A three dimensional limit load solution for highly undermatched single edge cracked specimens in pure bending

The accuracy of defect assessment methods for cracked structures depends on the accuracy of limit load solutions. The present paper focuses on a new method to construct simple three-dimensional kinematically admissible velocity fields for highly undermatched welded joints with edge cracks and its application to single edge cracked specimens in pure bending. The objective is to take into account specific features of flow pattern in highly undermatched joints to propose three-dimensional kinematically admissible velocity fields whose level of complexity as well as accuracy of limit load predictions are comparable with plane strain fields. The three-dimensional solution found for single edge cracked specimens in pure bending is compared to available semi-analytical plane strain solutions. Several feasible ways to improve the solution found are proposed

Correlative coding with clipping and filtering technique in OFDM Systems

The major setbacks of Orthogonal Frequency Multiplexing (OFDM) is its peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) and intercarrier interference (ICI). The occurrence of these factors restricts its application. Here, the clipping and filtering PAPR reduction technique is king investigated to reduce the PAPR and out-of-band radiation simultaneously by implementing correlative coding. This paper focuses on the preliminaty measurement studies that was canid out. It is shown thmugh simulation that the collaboration of these techniques gives a reasonable PAPR reduction and improves the out-of-band radiation

Classification of Malaysian vowels using formant based features

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) has made great strides with the development of digital signal processing hardware and software, especially using English as the language of choice. Despite of all these advances, machines cannot match the performance of their human counterparts in terms of accuracy and speed, especially in case of speaker independent speech recognition. In this paper, a new feature based on formant is presented and evaluated on Malaysian spoken vowels. These features were classified and used to identify vowels recorded from 80 Malaysian speakers. A back propagation neural network (BPNN) model was developed to classify the vowels. Six formant features were evaluated, which were the first three formant frequencies and the distances between each of them. Results, showed that overall vowel classification rate of these three formant combinations are comparatively the same but differs in terms of individual vowel classification

Utilizing rapid prototyping 3D printer for fabricating flexographic PDMS printing plate

Recently printed electronic field is significantly growth. Printed electronic is to develop electrical devices by printing method. Conventional printing method that has been studied for this kind of printed electronic such as flexographic, micro contact printing, screen printing, gravure and ink jet. In flexographic and microcontact printing, a printing plate is used to transfer the designed and desired pattern to substrate through conformed contact. Therefore printing plate is play a big role in this area. Printing plate making by photopolymer which used in flexographic have limitation in achieving a micro-scale of pattern size. However, printing plate of microcontact printing have an advantages in producing micro, even nano-scale size by PDMS (Polydimethylsiloxane). Hence, rapid prototyping 3D printer was used for developing a PDMS micro-scale printing plate which will be used in reel to reel (R2R) flexographic due to high speed, low cost, mass production of this type of printing process. The flexibility of 3D printer in producing any shape of pattern easily, contributed the success of this study. A nickel plating and glass etching master pattern was used in this study too as master pattern mould since 3D printer has been reached the micro size limitation. The finest multiple solid line array with 1mm width and 2mm gap pattern of printing plate was successfully fabricated by 3D printer master mould due to size limitation of the FDM (Fused Deposition Modeling) 3D printer nozzle itself. However, the micro-scale multiple solid line array of 100micron and 25micron successfully made by nikel platting and glass etching master mould respectively. Those types of printing plate producing method is valueable since it is easy, fast and low cost, used for micro-flexographic in printed electronic field or biomedical application

The Relationship between Organizational Politics, Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention in the Maritime-Related Agencies in the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia

The study aimed to examine the relationship between organizational politics, employee’s job satisfaction and turnover intention in the public maritime-related agencies in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The study utilized cross sectional research design. An enumeration of entire population (census) was conducted on 140 employees from Royal Malaysian Custom and Department of Fisheries in Terengganu. Data for the study were collected through questionnaire. 140 set of questionnaire were distributed and 109 copies were returned. Preliminary analyses were performed to ensure violation of assumptions of normality, linearity and homogeneity which enables us to analyze the data with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and SmartPLS softwares. The findings revealed a significant association between organizational politics, employee’s job satisfaction and turnover intention. The study therefore recommended that the agencies should actively focus on positive political behaviour that will fuel workers’ job satisfaction and they should ensure proper pay structure including pay performance and other bonuses that will lead to employee job satisfaction and reduce turnover intention. Finally, the findings of this study could assist the public maritime-related agencies in the area of organizational politics that would promote employee job satisfaction.     Keywords: organizational politics, job satisfaction, turnover intentio

The influence of religiosity on safety behavior of workers: A Proposed Framework

There has been a growing body of studies on religion and human safety behaviour in recent years. However, psychologists seem to be more inclined to pairing religiosity and non-occupational risky behaviour (such as smoking, substance abuse, drinking and driving) in their studies, while safety scientists have hardly explored the influence of religiosity on occupational safety behaviour such as taking shortcuts or breaking the rules. To close this gap, this paper suggests that empirical studies should be conducted to explore possible associations between religiosity and safety behaviour at the workplace. To facilitate such studies, a conceptual framework is proposed based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). This paper explains the rationale of choosing TPB. While TPB postulates that both the behavioural intention and perceived behavioural control explain the behaviour, it is interesting to examine the effect of religiosity on occupational behaviour. Examining religiosity as a new construct in occupational safety behaviour studies can help trigger the interest of other religious scholars, psychologists and safety scientists to use religiosity as a construct more rigorously in their future studies on safety to address the gap. Such studies can also help formulate or enhance safety interventions, since these human-related incidents and accidents seem endemic in high-risk industries

Mapping Process of Digital Forensic Investigation Framework

Digital forensics is essential for the successful prosecution of digital criminals which involve diverse digital devices such as computer system devices, network devices, mobile devices and storage devices. The digital forensic investigation must be retrieved to obtain the evidence that will be accepted in the court of law. Therefore, for digital forensic investigation to be performed successfully, there are a number of important steps that have to be taken into consideration. The aim of this paper is to produce the mapping process between the processes/activities and output for each phase in Digital Forensic Investigation Framework (DFIF). Existing digital forensic frameworks will be reviewed and then the mapping is constructed. The result from the mapping process will provide a new framework to optimize the whole investigation process

Intrusion Alert Correlation Technique Analysis for Heterogeneous Log

Intrusion alert correlation is multi-step processes that receives alerts from heterogeneous log resources as input and produce a high-level description of the malicious activity on the network. The objective of this study is to analyse the current alert correlation technique and identify the significant criteria in each technique that can improve the Intrusion Detection System(IDS) problem such as prone to alert flooding, contextual problem, false alert and scalability. The existing alert correlation techniques had been reviewed and analysed. From the analysis, six capability criteria have been identified to improve the current alert correlation technique. They are capability to do alert reduction, alert clustering,identify multistep attack, reduce false alert, detect known attack and detect unknown attack

Impact study on physical activity scores on age equality locomotor, object control and motor skills in preschool children

This study aims to determine the effects of physical activity on age equality locomotor, age equivalents object control and gross motor skills. The Study was conducted in two phases. Phase 1 of the study was descriptive in nature, involving 120 preschool children (B = 60, G = 60) was six years old. As for Phase 2, subjects consisted of preschool children in a government school in Bandar Seremban preschool, aged six years old who were learning Physical and Aesthetic through the National Pre-School Curriculum Standard (KSPK). Size study sample consisted of 50 preschool children (B = 32, G = 18), and sampling method is convenience sampling. The instrument used in this study is a Test of Gross Motor Development-2 (TGMD-2) developed by Ulrich (2000). Data obtained through motor ability tests cover six locomotor tests and six object control tests. MANOVA analysis and MANCOVA were used to determine the effects of an intervention program to control the pre-test. Findings: Based on the Phase 1 the study found that the level of gross motor development of preschool children between three preschools are not equivalent to the age of locomotor and object control. A government preschool selected for Phase 2 because the findings of means for gross motor skills are low compared with the mean score for the gross motor skills for KEMAS and private group students. The findings of the analysis of Phase 2 of the pre-test and control treatment groups reported a significant difference in the mean gross motor skills [F (3,46) = 4.99; p 0.05, eta squared = .041]. The tests showed traces of physical activity significantly to the gross motor skills of preschool children. There are significant differences in the mean gross motor development [F (3,46) = 11,296; p <0.05, eta squared = .424] between the control and treatment groups. Univariate F test analysis showed a significant difference in post-test scores for the dependent variable AEL [F (1,48) = 21,324; p <0.05, eta squared = .308], AEM [(1,48) = 24.71; p <0.05, eta squared = .340], and GMDQ [F (1,48) = 20,215; p <0.05, eta squared = .296], and for the treatment and control groups. Discussion: The overall level of motor development of preschool children are at a low level. The results support the intervention program that uses the module physical activity can help improve gross motor skills of children treated group

Polyethersulfone/HFO mixed matrix membrane for enhanced oily wastewater rejection

The recent growth of oil and gas industry has led to the increase of oily wastewater release. Membrane technology has been in the spotlight in recent advancement to treat the oily wastewater. Fouling due to surfactant adsorption and/or oil droplets plugging the pore has become one of the major hindrances in most of the research on oily wastewater treatment. In this work, self-synthesized hydrous ferric dioxide nanoparticles (HFO NPs) via chemical precipitation method were incorporated in polyethersulfone (PES) to fabricate a novel nanocomposite mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) for ultrafiltration (UF). The morphologies and physicochemical properties of prepared HFO NPs and MMMs were characterized using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and Transmission electron microscope (TEM), contact angle goniometer, before further subjected to water permeation test and oil rejection test. It was found that contact angle of membrane decreased remarkably with an increase in HFO nanoparticle loading from 70° to 38° at which proved its improved hydrophilicity which led to a significant rise in permeate flux, achieving 168.06 L/m2h bar in comparison to 63.67 L/m2h bar shown by the plain PES membrane. Total rejection of oil (100% rejection) demonstrated by the MMMs has confirmed the superior potential of PES/HFO UF membrane for total purification of oily wastewater especially to be reused in oilfield and refinery processes as well as to be released to the environment