Improving construction materials management practices in construction sites

Construction Materials Management is a vital function for improving productivity in construction projects. Poor materials management can often affect the overall construction time, quality and budget. Currently, the construction material management practice in Somalia is believed to be poorly performed. Lack of standardized construction materials management system is one of the key issues facing by the building industry in Mogadishu-Somalia. The aim of this study was to investigate the current practices of material management at construction sites in Mogadishu-Somalia. A questionnaire survey study design was used to explore construction materials management practices. Fifty questionnaires were distributed to project managers, project engineers, site engineers, engineer, and foreman, and they were received and analysed. The following data analysis techniques were used: descriptive statistics were conducted to report sample characteristics, reliability and validity analyses were performed to confirm robustness of the instrument, graphical presentation such as bar charts were developed, and finally Average Mean Index Scale were constructed. The study results reveals that, 46.7% of respondent’s organization obtain materials for sites without site requisition by site engineer provisions, while 28.9% of respondent’s organization procure materials for sites with site requisition by project manager provisions and 13.3% of respondent’s organization procure materials for site by engineer. The results indicated that currently there is no standardized and computerized construction materials management system applied in Somalia. The researcher concluded that all contracting companies are interested in using some techniques of managing construction materials such as creating and updating database for materials categories from local and international suppliers. Finally, researcher recommends to use computerized construction materials management systems to reduce effort and time, and to achieve more accurate results

Application of Grey Wolf Optimizer Algorithm for Optimal Power Flow of Two-Terminal HVDC Transmission System

This paper applies a relatively new optimization method, the Grey Wolf Optimizer (GWO) algorithm for Optimal Power Flow (OPF) of twoterminal High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) electrical power system. The OPF problem of pure AC power systems considers the minimization of total costs under equality and inequality constraints. Hence, the OPF problem of integrated AC-DC power systems is extended to incorporate HVDC links, while taking into consideration the power transfer control characteristics using a GWO algorithm. This algorithm is inspired by the hunting behavior and social leadership of grey wolves in nature. The proposed algorithm is applied to two different case-studies: the modified 5-bus and WSCC 9-bus test systems. The validity of the proposed algorithm is demonstrated by comparing the obtained results with those reported in literature using other optimization techniques. Analysis of the obtained results show that the proposed GWO algorithm is able to achieve shorter CPU time, as well as minimized total cost when compared with already existing optimization techniques. This conclusion proves the efficiency of the GWO algorithm

Regenerative and Adaptive schemes Based on Network Coding for Wireless Relay Network

Recent technological advances in wireless communications offer new opportunities and challenges for relay network.To enhance system performance, Demodulate-Network Coding (Dm-NC) scheme has been examined at relay node; it works directly to De-map the received signals and after that forward the mixture to the destination. Simulation analysis has been proven that the performance of Dm-NC has superiority over analog-NC. In addition, the Quantize-Decode-NC scheme (QDF-NC) has been introduced. The presented simulation results clearly provide that the QDF-NC perform better than analog-NC. The toggle between analogNC and QDF-NC is simulated in order to investigate delay and power consumption reduction at relay node.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, International Journal of Computer Networks & Communications (IJCNC), Vol.4, No.3, May 201

Modeling and Forecasting Volatility of the Malaysian and the Singaporean stock indices using Asymmetric GARCH models and Non-normal Densities

This paper examines and estimate the three GARCH(1,1) models (GARCH, EGARCH and GJR-GARCH) using the daily price data. Two Asian stock indices KLCI and STI are studied using daily data over a 14-years period. The competing Models include GARCH, EGARCH and GJR-GARCH used with three different distributions, Gaussian normal, Student-t, Generalized Error Distribution. The estimation results show that the forecasting performance of asymmetric GARCH Models (GJR-GARCH and EGARCH), especially when fat-tailed asymmetric densities are taken into account in the conditional volatility, is better than symmetric GARCH. Moreover, its found that the AR(1)-GJR model provide the best out-of- sample forecast for the Malaysian stock market, while AR(1)-EGARCH provide a better estimation for the Singaporean stock market.ARCH-Models, Asymmetry, Stock market indices and volatility modeling, SAS/ETS software.

Modelling of steam generator performance by freon with special reference to the annular flow regime

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