Late and non-payments issues in the Malaysian construction industry : perspective of building material suppliers / Mohd Fisal Ishak, Kartina Alauddin and Mohd Shahrol Hafiz Ibrahim

Payment in the Malaysian construction industry has generally been an issue of concern. Late and non-payment problem is endemic in construction and needs to be addressed. The aim of this study is to investigate the issues related to late and non-payment based on the building materials suppliers’ perspective. Questionnaires were distributed to suppliers of building materials in the Klang Valley. Findings from the study shows the main cause of late and non-payment is the paymaster’s poor financial management while the main effect of late and non-payment is problem with the cash flow. The most recommended possible solution to cope with the issue is for the paymaster to conduct training on financial and cash flow management to the management team in the company

Rule based signal processing for ambulatory fetal monitoring

An algorithm has been developed for the simultaneous measurement of the fetal and maternal heart rates from the maternal abdominal electrocardiogram during pregnancy and labor. The algorithm is based on digital filtering, adaptive thresholding, statistical properties in the time domain and differencing of local maxima and minima. The technique has been developed through a combination and modification of earlier techniques making it suitable for ambulatory monitoring. Eighteen volunteers at various weeks of gestation were studied for the fetal heart rate detection. The computation complexity is such that the developed algorithm can extract both maternal and fetal heart rates in real-time utilizing a single-lead configuration

Development of a Two-Channel Simultaneous Photoplethysmography Recording System

Multi-site photoplethysmograph  (PPG) recording enables researchers to study the vascular and hemodynamic  properties of human subjects. Currently, there  is  no  commercial  system  available  in  the  market  to  perform  either  one channel or multi-channel PPG recording. PPG is an optoelectronic technique that measures  changes  in  blood  volume  associated  with  cardiac  contraction.  The measurements  can  be  obtained  from  fingertips,  ear  lobes  and toes  due  to  their low absorption and high degree of vasculature. The main objective of this project is to develop a two-channel simultaneous PPG recording system to acquire PPG signals  from  two  different  physiological  sites  using  a  Nellcor  equivalent  PPG probe.  MATLAB  software  was  used  during  the  development  phase  to  ensure rapid prototyping. The experiment results show that there was no inter -channel delay in the developed two-channel PPG system. Our preliminary results show that the delays between the left and the right arm were from 4 to 12 ms in three healthy random subjects. The system is portable, powered by universal serial bus (USB) and allows the user to do the PPG data acquisition in a clinical setting

Dizajn i implementacija naponskog mjernog pojačala za RFID transponder s niskim naponom napajanja i malom potrošnjom struje

Current or voltage-type sense amplifier (SA) is the key element for sensing process of RFID transponder EEPROM. The performance of the EEPROM is influenced by the SA features like memory access time, power dissipation and the reliability. However, larger current or power dissipation put limitations on using current type SA with respect to voltage type SA. A low voltage SA with lower current consumption is presented in this research work, which is compatible with the low power applications like RFID transponder EEPROM. In this research, 0.18μm process is employed to design the low voltage SA with lower power consumption. The simulated results of the output showed that voltage type SA is able to operate under a low power supply voltage (VDD). In addition, only 32 μA current is dissipated by the modified voltage type SA during read period. Moreover, the proposed voltage type SA provides better reliability than the circuits presented in other research papers.Strujno ili naponsko mjerno pojačalo (MP) je ključni element očitanja RFID transpondera s EEPROM-om. Na učinak EEPROM-a utječu svojstva pojačala kao što su vrijeme pristupa memoriji, energetski gubici i pouzdanost. Veliki gubici struje i energije ograničavaju mogućnost korištenja strujnog mjernog pojačala u odnosu na naponsko. U ovom radu prikazano je niskonaponsko mjerno pojačalo s malom potrošnjom energije koje je prikladno za korištenje kod RFID transpondera s EEPROM-om. Koristi se proces od 0.18μm za dizajniranje niskonaponskog pojačala male potrošnje. Simulacije izlaznog napona su pokazale da naponsko mjerno pojačalo može raditi s niskim naponom napajanja. Tijekom vremena očitanja na modificiranom naponskom poja čalu troši se samo 32μA struje. Predloženo naponsko mjerno pojačalo ima bolju pouzdanost od onih prikazanih u drugim člancima

Human Detection Framework for Automated Surveillance Systems

Vision-based systems for surveillance applications have been used widely and gained more research attention. Detecting people in an image stream is challenging because of their intra-class variability, the diversity of the backgrounds, and the conditions under which the images were acquired. Existing human detection solutions suffer in their effectiveness and efficiency. In particular, the accuracy of the existing detectors is characterized by their high false positive and negative. In addition, existing detectors are slow for online surveillance systems which lead to large delay that is not suitable for surveillance systems for real-time monitoring. In this paper, a holistic framework is proposed for enhancing the performance of human detection in surveillance system. In general, the framework includes the following stages: environment modeling, motion object detection, and human object recognition. In environment modeling, modal algorithm has been suggested for background initialization and extraction. Then for effectively classifying the motion object, edge detecting and B-spline algorithm have been used for shadow detection and removal. Then, enhanced Lucas–Kanade optical flow has been used to get the area of interest for object segmentation. Finally, to enhance the segmentation, some morphological processes were performed. In the motion object recognition stage, segmentation for each blob is performed and processed to the human detector which is a complete learning-based system for detecting and localizing objects/humans in images using mixtures of deformable part models (PFF detector). Results show enhancement in each phase of the proposed framework. These enhancements are shown in the overall performance of human detection in surveillance system

Design of a high speed and low latency crypto-processor ASIC

This paper presents the design of an ultra high speed crypto-processor for next generation IT security. It addresses the next generation IT security requirements: the resistance against all attacks and high speed with low latency. The proposed processor is capable of generating cryptographically secured information at a rate of multi-ten Gbps. The performance of the processor is compared with that of other researchers which proves it's superiority over them

Sale and Leaseback Investment Concepts in Malaysian REIT Companies

Sale and leaseback investment has been a growing trend among the Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) Companies in Malaysia. This study is to determine the important elements in the concepts of the sale and leaseback transactions practiced by the REIT companies. The study uses the NVIVO software to analyze the data interviews with the REIT managers that adopt sale and leaseback investment transactions. With a response rate of 78%, results show there are three main elements namely location, type of lease, and rental.  This study forms a useful guide to real estate managers in developing countries towards using the sale and leaseback as one of the alternative methods in property investment.Keywords: sale and leaseback; property investment; REITeISSN: 2398-4287 © 2019. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open-access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia.DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/e-bpj.v4i12.194

Design of a testchip for low cost IC testing.

With the continuous increase of the integration densities and complexities, the problem of testing integrated circuits has become much more acute and needs an economic solution with reliable performance. This paper presents the design of a TESTCHIP implementing a multiple polynomial, multiple seed based mixed-mode test technique. Fault simulation experiments on benchmark circuits show that the TESTCHIP is capable of detecting 100% of the faults using a much lower number of test vectors than in the approaches attempted by the other researchers. It also offers lower data storage requirements than that of conventional ATE. The TESTCHIP is capable of testing combinational circuits as well as sequential circuits with scan-path facilities