Abstract: The element of justice or al-‘adl in the context of
Islamic critical thinking deals with the notion of justice in a thinking
process which critically rationalizes the truth in a fair and objective
manner with no irrelevant interference that can jeopardize a sound
judgment. This Islamic axiological element is vital in technological
decision making as it addresses the issues of religious values and
ethics that are primarily set to fulfill the purpose of human life on
earth. The main objective of this study was to examine and analyze
the perception of Muslim engineering students in Malaysian higher
education institutions towards the concept of al-‘adl as an essential
element of Islamic critical thinking. The study employed mixed
methods approach that comprises data collection from the
questionnaire survey and the interview responses. A total of 557
Muslim engineering undergraduates from six Malaysian universities
participated in the study. The study generally indicated that Muslim
engineering undergraduates in the higher institutions have rather
good comprehension and consciousness for al-‘adl with a slight
awareness on the importance of objective thinking. Nonetheless there
were a few items on the concept that have implied a comparatively
low perception on the rational justice in Islam as the means to grasp
the ultimate truth.
Abstract: In this paper, a simple active contour based visual
tracking algorithm is presented for outdoor AGV application which is
currently under development at the USM robotic research group
(URRG) lab. The presented algorithm is computationally low cost
and able to track road boundaries in an image sequence and can
easily be implemented on available low cost hardware. The proposed
algorithm used an active shape modeling using the B-spline
deformable template and recursive curve fitting method to track the
current orientation of the road.
Abstract: In our modern world, more physical transactions are being substituted by electronic transactions (i.e. banking, shopping, and payments), many businesses and companies are performing most of their operations through the internet. Instead of having a physical commerce, internet visitors are now adapting to electronic commerce (e-Commerce). The ability of web users to reach products worldwide can be greatly benefited by creating friendly and personalized online business portals. Internet visitors will return to a particular website when they can find the information they need or want easily. Dealing with this human conceptualization brings the incorporation of Artificial/Computational Intelligence techniques in the creation of customized portals. From these techniques, Fuzzy-Set technologies can make many useful contributions to the development of such a human-centered endeavor as e-Commerce. The main objective of this paper is the implementation of a Paradigm for the Intelligent Design and Operation of Human-Computer interfaces. In particular, the paradigm is quite appropriate for the intelligent design and operation of software modules that display information (such Web Pages, graphic user interfaces GUIs, Multimedia modules) on a computer screen. The human conceptualization of the user personal information is analyzed throughout a Cascaded Fuzzy Inference (decision-making) System to generate the User Ascribe Qualities, which identify the user and that can be used to customize portals with proper Web links.
Abstract: The aim of every software product is to achieve an
appropriate level of software quality. Developers and designers are
trying to produce readable, reliable, maintainable, reusable and
testable code. To help achieve these goals, several approaches have
been utilized. In this paper, refactoring technique was used to
evaluate software quality with a quality index. It is composed of
different metric sets which describes various quality aspects.
Abstract: The paper attempts a synthesis of problems relating to
municipal waste management in Nigeria and proposes a conceptual
knowledge management approach for tackling municipal waste
problems in cities across Nigeria. The application of knowledge
management approach and strategy is crucial for inculcating a change
of attitude towards improving the management of waste. The paper is
a review of existing literatures, information, policies and data on
municipal waste management in Nigeria. The inefficient management
of waste by individuals, households, consumers and waste
management companies can be attributed to inadequate information
on waste management benefits, lack of producers- involvement in
waste management as well as poor implementation of government
policies. The paper presents an alternative approach providing
solutions promoting efficient municipal waste management.
Abstract: In this paper, a new efficient method for load balancing in low voltage distribution systems is presented. The proposed method introduces an improved Leap-frog method for optimization. The proposed objective function includes the difference between three phase currents, as well as two other terms to provide the integer property of the variables; where the latter are the status of the connection of loads to different phases. Afterwards, a new algorithm is supplemented to undertake the integer values for the load connection status. Finally, the method is applied to different parts of Tabriz low voltage network, where the results have shown the good performance of the proposed method.
Abstract: Chemical detection is still a continuous challenge when
it comes to designing single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT)
sensors with high selectivity, especially in complex chemical
environments. A perfect example of such an environment would be in
thermally oxidized soybean oil. At elevated temperatures, oil oxidizes
through a series of chemical reactions which results in the formation of
monoacylglycerols, diacylglycerols, oxidized triacylglycerols, dimers,
trimers, polymers, free fatty acids, ketones, aldehydes, alcohols,
esters, and other minor products. In order to detect the rancidity of
oxidized soybean oil, carbon nanotube chemiresistor sensors have
been coated with polyethylenimine (PEI) to enhance the sensitivity
and selectivity. PEI functionalized SWCNTs are known to have a high
selectivity towards strong electron withdrawing molecules. The
sensors were very responsive to different oil oxidation levels and
furthermore, displayed a rapid recovery in ambient air without the
need of heating or UV exposure.
Abstract: Due to the emergence of “Humanized Healthcare"
introduced by Professor Dr. Prawase Wasi in 2003[1], the
development of this paradigm tends to be widely implemented. The
organizations included Healthcare Accreditation Institute (public
organization), National Health Foundation, Mahidol University in
cooperation with Thai Health Promotion Foundation, and National
Health Security Office (Thailand) have selected the hospitals or
infirmaries that are qualified for humanized healthcare since 2008-
2010 and 35 of them are chosen to be the outstandingly navigating
organizations for the development of humanized healthcare,
humanized healthcare award [2].
The research aims to study the current issue, characteristics and
patterns of hospital administration contributing to humanized
healthcare system in Thailand. The selected case studies are from
four hospitals including Dansai Crown Prince Hospital, Leoi;
Ubolrattana Hospital, Khon Kaen; Kapho Hospital, Pattani; and
Prathai Hospital, Nakhonrachasima. The methodology is in-depth
interviewing with 10 staffs working as hospital executive directors,
and representatives from leader groups including directors,
multidisciplinary hospital committees, personnel development
committees, physicians and nurses in each hospital. (Total=40) In
addition, focus group discussions between hospital staffs and general
people (including patients and their relatives, the community leader,
and other people) are held by means of setting 4 groups including 8
people within each group. (Total=128) The observation on the
working in each hospital is also implemented. The findings of the
study reveal that there are five important aspects found in each
hospital including (1) the quality improvement under the mental and
spiritual development policy from the chief executives and lead
teams, leaders as Role model and they have visionary leadership; (2)
the participation hospital administration system focusing on learning
process and stakeholder- needs, spiritual human resource
management and development; (3) the relationship among people
especially staffs, team work skills, mutual understanding, effective
communication and personal inner-development; (4) organization
culture relevant to the awareness of patients- rights as well as the
participation policy including spiritual growth achieving to the same
goals, sharing vision, developing public mind, and caring; and (5)
healing structures or environment providing warmth and convenience
for hospital staffs, patients and their relatives and visitors.
Abstract: This paper presents an optimization technique to economic load dispatch (ELD) problems with considering the daily load patterns and generator constraints using a particle swarm optimization (PSO). The objective is to minimize the fuel cost. The optimization problem is subject to system constraints consisting of power balance and generation output of each units. The application of a constriction factor into PSO is a useful strategy to ensure convergence of the particle swarm algorithm. The proposed method is able to determine, the output power generation for all of the power generation units, so that the total constraint cost function is minimized. The performance of the developed methodology is demonstrated by case studies in test system of fifteen-generation units. The results show that the proposed algorithm scan give the minimum total cost of generation while satisfying all the constraints and benefiting greatly from saving in power loss reduction
Abstract: In this study, inhibition of Microcystis aeruginosa by
antialgal alleochemical gramine, was studied by analyzing algal
metabolic activity (represented by esterase and total dehydrogenase
activities) and cell ultrastructure (showing morphological and
ultrastructure alterations using transmission electron microscopy and
DNA ladder analysis). After gramine exposure, esterase and total
dehydrogenase activities were increased firstly but decreased later. In
contrast with the controls, the cells exposed to gramine showed
apparent ultrastructure alterations with thylakoids in breakage,
phycobilins in decrease, lipid and cyanophycin granules abundant
firstly but dissolved afterwards, DNA in fragementation. The
occurrence of increase of metabolic activity and specific granules
reflected that the resistance of cellular response to gramine was
initiated. DNA fragementation associated with the increase of
metabolic activity and specific granules hinted that gramine caused M.
aeruginosa cells to initiate some morphotype of programmed cell
death.
Abstract: Positioning the organization in the strategic
environment of its industry is one of the first and most important
phases of the organizational strategic planning and in today
knowledge-based economy has its importance been duplicated for
higher education institutes as the centers of education, knowledge
creation and knowledge worker training. Up to now, various models
with diverse approaches have been applied to investigate
organizations- strategic position in different industries. Regarding the
essential importance and strategic role of quality in higher education
institutes, in this study, a quality-oriented approach has been
suggested to positioning them in their strategic environment. Then
the European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM) model has
been adopted to position the top Iranian business schools in their
strategic environment. The result of this study can be used in strategic
planning of these institutes as well as the other Iranian business
schools.
Abstract: Infrared communication in the wavelength band 780-
950 nm is very suitable for short-range point-to-point communications.
It is a good choice for vehicle-to-vehicle communication in several
intelligent-transportation-system (ITS) applications such as cooperative
driving, collision warning, and pileup-crash prevention. In this
paper, with the aid of a physical model established in our previous
works, we explore the communication area of an infrared intervehicle
communication system utilizing a typical low-cost cormmercial lightemitting
diodes (LEDs) as the emitter and planar p-i-n photodiodes
as the receiver. The radiation pattern of the emitter fabricated by
aforementioned LEDs and the receiving pattern of the receiver are
approximated by a linear combination of cosinen functions. This
approximation helps us analyze the system performance easily. Both
multilane straight-road conditions and curved-road conditions with
various radius of curvature are taken into account. The condition of
a small car communicating with a big truck, i.e., there is a vertical
mounting height difference between the emitter and the receiver, is
also considered. Our results show that the performance of the system
meets the requirement of aforementioned ITS applications in terms
of the communication area.
Abstract: The problem of complex use of water resources in
Central Asia by taking into consideration the sovereignty of the states
and increasing demand on use of water for economic aspects are
considered. Complex program with appropriate mathematical
software intended for calculation of possible variants of using the
Amudarya up-stream water resources according to satisfaction of
incompatible requirements of the national economics in irrigation
and energy generation is proposed.
Abstract: Nowadays, the earth is countered with serious problem
of air pollution. This problem has been started from the industrial
revolution and has been faster in recent years, so that leads the earth
to ecological and environmental disaster. One of its results is the
global warming problem and its related increase in global
temperature. The most important factors in air pollution especially in
urban environments are Automobiles and residential buildings that are
the biggest consumers of the fossil energies, so that if the residential
buildings as a big part of the consumers of such energies reduce their
consumption rate, the air pollution will be decreased. Since
Metropolises are the main centers of air pollution in the world,
assessment and analysis of efficient strategies in decreasing air
pollution in such cities, can lead to the desirable and suitable results
and can solve the problem at least in critical level. Tabriz city is one
of the most important metropolises in North west of Iran that about
two million people are living there. for its situation in cold dry
climate, has a high rate of fossil energies consumption that make air
pollution in its urban environment. These two factors, being both
metropolis and in cold dry climate, make this article try to analyze the
strategies of climatic design in old districts of the city and use them in
new districts of the future. These strategies can be used in this city
and other similar cities and pave the way to reduce energy
consumption and related air pollution to save whole world.
Abstract: Business rules and data warehouse are concepts and
technologies that impact a wide variety of organizational tasks. In
general, each area has evolved independently, impacting application
development and decision-making. Generating knowledge from data
warehouse is a complex process. This paper outlines an approach to
ease import of information and knowledge from a data warehouse
star schema through an inference class of business rules. The paper
utilizes the Oracle database for illustrating the working of the
concepts. The star schema structure and the business rules are stored
within a relational database. The approach is explained through a
prototype in Oracle-s PL/SQL Server Pages.
Abstract: This paper describes a code clone visualization method, called FC graph, and the implementation issues. Code clone detection tools usually show the results in a textual representation. If the results are large, it makes a problem to software maintainers with understanding them. One of the approaches to overcome the situation is visualization of code clone detection results. A scatter plot is a popular approach to the visualization. However, it represents only one-to-one correspondence and it is difficult to find correspondence of code clones over multiple files. FC graph represents correspondence among files, code clones and packages in Java. All nodes in FC graph are positioned using force-directed graph layout, which is dynami- cally calculated to adjust the distances of nodes until stabilizing them. We applied FC graph to some open source programs and visualized the results. In the author’s experience, FC graph is helpful to grasp correspondence of code clones over multiple files and also code clones with in a file.
Abstract: The main mission of Ezilla is to provide a friendly
interface to access the virtual machine and quickly deploy the high
performance computing environment. Ezilla has been developed by
Pervasive Computing Team at National Center for High-performance
Computing (NCHC). Ezilla integrates the Cloud middleware,
virtualization technology, and Web-based Operating System (WebOS)
to form a virtual computer in distributed computing environment. In
order to upgrade the dataset and speedup, we proposed the sensor
observation system to deal with a huge amount of data in the
Cassandra database. The sensor observation system is based on the
Ezilla to store sensor raw data into distributed database. We adopt the
Ezilla Cloud service to create virtual machines and login into virtual
machine to deploy the sensor observation system. Integrating the
sensor observation system with Ezilla is to quickly deploy experiment
environment and access a huge amount of data with distributed
database that support the replication mechanism to protect the data
security.
Abstract: This paper aims to argue that religion and Faith-based
Organizations (FBOs) contribute to building democratic process
through the provision of education in Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone
experienced a civil war from 1991 to 2002 and about 70 percent of the
population lives in poverty. While the government has been in the
process of rebuilding the nation, many forms of Civil Society
Organizations (CSOs), including FBOs, have played a significant role
in promoting social development. Education plays an important role in
supporting people-s democratic movements through knowledge
acquisition, spiritual enlightenment and empowerment. This paper
discusses religious tolerance in Sierra Leone and how FBOs have
contributed to the provision of primary education in Sierra Leone. This
study is based on the author-s field research, which involved
interviews with teachers and development stakeholders, notably
government officials, Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) and
FBOs, as well as questionnaires completed by pupils, parents and
teachers.
Abstract: In this paper first, Two buildings have been modeled
and then analyzed using nonlinear static analysis method under two
different conditions in Nonlinear SAP 2000 software. In the first
condition the interaction of soil adjacent to the walls of basement are
ignored while in the second case this interaction have been modeled
using Gap elements of nonlinear SAP2000 software. Finally,
comparing the results of two models, the effects of soil-structure on
period, target point displacement, internal forces, shape deformations
and base shears have been studied. According to the results, this
interaction has always increased the base shear of buildings,
decreased the period of structure and target point displacement, and
often decreased the internal forces and displacements.
Abstract: The draw solute separation process in Forward
Osmosis desalination was simulated in Aspen Plus chemical process
modeling software, to estimate the energy consumption and compare
it with other desalination processes, mainly the Reverse Osmosis
process which is currently most prevalent. The electrolytic chemistry
for the system was retrieved using the Elec – NRTL property method
in the Aspen Plus database. Electrical equivalent of energy required
in the Forward Osmosis desalination technique was estimated and
compared with the prevalent desalination techniques.