Factors influencing project delay : a case study of the Vale Malaysia Minerals Project (VMMP)

Delays are one of the biggest problems faced by the construction industry. The delays in construction projects have significant financial and social impact to parties involved in the projects. The main objective of this study is to explore the causes of delay in the Vale Malaysia Minerals Project (VMMP) in Lumut, Perak. This study was conducted by using a qualitative approach. A series of face to face interviews were conducted with an expert from construction organization and VMMP staff. Responses were analysed qualitatively using content analysis and a comprehensive interpretation was developed. The results revealed that several factors that contribute to the delay in VMMP completion, i.e. communication, delayed in material delivery, and poor management on site, etc. Time and cost overrun were the common effects of delays in construction project. The findings of this study will help the project manager or the client to take necessary measures and to use of supply chain management to avoid delays of project completion in a construction project

Development of Web-Based Real-time Energy Monitoring System for Campus University

This study presents development of real time energy monitoring system installed in Level 17, Tower 2, Engineering Complex, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia. The device and programming uses microcontroller board Arduino, ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, sensors and Emoncms.org web server to record and display the real time power and energy consumption, energy cost, energy index and CO2 emissions. The device allows 3 phase measurement of energy use in the building level where the main power source has been divided into several loads such as lighting, power plug, and Air Conditioning (AC) fan. The device is capable to transmit the data at set time interval using Wi-Fi communication and logging directly to local SD card for further analysis. The device was calibrated using FLUKE 485 power meter concurrently to meet a good reliable result with lower tolerance. The device was installed and tested during testing period including weekdays and weekend to see hourly energy performance in the particular building level. It is found that the device provides reading with average error of 2.04% as compared to commercial meter during one week testing period

Development of web-based real-time energy monitoring system for Campus University

This study presents development of real time energy monitoring system installed in Level 17, Tower 2, Engineering Complex, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia. The device and programming uses microcontroller board Arduino, ESP8266 Wi-Fi module, sensors and Emoncms.org web server to record and display the real time power and energy consumption, energy cost, energy index and CO2 emissions.The device allows 3 phase measurement of energy use in the building level where the main power source has been divided into several loads such as lighting, power plug, and Air Conditioning (AC) fan.The device is capable to transmit the data at set time interval using Wi-Fi communication and logging directly to local SD card for further analysis.The device was calibrated using FLUKE 485 power meter concurrently to meet a good reliable result with lower tolerance.The device was installed and tested during testing period including weekdays and weekend to see hourly energy performance in the particular building level.It is found that the device provides reading with average error of 2.04% as compared to commercial meter during one week testing period

Mechanical, durability and thermal properties of foamed concrete reinforced with synthetic twisted bundle macro-fibers

The use of foamed concrete (FC) in the construction sector has been rapidly growing over the past few years as a result of the several advantages it possesses in comparison to traditional high-strength concrete. FC, on the other hand, suffers from a number of deficiencies, such as brittleness, limited ductility, high porosity, excessive drying shrinkage, little resistance to cracking and deformation. To improve the tensile strength and fracture resistance of FC, engineers usually opt for steel fibre or polymer fibre as the reinforcement material of choice. Hence this research aims to investigate the potential utilization of synthetic twisted bundle macro-fibers (SF) in FC to enhance its durability, mechanical and thermal properties. The SF were included in the FC in varied amounts of weight fractions, including 0%, 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5% respectively. FC was produced at three low densities, precisely 1,000, 1,300, and 1,600 kg/m3, which were all prepared. Compression, flexural, splitting tensile, flow table, porosity, water absorption and thermal conductivity tests were conducted to establish the thermal, mechanical and durability properties of SF-reinforced FC. The findings imply that the integration of SF into FC results in a significant enhancement of the material’s strength and thermal conductivity properties while simultaneously lowering the material’s capacity for water absorption and porosity. For the purpose of improving the material’s mechanical, durability and thermal properties, the weight percentage of SF that was ideal ranged from 3% to 4%. The incorporation of SF into FC resulted in a rise in the material’s ductility, and the specimens maintained their integrity from the loading stage to failure. The SF is able to lessen the cracks that were already present in the FC and prevent the formation of additional cracks in the FC

Peranan guru agama islam dalam meningkatkan kemampuan bac dan tulis Al-Qur'an ( studi kasus SDN. Grogol 01 pagi )

Tujuan dari penelitian ini adalah mendeskripsikan peran guru PAI dalam meningkatkan kemampuan baca tulis Al-Qur'an anak didik di SDN grogol 01 Pagi dengan segala faktor pendukung dan penghambatnya. Untuk memperoleh data dalam penelitian ini penulis menggunakan metode penelitian kualitatif, dengan analisis deskriptif dari data yang dihasilkan melalui metode observasi dan interview. Dalam pembahasannya penulis menggunakan metode induksi dan deduksi. Kesimpulan yang ditarik dari hasil penelitian adalah: Guru agama islam mempunyai peranan penting dalam memberikan kemampuan baca tulis al-Qur�an bagi siswa sekolah dasar. Demikian pula Guru agama Islam mempunyai peranan penting dalam memberikan kemampuan baca tulis al-Qur�an bagi siswa sekolah dasar, karena sebagian besar responden menjawab, kemampuan baca tulis al-Qur�an di peroleh di luar dan di dalam sekolah

An accelerated particle swarm optimization based levenberg marquardt back propagation algorithm

The Levenberg Marquardt (LM) algorithm is one of the most effective algorithms in speeding up the convergence rate of the Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) with Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) architectures. However, the LM algorithm suffers the problem of local minimum entrapment. Therefore, we introduce several improvements to the Levenberg Marquardt algorithm by training the ANNs with meta-heuristic nature inspired algorithm. This paper proposes a hybrid technique Accelerated Particle Swarm Optimization using Levenberg Marquardt (APSO_LM) to achieve faster convergence rate and to avoid local minima problem. These techniques are chosen since they provide faster training for solving pattern recognition problems using the numerical optimization technique.The performances of the proposed algorithm is evaluated using some bench mark of classification’s datasets. The results are compared with Artificial Bee Colony (ABC) Algorithm using Back Propagation Neural Network (BPNN) algorithm and other hybrid variants. Based on the experimental result, the proposed algorithms APSO_LM successfully demonstrated better performance as compared to other existing algorithms in terms of convergence speed and Mean Squared Error (MSE) by introducing the error and accuracy in network convergence