EG-ICE 2021 Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering

The 28th EG-ICE International Workshop 2021 brings together international experts working at the interface between advanced computing and modern engineering challenges. Many engineering tasks require open-world resolutions to support multi-actor collaboration, coping with approximate models, providing effective engineer-computer interaction, search in multi-dimensional solution spaces, accommodating uncertainty, including specialist domain knowledge, performing sensor-data interpretation and dealing with incomplete knowledge. While results from computer science provide much initial support for resolution, adaptation is unavoidable and most importantly, feedback from addressing engineering challenges drives fundamental computer-science research. Competence and knowledge transfer goes both ways

EG-ICE 2021 Workshop on Intelligent Computing in Engineering

The 28th EG-ICE International Workshop 2021 brings together international experts working at the interface between advanced computing and modern engineering challenges. Many engineering tasks require open-world resolutions to support multi-actor collaboration, coping with approximate models, providing effective engineer-computer interaction, search in multi-dimensional solution spaces, accommodating uncertainty, including specialist domain knowledge, performing sensor-data interpretation and dealing with incomplete knowledge. While results from computer science provide much initial support for resolution, adaptation is unavoidable and most importantly, feedback from addressing engineering challenges drives fundamental computer-science research. Competence and knowledge transfer goes both ways

A constraint-based approach for assessing the capabilities of existing designs to handle product variation

All production machinery is designed with an inherent capability to handle slight variations in product. This is initially achieved by simply providing adjustments to allow, for example, changes that occur in pack sizes to be accommodated, through user settings or complete sets of change parts. By the appropriate use of these abilities most variations in product can be handled. However when extreme conditions of setups, major changes in product size and configuration, are considered there is no guarantee that the existing machines are able to cope. The problem is even more difficult to deal with when completely new product families are proposed to be made on an existing product line. Such changes in product range are becoming more common as producers respond to demands for ever increasing customization and product differentiation. An issue exists due to the lack of knowledge on the capabilities of the machines being employed. This often forces the producer to undertake a series of practical product trials. These however can only be undertaken once the product form has been decided and produced in sufficient numbers. There is then little opportunity to make changes that could greatly improve the potential output of the line and reduce waste. There is thus a need for a supportive modelling approach that allows the effect of variation in products to be analyzed together with an understanding of the manufacturing machine capability. Only through their analysis and interaction can the capabilities be fully understood and refined to make production possible. This thesis presents a constraint-based approach that offers a solution to the problems above. While employing this approach it has been shown that, a generic process can be formed to identify the limiting factors (constraints) of variant products to be processed. These identified constraints can be mapped to form the potential limits of performance for the machine. The limits of performance of a system (performance envelopes) can be employed to assess the design capability to cope with product variation. The approach is successfully demonstrated on three industrial case studies.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

A constraint-based approach for assessing the capabilities of existing designs to handle product variation

All production machinery is designed with an inherent capability to handle slight variations in product. This is initially achieved by simply providing adjustments to allow, for example, changes that occur in pack sizes to be accommodated, through user settings or complete sets of change parts. By the appropriate use of these abilities most variations in product can be handled. However when extreme conditions of setups, major changes in product size and configuration, are considered there is no guarantee that the existing machines are able to cope. The problem is even more difficult to deal with when completely new product families are proposed to be made on an existing product line. Such changes in product range are becoming more common as producers respond to demands for ever increasing customization and product differentiation. An issue exists due to the lack of knowledge on the capabilities of the machines being employed. This often forces the producer to undertake a series of practical product trials. These however can only be undertaken once the product form has been decided and produced in sufficient numbers. There is then little opportunity to make changes that could greatly improve the potential output of the line and reduce waste. There is thus a need for a supportive modelling approach that allows the effect of variation in products to be analyzed together with an understanding of the manufacturing machine capability. Only through their analysis and interaction can the capabilities be fully understood and refined to make production possible. This thesis presents a constraint-based approach that offers a solution to the problems above. While employing this approach it has been shown that, a generic process can be formed to identify the limiting factors (constraints) of variant products to be processed. These identified constraints can be mapped to form the potential limits of performance for the machine. The limits of performance of a system (performance envelopes) can be employed to assess the design capability to cope with product variation. The approach is successfully demonstrated on three industrial case studies.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia

"Don't get sick at sea": An Ecological Study of the Fishermen of Pulau Tuba, Langkawi, Malaysia

Abstract Berger, Morten M. (2015). "Don't get sick at sea": An Ecological Study of the Fishermen of Pulau Tuba, Langkawi, Malaysia. Master's thesis in Social Anthropology. Department of Anthropology, University of Oslo. This study is a project based on a fieldwork of 6-months duration at the island of Pulau Tuba in the Langkawi archipelago outside the north-western coast of Malaysia. I've been using anthropological research methods like participant observation and informal interviews for data-collection. My approach to establish my field was the following: Firstly to investigate prior literature from the region or discussing similar themes as what I wanted to investigate further. Secondly to establish the following research theme, namely how Pulau Tuba can be seen as an ecosystem on a smaller scale within which the inhabitants are conducting multiple activities and how the products from such activities are flowing out of the Tuban ecosystem through the interaction between people, as well as how external influence impinge on the lives of the inhabitants. Using the methods above and going along people during their activities, resulted in a bulk of raw data, carefully registered in several notebooks. After reading these notes I started looking for theories useful for analyzing my data. I elected to use an ecological approach in combination with the idea of a generative model from Barth's "Models of Social organization" in order to produce my own conception of how the flow of the Tuban ecosystem could be charted. However I also investigated structures and systems existing at Pulau Tuba. Through multiple observations of people involved in religion, kinship and politics I determined that these should be viewed as important parts of social organization at the island and which should be presented in detail. Prior regional literature was also important for enabling comparison and showing how some things have changed in the field. It is important to note that my main focus has been on activities within the primary sector of the economy like fishing, agriculture and animal husbandry as well as less practiced activities like hunting and gathering. I've been closely investigating the inhabitant's ecological adaption to particular niches within different habitats in their ecosystem. The Tubans are however also engaged in service activities within the tertiary sector like tourism and hospitality, transport and recently waste management. It could actually be argued that the inhabitants of Pulau engaged within the primary sector also are active in the tertiary sector, as they sell some of the goods they have produced themselves directly to fellow villagers, which can be viewed as consumers. The majority of the produce is however sold to middlemen and is something that I investigate through making a generative model. Significant components of this model includes possibilities and limitations within ecological conditions and social relations, which together with cultural values and existing assets influence an individual's choice of whether to engage in activity or not. In order for a transaction to take place there must also be an agreement on the definition of a transactional situation and a shared system of evaluation must be proposed. Through a successful interaction between two parties, activity patterns and social patterns become evident which subsequently influences what was termed significant components through positive and negative feedback loops