Graphic Adaptive Transformation Of Islamic Motifs A Case Study Of Kedah Traditional House

This study attempts to identify, analyse and transform selected motifs found in several traditional houses in Kedah. The aim of this study is to explore the potential of trans forming local Islamic motifs into a digital format, enabling them to be used widely in other fields of design. This study is qualitative in nature. It began with the identification of architectural Islamic motifs, which followed by drawing and computing processes. In addition, certain procedures were carried to modify the motifs' designs. The study revealed the unity concept and understanding of Islamic art and its diversity that related to local factors. It found that the geometrical shapes and calligraphic forms were not widely used in Malaysia. Furthermore the calligraphic motifs needed certain ways of modification and changes. It is hoped that this study would encourage more Muslim artists and designers in Malaysia to use Malaysian-based Islamic motif in their work

Control-Affine Extremum Seeking Control with Attenuating Oscillations

Control-affine Extremum Seeking Control (ESC) systems have been increasingly studied and applied in the last decade. Similar to classic ESC related structures, control-affine ESC systems are operable by assuming access to measurements of the objective function, and not necessarily its expression. In contrast to classic ESC related structures, in a control-affine ESC, the objective function -- or a map of it -- is incorporated within the system's vector fields themselves. This has invoked the use of tools from geometric control theory, namely Lie Bracket Systems (LBSs). Said LBSs play a crucial role in stability and performance characterization of ESCs. In a recent effort, many control-affine ESC structures have been generalized in a unifying class and analyzed through LBSs. In addition, this generalized class converge asymptotically to the extremum point; however, the extremum point has to be known a priori and guaranteeing vanishing control input at the extremum point requires the application of strong conditions. In this paper, we introduce a LBS-based ESC structure that: (1) does not require the extremum point a priori, (2) its oscillations attenuate structurally via a novel application of a geometric-based Kalman filter estimating LBSs; and (3) its stability is characterized by a time-dependent (one bound) condition that is verifiable via simulations and relaxed when compared to the generalized approach mentioned earlier. We provide numerical simulations of three problems to demonstrate the ability of our proposed ESC; these problems cannot be solved with vanishing oscillations using the above-mentioned generalized approach in literature

Analyzing and Mimicking the Optimized Flight Physics of Soaring Birds: A Differential Geometric Control and Extremum Seeking System Approach with Real Time Implementation

For centuries, soaring birds -- such as albatrosses and eagles -- have been mysterious and intriguing for biologists, physicists, aeronautical/control engineers, and applied mathematicians. These fascinating biological organisms have the ability to fly for long-duration while spending little to no energy. This flight technique/maneuver is called dynamic soaring (DS). For biologists and physicists, the DS phenomenon is nothing but a wonder of the very elegant ability of the bird's interaction with nature and using its physical ether in an optimal way for better survival and energy efficiency. For the engineering community, it is a source of inspiration and an unequivocal promising chance for bio-mimicking. In literature, significant work has been done on modeling and constructing control systems that allow the DS maneuver to be mimicked. However, mathematical characterization of the DS phenomenon in literature has been limited to optimal control configurations that utilized developments in numerical optimization algorithms along with control methods to identify the optimal DS trajectory taken (or to be taken) by the bird/mimicking system. In this paper, we provide a novel two-layered mathematical approach to characterize, model, mimic, and control DS in a simple and real-time implementation. The first layer will be a differential geometric control formulation and analysis of the DS problem. The second layer will be a linkage between the DS philosophy and a class of dynamical control systems known as extremum seeking systems. We believe our framework captures more of the biological behavior of soaring birds and opens the door for geometric control theory and extremum seeking systems to be utilized in systems biology and natural phenomena. Simulation results are provided along with comparisons with powerful optimal control solvers to illustrate the advantages of the introduced method

Perceptions of the effectiveness of Kuwait’s strategic education planning policy and processes

Education planning is considered a vital factor in the success of any education system. For educational organisations such as the Ministry of Education (MoE) in Kuwait, strategic planning is very crucial for the achievement of the educational goals that reflect the aspirations of Kuwait’s community, such as preparing graduates to help develop their countries. However, there is a need to build a strategic education plan that integrates the goals and objectives from the educational field, as well as from society. The main purpose of this research is to explore the current strategic education plan in Kuwait in terms of the issues that may arise from the policies that control the strategic education plan’s formulation and implementation. This research adopted a mixed methods approach for data collection, which was conducted in three phases. The first phase depended on exploratory interviews to investigate the nature of the current policy that controls the education system in Kuwait. In addition, the exploratory study aimed to identify issues (if any) result from policies that control strategic education plan’s formulation and implementation. The second phase employed a questionnaire that explored research participants’ perceptions regarding the issues that were identified by the exploratory study. The third phase depended on in-depth interviews to investigate the characteristics of the centralisation policy in the education system. This phase aimed to further investigate the interviewees’ perceptions regarding the issues that had been identified in the first phase. The third phase also sought to investigate how the MoE’s policies might underlie these issues, and they may act strengths or weaknesses in the strategic education plan. The research sample of the three phases consisted of leaders from the three managerial tiers of the Kuwaiti education system (MoE officials, district leaders, and school leaders). The MoE leaders are those who chair different departments within the ministry. The district leaders are those who chair different departments within six education districts in Kuwait. The school leaders consist of head teachers, deputy heads, and department heads. The first phase involved 12 interviewees, the second phase involved 188 participants, and the third phase involved 22 interviewees. The research findings identified the current policy that controls the education system in Kuwait. The findings indicated that the centralisation in education system is extreme, and that the MoE is the ultimate decision maker. The MoE adopts the tenets of centralisation in order to control resource allocation, curriculum planning, in-service programmes for teachers and staff, pupils’ assessments, and educational planning. My research identified seven issues associated with strategic education planning in Kuwait, which are all affected by the centralisation policy, as follows: 1. Efficiency and effectiveness of the strategic plan 2. Comprehensiveness of the strategic plan 3. Implementability 4. Collaborativeness and participativeness 5. Communicative capacity 6. Bureaucratisation 7. Work environment These seven issues are seen as the problems that have resulted from the centralised nature of the strategic plan that affected the education system’s outcome. For each issue, the research results identified a number of reasons as to why these issues can be viewed as weaknesses of the centralised strategic plan. Thus, the research found that the centralisation policy, which is embedded in both the formulation and the implementation of the strategic plan, is an obstacle to the strategic plan’s effectiveness. Additionally, the research identified a relationship between the weaknesses of the strategic plan itself, and the MoE officials’ practices as the ultimate decision makers. Finally, the research concluded that the implementers of the strategic plan tend to participate in decision-making; however, they should exercise a certain degree of autonomy within their workplace in order to identify the best ways through which to achieve the goals of the strategic plan

Review of Recommender Systems Algorithms Utilized in Social Networks based e-Learning Systems & Neutrosophic System

In this paper, we present a review of different recommender system algorithms that are utilized in social networks based e-Learning systems. Future research will include our proposed our e-Learning system that utilizes Recommender System and Social Network. Since the world is full of indeterminacy, the neutrosophics found their place into contemporary research. The fundamental concepts of neutrosophic set, introduced by Smarandache in [21, 22, 23] and Salama et al. in [24-66].The purpose of this paper is to utilize a neutrosophic set to analyze social networks data conducted through learning activities