Penguasaan kemahiran generik di kalangan graduan hospitaliti di politeknik : satu kajian berkenaan keperluan industri perhotelan, persepsi pensyarah dan pelajar

Kajian yang dijalankan ini bertujuan untuk mengenal pasti kepentingan kemahiran generik mengikut keperluan industri perhotelan di Malaysia dengan persepsi pensyarah dan persepsi pelajar Jabatan Hospitaliti. Oleh kerana matlamat kurikulum pendidikan kini adalah untuk melahirkan graduan yang dapat memenuhi keperluan pihak industri, maka kajian ini dijalankan untuk menilai hubungan di antara keperluan industri perhotelan di Malaysia dengan persepsi pensyarah dan pelajar Jabatan Hospitaliti di Politeknik. Terdapat 13 kemahiran generik yang diperolehi daripada Kementerian Pelajaran dan Latihan Ontario (1997) dijadikan sebagai skop kepada instrumen kajian. Responden kajian terdiri daripada tiga pihak utama iaitu industri perhotelan di Malaysia yang melibatkan 40 buah hotel yang diwakili oleh MAH Chapter dan jawatankuasa dalam Malaysian Associated of Hotel (MAH), pensyarah Unit Hotel dan Katering dan pelajar semester akhir Diploma Hotel dan Katering di Politeknik Johor Bahru, Johor dan Politeknik Merlimau, Melaka. Kajian rintis yang dijalankan menunjukkan nilai Alpha Cronbach pada 0.8781. Data yang diperolehi dianalisis secara deskriptif dan inferensi dengan menggunakan perisian Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) versi 11.5. Melalui dapatan kajian, satu senarai berkenaan kemahiran generik yang diperlukan oleh industri perhotelan telah dapat dihasilkan. Selain itu, senarai kemahiran generik menurut persepsi pensyarah dan juga persepsi pelajar turut dihasilkan. Hasil statistik dan graf garis yang diperolehi menunjukkan terdapat perbezaan di antara kemahiran generik yang diperlukan oleh industri perhotelan di Malaysia dengan kemahiran generik menurut persepsi pensyarah dan persepsi pelajar Politeknik. Dapatan analisis menggunakan korelasi Pearson mendapati bahawa tidak terdapat perhubungan yang signifikan di antara kemahiran generik yang diperlukan oleh industri perhotelan dengan persepsi pensyarah dan persepsi pelajar. Namun begitu, terdapat hubungan yang signifikan di antara persepsi pensyarah dengan persepsi pelajar berkenaan dengan amalan kemahiran generik di Politeknik

Development of Neurofuzzy Architectures for Electricity Price Forecasting

In 20th century, many countries have liberalized their electricity market. This power markets liberalization has directed generation companies as well as wholesale buyers to undertake a greater intense risk exposure compared to the old centralized framework. In this framework, electricity price prediction has become crucial for any market player in their decision‐making process as well as strategic planning. In this study, a prototype asymmetric‐based neuro‐fuzzy network (AGFINN) architecture has been implemented for short‐term electricity prices forecasting for ISO New England market. AGFINN framework has been designed through two different defuzzification schemes. Fuzzy clustering has been explored as an initial step for defining the fuzzy rules while an asymmetric Gaussian membership function has been utilized in the fuzzification part of the model. Results related to the minimum and maximum electricity prices for ISO New England, emphasize the superiority of the proposed model over well‐established learning‐based models

Data-driven Soft Sensors in the Process Industry

In the last two decades Soft Sensors established themselves as a valuable alternative to the traditional means for the acquisition of critical process variables, process monitoring and other tasks which are related to process control. This paper discusses characteristics of the process industry data which are critical for the development of data-driven Soft Sensors. These characteristics are common to a large number of process industry fields, like the chemical industry, bioprocess industry, steel industry, etc. The focus of this work is put on the data-driven Soft Sensors because of their growing popularity, already demonstrated usefulness and huge, though yet not completely realised, potential. A comprehensive selection of case studies covering the three most important Soft Sensor application fields, a general introduction to the most popular Soft Sensor modelling techniques as well as a discussion of some open issues in the Soft Sensor development and maintenance and their possible solutions are the main contributions of this work

Design an intelligent controller for full vehicle nonlinear active suspension systems

The main objective of designed the controller for a vehicle suspension system is to reduce the discomfort sensed by passengers which arises from road roughness and to increase the ride handling associated with the pitching and rolling movements. This necessitates a very fast and accurate controller to meet as much control objectives, as possible. Therefore, this paper deals with an artificial intelligence Neuro-Fuzzy (NF) technique to design a robust controller to meet the control objectives. The advantage of this controller is that it can handle the nonlinearities faster than other conventional controllers. The approach of the proposed controller is to minimize the vibrations on each corner of vehicle by supplying control forces to suspension system when travelling on rough road. The other purpose for using the NF controller for vehicle model is to reduce the body inclinations that are made during intensive manoeuvres including braking and cornering. A full vehicle nonlinear active suspension system is introduced and tested. The robustness of the proposed controller is being assessed by comparing with an optimal Fractional Order (FOPID) controller. The results show that the intelligent NF controller has improved the dynamic response measured by decreasing the cost function

The wavelet-NARMAX representation : a hybrid model structure combining polynomial models with multiresolution wavelet decompositions

A new hybrid model structure combing polynomial models with multiresolution wavelet decompositions is introduced for nonlinear system identification. Polynomial models play an important role in approximation theory, and have been extensively used in linear and nonlinear system identification. Wavelet decompositions, in which the basis functions have the property of localization in both time and frequency, outperform many other approximation schemes and offer a flexible solution for approximating arbitrary functions. Although wavelet representations can approximate even severe nonlinearities in a given signal very well, the advantage of these representations can be lost when wavelets are used to capture linear or low-order nonlinear behaviour in a signal. In order to sufficiently utilise the global property of polynomials and the local property of wavelet representations simultaneously, in this study polynomial models and wavelet decompositions are combined together in a parallel structure to represent nonlinear input-output systems. As a special form of the NARMAX model, this hybrid model structure will be referred to as the WAvelet-NARMAX model, or simply WANARMAX. Generally, such a WANARMAX representation for an input-output system might involve a large number of basis functions and therefore a great number of model terms. Experience reveals that only a small number of these model terms are significant to the system output. A new fast orthogonal least squares algorithm, called the matching pursuit orthogonal least squares (MPOLS) algorithm, is also introduced in this study to determine which terms should be included in the final model

A hierarchical Mamdani-type fuzzy modelling approach with new training data selection and multi-objective optimisation mechanisms: A special application for the prediction of mechanical properties of alloy steels

In this paper, a systematic data-driven fuzzy modelling methodology is proposed, which allows to construct Mamdani fuzzy models considering both accuracy (precision) and transparency (interpretability) of fuzzy systems. The new methodology employs a fast hierarchical clustering algorithm to generate an initial fuzzy model efficiently; a training data selection mechanism is developed to identify appropriate and efficient data as learning samples; a high-performance Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) based multi-objective optimisation mechanism is developed to further improve the fuzzy model in terms of both the structure and the parameters; and a new tolerance analysis method is proposed to derive the confidence bands relating to the final elicited models. This proposed modelling approach is evaluated using two benchmark problems and is shown to outperform other modelling approaches. Furthermore, the proposed approach is successfully applied to complex high-dimensional modelling problems for manufacturing of alloy steels, using ‘real’ industrial data. These problems concern the prediction of the mechanical properties of alloy steels by correlating them with the heat treatment process conditions as well as the weight percentages of the chemical compositions

Measurements, Models, Systems and Design

531 s.