A rectification strategy in genetic algorithms for academic timetabling problem

The university course timetabling problem is both an NP-hard and NP-complete scheduling problem. The nature of the problem concerns with the assignment of lecturers-courses to available teaching space in an academic institution and may take on the form of high school timetabling, examination timetabling or university course timetabling. In this paper, the authors attempt to construct a feasible timetable for a faculty department in a local university in Malaysia which at the present moment; the scheduling task is performed manually by an academic registrar. The feasible timetable is constructed by means of Genetic Algorithm, embedded with a rectification strategy which transforms infeasible timetables into feasible timetables

A heuristic room matching algorithm in generating enhanced initial seed for the university course timetabling problem

The University Course Timetabling Problem (UCTP) such as the curriculum-based course timetabling problem is both an NP-hard and NP-complete scheduling problem.The nature of the problem concerns with the assignment of lecturers-courses to available teaching space in an academic institution.The Curriculum-Based University Course Timetabling Problem (CB-UCTP) has a high conflict-density and searching for an improved solution is not trivial.In this study, the authors propose a heuristic room matching algorithm which improves the seed of the CB-UCTP.The objective is to provide a reasonable search point to carry out any improvement phase and the results obtained indicate that the matching algorithm is able to provide very promising results as the fitness score of the solution is significantly enhanced in a very short period of time

Machine Learning based Predictive Modelling of Cybersecurity Threats Utilising Behavioural Data

With the rapid advancement of technology in Malaysia, the number of cybercrimes is also increasing. To stop the increase in cybercrimes, everyone, including normal citizens, needs to know how secure they are while using digital appliances. A system is developed to predict the risk of users based on their behaviour when they are online using real-life behavioural data obtained from a private university’s 207 undergraduates. Five supervised machine learning methods are being tested which are: Regression Logistics, K-Nearest Neighbour (KNN), Decision Tree (DT), Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Naïve Bayesian Classifier with the aid of a tool, RapidMiner. The algorithms are used to construct, test, and validate three categories of cybercrime threat (Malware, Social Engineering, and Password Attack) predictive models. It was found that KNN model produces the highest accuracy and lowest classification error for all three categories of cybercrime threat. This system is believed to be crucial in alerting users with details of whether the consumer behaviour risk is high or low and what further actions can be taken to increase awareness. This system aims to prevent the rise in cybercrimes by providing a prediction of their risk levels in cybersecurity to encourage them to be more proactive in cybersecurity

Low cost negative pressure wound healing device system

Negative Pressure Wound Therapy (NWPT) has been successfully used in treating acute and chronic wound by promoting wound healing. Many medical techniques like NPWT are available in this world but not approachable for many patients due to high in cost and lack of devices. In order for most of the patients accessible to NPWT, an inexpensive NPWT system is explored in this study. Aim of this work is to design a prototype of NPWT system that can generate negative pressure and the negative pressure can be regulated within the range. A NPWT system consists of vacuum pump, drainage tube, wound dressing, fluid collecting canister and adhesive film dressing. In this study, a miniature vacuum pump, canister and Arduino microcontroller were used in order to build up a functional NPWT system. The system has been designed to supply negative pressure from 0 mmHg to 200mmHg and negative pressure which can be controlled. To sum up, this system is able to function according to the require specification and suitable for home healthcare wound healing device with safety precaution implement and system stabilization is improved in future

Preprocessing digital retinal images for vessel segmentation

The information contained in the retinal vasculature is used to diagnose the onset of retinal diseases such as diabetic retinopathy. However, due to non-uniform illumination and variations in imaging modalities, the contrast between the retinal blood vessels network and the background is very low, encumbering the analysis and the diagnosis processes. This prompts the need for preprocessing digital fundus images to remove noise and improve contrast thus increasing the segmentation accuracy of the retinal vasculature. In this study, we address issues of nonuniform illumination and low contrast by developing a framework that implements shade correction, image enhancement and prepares the digital fundus images for the next stage

Incorporating Fuzzy Logic Into An Adaptive Negative Pressure Wound Therapy Device

Negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) is a technique that enhances the healing process by applying negative pressure on the chronic or acute wounds. It has been diffusely adopted for treatment of trauma wound, chronic wound, or deep sternal wound infections due to its excellent healing result. However, there were several injuries and death cases caused by the unstable pressure generated from the wound treatment. This paper aims to design a stable negative pressure regulator by using fuzzy logic controller (FLC) .The proposed control approach is able to regulate the negative pressure within the desired range for healing process. The NPWT system consists of adhesive film dressing, wound dressing, fluid collecting canister, drainage tubes, vacuum pump, and microcontroller. The NPWT system developed is able to supply negative pressure from 0mmHg to 200mmHg and the negative pressure supply can be controlled. The effectiveness of FLC pressure controlling and Boolean logic controller method is validated by experiments. In conclusion, it is proven that the proposed method is able to provide a safe wound treatment in future

Review of state of the art for metaheuristic techniques in academic scheduling problems

The Academic Scheduling Problems have drawn great interest from many researchers of various fields, such as operational research and artificial intelligence. Despite the long history of literature, the problem still remains as an interesting research topic as new and emerging metaheuristic techniques continue to exhibit promising results. This paper surveys the properties of the Academic Scheduling Problems, such as the complexity of the problem and the constraints involved and addresses the various metaheuristic techniques and strategies used in solving them. The survey in this paper presents the aspects of solution quality in terms of computational speed, feasibility and optimality of a solution

An adapted cuckoo optimization algorithm and genetic algorithm approach to the university course timetabling problem

The university course timetabling problem is an NP-hard and NP-complete problem concerned with assigning a specific set of events and resources to timeslots under a highly-constrained search space. This paper presents a novel metaheuristic algorithm entitled adapted cuckoo optimization algorithm which is derived from the cuckoo optimization algorithm and cuckoo search algorithm. This algorithm includes features such as local random walk on discrete data which mimics the behavior of Lévy flights and an Elitism-based mechanism which echoes back the best candidate solutions and prevents the algorithm from plunging into a curse of dimensionality. The algorithm was tested on a problem instance gathered from a University in Malaysia and the results indicate that the proposed algorithm exhibits very promising results in terms of solution quality and computational speed when compared to genetic algorithm

A Heuristic Room Matching Algorithm in Generating Enhanced Initial Seed for the University Course Timetabling Problem

The University Course Timetabling Problem (UCTP) such as the curriculum-based course timetabling problem is both an NP-hard and NP-complete scheduling problem. The nature of the problem concerns with the assignment of lecturers-courses to available teaching space in an academic institution. The Curriculum-Based University Course Timetabling Problem (CB-UCTP) has a high conflict-density and searching for an improved solution is not trivial. In this study, the authors propose a heuristic room matching algorithm which improves the seed of the CB-UCTP. The objective is to provide a reasonable search point to carry out any improvement phase and the results obtained indicate that the matching algorithm is able to provide very promising results as the fitness score of the solution is significantly enhanced in a very short period of time

Gender as moderator of the effects of online social support from friends and strangers: a study of Singaporean college students

Gender differences in Internet use may affect how women and men respond to online support (OS) provided by friends and strangers. The present study compared the psychological effects of brief OS provided by a same-gender, same-ethnicity friend or stranger in young Singaporean women (n = 73) and men (n = 60). After random assignment to 1 of 3 groups (supportive friend, supportive stranger, nothing), Singaporean university students completed stressor tasks before and after instant messaging with a friend or stranger, or doing nothing. The findings showed that OS from a friend attenuated women’s negative emotional responses to stress, whereas OS from a stranger was ineffective in regulating women’s negative affect. In contrast, men did not show significant changes in negative affect in association with OS provided by a friend or a stranger. The findings were consistent with gender differences in Internet use, where women use the Internet to seek social support and men to gather information