Reliability Evaluation of Slopes Using Particle Swarm Optimization

The objective of this research is to develop a numerical procedure to reliability evaluation of earth slope and locating the critical probabilistic slip surface. The performance function is  formulated using simplified Bishop’s limit equilibrium method  to calculate the reliability index. The reliability index defined by Hasofer and Lind is used as an index of safety measure. Searching the critical probabilistic surface that is associated with the lowest reliability index will be formulated as an optimization problem. In this paper, particle swarm optimization is applied to calculate the minimum Hasofer and Lind reliability index and critical probabilistic failure surface. To demonstrate the applicability and to investigate the effectiveness of the algorithm, two numerical examples from literature are illustrated. Results show that the proposed method is capable to achieve better solutions for reliability analysis of slope if compared with those reported in the literature

Molecular Diversification and Phylogeny of Mangifera (Anacardiaceae) in Indonesia and Thailand

Phylogenetic relationships among 19  Mangifera L. species of Indonesia and Thailand were analyzed by comparing sequences of maturase-K gene of chloroplast genome. Phylogenetic analysis using parsimony method revealed that the gene could clasify Mangifera into three major groups. Although this classification system is different with the previous system, it can provide a new information about Mangifera taxonomy. Results further exhibited that DNA sequences of the matK of two Mangifera species (M. laurina dan M. macrocarpa) are different between Indonesia and Thailand specimens

Mobile Learning in the Institution of Higher Learning for Malaysia students : Culture Perspectives

Mobile learning usage in a developing country like Malaysia can be considered new. This literature research  is a state of art overview to discuss current issues. The emerging issues come from: types of mobile learning and learning styles; implementation issues of mobile learning; culture dimensions; and user readiness to accept the mobile learning technology. Currently, there is a lack of research about culture aspects to improve mobile learning and university students’ engagement in Malaysia. The objective of this research is to find the gap from the culture perspectives of mobile learning in Malaysia at public institutions of higher learning. The discussions have found that the culture dimensions are not a suitable approach to tackle mobile learning. It is therefore suggested to use a more grounded and sensible cultural  approach for local context

The Semantic Portal for Supporting Research Community: a Review

Current state of the art of typical search engines like Google, Yahoo and others are delivering references in terms of web URL or links to the related website. As such the results did not deliver the right answers required to the users needs. In addition to that as soon as the users require a collection of the information obtained, these search engines failed to do so resulting in the human intervention in-combining the information from several sources. Due ot the advancement and the vast number of sites and information on the web, demands in providing higher precision results are required to aid users in obtaining the most relevant result to the search process. One of the promising areas of the Semantic Web is enhancing the query capabilities for information. Small vertical vocabularies and ontologies have emerged, and the community of people using these and generating data is growing daily. However queries or search mechanisms that utilizea the vasrt amount of vocabularies, ontologies and data in digital libraries is still very much lacking. Therefore searching over heteregoneous records, data in digital library community or the Web has become a well known problem to the mass public. As such a solution is needed for a federated search across multiple resources available. However it remains unclear on how Semantic Web or its technology is used in constructing a digital library system or aid in enhancing the quality of the search results performed. This leads to the current work proposed, as work will be conducted to provide possible components that will construct the semantic web portal. The work performed is essential to facilitate semantic searches for research community in large-scale distributed digital library system. The subject research community is chosen particularly to aid in ensuring hat result obtained are accordingly to the users relevant needs. The expected outcomes of the research are an architecture that utilizes the semantic technology that will promote semantic web portal in the digital library and a semantic search mechanism that will provide better results and a combination of useful results relevant to the users

Modelling of 0.5HP Induction Motor using AC Analysis Solver for Rotor Copper Bar material

In this paper a FEM model of a three phase 0.5HP squirrel-cage induction motor is modelled by using FEM software. The model is then used to analyze and investigate the performance of the induction machine using copper rotor bar compared to the conventional aluminium rotor bar material. Calculation using analytical tools could not calculate precisely the required parameters in order to obtain an optimal model to build a prototype model. That is why FEM software has been used to obtain the required data such as the torque vs. speed, torque vs. slip, power loss vs. speed and power loss vs. slip. This work gives some reviews of the advantages by substituting copper for aluminum in the rotor bar of squirrel cage induction motor as a main strategy toward reaching substantially higher efficiency

Initial Investigation on Privacy Preferences: A Preliminary Study on User Priority, Concern, Perception and Expectation

This paper reports on the findings of an initial study on the user’s preference towards their own privacy. The study is important in having user’s opinion especially when dealing with security of their privacy. It is vital to know what the most important priorities are when dealing with privacy as this could lead to the requirements that the user expected when using a website. In addition, this study tried to gather information of user perceptions on privacy and the expectations that they have when dealing with organizations through a survey by using questionnaires. Results showed that Malaysians does have privacy concerns when dealing with organizations. Therefore, this study has achieved the objective s of gathering data on user perceptions and expectations towards privacy