The Sustainable Architectural Values of Eclectic Style Shophouses Case Study: Sun Yat Sen Museum Penang, Malaysia

The Sun Yat Sen shophouse in Penang is a small private Museum, which was converted from a shophouse or townhouse situated in theArmenian Street heritage area of George Town. The building is an example of embraces of the architectural heritage of George Town which is an extraordinarily beautiful example of Straits Settlements merchant's shophouse.Historically, it is associated with the global historical personality of Dr. Sun Yat Sen and hisrevolutionary. This city was added to the UNESCO's world heritage list in 2008 to acknowledge its rich cultural heritage that constitutes of unique architectural and cultural townscape along the Straits of Melaka. This paper investigates the architectural plan of a shophouse and the valuesof cultural heritage buildingswhich eventually was converted into a Museum in George Town, Penang. Classified as an eclectic style shophouse, it is rich in design and art components featured in its architecture that are still sustaining until today. This building has an interesting mixture of architectural and cultural inspirations adapted from the Chinese origin, with the local Malay ethnicity and the European influencesthat colonised the region. The introduction of new non related architectural components into the southern Chinese (eclectic style) style in shophouses in George Town has resulted in the disappearance of this unique style of architecture. This investigation employs a qualitative research approach by documenting evidence and understanding the architectural as well as cultural influences of the southern Chineseeclectic style by studying the Sun Yat Sen Museum as a case study. The findings of the research point towards an understanding of the architectural and cultural influences that govern the design of the shophouse and its architectural character

Does paradise have a future? : a three-gap analysis of the Fiji economy

econometric models;economic growth;Fiji;external financing;financial needs;macroeconomcis

Properties of Bipolar Fuzzy Hypergraphs

In this article, we apply the concept of bipolar fuzzy sets to hypergraphs and investigate some properties of bipolar fuzzy hypergraphs. We introduce the notion of $A-$ tempered bipolar fuzzy hypergraphs and present some of their properties. We also present application examples of bipolar fuzzy hypergraphs

"Dark Matter: Some Reflections on the Current Account Debate"

The United States has a large and persistent current account deficit. Yet, U.S.'s income receipts from the rest of the world have exceeded its income payments to the rest of the world for many years. This appears to be paradoxical because for a country with a negative net foreign assets position, such as the U.S., international income payments to the rest of the world are likely to exceed its international income receipts. Hausmann and Sturzenegger (2005) offer an explanation of this apparent paradox. They argue that U.S. current account statistics do not properly measure U.S.'s net foreign assets position and that its actual net foreign assets position is measurably better than the officially estimated position primarily due to the existence of intangible corporate capital invested overseas. In their view the debate about the sustainability of the U.S. current account deficit and the negative net foreign assets position is moot because these deficits and debts are either non-existent or fairly small. This paper critically evaluates Hausmann et al's claims and examines the implications of their hypothesis. It offers, within an analytical framework, alternative explanations that are more consistent with the stylized facts.

A crouching tiger? A hidden dragon? Transition, savings and growth in Vietnam, 1975-2006

econometric models;Viet Nam;policy analysis;economic development;economies in transition

THE-FAME: THreshold based Energy-efficient FAtigue MEasurment for Wireless Body Area Sensor Networks using Multiple Sinks

Wireless Body Area Sensor Network (WBASN) is a technology employed mainly for patient health monitoring. New research is being done to take the technology to the next level i.e. player's fatigue monitoring in sports. Muscle fatigue is the main cause of player's performance degradation. This type of fatigue can be measured by sensing the accumulation of lactic acid in muscles. Excess of lactic acid makes muscles feel lethargic. Keeping this in mind we propose a protocol \underline{TH}reshold based \underline{E}nergy-efficient \underline{FA}tigue \underline{ME}asurement (THE-FAME) for soccer players using WBASN. In THE-FAME protocol, a composite parameter has been used that consists of a threshold parameter for lactic acid accumulation and a parameter for measuring distance covered by a particular player. When any parameters's value in this composite parameter shows an increase beyond threshold, the players is declared to be in a fatigue state. The size of battery and sensor should be very small for the sake of players' best performance. These sensor nodes, implanted inside player's body, are made energy efficient by using multiple sinks instead of a single sink. Matlab simulation results show the effectiveness of THE-FAME.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc

Distance Aware Relaying Energy-efficient: DARE to Monitor Patients in Multi-hop Body Area Sensor Networks

In recent years, interests in the applications of Wireless Body Area Sensor Network (WBASN) is noticeably developed. WBASN is playing a significant role to get the real time and precise data with reduced level of energy consumption. It comprises of tiny, lightweight and energy restricted sensors, placed in/on the human body, to monitor any ambiguity in body organs and measure various biomedical parameters. In this study, a protocol named Distance Aware Relaying Energy-efficient (DARE) to monitor patients in multi-hop Body Area Sensor Networks (BASNs) is proposed. The protocol operates by investigating the ward of a hospital comprising of eight patients, under different topologies by positioning the sink at different locations or making it static or mobile. Seven sensors are attached to each patient, measuring different parameters of Electrocardiogram (ECG), pulse rate, heart rate, temperature level, glucose level, toxins level and motion. To reduce the energy consumption, these sensors communicate with the sink via an on-body relay, affixed on the chest of each patient. The body relay possesses higher energy resources as compared to the body sensors as, they perform aggregation and relaying of data to the sink node. A comparison is also conducted conducted with another protocol of BAN named, Mobility-supporting Adaptive Threshold-based Thermal-aware Energy-efficient Multi-hop ProTocol (M-ATTEMPT). The simulation results show that, the proposed protocol achieves increased network lifetime and efficiently reduces the energy consumption, in relative to M-ATTEMPT protocol.Comment: IEEE 8th International Conference on Broadband and Wireless Computing, Communication and Applications (BWCCA'13), Compiegne, Franc