior environment. On the impact of residence type, housing ownership is found to make higher residential satisfaction level by Analysis of Variance (ANOVA).

Urbanization is in a period of rapid development nowadays in China. The real estate industry plays an important and supporting role in the development of urbanization and, at the same time, the fast-developing urbanization has created a platform for the development of the real estate industry. In this paper, quantitative methods are used to figure out the relationship between urbanization and the price of real estate. Urbanization construction's impacts on the real estate industry are discussed in consideration of national conditions of China. The analysis shows that it will bring some risks if we regard urbanization as a driving force for sustainable development of the real estate industry in the future. Some brief suggestions for coordinated development of the urbanization and the real estate industry are given following analysis.

Based on entropy theory, the variation of land use structure information entropy, equilibrium degree and dominance degree in Xuzhou City was studied during 2005 and 2009. The land use types that affect the values of information entropy were preliminarily discussed. The information entropy, equilibrium degree and dominance degree were predicted during 2010 and 2015 using the GM (1, 1) model of grey system theory. The results showed that information entropy is an increasing trend year by year. The land use structure in Xuzhou City gradually developed from order to a relatively disordered state. The equilibrium degree increased every year and dominance degree was decreasing year by year, which showed that land use structure in Xuzhou City was evolving to equilibrium.

Housing problems are a livelihood issue causing wide public concern, and are important content to building a harmonious society and to realize the urban development strategy. Shantytowns are part of the history of city development, having solved many housing problems of disadvantaged groups. With the development of the city and the progress of society, though, shantytowns cannot satisfy the living needs. They seriously damage the city's image, hinder the implementation of urban planning, and harm the security of social security (Wu 2004). From 2009, the State Council officially launched large-scale shantytowns reconstruction movement, local government open the work in a nationwide (Lu 1995). The shantytowns reconstruction of Harbin began in the 1980s, is considered as the government "No.1 Project". After many years exploration, it is known as the sample of national shantytowns reconstruction movement. In 2010, the local government puts forward the target of "do a good shantytowns reconstruction in the city center within three years". This is a livelihood project to go deep into the people's heart, and also a great challenge of local government. To promote shantytowns reconstruction, improve the residents living level and support the urban construction, this paper tries to study the reform of shantytowns construction and set up a reformation template, to provide the reference of the shantytowns reconstruction work.

Urbanization has become the main trend of present society development because of its regionality, internationality and continuity. Urbanization is the historical task of modernization. It's also the largest potential for expanding domestic demand. This article researches urbanization in Harbin based on analysis and evaluation of Harbin urbanization status quo. It puts forward recommendations and expectations to Harbin urbanization.

It is required for those cities to reasonably adjust and redistribute the old-age care and public service resources with the trend of population aging in China. The paper studied the spatial distribution of aging people in the 18 districts of Shanghai, and the coordination between this distribution and the living environment of these districts. The results show that the degree of population aging is the highest in urban centers and rural areas, and is followed by the intimate outside of urban center, and lastly by far outside of urban center. Sixteen districts in Shanghai display good coordination between population aging and living environment, except Huangpu and Chongming with worse coordination. It is suggested that some of the districts located at urban center and its intimate outside areas should improve their living environment to fit the needs of population aging.

As a mass public transit system, sustainable development of mass rail transit is the key point of reallocation of land around mass rail transit (TOD-Planning). Only with reasonable TOD Planning and Design, can we improve the utilization of mass rail transit and the price and utilization efficiency of land. Therefore, applicability of TOD in China was discussed in this research. Targets and principles of TOD mode, which is based on the sustainable development of mass rail transit in China, were made. In order to achieve the goal of sustainable development of mass rail transit, planning target-equation of TOD was established. Constraint conditions were set according to development of social economy, condition of market demand and principle of TOD-Planning. It can be ensured that the environment around mass rail transit develops coordinately through the construction and analysis of the model, and the traffic condition will not worsen due to the overdevelopment of land around mass rail transit.

Based on the statistical data, this paper analyzed the cultivated land decrease and their regional types in China during the period of 1996-2008, dividing China's provinces, according to the results of Cluster analyzing to the main reasons of the cultivated land decrease, into three regional types: regions focusing on economic development where the construction land replaces most of the cultivated land; regions focusing on cultivated land protection where the area of the cultivated land decrease is the least and insignificant; regions focusing on environmental protection where ecological restoration replaces most of the cultivated land. Finally, the grey relation analysis was used to explain the mutual relationship between the decrease of cultivated land and regional development. The results showed that the cultivated land area decreased as industrialization and urbanization were rapidly enhancing. Also, ecological restoration was a main reason for its decrease. To some extent, the cultivated land decrease was rational, since it widely influenced the regional development. The cultivated land decrease thwarted the increase of farmers` income in the prosperous eastern region of China. In addition, cultivated land protection and ecological restoration was beneficial to agriculture and economic development in the central of China.

This paper provides an overview and information useful for Changchun Urban Planning and Construction and Management. The new concept of Changchun Urban Planning was investigated quite intensively in recent years. There isaconsiderable amount of literature on urbanization planning in a particular region so as to cure the syndrome of the urban environment and sociality. A major goal of this paper is to extend the utilization of a recently developed procedure for the transformation of the nature of land in the surrounding area. So we establish a system to be able to shape the city's personality.

The research of urban land use efficiency has important practical significance for improving the efficiency of China's urban land use, saving land resources and solving the contradiction between people and land. The research method of this paper is data envelopment analysis, which is a new kind of method for system analysis. Mainly five kinds of model of DEA are used, namely C2R, BC2, C2GS2, C2W and C2WH model. The scope of application is different. This paper uses C2R model to evaluate the validity of the efficiency of land use in Harbin, from the point of relative efficiency, Harbin urban land use efficiency is at a higher level. but exits some shortcomings. In the end, the author puts forward some suggestions to improve land use efficiency combined with the actual situation.

Urbanization rate keeps increasing in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) after China's reform and open-up policy in 1979. At the same time, the industrial structural upgrade changes the population distribution of the PRD. Based on previous studies, a better value of a more representative algebraic model for the Regional Density Function is revealed by fitting curves. This paper argues that an improved polycentric regional density function is suitable for the study of population distribution analysis in the PRD region. The shortest road network distance can describe population distribution features more accurately than the straight-line distance between a center and any area unit in the PRD. Based on this analysis, this paper found a three-center plan (with Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Zhongshan being the development centers) is more helpful to balance the regional development. As this is different to the current plan, these findings have significant implications for those involved in regional planning in the PRD.

Land purchase reserve system has a great influence on a city's economic development. A sound mechanism of land purchase reserve system will ensure the urban planning reasonable and smooth. The paper started from the running status of Hefei land purchase reserve system. Then it combined with the 2011, 2012 and 2013 annual land supply plan table. And by analyzing its problems, the paper finally proposed solutions and strategies to improve Hefei Land Reserve System. Through broadening land bank financing channels, strengthening land bank risk control and regulating income distribution of land property rights measures, land acquisition reserve mechanism of Hefei will be more perfect.

China has the largest elderly population in the world. It's predicted that in 2050 it will reach the peak 483 million with one aged in every three. The huge increase of the elderly will greatly influence the planning modes of communities. As most elderly people choose to live in the decay community for neighborhood attachment or inability to afford a new apartment, community regeneration is urgently and widely needed in future China. This paper focuses on the community regeneration in the central city against aging background in China, analyzes the obstacles of community regeneration from the perspective of housing stock. Combing with cases home and abroad, it proposes three modes from micro to macro level - housing regeneration, environmental regeneration and regional regeneration, aiming to explore the regeneration modes accommodating to the socio-economic situation in China and create a better living condition with more physical and psychological care for the elderly.

Based on the "the Development Plan Outline of Hainan International Tourism Island", the fixed asset investment (FAI) of Hainan Province from 2010 to 2020 will rise up to 3,520 billion, five times the total FAI from 1988 to 2009. Nearly 60 percent of the FAI is accomplished by the construction industry, and a good deal of construction wastes has been produced during the procedure of construction. The decoration wastes are an important part of the construction solid wastes. Based on the survey data by the method of weighing on the spot and related statistic data, and some assumptions, the GM (Grey Prediction Model) (1, 1) is selected to simulate the weight of the decoration wastes from 2012 to 2016. And the reason of data fluctuation is analyzed in some years. The results reflect that the amount of the decoration wastes in Haikou from 2012 to 2016 will grow steadily.

Urban development is the progress of utilizing and contesting resources. The effective demand theory may explain short-term economic growth, but the long-run development is based on effective supply. The city occupies strong control capability at entity resources, and these resources could enable cities to achieve competitive advantage and superior long-term performance. The paper analyzes and evaluates 34 urban resource endowments in Northeast China, and finds that the difference of urban resources is determined by the difference of human resource, so the human resource accumulation level should be enhanced in cities, especially the resource endowments in making development strategy.

Increasingly, the concept of a "smart city" has been deployed as an alternative set of policy options, or institutional fixes in those cities seeking to address the environmental consequences of economic development and to achieve some balance between economic, environmental and social concerns. Designing a smart city (SC) has become one of the urgent tasks of the next 20 years. One promising approach to achieving SC is appropriate land-using, because of the importance of this element. However, there are few studies which simulate this element in an special manner. This paper presents the concept of the land-use structure, and the structure is widely accepted.