Abstract: Software organizations are constantly looking for
better solutions when designing and using well-defined software
processes for the development of their products and services.
However, while the technical aspects are virtually easier to arrange,
many software development processes lack more support on project
management issues. When adopting such processes, an organization
needs to apply good project management skills along with technical
views provided by those models. This research proposes the
definition of a new model that integrates the concepts of PMBOK
and those available on the OPEN metamodel, helping not only
process integration but also building the steps towards a more
comprehensive and automatable model.
Abstract: The importance of good requirements engineering is well documented. Agile practices, promoting collaboration and communications, facilitate the elicitation and management of volatile requirements. However, current Agile practices work in a well-defined environment. It is necessary to have a co-located customer. With distributed development it is not always possible to realize this co-location. In this environment a suitable process, possibly supported by tools, is required to support changing requirements. This paper introduces the issues of concern when managing requirements in a distributed environment and describes work done at the Software Technology Research Centre as part of the NOMAD project.
Abstract: Power consumption of nodes in ad hoc networks is a
critical issue as they predominantly operate on batteries. In order to
improve the lifetime of an ad hoc network, all the nodes must be
utilized evenly and the power required for connections must be
minimized. In this project a link layer algorithm known as Power
Aware medium Access Control (PAMAC) protocol is proposed
which enables the network layer to select a route with minimum total
power requirement among the possible routes between a source and a
destination provided all nodes in the routes have battery capacity
above a threshold. When the battery capacity goes below a
predefined threshold, routes going through these nodes will be
avoided and these nodes will act only as source and destination.
Further, the first few nodes whose battery power drained to the set
threshold value are pushed to the exterior part of the network and the
nodes in the exterior are brought to the interior. Since less total
power is required to forward packets for each connection. The
network layer protocol AOMDV is basically an extension to the
AODV routing protocol. AOMDV is designed to form multiple
routes to the destination and it also avoid the loop formation so that it
reduces the unnecessary congestion to the channel. In this project, the
performance of AOMDV is evaluated using PAMAC as a MAC layer
protocol and the average power consumption, throughput and
average end to end delay of the network are calculated and the results
are compared with that of the other network layer protocol AODV.
Abstract: Traditionally, VLSI implementations of spiking
neural nets have featured large neuron counts for fixed computations
or small exploratory, configurable nets. This paper presents the
system architecture of a large configurable neural net system
employing a dedicated mapping algorithm for projecting the targeted
biology-analog nets and dynamics onto the hardware with its
attendant constraints.
Abstract: The curriculum of the primary school science course was redesigned on the basis of constructivism in 2005-2006 academic years, in Turkey. In this context, the name of this course has been changed as “Science and Technology"; and both content and course books, students workbooks for this course have been redesigned in light of constructivism. The aim of this study is to determine whether the Science and Technology course books and student work books for primary school 5th grade are appropriate for the constructivism by evaluating them in terms of the fundamental principles of constructivism. In this study, out of qualitative research methods, documentation technique (i.e. document analysis) is applied; while selecting samples, criterion-sampling is used out of purposeful sampling techniques. When the Science and Technology course book and workbook for the 5th grade in primary education are examined, it is seen that both books complete each other in certain areas. Consequently, it can be claimed that in spite of some inadequate and missing points in the course book and workbook of the primary school Science and Technology course for the 5th grade students, these books are attempted to be designed in terms of the principles of constructivism. To overcome the inadequacies in the books, it can be suggested to redesign them. In addition to them, not to ignore the technology dimension of the course, the activities that encourage the students to prepare projects using technology cycle should be included.
Abstract: Decision support based upon risk analysis into
comparison of the electricity generation from different renewable
energy technologies can provide information about their effects on
the environment and society. The aim of this paper is to develop the
assessment framework regarding risks to health and environment,
and the society-s benefits of the electric power plant generation from
different renewable sources. The multicriteria framework to
multiattribute risk analysis technique and the decision analysis
interview technique are applied in order to support the decisionmaking
process for the implementing renewable energy projects to
the Bangkok case study. Having analyses the local conditions and
appropriate technologies, five renewable power plants are postulated
as options. As this work demonstrates, the analysis can provide a tool
to aid decision-makers for achieving targets related to promote
sustainable energy system.
Abstract: An attempt in this paper proposes a re-modification to
the minimum moment approach of resource leveling which is a modified minimum moment approach to the traditional method by
Harris. The method is based on critical path method. The new approach suggests the difference between the methods in the
selection criteria of activity which needs to be shifted for leveling resource histogram. In traditional method, the improvement factor
found first to select the activity for each possible day of shifting. In
modified method maximum value of the product of Resources Rate
and Free Float was found first and improvement factor is then
calculated for that activity which needs to be shifted. In the proposed
method the activity to be selected first for shifting is based on the largest value of resource rate. The process is repeated for all the
remaining activities for possible shifting to get updated histogram.
The proposed method significantly reduces the number of iterations
and is easier for manual computations.
Abstract: Systems Analysis and Design is a key subject in
Information Technology courses, but students do not find it easy to
cope with, since it is not “precise" like programming and not exact
like Mathematics. It is a subject working with many concepts,
modeling ideas into visual representations and then translating the
pictures into a real life system. To complicate matters users who are
not necessarily familiar with computers need to give their inputs to
ensure that they get the system the need. Systems Analysis and
Design also covers two fields, namely Analysis, focusing on the
analysis of the existing system and Design, focusing on the design of
the new system. To be able to test the analysis and design of a
system, it is necessary to develop a system or at least a prototype of
the system to test the validity of the analysis and design. The skills
necessary in each aspect differs vastly. Project Management Skills,
Database Knowledge and Object Oriented Principles are all
necessary. In the context of a developing country where students
enter tertiary education underprepared and the digital divide is alive
and well, students need to be motivated to learn the necessary skills,
get an opportunity to test it in a “live" but protected environment –
within the framework of a university. The purpose of this article is to
improve the learning experience in Systems Analysis and Design
through reviewing the underlying teaching principles used, the
teaching tools implemented, the observations made and the
reflections that will influence future developments in Systems
Analysis and Design. Action research principles allows the focus to
be on a few problematic aspects during a particular semester.
Abstract: In this paper we propose an NLP-based method for
Ontology Population from texts and apply it to semi automatic
instantiate a Generic Knowledge Base (Generic Domain Ontology) in
the risk management domain. The approach is semi-automatic and
uses a domain expert intervention for validation. The proposed
approach relies on a set of Instances Recognition Rules based on
syntactic structures, and on the predicative power of verbs in the
instantiation process. It is not domain dependent since it heavily
relies on linguistic knowledge.
A description of an experiment performed on a part of the
ontology of the PRIMA1 project (supported by the European
community) is given. A first validation of the method is done by
populating this ontology with Chemical Fact Sheets from
Environmental Protection Agency2. The results of this experiment
complete the paper and support the hypothesis that relying on the
predicative power of verbs in the instantiation process improves the
performance.
Abstract: The eco-efficient use of “waste" makes sense from
economic, social, and environmental perspectives. By efficiency diverting “waste" products back into useful and/or profitable inputs,
industries and entire societies can reap the benefits of improved financial profit, decreased environmental degradation, and overall
well-being of humanity.
In this project, several material flows at
Company Limited were investigated. Principles of "industrial ecology" were applied to improve the management of waste rubbers that are used in the jewelry manufacturing process. complete this project, a brief engineering analysis stream, and investigated eco-efficient principles for more efficient
handling of the materials and wastes were conducted, and the result were used to propose implementation strategies.
Abstract: With increasing complexity in electronic systems
there is a need for system level anomaly detection and fault isolation.
Anomaly detection based on vector similarity to a training set is used
in this paper through two approaches, one the preserves the original
information, Mahalanobis Distance (MD), and the other that
compresses the data into its principal components, Projection Pursuit
Analysis. These methods have been used to detect deviations in
system performance from normal operation and for critical parameter
isolation in multivariate environments. The study evaluates the
detection capability of each approach on a set of test data with known
faults against a baseline set of data representative of such “healthy"
systems.
Abstract: Inter-organizational Workflow (IOW) is commonly
used to support the collaboration between heterogeneous and
distributed business processes of different autonomous organizations
in order to achieve a common goal. E-government is considered as an
application field of IOW. The coordination of the different
organizations is the fundamental problem in IOW and remains the
major cause of failure in e-government projects. In this paper, we
introduce a new coordination model for IOW that improves the
collaboration between government administrations and that respects
IOW requirements applied to e-government. For this purpose, we
adopt a Multi-Agent approach, which deals more easily with interorganizational
digital government characteristics: distribution,
heterogeneity and autonomy. Our model integrates also different
technologies to deal with the semantic and technologic
interoperability. Moreover, it conserves the existing systems of
government administrations by offering a distributed coordination
based on interfaces communication. This is especially applied in
developing countries, where administrations are not necessary
equipped with workflow systems. The use of our coordination
techniques allows an easier migration for an e-government solution
and with a lower cost. To illustrate the applicability of the proposed
model, we present a case study of an identity card creation in Tunisia.
Abstract: The main objective of this project is to build an
autonomous microcontroller-based mobile robot for a local robot
soccer competition. The black competition field is equipped with
white lines to serve as the guidance path for competing robots. Two
prototypes of soccer robot embedded with the Basic Stamp II
microcontroller have been developed. Two servo motors are used as
the drive train for the first prototype whereas the second prototype
uses two DC motors as its drive train. To sense the lines, lightdependent
resistors (LDRs) supply the analog inputs for the
microcontroller. The performances of both prototypes are evaluated.
The DC motor-driven robot has produced better trajectory control
over the one using servo motors and has brought the team into the
final round.
Abstract: Dorsal hand vein pattern is an emerging biometric which is attracting the attention of researchers, of late. Research is being carried out on existing techniques in the hope of improving them or finding more efficient ones. In this work, Principle Component Analysis (PCA) , which is a successful method, originally applied on face biometric is being modified using Cholesky decomposition and Lanczos algorithm to extract the dorsal hand vein features. This modified technique decreases the number of computation and hence decreases the processing time. The eigenveins were successfully computed and projected onto the vein space. The system was tested on a database of 200 images and using a threshold value of 0.9 to obtain the False Acceptance Rate (FAR) and False Rejection Rate (FRR). This modified algorithm is desirable when developing biometric security system since it significantly decreases the matching time.
Abstract: In the present work, we propose a new projection method for solving the matrix equation AXB = F. For implementing our new method, generalized forms of block Krylov subspace and global Arnoldi process are presented. The new method can be considered as an extended form of the well-known global generalized minimum residual (Gl-GMRES) method for solving multiple linear systems and it will be called as the extended Gl-GMRES (EGl- GMRES). Some new theoretical results have been established for proposed method by employing Schur complement. Finally, some numerical results are given to illustrate the efficiency of our new method.
Abstract: This paper presents the result of three senior capstone
projects at the Department of Computer Engineering, Prince of
Songkla University, Thailand. These projects focus on developing an
examination management system for the Faculty of Engineering in
order to manage the examination both the examination room
assignments and the examination proctor assignments in each room.
The current version of the software is a web-based application. The
developed software allows the examination proctors to select their
scheduled time online while each subject is assigned to each available
examination room according to its type and the room capacity. The
developed system is evaluated using real data by prospective users of
the system. Several suggestions for further improvements are given
by the testers. Even though the features of the developed software are
not superior, the developing process can be a case study for a projectbased
teaching style. Furthermore, the process of developing this
software can show several issues in developing an educational
support application.
Abstract: Key performance indicators (KPIs) are used for post
result evaluation in the construction industry, and they normally do
not have provisions for changes. This paper proposes a set of
dynamic key performance indicators (d-KPIs) which predicts the
future performance of the activity being measured and presents the
opportunity to change practice accordingly. Critical to the
predictability of a construction project is the ability to achieve
automated data collection. This paper proposes an effective way to
collect the process and engineering management data from an
integrated construction management system. The d-KPI matrix,
consisting of various indicators under seven categories, developed
from this study can be applied to close monitoring of the
development projects of aged-care facilities. The d-KPI matrix also
enables performance measurement and comparison at both project
and organization levels.
Abstract: In this study, some physical and mechanical properties
of jujube fruits, were measured and compared at constant moisture
content of 15.5% w.b. The results showed that the mean length, width
and thickness of jujube fruits were 18.88, 16.79 and 15.9 mm,
respectively. The mean projected areas of jujube perpendicular to
length, width, and thickness were 147.01, 224.08 and 274.60 mm2,
respectively. The mean mass and volume were 1.51 g and 2672.80
mm3, respectively. The arithmetic mean diameter, geometric mean
diameter and equivalent diameter varied from 14.53 to 20 mm, 14.5
to 19.94 mm, and 14.52 to 19.97 mm, respectively. The sphericity,
aspect ratio and surface area of jujube fruits were 0.91, 0.89 and
926.28 mm2, respectively. Whole fruit density, bulk density and
porosity of jujube fruits were measured and found to be 1.52 g/cm3,
0.3 g/cm3 and 79.3%, respectively. The angle of repose of jujube fruit
was 14.66° (±0.58°). The static coefficient of friction on galvanized
iron steel was higher than that on plywood and lower than that on
glass surface. The values of rupture force, deformation, hardness and
energy absorbed were found to be between 11.13-19.91N, 2.53-
4.82mm, 3.06-5.81N mm and 20.13-39.08 N/mm, respectively.
Abstract: Risk management is an essential fraction of project management, which plays a significant role in project success. Many failures associated with Web projects are the consequences of poor awareness of the risks involved and lack of process models that can serve as a guideline for the development of Web based applications. To circumvent this problem, contemporary process models have been devised for the development of conventional software. This paper introduces the WPRiMA (Web Project Risk Management Assessment) as the tool, which is used to implement RIAP, the risk identification architecture pattern model, which focuses upon the data from the proprietor-s and vendor-s perspectives. The paper also illustrates how WPRiMA tool works and how it can be used to calculate the risk level for a given Web project, to generate recommendations in order to facilitate risk avoidance in a project, and to improve the prospects of early risk management.
Abstract: This article is an extension and a practical application
approach of Wheeler-s NEBIC theory (Net Enabled Business
Innovation Cycle). NEBIC theory is a new approach in IS research
and can be used for dynamic environment related to new technology.
Firms can follow the market changes rapidly with support of the IT
resources. Flexible firms adapt their market strategies, and respond
more quickly to customers changing behaviors. When every leading
firm in an industry has access to the same IT resources, the way that
these IT resources are managed will determine the competitive
advantages or disadvantages of firm. From Dynamic Capabilities
Perspective and from newly introduced NEBIC theory by Wheeler,
we know that only IT resources cannot deliver customer value but
good configuration of those resources can guarantee customer value
by choosing the right emerging technology, grasping the right
economic opportunities through business innovation and growth. We
found evidences in literature that SOA (Service Oriented
Architecture) is a promising emerging technology which can deliver
the desired economic opportunity through modularity, flexibility and
loose-coupling. SOA can also help firms to connect in network which
can open a new window of opportunity to collaborate in innovation
and right kind of outsourcing. There are many articles and research
reports indicates that failure rate in outsourcing is very high but at the
same time research indicates that successful outsourcing projects
adds tangible and intangible benefits to the service consumer.
Business executives and policy makers in the west should not afraid
of outsourcing but they should choose the right strategy through the
use of emerging technology to significantly reduce the failure rate in
outsourcing.