7. What is the influence of technology on society?

Discus social change and factors

governing the social change.
Influence of technology on society extends towards both extremes. It has brought
many positive changes in many aspects of society along with few negative changes.
Technology has brought positive changes in following:
1. Economy: Technology has helped to uplift economy. Current market thrives with better
reachability to customer, profile-based advertisements, facilities and needs on the go, and
many more. This has helped society to be more productive and hence achieve greater
degree of living standard.
2. Religion: Religious institutions also have achieved remarkable objectives via use of
technology. It has never been easier to spread religious ideologies over the thin air within
milliseconds to other side of the world. Global organizations of religion and ideology have
started to emerge. All of which has changed the way people perceived of religion and their
reciprocation bringing social change in field of religion.
3. Education: Advent of technology has opened door towards smart classes and open
universities. Students can now learn great depth of information from technological tools such
as phones, laptops, etc. This has allowed students to be more innovative, creative,
interested in their study matters.
4. Communication: Method of communication has been so much easier in recent decades
due to technological advancement. Speaking to people miles away has now opened more
doors in social interaction and changed the way people defined communication. This is also
an important observed social change due to technology.
But along with positive changes, negative changes are also unavoidable. Some of them may
be:
1. Privacy: Disclosure of information specially to advertising company has become
sensation topic in recent years. From internet, location and task of many people can be
easily tracked which poses great threat to privacy of human lives. This can further lead to
complex social problems therefore must be dealt with in suitable manner.
2. Information Overload: Excess of information is what causes people to make irrational
decision, this is what psychologists’ term as information overloading and is very critical in
case of growing children. Because of too much information on the go, children may not be
able to grow mentally and socially bringing greater problems.

The variation that occurs in social interaction between humans over place and time is
called social change. Several factors are responsible for social change. They may be:
1. Geography: Changes in geography are responsible for majority of social change
observed around the globe. People of north have different lifestyle than those of equator.
Major driving factor here is climate and topography due to which people are specific
challenges to be dealt bringing social change.
2. Natural factors: Nature is ever changing entity. It changes the fate of hunting and being
hunted. People adapt accordingly to how nature changes so as to survive through different
scenario of living, therefore bringing social changes.
3. Biological factors: People evolve over time. Children have better understanding of
evolving technology and ideas. New ideas bring new technologies and therefore different
and more likely to be better modes of social interaction bringing social change.
4. Science and Technology: Science and technology sometimes brings revolutionary ideas
that are intended to make people’s lives easier, better and more productive. This sometimes
can bring great reforms in several aspects of society such as communication, transportation,
etc. Correspondingly changes and improvement in these aspects bring social changes.
42. The construction of the Gaighat-Diktel road started around 26 years ago with an
objective to link Khotang with Terai. But the road project is yet to be completed. Locals
blame the delay on the negligence of contractors and the government’s lackadaisical
response to monitor them. To upgrade and blacktop the 76-km long road stretch, the
Gaighat-Diktel road project had awarded contracts to four construction companies in 2016.
The deadline for the project’s completion was mid-July this year. But only three kilometers of
the entire stretch have been blacktopped so far. “Four different construction companies were
awarded the contracts by dividing the road into different sections. Though there was some
progress in administrative works, the physical progress of the construction work has been
slow”. Evaluate the situation.

Engineering Project Contract involves multitude of professionals from different sector

Working together to meet the ground objective. Therefore, different sorts of problems are
likely to arise in such engineering projects. To mitigate such problems different types of
guiding bodies are present throughout project to monitor, evaluate, and prevent conflicts.
Common project usually presents 3 major working body namely: Client, contractor and
consultant. The above project is of road construction. Road construction also work in similar
manner except here, the continuous monitoring of project is as important as design and
planning phase itself.

Client of road construction project are usually government and the service oriented towards
public. Therefore, role of public to make efforts to point out problems in project is notable act
here. As a client, government then provides contractor with design requirements and makes
all necessary administrative arrangements along with distributing power to required authority
as necessary. Governments role also includes performing necessary supervision to project.

Contractor has the main responsibility of carrying out constructions according to designs. It
is his duty to maintain products as per qualification and avoid substandard construction. But
profit motive thought process may sometime lure contractors into improper construction
practices. The consultant then comes into play by performing regular monitoring upon
construction of contractor and making sure the designs are up to mark. Timely construction
along with avoidance of excess procurement also has to be checked.

Here two primary problems have appeared, one due to lack of communication. Lack of
communication if major cause of problems in many projects causing unnecessary delays.
And second problem being lack of declaration of consultant group for supervision of project.
Consultant aren’t only for designing the project but to ensure that the field construction are
carried out as per design in timely manner. These things can reduce the possibilities of such
delays and make project run smoother. Therefore, I would immediately hire a consulting
group for supervision of project and conduct regular meeting among contractor, client and
consultant to keep everyone up to date on task accomplished.

41. The Client hired an Architect Bibek to design a building. Bibek recommended the client
to conduct a soil test before start of the design work. The Client said that conducting the soil
test would unnecessarily add more cost. Discuss what Bibek should do in this situation.
Engineering is a type of profession including study of multitude of factors playing in
construction to make safe structures with optimum costs. The factor of safety is therefore
encountered in countless scenes during design. In this situation, an architect is supposed to
design a building whose soil test is to be performed. Soil test are generally quite costly,
therefore client has requested or directed the architect to not perform soil test. But the
engineering studies strictly requires practitioners to conduct soil test which causes dilemma
to the architect.
Among the various possibilities, easier one would be to not conduct soil test and construct
building design anyway. This poses another problem to what type of foundation to be
conducted. In such case the architect may refer to nearby construction foundations or apply
his sense based on topography. The real-world modelling however is very uncertain task.
Therefore, several studies like soil test help to track the real situation of soil. Soil may not be
uniform everywhere. This can bring risks to building in later stages particularly in earthquake
prone areas like the country. Any future damage will bring the liability to engineer no matter
what the client said. This possibility does not appear to be ethical for engineer for long term.
The next possibility will be conducting of soil test, emphasizing the client to conduct so. Soil
test aren’t always costly. Performing preliminary study can cut cost significantly. This makes
engineer easy to understand soil nature beneath and design foundation accordingly. Also
makes the building sustainable and safe for long term. And makes engineer more credible
for design better for professional ethics.
On concern with client failing to understand importance of soil test, its duty of engineer to
make client understand importance of soil test and clarify any mis understandings. Client
may not have knowledge regarding all factors concerning safety therefore it becomes
essentially engineer’s credibility no matter what the client says. So, I would take the second
possibility of conducting soil test.

40. Shiva, a bridge engineer has designed a bridge to facilitate movements between two
villages. The bridge was designed to carry out 10T load. No vehicle movement was seen in
both the villages. People use carts to carry loads in both the villages. However, once in a
while, the villagers use heavy vehicles (20T tippers) over the recommended weight limit of
the bridge. The client had made final payment and the defect liability was six months after
completion of the construction, but cracks were seen within the first 4 months of the
construction. Assess the situation.
The above situation is slightly complicated with mixed liabilities. The situation here is
that a bridge was constructed with design load of 10 T. After a while, villagers were found to
have used 20 T vehicles over the recommended weight limit. Cracks have appeared within
defect liability period.
Contractor probably holds the minimum error here. His task was to design bridge as per
specification. The above situation doesn’t refer anywhere that quality of material was
compromised. Contractor could have placed warning of maximum loading in the bridge site.
Client holds the maximum responsibility after the project is hand over. Once the property of
client, it then becomes his/her duty to make all necessary measures to run the project for its
lifetime with required safety criteria. It must be ensured that the bridge was not used by
heavy vehicles more than 10 T. Since within defect liability period contractor also may have
smaller roles in this. But payment should only be done once everything is fully finished.
Consultant holds second important responsibility. The design load of 10 T doesn’t seem to
be considered the future loading possibilities. The 20 T tippers were frequently used later
implies design load consideration should have been made properly. This makes consultants
design criteria another big issue of concern.
In this situation, I think the contractor holds very less liability. But since within defect liability
period, the project must have been looked over and made sure than over loading was not
done. But since payment was done, client should be most careful. Consultant design can
also be argued upon. The negligence of consultant and client appears to be major problem
here. Current situation should be immediately rectified by placing boards to not use the
bridge, and head on towards re strengthening the bridge construction with improved design
load criteria.

43. The Dharahara Tower, one of Nepal's iconic landmarks in its capital Kathmandu, was
reduced to rubble Saturday (25 April 2015) when a 7.8-magnitude earthquake devastated
the nation, killing up to 180 people and leaving up to 200 sightseers trapped inside.
Dharahara also called Bhimsen Tower, is a nine story (50.2m) tall tower at the center of
Kathmandu. It was built in 1832 A.D. by the Prime Minister of the time, Bhimsen Thapa of
Nepal. Thapa built the tower under the orders of Queen Lalit Tripura Sundari. The tower has
a spiral staircase inside containing 113 steps and no elevator. The 8th floor holds a circular
balcony for observers that provides a panoramic view of the whole Kathmandu valley. The
Dharahara was built with brick and shurkhi mortar walls without any reinforcement. It was
already studied by several scholars and informed through the media that Dharahara had no
capacity to withstand horizontal force. The tower has been open for the general public since
2005 for a small fee. The tower had already been destroyed and rebuilt once before,
following a 1934 earthquake. Even in such a situation the concerned authority still allowed
public sightseers to climb the Dharahara. Unfortunately, on April 25 2015 it once again faced
its demise. Discuss the situation.
Above situation deals with iconic tower Dharahara constructed with brick and surkhi
mortar walls without reinforcement in 1934, Study claiming the structure was already weak
but public had been allowed to go for small fee till the major earthquake of 2015 when the
entire structure had collapsed. Now we shall deal with each entity involved in construction
and design separately.
Consultant and contractor had constructed the structure with no reinforcement. Point to note
is that the structure was constructed in the year 1934 (86 years before). This implies that
such construction practices of reinforced design may not have been done back then. Several
projects of unreinforced masonry have been observed to be constructed in similar time. The
unreinforced design practice has since then been limited.
After handing the project to client, the client owns the entirety of construction including the
risks it follows and money it makes. Another important point to be noted is that the structure
was allowed to climb with a fee, implies the structure has been used by government for profit
or used private companies to take care of surrounding. In either case the government holds
big responsibility, as private companies don’t have unlimited power to improve and assess
the structure. Government held the asset and therefore should be careful of people using it,
safety criteria and others. The entirety of blame goes to the entity holding the structure.
Also, earthquake is natural phenomenon which usually have less control over. Many
reinforced structures also have collapsed during that accident. This relieves the blame to
government as the structure may have been collapsed otherwise. In future, the structure
should be constructed in such accident-prone site with maximum safety concern. Also, in
engineering, there are many conditions that actually permits construction of structure in
disaster prone areas. This all is done to avoid fatalities that can occur due to uncontrolled
disaster at times. The design if done should be done with maximum safety in concern and
any old relics should be preserved without allowing public to climb on it or dismantled
completely.