14 research outputs found
The line-of-balance programme on repetitive works: case study / Shaharuddin Abdul Samad
No full textAs if repetitive works might be construction of a housing project in manufacturing of computer components' products and such that has identical unit, one powerful technique had being developed. This technique is known as line-of-balance method and can applied in various fields with repetitive works such been mentioned above. To fulfil the requirement for the degree of Bachelor in Engineering with Hons (Civil), thus the author will only emphasise on the construction industries. Undoubted, in construction industries , there are many repetitive works involve such as residential housing project construction of prestressed beam, delivery of materials from plant to the site, construction of high rise building et cetera. Living in technology of information era now, everything is just on our fingers' tip, thanks to the computer and its software that available anywhere. In making the repetitive works done with more efficiently, effectively and reduce time cost, a computer programme has been developed based on the Line-of-Balance Method. The programme is developed interactively, as the user will feel conveniently to use it The user is then being asked to open two files to restore all the data. Eventually, the output will then can be used for analysing, controlling and lastly can make comparison between the developed programme and progress of the project on the site
Urban voters’ preference of issues in the general election: case study of Shah Alam parliamentary / Irwana Nooridayu Muhamad Hakimi and Shaharuddin Badaruddin
No full textElections are important national events. It can also be regarded as the most critical contest at the national level and in the electoral system for every country. Currently, Malaysia is moving towards the 13th General Election which will be held in the year 2012. Elections after the Independence were held for 12 times from 1959 until 2008. From Independent Day in 1957, Selangor has been one of the strongholds for Barisan Nasional (BN) except in the 1969’s election. It was when The Alliance (known as Barisan Nasional today) held only 14 out of 24 seats in Selangor. Unfortunately for the first time during 12th General Election in 2008, Barisan Nasional (BN) was not able to continue their good performance since they only won 5 from 22 parliamentary seats in Selangor. This has caused a negative impact on Barisan Nasional (BN) at the State Legislative Assembly level because it only won 20 from 56 seats. In the 2008’s General Election, history was created in Selangor when Barisan Nasional (BN) was defeated by the opposition parties. Abdul Aziz B. Shamsuddin who represented Barisan Nasional in Shah Alam parliamentary area lost to Khalid B. Abd Samad who belonged to Parti Islam SeMalaysia (PAS). A study by Adam & Ferber (1980), finds that the voting trend of one particular area has a strong influence the on the effectiveness of issues delivered by a political party to the voters. Campbell et al. (1960) agree that political parties, current political issues and the candidate that are up for the election are the central factors that determine citizens’ vote choices. Therefore, this paper intends to determine the factor that influence Malay urban voters’ preference in an election from perspective of issues that happening around the people in Shah Alam parliamentary area. The areas are Kota Anggerik (N40) and Batu Tiga (N41) and the focus is on Malay urban voters. In collecting data process, cross-sectional survey to test the hypotheses and questionnaires been distributed to 324 Malay urban voters in Shah Alam
Solving target coverage problem using cover sets in wireless sensor networks based on learning automata
No full textRecent years have witnessed a significant increase in employing wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for a variety of applications. Monitoring a set of discrete targets and, at the same time, extending the network lifetime is a critical issue in WSNs. One method to solve this problem is designing an efficient scheduling algorithm that is able to organize sensor nodes into several cover sets in such a way that each cover set could monitor all the targets. This study presents three learning automata-based scheduling algorithms to solve the problem. Moreover, several pruning rules are devised to avoid the selection of redundant sensors and manage critical sensors for extending the network lifetime. To evaluate the performance of proposed algorithms, we conducted several experiments, and the obtained results indicated that Algorithm 3 was more successful in terms of extending the network lifetime
Utilizing distributed learning automata to solve the connected target coverage problem in directional sensor networks
No full textSensor networks have been employed in a variety of applications. Directional sensor networks (DSNs) are a class of sensor networks that have emerged more recently and received noticeable attention from scholars. One of the most significant challenges associated with DSNs is designing an effective algorithm to cover all the targets and, at the same time, retain connectivity with the sink. As sensors are often densely deployed, employing scheduling algorithms can be considered as a promising approach. In this paper, we use distributed learning automata (DLA) to design a new scheduling algorithm for solving the connected target coverage problem in DSNs. The proposed algorithm employs DLA to determine the sensors that should be activated at each stage for monitoring all the targets and transmitting the sensing data to the sink. In addition, we devise several pruning rules in order to maximize network lifetime. Extensive simulation experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm. Simulation results demonstrated the superiority of the proposed algorithm over a greedy-based algorithm in terms of extending network lifetim
The perception of risk and uncertainty and the usage of capital budgeting techniques: evidence from public listed firms in Malaysia
No full textScheduling algorithms for extending directional sensor network lifetime
No full textRecently, directional sensor networks that are composed of a large number of directional sensors have attracted a great deal of attention. The main issues associated with the directional sensors are limited battery power and restricted sensing angle. Therefore, monitoring all the targets in a given area and, at the same time, maximizing the network lifetime has remained a challenge. As sensors are often densely deployed, a promising approach to conserve the energy of directional sensors is developing efficient scheduling algorithms. These algorithms partition the sensor directions into multiple cover sets each of which is able to monitor all the targets. The problem of constructing the maximum number of cover sets has been modeled as the multiple directional cover sets (MDCS), which has been proved to be an NP-complete problem. In this study, we design two new scheduling algorithms, a greedy-based algorithm and a learning automata (LA)-based algorithm, in order to solve the MDCS problem. In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithms, several experiments were conducted. The obtained results demonstrated the efficiency of both algorithms in terms of extending the network lifetime. Simulation results also revealed that the LA-based algorithm was more successful compared to the greedy-based one in terms of prolonging network lifetime
The question of bumiputera participations in urban retail sector: Towards urban livability
No full textRetail sector is one of the important components in urban economic activity for urban
livability. Livability of the urban area contributes to the sustainability of urban retailing. Since retail
sector is the lung of economy for urban areas, an in-depth study to understand the framework of this
sector should be emphasized. This paper discusses the participation of Bumiputera in urban retail
sector focusing on the Seremban Municipal Centre (SMC) as the designated study area. The purpose
of this paper is to examine the role of the New Economic Policy (NEP) in bringing economic equity
by ensuring 30 per cent of Bumiputera participation in urban retail sectors and to look into the pattern
of Bumiputera consumers buying goods in SMC. Bumiputera participation in retail activity is still low
as compared to the NEP target. While the NEP was established (in 1970), the targeted results are still
unclear. To achieve sustainable quality of life from the economic perspective, local economic
equilibrium plays an important role. Economic balance for every ethnic group should be emphasized
in order to achieve economic equality and cohesion between ethnic groups. The results obtained
through primary and secondary data indicated that Bumiputera retailers’ involvement constitutes only
7 per cent, while the remaining 93 per cent are from non Bumiputeras (Chinese 80 per cent and India
13 per cent). In addition, the trend for the past three decades shows a mere 6 per cent increase in
Bumiputera participation in retail sector in SMC. Bumiputera retailers’ are involved in specific
businesses such as restaurant, beauty care, travel and insurance agency, tuition centre, boutique and
also private clinics. The result shows that Bumiputera participation in retail sector is still low and
urban planners should play bigger roles to ensure Bumiputera’s retail activities are sustainable in the
SMC. Based on consistent development of Bumiputera retailers over the past 33 years, we
extrapolated that the quality of life of this group is sustainable and consistent as compared to other
ethnic groups. 80 per cent of Bumiputera consumers tend to choose services while visiting this area.
Therefore, it shows the relationship between Bumiputeras’ consumption pattern and the economic
status for their retailers in SMC area. This consistency plays an important role in maintaining the
culture, tradition and quality of life of the Bumiputera group, as far as availability of goods and
services is concerned
Internal dynamics of a sustainable city: the case of Nilai Municipality Council
No full textThis paper is based on the premise that spatial relationships and space-time activities contribute to the liveability of city. The first part of this paper discusses the sustainable city concept using the idea of liveability. The paper then presents the scenario of the Nilai Municipality to elucidate on what makes for the vibrancy of a city. The paper concludes with some thoughts on sustainable urban living in an intermediate cit
Publication productivity of Malaysian researchers in the field of Computer Science and Information Technology
No full textSearches made in the CD-ROM databases, COMPENDEX (1987-1999), IEL (IEE/IEEE Electronic Library) (1988-1999) and INSPEC (1990-1998) revealed a total of 389 publications contributed by Malaysian researchers in the field of computer science and information technology. The trend in output indicates rapid growth that is expected to continue in future. A total of 458 unique Malaysian authors contributed to the 389 publications. Collaboration between two authors was the dominant authorship pattern. Single-authored or more than 3-authored works were rare. The active authors were affiliated to a few institutions, with the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Universiti Sains Malaysia and Universiti Malaya accounting for the highest number of publications, either in the form of journalarticles or papers in conference proceedings. The most active research areas include simulation system, control engineering, computer-assisted instruction, programming techniques, expert systems, asynchronous transfer mode, image processing, software engineering and digital signal processing and applications
Sink node mobility in covering monitoring area for data collection in WSNs
No full textCommunication in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) plays an important role in relaying data collected by sensor nodes to reach an intended destination (a sink or an in-situ user). However, communication is the dominant energy consumer that must be minimi~ed in order to sustain network lifetime. Several mechanisms that exploited mobile sink have been devised to reduce sensor's communication, however, they do not consider coverage area problem. We proposed a design ofa simple mobility pat/ern ofa sink node in covering a monitoring area of interest in collecting data for a specific mission by traversing the entire area from an ent,y point and finish at an exit point on the square grid. By employing simultaneous equation technique, the square roots oflinear and non-linear equations are calculated which will be used to change the traversal direction ofthe mobile sink. In addition, two types of traversals are compared - the horizontal and vertical traversals
