Abstract: The paper describes ergonomics problems trend of
student at B5101 classroom building 2, Suranaree University of
Technology. The objective to survey ergonomics problems and effect
from use chairs for sitting in class room. The result from survey
method 100 student they use lecture chair for sitting in classroom
more than 2 hours/ day by RULA[1]. and Body discomfort survey[2].
The result from Body discomfort survey contribute fatigue problems
at neck, lower back, upper back and right shoulder 2.93, 2.91, 2.33,
1.75 respectively and result from RULA contribute fatigue problems
at neck, body and right upper arm 4.00, 3.75 and 3.00 respectively
are consistent. After that the researcher provide improvement plan
for design new chair support student fatigue reduction by prepare
data of sample anthropometry and design ergonomics chair prototype
3 unit. Then sample 100 student trial to use new chair and evaluate
again by RULA, Body discomfort and satisfaction. The result from
trial new chair after improvement by RULA present fatigue reduction
average of head and neck from 4.00 to 2.25 , body and trunk from
3.75 to 2.00 and arm force from 1.00 to 0.25 respectively. The result
from trial new chair after improvement by Body discomfort present
fatigue reduction average of lower back from 2.91 to 0.87, neck from
2.93 to 1.24, upper back 2.33 to 0.84 and right upper arm from 1.75
to 0.74. That statistical of RULA and Body discomfort survey
present fatigue reduction after improvement significance with a
confidence level of 95% (p-value 0.05). When analyzing the
relationship of fatigue as part of the body by Chi – square test during
RULA and Body discomfort that before and after improvements were
consistent with the significant level of confidence 95% (p-value 0.05)
. Moreover the students satisfaction result from trial with a new chair
for 30 minutes [3]. 72 percent very satisfied of the folding of the
secondary writing simple 66% the width of the writing plate, 64% the
suitability of the writing plate, 62% of soft seat cushion and 61%
easy to seat the chair.
Abstract: This work presents a comparison between the Annual
Energy Output (AEO) of two commercial vertical-axis wind turbines
(VAWTs) for a low-wind urban site: both a drag-driven and a liftdriven
concepts are examined in order to be installed on top of the
new Via dei Giustinelli building, Trieste (Italy). The power-curves,
taken from the product specification sheets, have been matched to the
wind characteristics of the selected installation site. The influence of
rotor swept area and rated power on the performance of the two
proposed wind turbines have been examined in detail, achieving a
correlation between rotor swept area, electrical generator size and
wind distribution, to be used as a guideline for the calculation of the
AEO.
Abstract: So much energy is used in high rise buildings to fulfill
the basic needs of users such as lighting and thermal comfort.
Malaysia has hot and humid climate, buildings especially high rise
buildings receive unnecessary solar radiation that cause more solar
heat gain. Energy use specially electricity consumption in high rise
buildings has increased. There have been growing concerns about
energy consumption and its effect on environment. Building, energy
and the environment are important issues that the designers should
consider to them. Self protected form is one of possible ways against
the impact of solar radiation in high rise buildings. The Energy
performance of building envelopes was investigated in term of the
Overall Thermal Transfer Value (OTTV ).In this paper, the amount
of OTTV reduction was calculated through OTTV Equations to
clear the effectiveness of self shading strategy on minimizing energy
consumption for cooling interior spaces in high rise buildings which
has considerable envelope areas against solar radiation. Also increasing
the optimum window area was investigated using self-shading
strategy in designing high rise buildings. As result, the significant
reduction in OTTV was shown based on WWR.In addition slight
increase was demonstrated in WWR that can influence on visible
comfort interior spaces.
Abstract: Green Roofs offers numerous advantages, including lowering ambient temperature, which is of increasing interest due to global warming concerns. However, there are technical problems pertaining to waterproofing to be resolved. Currently, the only recognized green roof waterproofing test is the German standard FLL. This paper examines the potential of replicating the test in tropical climate and reducing the test duration by using pre-grown plants. A three year old sample and a new setup were used for this experimental study. The new setup was prepared with close reference to the FLL standards and was compared against the three year old sample. Results showed that the waterproofing membrane was damaged by plant roots in both setups. Joints integrity was also challenged.
Abstract: An application framework provides a reusable design
and implementation for a family of software systems. Application
developers extend the framework to build their particular
applications using hooks. Hooks are the places identified to show
how to use and customize the framework. Hooks define Framework
Interface Classes (FICs) and their possible specifications, which
helps in building reusable test cases for the implementations of these
classes. In applications developed using gray-box frameworks, FICs
inherit framework classes or use them without inheritance. In this
paper, a test-case generation technique is extended to build test cases
for FICs built for gray-box frameworks. A tool is developed to
automate the introduced technique.
Abstract: Within the last years, several technologies have been developed to help building e-learning portals. Most of them follow approaches that deliver a vast amount of functionalities, suitable for class-like learning. The SuGI project, as part of the D-Grid (funded by the BMBF), targets on delivering a highly scalable and sustainable learning solution to provide materials (e.g. learning modules, training systems, webcasts, tutorials, etc.) containing knowledge about Grid computing to the D-Grid community. In this article, the process of the development of an e-learning portal focused on the requirements of this special user group is described. Furthermore, it deals with the conceptual and technical design of an e-learning portal, addressing the special needs of heterogeneous target groups. The main focus lies on the quality management of the software development process, Web templates for uploading new contents, the rich search and filter functionalities which will be described from a conceptual as well as a technical point of view. Specifically, it points out best practices as well as concepts to provide a sustainable solution to a relatively unknown and highly heterogeneous community.
Abstract: Association rules are an important problem in data
mining. Massively increasing volume of data in real life databases
has motivated researchers to design novel and incremental algorithms
for association rules mining. In this paper, we propose an incremental
association rules mining algorithm that integrates shocking
interestingness criterion during the process of building the model. A
new interesting measure called shocking measure is introduced. One
of the main features of the proposed approach is to capture the user
background knowledge, which is monotonically augmented. The
incremental model that reflects the changing data and the user beliefs
is attractive in order to make the over all KDD process more
effective and efficient. We implemented the proposed approach and
experiment it with some public datasets and found the results quite
promising.
Abstract: Buildings are one of the valuable assets to provide
people with shelters for work, leisure and rest. After years of
attacks by weather, buildings will deteriorate which need proper
maintenance in order to fulfill the requirements and satisfaction of
the users. Poorly managed buildings not just give a negative image
to the city itself, but also pose potential risk hazards to the health
and safety of the general public. As a result, the management of
maintenance projects has played an important role in cities like
Hong Kong where the problem of urban decay has drawn much
attention. However, most research has focused on managing new
construction, and little research effort has been put on maintenance
projects. Given the short duration and more diversified nature of
work, repair and maintenance works are found to be more difficult
to monitor and regulate when compared with new works. Project
participants may face with problems in running maintenance
projects which should be investigated so that proper strategies can
be established. This paper aims to provide a thorough analysis on
the problems of running maintenance projects. A review of
literature on the characteristics of building maintenance projects
was firstly conducted, which forms a solid basis for the empirical
study. Results on the problems and difficulties of running
maintenance projects from the viewpoints of industry practitioners
will also be delivered with a view to formulating effective
strategies for managing maintenance projects successfully.
Abstract: The gas safety management system using an
intelligent gas meter we proposed is to monitor flow and
pressure of gas, earthquake, temperature, smoke and leak of
methane. Then our system takes safety measures to protect a
serious risk by the result of an event, to communicate with a
wall-pad including a gateway by zigbee network in buildings
and to report the event to user by the safety management
program in a server. Also, the inner cutoff valve of an
intelligent gas meter is operated if any event occurred or
abnormal at each sensor.
Abstract: Interior brick-infill partitions are usually considered as
non-structural components, and only their weight is accounted for in
practical structural design. In this study, the brick-infill panels are
simulated by compression struts to clarify their effect on the
progressive collapse potential of an earthquake-resistant RC building.
Three-dimensional finite element models are constructed for the RC
building subjected to sudden column loss. Linear static analyses are
conducted to investigate the variation of demand-to-capacity ratio
(DCR) of beam-end moment and the axial force variation of the beams
adjacent to the removed column. Study results indicate that the
brick-infill effect depends on their location with respect to the
removed column. As they are filled in a structural bay with a shorter
span adjacent to the column-removed line, more significant reduction
of DCR may be achieved. However, under certain conditions, the
brick infill may increase the axial tension of the two-span beam
bridging the removed column.
Abstract: Conventional concentrically-braced frame (CBF)
systems have limited drift capacity before brace buckling and related
damage leads to deterioration in strength and stiffness. Self-centering
concentrically-braced frame (SC-CBF) systems have been developed
to increase drift capacity prior to initiation of damage and minimize
residual drift. SC-CBFs differ from conventional CBFs in that the
SC-CBF columns are designed to uplift from the foundation at a
specified level of lateral loading, initiating a rigid-body rotation
(rocking) of the frame. Vertically-aligned post-tensioning bars resist
uplift and provide a restoring force to return the SC-CBF columns to
the foundation (self-centering the system). This paper presents a
parametric study of different prototype buildings using SC-CBFs.
The bay widths of the SC-CBFs have been varied in these buildings
to study different geometries. Nonlinear numerical analyses of the
different SC-CBFs are presented to illustrate the effect of frame
geometry on the behavior and dynamic response of the SC-CBF
system.
Abstract: Feature selection has recently been the subject of intensive research in data mining, specially for datasets with a large number of attributes. Recent work has shown that feature selection can have a positive effect on the performance of machine learning algorithms. The success of many learning algorithms in their attempts to construct models of data, hinges on the reliable identification of a small set of highly predictive attributes. The inclusion of irrelevant, redundant and noisy attributes in the model building process phase can result in poor predictive performance and increased computation. In this paper, a novel feature search procedure that utilizes the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is presented. The ACO is a metaheuristic inspired by the behavior of real ants in their search for the shortest paths to food sources. It looks for optimal solutions by considering both local heuristics and previous knowledge. When applied to two different classification problems, the proposed algorithm achieved very promising results.
Abstract: In online context, the design and implementation of
effective remote laboratories environment is highly challenging on
account of hardware and software needs. This paper presents the
remote laboratory software framework modified from ilab shared
architecture (ISA). The ISA is a framework which enables students to
remotely acccess and control experimental hardware using internet
infrastructure. The need for remote laboratories came after
experiencing problems imposed by traditional laboratories. Among
them are: the high cost of laboratory equipment, scarcity of space,
scarcity of technical personnel along with the restricted university
budget creates a significant bottleneck on building required
laboratory experiments. The solution to these problems is to build
web-accessible laboratories. Remote laboratories allow students and
educators to interact with real laboratory equipment located
anywhere in the world at anytime. Recently, many universities and
other educational institutions especially in third world countries rely
on simulations because they do not afford the experimental
equipment they require to their students. Remote laboratories enable
users to get real data from real-time hand-on experiments. To
implement many remote laboratories, the system architecture should
be flexible, understandable and easy to implement, so that different
laboratories with different hardware can be deployed easily. The
modifications were made to enable developers to add more
equipment in ISA framework and to attract the new developers to
develop many online laboratories.
Abstract: Due to its geographical location, Iran is considered one of the earthquake-prone areas where the best way to decrease earthquake effects is supposed to be strengthening the buildings. Even though, one idea suggests that the use of adobe in constructing buildings be prohibited for its weak function especially in earthquake-prone areas, however, regarding ecological considerations, sustainability and other local skills, another idea pays special attention to adobe as one of the construction technologies which is popular among people. From the architectural and technological point of view, as strong sustainable building construction materials, compressed adobe construction materials make most of the construction in urban or rural areas ranging from small to big industrial buildings used to replace common earth blocks in traditional systems and strengthen traditional adobe buildings especially against earthquake. Mentioning efficient construction using compressed adobe system as a reliable replacement for traditional soil construction materials , this article focuses on the experiences of India in the fields of sustainable development of compressed adobe systems in the form of system in which the compressed soil is combined with cement, load bearing building with brick/solid concrete block system, brick system using rat trap bond, metal system with adobe infill and finally emphasizes on the use of these systems in the earthquake-struck city of Bam in Iran.
Abstract: Text Mining is around applying knowledge discovery
techniques to unstructured text is termed knowledge discovery in text
(KDT), or Text data mining or Text Mining. In decision tree
approach is most useful in classification problem. With this
technique, tree is constructed to model the classification process.
There are two basic steps in the technique: building the tree and
applying the tree to the database. This paper describes a proposed
C5.0 classifier that performs rulesets, cross validation and boosting
for original C5.0 in order to reduce the optimization of error ratio.
The feasibility and the benefits of the proposed approach are
demonstrated by means of medial data set like hypothyroid. It is
shown that, the performance of a classifier on the training cases from
which it was constructed gives a poor estimate by sampling or using a
separate test file, either way, the classifier is evaluated on cases that
were not used to build and evaluate the classifier are both are large. If
the cases in hypothyroid.data and hypothyroid.test were to be
shuffled and divided into a new 2772 case training set and a 1000
case test set, C5.0 might construct a different classifier with a lower
or higher error rate on the test cases. An important feature of see5 is
its ability to classifiers called rulesets. The ruleset has an error rate
0.5 % on the test cases. The standard errors of the means provide an
estimate of the variability of results. One way to get a more reliable
estimate of predictive is by f-fold –cross- validation. The error rate of
a classifier produced from all the cases is estimated as the ratio of the
total number of errors on the hold-out cases to the total number of
cases. The Boost option with x trials instructs See5 to construct up to
x classifiers in this manner. Trials over numerous datasets, large and
small, show that on average 10-classifier boosting reduces the error
rate for test cases by about 25%.
Abstract: A new technique of topological multi-scale analysis is
introduced. By performing a clustering recursively to build a
hierarchy, and analyzing the co-scale and intra-scale similarities, an
Iterated Function System can be extracted from any data set. The study
of fractals shows that this method is efficient to extract
self-similarities, and can find elegant solutions the inverse problem of
building fractals. The theoretical aspects and practical
implementations are discussed, together with examples of analyses of
simple fractals.
Abstract: Recently research on human wayfinding has focused
mainly on mental representations rather than processes of
wayfinding. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the
rationality behind applying multi-agent simulation paradigm to the
modeling of rescuer team wayfinding in order to develop
computational theory of perceptual wayfinding in crisis situations
using image schemata and affordances, which explains how people
find a specific destination in an unfamiliar building such as a
hospital. The hypothesis of this paper is that successful navigation is
possible if the agents are able to make the correct decision through
well-defined cues in critical cases, so the design of the building
signage is evaluated through the multi-agent-based simulation. In
addition, a special case of wayfinding in a building, finding one-s
way through three hospitals, is used to demonstrate the model.
Thereby, total rescue time for rescue operation during building fire is
computed. This paper discuses the computed rescue time for various
signage localization and provides experimental result for
optimization of building signage design. Therefore the most
appropriate signage design resulted in the shortest total rescue time in
various situations.
Abstract: In this study, we discussed the effects on the thermal
comfort of super high-rise residences that how effected by the high
thermal capacity structural components. We considered different
building orientations, structures, and insulation methods. We used the
dynamic simulation software THERB (simulation of the thermal
environment of residential buildings). It can estimate the temperature,
humidity, sensible temperature, and heating/cooling load for multiple
buildings. In the past studies, we examined the impact of
air-conditioning loads (hereinafter referred to as AC loads) on the
interior structural parts and the AC-usage patterns of super-high-rise
residences.
Super-high-rise residences have more structural components such
as pillars and beams than do ordinary apartment buildings. The
skeleton is generally made of concrete and steel, which have high
thermal-storage capacities. The thermal-storage capacity of
super-high-rise residences is considered to have a larger impact on the
AC load and thermal comfort than that of ordinary residences.
We show that the AC load of super-high-rise units would be
reduced by installing insulation on the surfaces of interior walls that
are not usually insulated in Japan.
Abstract: Web sites are rapidly becoming the preferred media
choice for our daily works such as information search, company
presentation, shopping, and so on. At the same time, we live in a
period where visual appearances play an increasingly important
role in our daily life. In spite of designers- effort to develop a web
site which be both user-friendly and attractive, it would be difficult
to ensure the outcome-s aesthetic quality, since the visual
appearance is a matter of an individual self perception and opinion.
In this study, it is attempted to develop an automatic system for
web pages aesthetic evaluation which are the building blocks of
web sites. Based on the image processing techniques and artificial
neural networks, the proposed method would be able to categorize
the input web page according to its visual appearance and aesthetic
quality. The employed features are multiscale/multidirectional
textural and perceptual color properties of the web pages, fed to
perceptron ANN which has been trained as the evaluator. The
method is tested using university web sites and the results
suggested that it would perform well in the web page aesthetic
evaluation tasks with around 90% correct categorization.
Abstract: In Algeria, now, the oil pumping plants are fed with electric power by independent local sources. This type of feeding has many advantages (little climatic influence, independent operation). However it requires a qualified maintenance staff, a rather high frequency of maintenance and repair and additional fuel costs. Taking into account the increasing development of the national electric supply network (Sonelgaz), a real possibility of transfer of the local sources towards centralized sources appears.These latter cannot only be more economic but more reliable than the independent local sources as well. In order to carry out this transfer, it is necessary to work out an optimal strategy to rebuilding these networks taking in account the economic parameters and the indices of reliability.