Decision Making Systems in Smart Buildings

Smart buildings technology is becoming ever more important due to increasing demand in the market. One of the main issues of concern is the integration of different products made by different manufacturers designed for different functions in an environment with frequent changes. Therefore, in this paper a model is presented to deal with this issue and help manage the decision making processes in a smart building environment as well as support the relationships between manufacturers and customers. Also, this model should help manage conflicts between different customers’ requirements. The model is designed to accommodate future expansion in functions, properties, and services

Designing a Comprehensive Framework for e-Government Implementation Success with a Special View of the Case of Saudi Arabia

As a result of the increasing development in the field of Information Systems (IS) in the last decades, new concepts have appeared to serve specific requirements and needs (Smith 2010; Almarabeh and AbuAli 2010). E-government is one of these concepts, which appeared in 1993 (Silva 2006) to become one of the main tools for governments around the world to enhance the services provided by governments and their agencies (Atallah 2001). Investigating the literature shows that there are common issues in all e-government implementation projects which can be summarized as follows: 1) e-government implementation projects in their nature are vast, and usually their success is critical for the country. 2) As the factors affecting the success of the implementation vary from different perspectives such technical, human, and political perspectives, many overlaps and contradictions may appear while maintaining the success factors (West 2006). 3). Despite this verity in the perspectives, e-government implementation project in general should be treated as one unit, and success factors from all perspectives should be considered together in order to have a successful project (Cater et al. 2004). 4) The size of e-government projects and the complexity resulted from perspectives verity have created the need not only for identifying the success factors related to the process of e-government implementation, but also for creating frameworks for managing the implementation process (Chen et al. 2009). In this research, a holistic framework for e-government implementation that considers the complexity of having several perspectives affecting the implementation process during its stages is proposed. We claim that this would solve the expected conflicts that may appear while considering different success factors from different perspectives, and it is supposed to be in compliance with the environment’s situation. Approaching this problem would be an added value to the literature of e-government implementation and the literature of the IS field in general because the claimed holistic framework for e-government implementation is not addressed as an academic research. Also, targeting this problem is distinguished from the sort of problem that a government agency or its consultants would themselves be working on by being a generic framework that fits all countries’ situations, and by considering all perspectives rather than focusing only on delivering the project requirements. In order to achieve this, three artifacts are proposed in this research using Design Science discipline as guidelines for designing these artifacts which are: 1) designing a model represents the success factors for e-government implementation as extracted from the literature, 2) creating a framework for the success process of e-government implementation, and 3) designing a physical instantiation for part of the project of e-government implementation in Saudi Arabia in order to evaluate the proposed framework. The findings of evaluating the proposed framework show tangible improvements in the implementation progress. Because e-government implementation projects are influenced by their environment, the results of this evaluation can be generalized only to other environments similar to Saudi Arabia, and determining the applicability of the proposed framework to other regions is left to future researches

Business Process Redesign: IS IT still Revelant in Today\u27s Business Environment?

The concept of business process redesign or reengineering (BPR) has been around for about twenty years, and as technologies used in business and associated business practices have changed over the years, BPR has evolved as well. Reflecting these changes, various definitions and alternative names have been proposed for BPR. In this paper, we investigate the literature on BPR in order ascertain current uses, practices, and relevance of BPR in today’s business environment. Based on this review we classify BPR projects into three types according to business needs: internal, external, and traditional. We propose a simple framework that should help in determining the most appropriate approach in future BPR projects

A space division multiplexed free-space-optical communication system that can auto-locate and fully self align with a remote transceiver

Free-Space Optical (FSO) systems offer the ability to distribute high speed digital links into remote and rural communities where terrain, installation cost or infrastructure security pose critical hurdles to deployment. A challenge in any point-to-point FSO system is initiating and maintaining optical alignment from the sender to the receiver. In this paper we propose and demonstrate a low-complexity self-aligning FSO prototype that can completely self-align with no requirement for initial manual positioning and could therefore form the opto-mechanical basis for a mesh network of optical transceivers. The prototype utilises off-the-shelf consumer electrical components and a bespoke alignment algorithm. We demonstrate an eight fibre spatially multiplexed link with a loss of 15 dB over 210 m

Ultrafast dynamics and optical measurements of coherent optical phonons in epitaxial cubic Ge2Sb2Te5 thin films grown on InAs(111) wafer

This dissertation is concerned with the excitation of coherent optical phonons by femtosecond laser pulses. Investigation of coherent optical phonons can provide valuable understanding of the structure and phase transitions of a material. Studies have been performed upon two epilayers of cubic crystalline \mathrm{Ge_{2}Sb_{2}Te_{5}} (GST) grown on InAs(111), and also on the reference InAs(111) sample. Time resolved pump-probe measurements of transient reflectivity and ellipticity response have been performed to excite and observe coherent optical phonons. The phonon dynamics is induced by an intense optical pump pulse and detected by a weak probe pulse with duration as short as 45fs. Measurements of coherent optical phonons in GST/InAs (111) and InAs (111) samples have been performed as the pump polarisation, the sample orientation and pump fluence are varied. The transient reflectivity and ellipticity signals reveal coherent optical phonons with frequencies of 6.5 THz and \AC 3.4 THz in InAs(111) and the two epitaxial GST/InAs(111) samples respectively. Microscopic and macroscopic theories are presented, that consider the Raman tensor and phonon representation, and predict that both zinc blend and rock-salt structures possess a three dimensional T_{2} optical phonon mode at the zone centre. This T_{2} mode is Raman active in the zinc blend structure, while it is Raman inactive in rock-salt structure. A theory of transient stimulated Raman scattering (TSRS) is presented to explain how the amplitude of the coherent optical phonon depends upon the pump and probe polarisation when excitation occurs by a combination of impulsive stimulated Raman scattering (ISRS) and excitation of a surface space charge (SSC) distribution. Comparison of experiment with theory suggests that the 6.5 THz optical phonon observed in the ellipticity signal for InAs(111) has three dimensional T_{2} character. A coherent optical phonon is observed between 2.9 and 3.4 THz in the ellipticity signal for both GST/InAs(111) samples, and in the reflectivity signal of one of the GST/InAs(111) samples, and is inferred to also possess three dimensional character. Cubic GST is believed to adopt a rock-salt like structure with approximately 20% vacancies of the Ge and Sb sites. The ordering of vacancies within GST, the displacement of ions from their positions in the rock salt structure, and a resulting lack of inversion symmetry results in the \AC 3.4 THz coherent optical phonon being Raman active with the underlying three dimensional T_{2} –like character. Indeed the observation of the T_{2} -like phonon mode confirms that the underlying crystallographic structure of GST is essentially cubic. The TSRS theory predicts that, for a (111) surface of a cubic crystal, the amplitude of the oscillation generated by the phonon within the ellipticity signal should have a \sin(2(\theta-\phi)) dependence upon the orientation of the pump electric field, \theta , and probe electric field, \phi , within the plane of the sample. The pump beam is expected to excite a superposition of T_{2x},\,T_{2y} , and T_{2z} phonons. For the (111) surface of the zincblend and rocksalt structures, the experiment observations revealed that the ellipticity signals have \sin(2(\theta-\phi)) dependence on pump and probe polarization that is characteristic of the specular optical Kerr effect (SOKE). Hence, impulsive stimulated Raman scattering mechanism (ISRS) and the SOKE are seen to provide equivalent descriptions of the same phenomenom. The (TSRS) theory predicts that, for a (111) surface of a cubic system, the T_{2x},\,T_{2y} , and T_{2z} modes can be observed in both the reflectivity and anisotropic reflectivity signals. However, the degeneracy of these three phonons may be lifted by structural distortion, so that dephasing of modes of similar phase but different frequency leads to a large apparent damping of the phonon oscillations. The application of high pump fluence to the InAs(111) sample was found to lead to no change in the observed phonon frequency. However exposure of one of the GST/InAs(111) samples to high pump fluence led to the appearance of a new phonon mode, suggesting that a structural change had occurred

Language processing in Arabic-English bilinguals: A mixed methods investigation

This study examines second language activation in Arabic-English bilinguals for whom Arabic was the first language. Modeling its design on Colome (2001), the research compared processing in a picture-phoneme matching task for Arabic-English bilinguals tested in the United States or in Saudi Arabia to determine whether activation of English differed in the two settings as predicted by Grosjean's (1982) language mode theory. Relying on a pragmatic worldview, an explanatory sequential mixed methods approach was adopted to gain a full perspective of the research problem. The results showed no differences in the activation of English for the two settings, but did indicate that both groups of participants experienced some interference of English. Overall, interference from English was observed in error rates, but not in response times. Correlational analyses revealed that individual differences in error rate in the English phoneme condition were predicted by the number of hours per week that participants used English. Individual differences in response time were predicted by the frequency of the English translation equivalent of the Arabic name of the picture. Finally, the study established the language processing mechanism of Arabic-English bilinguals as one in line with Grosjean's (1982) language mode theory, as Arabic-English bilinguals may be more likely to employ separate language strategies for sociocultural reasons than other types of bilinguals

Multi-element lenslet array for efficient solar collection at extreme angles of incidence

Photovoltaics (PV) are a versatile and compact route to harness solar power. One critical challenge with current PV is preserving the optimal panel orientation angle with respect to the sun for efficient energy conversion. We experimentally demonstrate a bespoke multi-element lenslet array that allows for an increased power collection over a wide field of view by increasing the effective optical interaction length by up to 13 times specifically at large angles of incidence. This design can potentially be retrofitted onto already deployed amorphous silicon solar panels to yield an increased daily power generation by a factor of 1.36 for solar equivalent illumination. We 3D printed an optical proof of concept multi-element lenslet array to confirm an increase in power density for optical rays incident between 40 and 80 degrees. Our design indicates a novel optical approach that could potentially enable increased efficient solar collection in extreme operating conditions such as on the body of planes or the side of buildings

AI explainability and governance in smart energy systems: A review

Traditional electrical power grids have long suffered from operational unreliability, instability, inflexibility, and inefficiency. Smart grids (or smart energy systems) continue to transform the energy sector with emerging technologies, renewable energy sources, and other trends. Artificial intelligence (AI) is being applied to smart energy systems to process massive and complex data in this sector and make smart and timely decisions. However, the lack of explainability and governability of AI is a major concern for stakeholders hindering a fast uptake of AI in the energy sector. This paper provides a review of AI explainability and governance in smart energy systems. We collect 3,568 relevant papers from the Scopus database, automatically discover 15 parameters or themes for AI governance in energy and elaborate the research landscape by reviewing over 150 papers and providing temporal progressions of the research. The methodology for discovering parameters or themes is based on “deep journalism,” our data-driven deep learning-based big data analytics approach to automatically discover and analyse cross-sectional multi-perspective information to enable better decision-making and develop better instruments for governance. The findings show that research on AI explainability in energy systems is segmented and narrowly focussed on a few AI traits and energy system problems. This paper deepens our knowledge of AI governance in energy and is expected to help governments, industry, academics, energy prosumers, and other stakeholders to understand the landscape of AI in the energy sector, leading to better design, operations, utilisation, and risk management of energy systems

Multi-layer light trapping structures for enhanced solar collection

Light trapping is a commonly used technique for enhancing the efficiency of solar collection in many photovoltaic (PV) devices. In this paper, we present the design of multi-layer light trapping structures that can potentially be retrofitted, or directly integrated, onto crystalline or amorphous silicon solar panels for enhanced optical collection at normal and extreme angle of incidence. This approach can improve the daily optical collection performance of solar panel with and without internally integrated light trapping structure by up to 7.18% and 159.93%, respectively. These improvements predict an enhancement beyond many research level and commercially deployed light trapping technologies. We further enhance this performance by combining our multi-layer optics with high refractive index materials to achieve a daily optical collection of up to 32.20% beyond leading light trapping structures. Our additive light trapping designs could enable the upgradeability of older PV technologies and can be tailored to optimally operate at unique angular ranges for building exteriors or over a wide range of incidence angle for applications such as unmanned aerial vehicles