Quality Management System In Construction

This paper describes the Quality Management System (QMS) concept and its application in the construction industry. A misunderstanding among the construction players on the QMS concept has become the stumbling block for its successful implementation

Ranking Causes of Road Accident Occurrence Using Extended Interval Type-2 Fuzzy TOPSIS

Over the past century there has been a dramatic increase in the number of road accidents in Malaysia. Hence, it is necessary to create a decision making method which can consider various preferences and criteria in order to identify the main causes of the accidents. This paper proposes an Interval Type-2 Fuzzy Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (IT2FTOPSIS) method which provides a comprehensive valuation from experts. This method is developed based on the aggregation of experts’ opinions on preferred causes of road accidents. The extended IT2FTOPSIS employs a linguistic scales of positive and negative Interval Type-2 Trapezoidal Fuzzy Number (IT2TrFN) and hybrid averaging approach (from an ambiguity and type-reduction methods) to formulate a collective decision environment. Three authorised personnel from three Malaysian Government agencies were interviewed where they were asked to rank the causes. The analysis shows that the linguistic scales of positive and negative Interval Type-2 Trapezoidal Fuzzy Number (IT2TrFN) and hybrid averaging approach are effective in measuring the uncertainties in the interviewees’ responses. Thus this paper concludes that the extended IT2FTOPSIS is more aligned with the users’ decisions compared to the earlier IT2FTOPSIS. Keywords: Multiple criteria decision-making; interval type-2 fuzzy set; IT2FTOPSIS; road accident

An investigation of building information modelling implementation in KSA

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Wolverhampton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).Building Information Modelling (BIM) has been well recognised all around the world as a technology driven approach that can bring radical improvements in construction productivity. There is considerable demand for using BIM in the KSA due to the large scale of its construction industry that needs to improve its productivity to overcome the persistent problems, such as project delays, planning inefficiencies, and waste of resources. The aim of this study is to investigate how the KSA construction organisations are implementing BIM for competitive advantage. Qualitative research approach was adopted to collect and analyse data from 46 BIM professionals. As part of the analysis of the interviews, content analysis was employed. The unit of analysis adopted for this study is the ‘construction industry’ and the embedded unit is ‘individual employee’. The KSA construction industry is heading in the right direction for implementing BIM, however it is lacking BIM knowledge and does not understand BIM as a set of requirements. Therefore, an industry wide awareness-raising programme on the concept of BIM needs to be developed and deployed. The existing education and training programmes need some reorientation. Furthermore, the KSA construction organisations would not survive if they choose not to use BIM. BIM is widely used during planning and design stage. The four most important drivers for BIM implementation are: client pressure, competitive pressure, to improve collaboration, and government pressure. Eleven challenges were also revealed in this study of which organisational culture for change is the key challenge for adoption of BIM in the KSA construction organisations. Leaders of a change process need to realise that most changes within an organisation will usually cause and expect some change in its existing culture and sub-cultures. Therefore, having a better understanding of the effects change has on the sub-cultures of an organisation, group or team, will in turn help leaders of a change process better understand the resistance towards the change itself, and provide a more realistic approach on how to manage it. A BIM implementation framework is developed for the benefit of KSA construction organisations. It is recommended that KSA construction stakeholders including the government and professional regulatory bodies should work together in ensuring that the enablers of BIM adoption such as the provision of regulations and industry standards guiding the implementation are provided and strengthened to make the industry ready enough for BIM adoption

ELECTROLYTE- GATED THIN FILM TRANSISTORS WITH SOLUTION- PROCESSED SEMICONDUCTORS

The work in this thesis is concentrated on studies of improving the functionality of electrolyte- gated thin film transistors with solution- processed semiconductors in order to provide a promising platform in particular for sensor as transducers and introduce sensitizer layer on the top of the devices to improve their response to specific analytes. Calixarenes, a family of organic macrocycles, were used to bind selectively to waterborne cations, making them an attractive sensitizer option for such species. Here, it is found that calixarenes deposited over the surface of semiconductors using the Langmuir trough also show a positive impact on the performance of TFTs in terms of reducing unwanted electrochemical doping, which often competes with field effect. Also, electron- transporting and electrolyte- gated thin film transistors were demonstrated using precursor- route zinc- oxide (ZnO) semiconductors with hydrophobic surface modifications. This avoids the well- known problem of electron trapping in organic semiconductors. ZnO also shows ambipolar behavior when gated by an ionic liquid (IL) at high applied voltages. Moreover, it is found some organic solvents may act as EDL gate media for TFTs, thus establishing a new family of gate media, in addition to the previously known options (water, ILs, solid electrolytes). This ability is a property of the solvent, not the semiconductor, and a criterion is identified to qualify an organic solvent to act as EDL gate medium. The organic nano- wire (NW) morphology is attractive for sensor applications, due to the high surface area of NWs. Here, both p- type and n- type organic NW films were gated by water. NW TFTs of the hole- transporting polymer P3HT, grown via different solution- based routes, showed lower drain currents, but also lower thresholds, compared to conventional P3HT film TFTs. Water- gated electron- transporting organic TFTs were demonstrated using nano- belts of the n- type organic semiconductor BBL. Performance was improved significantly when using an aprotic organic solvent as EDL gate medium for BBL nano- belt films

Smart book locator system based on geographic information system at Perpustakaan Tun Abdul Razak 1, UiTM Shah Alam Malaysia

No AbstractKeywords: OPAC; GIS; SLBS; virtual librar

Energy efficiency in green building materials application for low-energy indoor eco-friendly / Anas Zafirol Abdullah Halim, Mohd Fareh Majid and Muhammad Naim Mahyuddin

World environment climate has changed toward unpredictable weather where average global temperature has increased up to 0.74oC since 1906 until 2005 [1]. This increment is an indication of more heat from the sun is penetrated to our primary protector which is the ozone layer. Due to this scenario, the secondary protector in the forms of the buildings should play major roles in giving comfort to the human. This is where the thermal conductivity of the building material becomes an important matter to study. Thermal conductivity or k-value of solid material describes the ability of heat being transferred through conduction. High k-value describes the material as highly conductive from one point to another. In other words, high k-value material easily allows the heat transfer to pass through it, as such indicating that this is not a good property for building material. The design thickness is very crucial where it will impact the cost of producing green materials. Thicker brick uses more amount of material and hence, it increases the production cost. The requirement on heat resistivity is very important for a building to prevent the building to be hot and uncomfortable. Unlike the clay brick wall and concrete wall, the U-value for green material wall is very low and it can block the entry of large amounts of heat and thereby cooling the buildin

A study on the rights of the illegitimate muslim children in Selangor / Farhana Yusof … [et al.]

This research is conducted to determine the rights of the illegitimate children from Islamic Law perspectives and the law of other countries. This topic is chosen for the reason there will be more discussions and explanations for the future benefit. This research comprises of five chapters whereby each chapters are explaining different issues. The major discussions can be found in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 of our research study. Chapter 3 is explaining on the issue of the illegitimate children in Islamic perspective and the status of the illegitimate children in Non- Muslim Countries. Meanwhile, in Chapter 4, this research is comparing the status and the rights of the illegitimate children in Islamic and Non- Islamic Countries. The sub-topics under this chapter consist of comparisons between the four states which are Indonesia and Egypt for the Islamic Countries and Singapore and the United States of America for the Non- Islamic Countries whereby the Islamic and the Non-Islamic Countries have different approaches in treating the illegitimate children due to different provisions as being provided in their countries. There are some findings and recommendations have been concluded in Chapter 5 based on the defect and lacuna in the law that had been found in the provision, Acts and administration regarding the rights of illegitimate children. From the legal perspectives, there is a lacuna in the law as regards to the rights of the illegitimate Muslim children because the law is currently inadequate to protect the rights of the illegitimate Muslim children

Exploring critical success factors of energy management for sustainable building in Malaysian university

Universities are increasingly consuming energy due to its population with various activities. Thus, Malaysian Higher Education Ministry insisted all parties involved to take the initiatives in reducing the energy consumption. Focusing on the importance of practicing energy management (EM) effectively, this paper discusses the Critical Success Factors (CSFs) towards sustainable university. Structured interviews, pilot study and a questionnaire survey were conducted. The findings disclose the relative importance of the 23 number of identified CSFs. In order to explore the underlying relationship among the identified CSFs, factor analysis method was adopted, which leads to grouping the 23 identified CSFs into four group

Is a Nominee a Trustee or a Beneficiary? A Study on the Islamic Legal Maxim “In Contracts Effect is Given to Intention and Meaning and not Words and Forms” and Its Relevance to the Nomination Concept and Practice in the Administration of a Muslim’s Estate in Malaysia.

In a sale transaction, parties to the contract are allowed to pronounce an offer using words which do not indicate a sale. He may use the word such as hibah in the offer as long as the nature of the contract is exchange. Nomination is a means to expedite the process of the administration of a deceased Muslim’s estate. It is commonly practiced in financial institutions such as insurance and takaful companies, Pilgrimage Fund and Employee Provident Fund. An issue arises as regard to the status of nominee, as a trustee or beneficiary. A fatwawas issued by the National Fatwa Committee in 1973 stating that a nominee acts only as a trustee. However, the decisions of the civil courts and the Shari`ah court show that a nominee could be a beneficiary. This research is undertaken to examine the Islamic legal maxim and its relevance to the principle of nomination in Malaysia. Here, even though it is a nomination form and the nominee appointed is merely a trustee according to the 1972 fatwa, the wordings of the nomination might indicate a different connotation

WCBP: A new water cycle based back propagation algorithm for data classification

Water Cycle algorithm is a modern nature inspired meta-heuristic algorithm to provide derivative-free solution to optimize complex problems. The back-propagation neural network (BPNN) algorithm performs well on many complex data types but it possess the problem of network stagnancy and local minima. Therefore, this paper proposed the use of WC algorithm in combination with Back-Propagation neural network (BPNN) algorithm to solve the local minima problem in gradient descent trajectory. The performance of the proposed Water Cycle based Back-Propagation (WCBP) algorithm is compared with the conventional BPNN, ABC-BP and ABC-LM algorithms on selected benchmark classification problems from UCI Machine Learning Repository. The simulation results show that the BPNN training process is highly enhanced when combined with WC algorithm