The Awareness Of ICT Implementation For Materials Management In Construction Projects

Construction materials usually constitute a major portion of the total cost in a building construction project. Despite the potential benefit of ICT, convincing construction organisations to embrace its use and implementation has proved a difficult task. This research seeks to identify the implementation of ICT in construction materials management processes and to investigate on the acceptance of contractors for ICT transformation to the materials management in construction projects. In relation to that, current constraints that are found hindering the acceptance of ICT in materials management processes are also identified. A triangulation research approach which consists of standard derived questionnaires, semi structured interviews with class A contractors and review of previous research were conducted. The findings from this research reveal that the implementation of ICT in the materials management for construction projects in Malaysia is at early stage. Microsoft Excel Spreadsheet and handheld devices are found to be the common ICT tools adopted in the materials management processes. Meanwhile, there is only an average level of acceptance towards the transformation of ICT implementation in the construction materials management. The main barrier is found to be the cost involvement at the initial stage or overall implementation of ICT in the materials management processes. Finally, it can be concluded that there is a lack of awareness towards the ICT implementation of materials management in the construction projects

Parameter optimization of debinding injection moulded Ti-6Al-4V mix with palm stearin and polyethylene

Debinding process of injection moulded Ti-6Al-4V feedstock was divided into two parts: solvent debinding process to eliminate palm stearin (PS) and thermal pyrolysis to eliminate polyethylene (PE). Solvent debinding process used heptane at optimum temperature, 60°C to remove PS binder completely as temperature is the only parameter that can be optimized. Thermal pyrolysis parameters for removal of PE binder from the injected 65vol% Ti-6Al-4V feedstock have been optimized by using Taguchi method. Heating rate, temperature and time were the selected factors during experiment to be applied in the L9(34) Taguchi orthogonal array (OA) to find the best set of parameters to produce highest density of brown part. Thermal pyrolysis process was done at optimum parameters: heating rate: 5°C/min; temperature: 510°C; and time: 90 minutes. Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to find the best signal to noise ratio (S/N) to express the contribution of the factors towards quality characteristic. Based on the results, heating rate has the greatest contribution (54.63%), followed by duration time of thermal pyrolysis (24.40%) and temperature (19.25%)

Pelatihan Penanganan dan Pengolahan Susu Kambing di Nagari Bukit Batabuh Kabupaten Agam

Permasalahan utama yang dihadapi kelompok saat ini adalah terbatasnya pengetahuan, teknologi dan peralatan produksi untuk mengolah susu kambing. Susu yang dihasilkan hanya diolah menjadi susu pasteurisasi di dalam kemasan kantong plastik. Dalam hal penanganan susu segar, penerapan kebersihan, praktik higiene, dan sanitasi juga masih belum baik. Dengan demikian, susu segar dan susu pasteurisasi yang mereka produksi dan pasarkan belum dapat dijamin keamanannya untuk dikonsumsi. Di samping keterbatasan penguasaan teknologi juga belum optimalnya kelembagaan kelompok yang baru berjalan sebatas bekerja sama dalam hal teknis berternak, namun belum berkembang dalam hal pengadaan bersama dan pemasaran produk secara bersama. Dengan demikian tingkat efisiensi dalam hal biaya produksi dan biaya pemasaran belum bisa diperoleh oleh kelompok. Masalah sebagaimana yang dijelaskan di atas, ditawarkan untuk diselesaikan dengan alternatif sebagai berikut :a) Memberikan pelatihan teknik kebersihan, sanitasi dan higienis pemerahan dan penanganan susu segar dan susu pasteurisasi, serta teknik pengemasan; b) Memberikan pelatihan teknik pengolahan susu menjadi berbagai produk olahan susu c) Memberikan Peningkatan wawasan dan pengetahuan kelompok mengenai pemasaran produk olahan susu kambing d) Memberikan pelatihan penguatan kelembagaan kelompok peternak kambing untuk menuju kelompok tani yang profesional

Fishery, biology and stock assessment of small tunas

Fishery Survey of India has brought out publications on the results of the operations of chartered vessels in the oceanic tuna fishery (Sudarsan el. al., 1991; FSI, 1992) and a bibliography of tuna fisheries in Indian seas (John and Bhargava, 1992). These publications have updated our information on the coastal and oceanic tuna fishery resources from the Indian EEZ

Stock assessment of seerfishes in the Indian seas

The annual average catch of seerfishes from the Indian seas was 45,0601 during 1995-'99, which constituted 1.8% of the total marine fish catch in India. State-wise Gujarat (28.5%) was the major producer followed by Tamilnadu (15.8%), Maharashtra (15.4%), Andhra Pradesh (11.4%) and Kerala (10.5%). Gill net is the dominant gear in exploiting seerfish followed by trawl, hooks & line, boat seines, shore seines and purse seines. Among the five species, the kingseer Scomberomorus commerson (59.0%) and the spotted seer S. guttatus (35.1%) sustained the fishery, while the streaked seer S.lineolatus and the wahoo Acanthocybium solandri formed only a negligible portion of the fisher

Status of exploitation of seerfishes in the Indian seas

Seerfish production from the Indian seas during the past five decades from 1950s to 1990s, showed an increasing trend. The annual catch increased from 4,505 t in 1953 to 54,8761 in 1998. The average annual catch during the five decadal periods k-aried from 7,278 t in 1950-'59 to 41,575 t in 1990-'99 contributing 1.5% and 1.75% respectively to the total marine fish catch of India. However, the rate of increase through the successive decades decreased indicating the attainment of op- ;imum level of production currently. During 1950-'59, the east coast contributed more (60%) than the west coast (40%), which changed to 36:64 during 1990-'99. iVmong the maritime states of India, Gujarat (25.88%), Maharashtra (16.09%), familnadu (13.59%), Kerala (13.07%) and Andhra Pradesh (12.68%) were the prime seerfish producers during 1990-'99. Gill net (64.8%) was the dominant gear, folowed by trawl (17.4%) and hooks and line (4%) with an average catch rate of 8.1 <g/unit, 0.24 kg/hr and 3.7 kg/unit respectively during 1995-'99. Among the five species, the fishery was sustained only by two species viz., the king seer Scomberomorus commerson and the spotted seer S.guttatus

Bim: the setback or solution to project cost issues in Malaysia construction industry?

Malaysia is progressing into Industry Revolution (IR) 4.0 which emphasizes more onto digital, data and artificial intelligence where everything is expected to be automated. However, cost tends to be a major issue at the pioneer stage of embracing technology where Building Information Modelling (BIM) for example tends to be a cost tussle for the current construction industry. Yet, research has shown that BIM is arguably one of the technology platforms in combating the costing issue considering that BIM enables 3D model elements to link to cost and auto-generate quantities which potentially achieve cost-effective project. Due to the conflicting perspectives of how BIM affects project cost issues, it is imperative to investigate the cost-related issues in implementing BIM in the project and to determine how BIM in general positively influences the overall project cost. Qualitative research is adopted in this study. A semi-structured interview was conducted among four professionals who employs BIM in their project. They consist of the assistant manager, senior manager and chief executive officer. The data collected is analysed by utilising Matrix Table for better organisation. The scope of the study is in the Selangor state in which the local construction industry had applied BIM in their construction industry up to the 3D stage. The results showed that the BIM implementation cost is not too burdensome as it is only a one-time cost and does not vary throughout the project period. In addition, the BIM influence on the overall cost of the project is beneficial to the industry. It improves workflow and cost management. In conclusion, BIM is beneficial to the construction industry in the long term. It is important to resolve the costrelated issues for implement BIM and hence, encourage the usage of BIM, especially in the IR 4.0 ecosyste

Feed Formulation Based on Local Feed Resources and Its Effects on Nutritional-Related Blood Profile in Breeder Goats

A comparative study was conducted to determine the nutrient composition of different feed formulations and its effect on nutritional related blood profile in breeder goats. Eighteen female adult goats, Capra aegagrus hircus (Boer cross) were selected and allocated into three different groups (n = 6) and assigned according to different feed formulations. Blood sampling was conducted before and after fourth weeks of feeding trial and analysed for selected parameters. Proximate analysis of diets was done and revealed comparable value of crude protein and crude fat. Glucose, total protein and calcium level in serum showed significant difference between groups (P-value 0.05) while cholesterol and fatty acid showed no significant difference (P-value 0.05). Fatty acid analysis of feed and serum showed polyunsaturated fatty acid was higher than satureated fatty acid. Overall, diet 3 shows the highest value of all blood parameters analysed in this study. Hence, it is very important to provide animal with nutrient according to production stages as sufficent protein and energy will improve the animal performance in terms breeding efficacy and quality of animal products. This study indicates that different feed formulation affects certain nutritional related blood profile in goat

Non-functional requirement template for usability aspect based on NIMSAD evaluation engineering

In requirement engineering, non-functional requirement is a requirement that specifies characteristics of system behavior and sys-tem quality attributes. Furthermore, a non-functional requirement template facilitates system stakeholders in better system documentation, system elicitation and system traceability. However, some non-functional requirements may come from many type of requirements document and no stringent standard has been applied that lead to various pattern of non-functional requirements tem-plate. Specifically, in usability requirement, the quality attribute is being ignored and less expressive in majority requirements document. Therefore, this study was motivated to propose the most feasible non-functional requirement template for usability aspect. NIMSAD evaluation is used to obtain the most feasible non-functional requirement template by comparing existing non-functional requirement templates based on the following criteria which are i) general concepts, ii) modeling concepts and iii) analysis concepts. From the NIMSAD evaluation results, it is found that Boilerplates template is the most feasible non-functional requirement tem-plate for usability aspect