Effects of indoor air quality on the occupant's health and productivity in an office building

Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) is an important parameter in deciding the status of Sick Bulding Syndrome (SBS). Poor IAQ which leads to SBS can result in adverse effect on the health of the occupant which causing lower productivity. This study was conducted to establish correlation between IAQ and employee’s productivity. Five parameters of IAQ which include air velocity, air temperature, relative humidity, particulate matters ≥ 0.3 μm and CO2 were considered in this study. The values of these parameters were measured using Davis Anemometer, Particle Counter GT 521 and YES Plus LGA Meter. The measured data were then used as an input data for simulation model of the room using Comsol Multiphysics software. The simulation generated the indoor air velocity of the room and particle distribution. For validation purpose, only the predicted velocity was compared with the measured value, and found that the percentage difference were in the range of 1.5% to 8.45% (below than 10%). Once the model had been validated, the parametric study of air supply inlet position was conducted on the model and found that the position of air supply inlet with x = 2.5 ft, y = 10 ft and H = 6.5 ft give the most efficient air distribution model for diluting the impurities due to the particulate. The questionnaire survey distributed amongst the occupants of the room showed that the occupants were less satisfied (75%) with the IAQ which can lead to SBS problem. The analysis of correlation between IAQ and occupant's productivity depicted that both of the factors were correlated with Rank-Spearman value of 0.648. This study serves as a good platform in assessing IAQ based on the modelling and simulation approach

Stemming text-based web page classification using machine learning algorithms: a comparison

The research aim is to determine the effect of word-stemming in web pages classification using different machine learning classifiers, namely Naive Bayes (NB), k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Multilayer Perceptron (MP). Each classifiers' performance is evaluated in term of accuracy and processing time. This research uses BBC dataset that has five predefined categories. The result demonstrates that classifiers' performance is better without word stemming, whereby all classifiers show higher classification accuracy, with the highest accuracy produced by NB and SVM at 97% for F1 score, while NB takes shorter training time than SVM. With word stemming, the effect on training and classification time is negligible, except on Multilayer Perceptron in which word stemming has effectively reduced the training time

Learning style tendencies based on fleming’s VARK learning style among TVET students

This study aims to identify learning style tendencies based on the Fleming’s VARK learning style of TVET students. This study uses a questionnaire approach to assess TVET students' learning styles based on Fleming’s visual, auditory, writing or reading and kinesthetic learning styles. The study population is technical students of FPTV, UTHM and the selected sample consists of 53 students from various fields namely General Machining (BBA), Welding and Metal Fabrication (BBD), Electrical & Electronics (BBE) and Creative Multimedia (BBF) who took the subject BBD10803 Information Technology in Education at Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia. The results of this study indicate that the most preferred Fleming’s VARK learning style is a visual learning style

Determining significant parameters on health and well-being of building occupants towards re-engineered inclusive environment

People spend over 90% of their time in the buildings. A building is a place where people are spending more time doing activities, thus an inclusive environment of the buildings is very important to ensure that people are having a healthy life. An inclusive environment is important for the well-being of building occupants. Indoor environmental quality is one of the essential elements in creating an inclusive environment in which a poor quality of indoor environment affects the health of the occupants both physically and mentally, their performance, productivity, comfort, satisfaction, and well-being. Even though people are towards creating an inclusive environment but it is a limited study on the parameters of the inclusive environment. Thus, this paper is to study the parameters of the inclusive environment by focused on the element of the indoor environmental quality for building occupants based on literature reviews of articles between the year 2006 and 2016. Based on the content analysis, it has been discovered that there are various parameters of an inclusive environment which are visual comfort, thermal comfort, acoustic comfort, indoor air quality, buildings factors, occupants’ factors, and climate condition factors. The parameters can be very useful as guidelines and development of policy in providing inclusive environment for the healthy lifestyle of building occupants

Substrate and cofactor binding interaction studies of galactitol -1- Phosphate 5- Dehydrogenase from Peptoclostridium difficile

Tagatose is a high value low calorie sweetener that is used as a sugar substitute in the food and pharmaceutical industry. The production of tagatose requires the conversion of galactitol-1-phosphate to tagatose-6-phosphate by galactitol-1-phosphate 5-dehydrogenase (PdGPDH). Theobjective of this work is to study the protein-ligand interaction between PdGPDH and its ligands; galactitol-1-phosphate, Zn2+ and NAD+. Understanding of this mechanism will provide an insight into the possible catalytic events in these domains, thus providing information for potential protein engineering to improve the tagatose production. A 3D model of PdGPDH was constructed to identify the catalytic and coenzyme binding domains. In order to understand the interaction of PdGPDH with its ligands, a docking analysis of PdGPDH-substrate, PdGPDH-Zn2+ and PdGPDH-NAD+ complex was performed using CDOCKER in Discovery Studio 4.0 (DS 4.0). A series of docking events were performed to find the most stable binding interaction for the enzyme and its ligands. This study found that Cys 37, His 58, Glu 59, Glu 142 residues from PdGPDH form an active site pocket similar to known GPDH. A catalytic Zn2+ binding domain and a cofactor NAD+binding domain with strong hydrogen bonding contacts with the substrate and the cofactor were identified. The binding pockets of the enzyme for galactitol-1-phosphate, NAD+ and Zn2+has been defined. The stability of PdGPDH with its ligand was verified by utilizing the molecular dynamic simulation of docked complex. The results from this study will assist future mutagenesis study and enzyme modification work to improve the tagatose production

Lifting and stabilizing of two-wheeled wheelchair system using interval type-2 fuzzy logic control based spiral dynamic algorithm

The current study emphasizes on improving an interval type-2 fuzzy logic control (IT2FLC) system through the use of spiral dynamics algorithm (SDA) optimization in stabilizing a transformational two-wheeled wheelchair. The main contribution of this research is to reduce vibrations while performing the lifting and stabilization of a wheelchair from its standard four-wheeled to two-wheeled transformation. IT2FLC based SDA was used to enhance the system’s stability performance by obtaining the optimized value for input and output controller gains and IT2FLC parameters for IT2FLC. System modeling was done through development within the SimWise 4D software environment, which was then integrated with MATLAB/SIMULINK for control purposes. The proposed algorithm has demonstrated improved tilt angle performance with reduced noise and lower torque when various disturbances were applied, as compared to a system solely controlled by IT2FLC without any optimization. Moreover, the proposed algorithm has also comprehensively outperformed previous controllers in terms of system’s stability, further demonstrated its superiority as a system controller within transformational wheelchairs

The impact of time management on students’ academic achievement

Time management is very important and it may actually affect individual's overall performance and achievements. Students nowadays always commented that they do not have enough time to complete all the tasks assigned to them. In addition, a university environment's flexibility and freedom can derail students who have not mastered time management skills. Therefore, the aim of this study is to determine the relationship between the time management and academic achievement of the students. The factor analysis result showed three main factors associated with time management which can be classified as time planning, time attitudes and time wasting. The result also indicated that gender and races of students show no significant differences in time management behaviours. While year of study and faculty of students reveal the significant differences in the time management behaviours. Meanwhile, all the time management behaviours are significantly positively related to academic achievement of students although the relationship is weak. Time planning is the most significant correlated predictor

Analysis on auger pump performance during handling high viscous liquid

Viscosity is one of the factors affecting the performance of the auger pump. An auger pump is positive-displacement (PD) pump that moves fluids and semi-solid material along the screw axis using one or more screws. The study is about the analysis of the performance of the auger pump when transferring various viscosity liquids. In the study, a pumping device with auger shaft is designed. The sample liquids chosen for the experiment oil and concentrated detergent that poses various viscosity. The viscosity is being identified roughly by Zahn Cup Method with the temperature kept constant at 26°C throughout the measurement. The performance of the auger pump can be accessed by altering the motor speed in order to get various reading for the flow rate and pressure. It is found in the study; flowrate is affected by viscosity with the increasing motor speed. The study proves that the auger pump can operate with viscosity of 770 cSt liquid

Carbon nanotube capacitance model in degenerate and nondegenerate regimes

In this work, fundamental results on carrier statistics in a carbon nanotube treated as a one-dimensional material are presented. Also the effect of degeneracy on the capacitance of the carbon nanotube channel in a carbon nan-otube field effect transistor is discussed. A quantum capacitance as well as a classical capacitance is revealed. Furthermore it is shown that for low gate voltage, the total capacitance is equivalent to the classical capacitance but for high gate voltage it is equivalent to the quantum capacitance. We predict that in the nondegenerate regime, the total capacitance is equivalent to the classical capacitance and that the quantum capacitance can be neglected, whereas only quantum capacitance needs to be taken into account in the calculation of the total capacitance in the degenerate regime