This study investigates the perceptions of artificial intelligence (AI) among undergraduate construction management students who are poised to become future leaders in the construction industry. As the industry increasingly adopts AI technologies to enhance project planning, design, site management, and safety, understanding students’ attitudes toward these innovations becomes crucial. This research employs a mixed-methods approach, combining quantitative survey data with qualitative data to capture the students’ insights on AI’s potential applications, benefits, and challenges within the construction sector. Findings indicate that while students recognize AI’s transformative potential to improve efficiency and safety in construction processes, they also express concerns regarding ethical implications, job displacement, and the necessity of new skills to effectively integrate AI into their future careers. Additionally, this study reveals a significant gap in students’ knowledge about AI technologies and their applications in the construction industry. These insights underscore the importance of incorporating AI-focused curricula in construction management programs to better prepare students for the evolving landscape of the industry. Ultimately, this research contributes to the understanding of how the next generation of construction professionals perceives AI and highlights the need for educational institutions to adapt their programs to equip students with the competencies required for a technology-driven future.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought challenges such as social distancing, health fears, reduced interaction, and increased stress for construction workers. Understanding their changing social and psychological states is crucial for effective management and performance. This study investigated the impact of the pandemic on the managers’ and laborers’ social and psychological well-being states and identified the changes in their social and psychological well-being states affecting project performance before and after the pandemic. Construction professionals, including construction managers, superintendents, and laborers, participated in a survey exploring thirteen social and psychological well-being variables and three performance variables. Data analysis involved paired t-tests and multiple regression. The findings revealed increased levels of anxiety and depression among both managers and laborers after the pandemic, with laborers more severely affected. Managers considered a broader range of variables, while laborers primarily focused on social factors influencing project performance. These disparities suggested that managers should prioritize health and safety measures, fair compensation, team cohesion, and stress management, while laborers’ motivation, work environment, knowledge acquisition, and sense of belonging should receive priority attention. This study contributes to providing managerial implications and guidance for improving the construction workforce, including managers’ and site laborers’ performance in the post-pandemic period.

This research examines the application of periodic materials in wall–slab structures to mitigate impact noise and vibration propagation, a prevalent issue in multifamily housing. Traditional methods, such as floating floors, have proven insufficient in addressing low-frequency impact noises and in facilitating the identification of noise origins, leading to increased resident annoyance. Periodic materials, known for their effectiveness in controlling plane waves in civil engineering, were applied to the intermediate slab of a wall–slab experimental setup. The research involved assessing the attenuation of noise and vibration over distance before and after the application of periodic materials by measuring indoor sound pressure levels and the natural vibration amplitude of the structure’s members upon impact. The results showed that periodic materials not only facilitated distance attenuation but also significantly diminished noise and vibration throughout the structure, without the side effects of vibration amplification seen in prior civil engineering applications. This indicates a practical advancement in using these materials, offering a novel approach to sound insulation and enabling more precise impact source localization. Ultimately, this study contributes to improving urban living by suggesting a method to enhance acoustic comfort in multifamily housing, underlining the importance of further exploration in architectural applications of periodic materials.

Ground subsidence in urban areas often reflects hidden failures within water and sewer infrastructure, amplified by hydrologic and seasonal conditions. This study analyzes 303 documented subsidence incidents in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea, from 2018 to 2024, focusing on infrastructure-related causes and their spatial and seasonal patterns. Incident records were reviewed to identify root causes, geographic distribution, seasonal trends, and impacts, including human injury and vehicle damage. Descriptive analysis showed that sewer pipe damage (39.3%) was the leading cause, followed by poor compaction or backfilling (22.8%) and excavation-related damage (14.2%). Subsidence linked to sewer systems occurred disproportionately during the summer monsoon, highlighting interactions between rainfall, pipe deterioration, and soil erosion. Statistical analysis using the Extended Fisher’s Exact Test revealed significant associations between subsidence causes and seasonality, vehicle damage, and regional location, but no significant link with human injury. Defective pipe construction contributed to elevated regional vulnerability, particularly in eastern municipalities, while excavation-related incidents were more common in spring. These results underscore the need for seasonally adaptive inspections, targeted rehabilitation of aging water and sewer networks, and region-specific asset management. By connecting subsurface failures with hydrologic conditions and infrastructure performance, this study offers data-driven insights to enhance proactive water infrastructure management and urban resilience.

Norm-based messaging interventions can help promote residents’ energy-saving behaviors. Intervention effectiveness is partially dependent on how personally relevant reference groups are to residents and how strongly they identify with the groups. The integration of homes with smart grid infrastructure allows for the creation of more personalized normative comparison groups based on residents’ lifestyle (e.g., night or morning-centric users). However, it is still unknown how strongly residents identify with lifestyle groups. Additionally, little research has examined which socio-cognitive mechanisms drive residents’ identification with normative comparison groups. Therefore, this research investigated residents’ perception of lifestyle groups compared to standard reference groups (i.e., neighbors) in norm-based energy feedback programs. Two survey-based experiments were conducted with 2,631 American participants. In terms of total effects, participants did not identify more with lifestyle groups than neighbor groups in either study. However, providing participants information about lifestyle-group peers (compared to neighbors) led to positive indirect effects on group identification through perceived similarity and through serial mediation of perceived similarity and perceived entitativity in both studies. The indirect effect just through perceived entitativity, however, was negative. However, Study 2 revealed that the negative indirect effect through just group entitativity was not significant when participants were told they could interact with other group members and given information about how similar group members save energy. Thus, under certain conditions, lifestyle groups may be a promising alternative reference group for norm-based energy feedback interventions.