The impacts of non-functional requirements in web system projects

In web system development, the Non-Functional Requirements (NFRs) are typically considered only briefly during the requirements elicitation stage and not rigorously articulated by either web developers or the client. This paper reports on an investigation into this issue involving interviews with web developers who were engaged in commercial web development projects. The results from this qualitative research highlight that web developers commonly do not pay sufficient attention to NFRs. This arises due to uncertainty, lack of time, lack of knowledge in the importance of NFRs and partly because NFRs are not readily available and documented from previous similar projects. Web developers also do not elicit NFR at the same time and at the same level of details as Functional Requirements (FRs). This study highlights that exploring the domain at an early stage of development will help developers to better understand NFR. A lack of rigour in articulating NFRs may significantly impact on the development effectiveness and the quality of the resulting web system. An evaluation of NFRs may also lead to discovering new FRs. © Copyright 2008, Inderscience Publishers

Hydrological modelling of ungauged arid volcanic environments at upper Bathan catchment, Madinah, Saudi Arabia

Hydrological modelling of ungauged catchments is still a challenging task especially in arid regions with a unique land cover features such as highly fracture volcanic basalt rocks. In this study, upper Bathan catchment (103 km2) in Madinah, western of Saudi Arabia is selected. The aim of this paper is to simulate the hydrological responses of volcanic catchment to daily design storm events. The weighted areal average of two daily design rainfall depth scenarios are computed, which are 50 years and 100 years return period and correspondent predicted rainfall are 80.6 mm and 94.1 mm, respectively. SCS Type II temporal synthetic distribution of daily rainfall is selected to disaggregate the daily rainfall into smaller time interval. Excess rainfall is computed using Soil Conservation Services Curve Number (SCS-CN) method based on Land Cover and Land Use (LCLU) and hydrological soil groups (HSG) maps, while direct runoff hydrograph is developed using Soil Conservation Services dimensionless unit hydrograph (SCS-UH) method using lag time equation. HEC-HMS software is used, and it showed that the runoff volumes of the two rainfall scenarios are 50% and 54% of the total rainfall depth, and the peak discharges are 123 m3/sec and 158 m3/sec. This study provided an indication of the hydrograph characteristics of basaltic catchments and the result of this paper can be used for further flood studies in arid ungauged volcanic catchments

A Comparative Study of Enhanced Nonlinear PI to Multivariable Nonlinear Plant

The static gains of PI controller have limitation to handle the process nonlinearities of the system. This suggests the development of enhanced nonlinear PI controller where a nonlinear gain function is cascaded to PI parameters. Two nonlinear gain functions are developed and the effectiveness of the control performance is investigated for two different control structures for a multivariable nonlinear wastewater treatment plant (WWTP). It was proved that superior output with the lower mean error was obtained by developed nonlinear PI specifically in the multivariable control structure. The developed nonlinear PI offers simpler control structure and easy implementation hence offering alternative control strategy for the multivariable system

Does Inhalation of Virgin Coconut Oil Accelerate Reversal of Airway Remodelling in an Allergic Model of Asthma?

Many studies have been done to evaluate the effect of various natural products in controlling asthma symptoms. Virgin coconut oil (VCO) is known to contain active compounds that have beneficial effects on human health and diseases.The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of VCO inhalation on airway remodelling in a rabbit model of allergic asthma.The effects of VCO inhalation on infiltration of airway inflammatory cells, airway structures, goblet cell hyperplasia, and cell proliferation following ovalbumin induction were evaluated. Allergic asthma was induced by a combination of ovalbumin and alum injection and/or followed by ovalbumin inhalation.The effect ofVCOinhalationwas then evaluated via the rescue or the preventive route. Percentage of inflammatory cells infiltration, thickness of epithelium and mucosa regions, and the numbers of goblet and proliferative cells were reduced in the rescue group but not in preventive group. Analysis using a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry found that lauric acid and capric acid were among themost abundant fatty acids present in the sample. Significant improvement was observed in rescue route in alleviating the asthma symptoms, which indicates the VCO was able to relieve asthma-related symptoms more than preventing the onset of asthma

Analysis of Concentric Split Ring Square Element for Broadband Reflectarray Antenna

An investigation of phase variation and phase range of concentric split ring square element for broadband reflectarray antenna is presented in this paper. This is realized by exploiting the physical geometry of three element shapes namely square element, concentric ring square element and concentric split ring square element. Modifying the current distribution of basic concentric ring square element, leads to a less steep phase variation and also the bandwidth performance. An analysis of frequency response is described and analysed. The physical interpretation of the elements is also discussed. The proposed antenna element effectively covers two frequency operations (13.44 GHz and 18.36 GHz) in Ku-band range. Bandwidth broadening is achieved by introducing the ring square combination of element and the practical phase range is achieved through the use of RF 35 (thickness = 1.524 mm) as the substrate. The new concept of split initiates to a wider bandwidth (up to 67.6 %) for the antenna and can applied to any two frequency operations of Ku-band applications

Establishment of flood damage function model for urban area in Kuantan: A preliminary study

Previous studies on flood damage assessment mostly discussed the relationship between flood damages and hydrological impacts parameters such as flood depth and flood duration. The influence of resistance parameters on flood damages is rarely investigated. Hence, an attempt has been made to establish a flood damage function model based on the relationships between flood damages and the variables of socio-economic and property characteristics for an urban area in Kuantan. Using a face to face interview technique, a field survey was conducted to gather damage data and related information from the 2013 Kuantan flood. Damages to residential structures were found to be influenced by household income, type of construction materials, and house level. On the other hand, household income, house type, and occupation were identified as the most significant variables that influenced the damages of residential content. For the commercial category, only the areas of the premises were significantly affected by the various structural damages, whereas the content damages depended mostly on the type of business, the surrounding areas, and the premises' number of floors. The relationship between flood damages and their influencing factors is important and should be further tested before proceeding with any application on a wider scale

Factors Affecting ICT Integration During Teaching Practices: A Multiple Case Study of Three Indonesian Universities

Information and communication technology (ICT) is a strong force for economic, social, political, and educational reforms happening throughout the world including in developing countries. In this qualitative inquiry, we aimed at elaborating factors affecting ICT integration during teaching practices in pre-service teacher training programs (PTTPs) of three Indonesian universities from the perspectives of fifty-five pre-service teachers. The thematic analysis of this study revealed two major themes, barriers and enablers, which affected the integration of ICT during teaching practices. Based on the themes, this study led to the development of a conceptual model of factors affecting the ICT integration. Recommendations are made for the betterment of Indonesian PTTPs and related stakeholders

The design of IPT system for multiple kitchen appliances using class E LCCL circuit

Since many years ago, kitchen appliances are powered up by cable connected. This create a troublesome case as wire might tangle together and cause kitchen table messy. Due to this, wireless power technology (WPT) is introduced as its ability is to transmit power to load without physical contact. This leads to cordless solution better in safety as the product can be completely seal, highly expandable power range. This work focuses on the design of WPT based on inductive approach to power up multiple kitchen appliances. The selection of inductive approach over its partners capacitive and acoustic is mainly due to high power efficiency. Class E inverter is proposed here to convert the DC to AC current to drive the inductive link. A 1 MHz operating frequency is used. To ensure the circuit is robust with load variations, an LCCL impedance matching is proposed. This solution is table to maintain the output power if there is a slight change in load impedance. Finally, the developed prototype is able to supply 50V utput which can achieve power transmission up to 81.76%