Abstract: Integrated Total Quality Management (TQM) with
Lean Manufacturing (LM) is a system comprises of TQM with LM
principles and is associated with financial and nonfinancial
performance measurement indicators. The ultimate goal of this
system is to focus on achieving total customer satisfaction by
removing eight wastes available in any process in an organization.
A survey questionnaire was developed and distributed to 30 highly
active automotive vendors in Malaysia and analyzed by PASW
Statistics 18. It was found out that these vendors have been
practicing and measuring the effectiveness TQM and LM
implementation. More involvement of all Malaysian automotive
vendors will represent the exact status of current Malaysian
automotive industry in implementing TQM and LM and can
determine whether the industry is ready for integrated TQM and
LM system. This is the first study that combined 4 awards
practices, ISO/TS16949, Toyota Production System and
SAEJ4000.
Abstract: Common acceptable cuisine usually discussed in the
multicultural/ethnic nation as it represents the process of sharing it
among the ethnic groups. The common acceptable cuisine is also
considered as a precursor in the process of constructing the national
food identity within ethnic groups in the multicultural countries. The
adaptation of certain ethnic cuisines through its types of food,
methods of cooking, ingredients and eating decorum by ethnic groups
is believed creating or enhancing the process of formation on
common acceptable cuisines in a multicultural country. Malaysia as
the multicultural country without doubt is continuing to experience
cross-culturing processes among the ethnic groups including cuisine.
This study empirically investigates the adaptation level of Malay,
Chinese and Indian chefs on each other ethnic cuisine attributes
toward the formation on common acceptable cuisines and national
food identity.
Abstract: The aim of this study was to estimate the frequency of
EBV infection in Hodgkin's lymphoma (HL) and non-Hodgkin's
lymphoma (NHL) occurring in Jordanian patients. A total of 55
patients with lymphoma were examined in this study. Of 55 patients,
30 and 25 were diagnosed as HL and NHL, respectively. The four
HL subtypes were observed with the majority of the cases exhibited
the mixed cellularity (MC) subtype followed by the nodular sclerosis
(NS). The high grade was found to be the commonest subtype of
NHL in our sample, followed by the low grade. The presence of EBV
virus was detected by immunostating for expression of latent
membrane protein-1 (LMP-1). The frequency of LMP-1 expression
occurred more frequent in patients with HL (60.0%) than in patients
with NHL (32.0%). The frequency of LMP-1 expression was also
higher in patients with MC subtype (61.11%) than those patients with
NS (28.57%). No age or gender difference in occurrence of EBV
infection was observed among patient with HL. By contrast, the
prevalence of EBV infection in NHL patients aged below 50 was
lower (16.66%) than in NHL patients aged 50 or above (46.15%). In
addition, EBV infection was more frequent in females with NHL
(38.46%) than in male with NHL (25%). In NHL cases, the
frequency of EBV infection in intermediate grade (60.0%) was high
when compared with frequency of low (25%) or high grades (25%).
In conclusion, analysis of LMP-1 expression indicates an important
role for this viral oncogene in the pathogenesis of EBV-associated
malignant lymphomas. These data also support the previous findings
that people with EBV may develop lymphoma and that efforts to
maintain low lymphoma should be considered for people with EBV
infection.
Abstract: Ensemble learning algorithms such as AdaBoost and
Bagging have been in active research and shown improvements in
classification results for several benchmarking data sets with mainly
decision trees as their base classifiers. In this paper we experiment to
apply these Meta learning techniques with classifiers such as random
forests, neural networks and support vector machines. The data sets
are from MAGIC, a Cherenkov telescope experiment. The task is to
classify gamma signals from overwhelmingly hadron and muon
signals representing a rare class classification problem. We compare
the individual classifiers with their ensemble counterparts and
discuss the results. WEKA a wonderful tool for machine learning has
been used for making the experiments.
Abstract: This paper considers H∞ performance for Markovian jump systems with Time-varying delays. The systems under consideration involve disturbance signal, Markovian switching and timevarying delays. By using a new Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional and a convex optimization approach, a delay-dependent stability condition in terms of linear matrix inequality (LMI) is addressed, which guarantee asymptotical stability in mean square and a prescribed H∞ performance index for the considered systems. Two numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness and the less conservatism of the proposed main results. All these results are expected to be of use in the study of stochastic systems with time-varying delays.
Abstract: This paper proposes improved delay-dependent stability conditions of the linear time-delay systems of neutral type. The proposed methods employ a suitable Lyapunov-Krasovskii’s functional and a new form of the augmented system. New delay-dependent stability criteria for the systems are established in terms of Linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) which can be easily solved by various effective optimization algorithms. Numerical examples showed that the proposed method is effective and can provide less conservative results.
Abstract: This paper presents a method for functional projective H∞ synchronization problem of chaotic systems with external disturbance. Based on Lyapunov theory and linear matrix inequality (LMI) formulation, the novel feedback controller is established to not only guarantee stable synchronization of both drive and response systems but also reduce the effect of external disturbance to an H∞ norm constraint.
Abstract: Retinal vascularity assessment plays an important role in diagnosis of ophthalmic pathologies. The employment of digital images for this purpose makes possible a computerized approach and has motivated development of many methods for automated vascular tree segmentation. Metrics based on contingency tables for binary classification have been widely used for evaluating performance of these algorithms and, concretely, the accuracy has been mostly used as measure of global performance in this topic. However, this metric shows very poor matching with human perception as well as other notable deficiencies. Here, a new similarity function for measuring quality of retinal vessel segmentations is proposed. This similarity function is based on characterizing the vascular tree as a connected structure with a measurable area and length. Tests made indicate that this new approach shows better behaviour than the current one does. Generalizing, this concept of measuring descriptive properties may be used for designing functions for measuring more successfully segmentation quality of other complex structures.
Abstract: Prickly pear juice has received renewed attention with regard to the effects of processing and preservation on its sensory qualities (colour, taste, flavour, aroma, astringency, visual browning and overall acceptability). Juice was prepared by homogenizing fruit and treating the pulp with pectinase (Aspergillus niger). Juice treatments applied were sugar addition, acidification, heat-treatment, refrigeration, and freezing and thawing. Prickly pear pulp and juice had unique properties (low pH 3.88, soluble solids 3.68 oBrix and high titratable acidity 0.47). Sensory profiling and descriptive analyses revealed that non-treated juice had a bitter taste with high astringency whereas treated prickly pear was significantly sweeter. All treated juices had a good sensory acceptance with values approximating or exceeding 7. Regression analysis of the consumer sensory attributes for non-treated prickly pear juice indicated an overwhelming rejection, while treated prickly pear juice received overall acceptability. Thus, educed favourable sensory responses and may have positive implications for consumer acceptability.
Abstract: This paper investigates the robust stability of uncertain neutral system with time-varying delay. By using Lyapunov method and linear matrix inequality technology, new delay-dependent stability criteria are obtained and formulated in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), which can be easy to check the robust stability of the considered systems. Numerical examples are given to indicate significant improvements over some existing results.
Abstract: Roundabout work on the principle of circulation and
entry flows, where the maximum entry flow rates depend largely on
circulating flow bearing in mind that entry flows must give away to
circulating flows. Where an existing roundabout has a road hump
installed at the entry arm, it can be hypothesized that the kinematics
of vehicles may prevent the entry arm from achieving optimum
performance. Road humps are traffic calming devices placed across
road width solely as speed reduction mechanism. They are the
preferred traffic calming option in Malaysia and often used on single
and dual carriageway local routes. The speed limit on local routes is
30mph (50 km/hr). Road humps in their various forms achieved the
biggest mean speed reduction (based on a mean speed before traffic
calming of 30mph) of up to 10mph or 16 km/hr according to the UK
Department of Transport. The underlying aim of reduced speed
should be to achieve a 'safe' distribution of speeds which reflects the
function of the road and the impacts on the local community.
Constraining safe distribution of speeds may lead to poor drivers
timing and delayed reflex reaction that can probably cause accident.
Previous studies on road hump impact have focused mainly on speed
reduction, traffic volume, noise and vibrations, discomfort and delay
from the use of road humps. The paper is aimed at optimal entry and
circulating flow induced by road humps. Results show that
roundabout entry and circulating flow perform better in
circumstances where there is no road hump at entrance.
Abstract: In this paper, we start by first characterizing the most
important and distinguishing features of wavelet-based watermarking
schemes. We studied the overwhelming amount of algorithms
proposed in the literature. Application scenario, copyright protection
is considered and building on the experience that was gained,
implemented two distinguishing watermarking schemes. Detailed
comparison and obtained results are presented and discussed. We
concluded that Joo-s [1] technique is more robust for standard noise
attacks than Dote-s [2] technique.
Abstract: The problem of robust stability and robust stabilization for a class of discrete-time uncertain systems with time delay is investigated. Based on Tchebychev inequality, by constructing a new augmented Lyapunov function, some improved sufficient conditions ensuring exponential stability and stabilization are established. These conditions are expressed in the forms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), whose feasibility can be easily checked by using Matlab LMI Toolbox. Compared with some previous results derived in the literature, the new obtained criteria have less conservatism. Two numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the improvement and effectiveness of the proposed method.
Abstract: In any distributed systems, process scheduling plays a
vital role in determining the efficiency of the system. Process scheduling algorithms are used to ensure that the components of the
system would be able to maximize its utilization and able to complete all the processes assigned in a specified period of time.
This paper focuses on the development of comparative simulator for distributed process scheduling algorithms. The objectives of the works that have been carried out include the development of the
comparative simulator, as well as to implement a comparative study
between three distributed process scheduling algorithms; senderinitiated,
receiver-initiated and hybrid sender-receiver-initiated
algorithms. The comparative study was done based on the Average Waiting Time (AWT) and Average Turnaround Time (ATT) of the
processes involved. The simulation results show that the performance of the algorithms depends on the number of nodes in the system.
Abstract: This work considered the thermodynamic feasibility
of scrubbing volatile organic compounds into biodiesel in view of
designing a gas treatment process with this absorbent. A detailed
vapour – liquid equilibrium investigation was performed using the
original UNIFAC group contribution method. The four biodiesels
studied in this work are methyl oleate, methyl palmitate, methyl
linolenate and ethyl stearate. The original UNIFAC procedure was
used to estimate the infinite dilution activity coefficients of 13
selected volatile organic compounds in the biodiesels. The
calculations were done at the VOC mole fraction of 9.213x10-8. Ethyl
stearate gave the most favourable phase equilibrium. A close
agreement was found between the infinite dilution activity coefficient
of toluene found in this work and those reported in literature.
Thermodynamic models can efficiently be used to calculate vast
amount of phase equilibrium behaviour using limited number of
experimental data.
Abstract: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a pervasive developmental disorder which affects individuals with varying degrees of impairment. Currently, there has been ample research done in serious game for autism children. Although serious games are traditionally associated with software developments, developing them in the autism field involves studying the associated technology and paying attention to aspects related to interaction with the game. Serious Games for autism cover matters related to education, therapy for communication, psychomotor treatment and social behavior enhancement. In this paper, a systematic review sets out the lines of development and research currently being conducted into serious games which pursue some form of benefit in the field of autism. This paper includes a literature review of relevant serious game developments since in year 2007 and examines new trends.
Abstract: Nowadays, Gene Ontology has been used widely by many researchers for biological data mining and information retrieval, integration of biological databases, finding genes, and incorporating knowledge in the Gene Ontology for gene clustering. However, the increase in size of the Gene Ontology has caused problems in maintaining and processing them. One way to obtain their accessibility is by clustering them into fragmented groups. Clustering the Gene Ontology is a difficult combinatorial problem and can be modeled as a graph partitioning problem. Additionally, deciding the number k of clusters to use is not easily perceived and is a hard algorithmic problem. Therefore, an approach for solving the automatic clustering of the Gene Ontology is proposed by incorporating cohesion-and-coupling metric into a hybrid algorithm consisting of a genetic algorithm and a split-and-merge algorithm. Experimental results and an example of modularized Gene Ontology in RDF/XML format are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the algorithm.
Abstract: Enzymatic saccharification of biomass for reducing
sugar production is one of the crucial processes in biofuel production
through biochemical conversion. In this study, enzymatic
saccharification of dilute potassium hydroxide (KOH) pre-treated
Tetraselmis suecica biomass was carried out by using cellulase
enzyme obtained from Trichoderma longibrachiatum. Initially, the
pre-treatment conditions were optimised by changing alkali reagent
concentration, retention time for reaction, and temperature. The T.
suecica biomass after pre-treatment was also characterized using
Fourier Transform Infrared Spectra and Scanning Electron
Microscope. These analyses revealed that the functional group such
as acetyl and hydroxyl groups, structure and surface of T. suecica
biomass were changed through pre-treatment, which is favourable for
enzymatic saccharification process. Comparison of enzymatic
saccharification of untreated and pre-treated microalgal biomass
indicated that higher level of reducing sugar can be obtained from
pre-treated T. suecica. Enzymatic saccharification of pre-treated T.
suecica biomass was optimised by changing temperature, pH, and
enzyme concentration to solid ratio ([E]/[S]). Highest conversion of
carbohydrate into reducing sugar of 95% amounted to reducing sugar
yield of 20 (wt%) from pre-treated T. suecica was obtained from
saccharification, at temperature: 40°C, pH: 4.5 and [E]/[S] of 0.1
after 72 h of incubation. Hydrolysate obtained from enzymatic
saccharification of pretreated T. suecica biomass was further
fermented into biobutanol using Clostridium saccharoperbutyliticum
as biocatalyst. The results from this study demonstrate a positive
prospect of application of dilute alkaline pre-treatment to enhance
enzymatic saccharification and biobutanol production from
microalgal biomass.
Abstract: This paper studies the mean square exponential synchronization problem of a class of stochastic neutral type chaotic neural networks with mixed delay. On the Basis of Lyapunov stability theory, some sufficient conditions ensuring the mean square exponential synchronization of two identical chaotic neural networks are obtained by using stochastic analysis and inequality technique. These conditions are expressed in the form of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), whose feasibility can be easily checked by using Matlab LMI Toolbox. The feedback controller used in this paper is more general than those used in previous literatures. One simulation example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the derived results.
Abstract: Nigerian bread is baked with vitamin A fortified wheat flour. Study aimed at determining its contribution to preschoolers- vitamin A nutriture. A cross-sectional/experimental study was carried out in four poor-urban Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Metropolitan Lagos, Nigeria. A pretested food frequency questionnaire was administered to randomly selected mothers of 1600 preschoolers (24-59 months). Retinyl Palmitate content of fourteen bread samples randomly collected from bakeries in all LGAs was analyzed at 0 and 5 days at 25oC using High Performance Liquid Chromatography. Data analysis was done at p