Abdullah S. Al-Ghamdi

Saudi-KAU Coupled Global Climate Model: Description and Performance

BackgroundA new coupled global climate model (CGCM) has been developed at the Center of Excellence for Climate Change Research (CECCR), King Abdulaziz University (KAU), known as Saudi-KAU CGCM.PurposeThe main aim of the model development is to generate seasonal to subseasonal forecasting and long-term climate simulations.MethodsThe Saudi-KAU CGCM currently includes two atmospheric dynamical cores, two land components, three ocean components, and multiple physical parameterization options. The component modules and parameterization schemes have been adopted from different sources, and some have undergone modifications at CECCR. The model is characterized by its versatility, ease of use, and the physical fidelity of its climate simulations, in both idealized and realistic configurations. A description of the model, its component packages, and parameterizations is provided.ResultsResults from selected configurations demonstrate the model’s ability to reasonably simulate the climate on different time scales. The coupled model simulates El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) variability, which is fundamental for seasonal forecasting. It also simulates Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO)-like disturbances with features similar to observations, although slightly weaker.ConclusionsThe Saudi-KAU CGCM ability to simulate the ENSO and the MJO suggests that it is capable of making useful predictions on subseasonal to seasonal timescales.

Aerothermal Design of a Multi-Stage Axial Flow Gas Turbine with Air Cooling

The gas turbine engine is gaining acceptance throughout the world as a reliable, flexible and efficient base-load power generation plant. This is in addition to the fact that it has been the unrivalled working horse in aeroengines for decades. The more advanced the technology, the higher the turbine inlet temperature (TIT) is, which increases power, reduces weight and improves efficiency. This demands the use of advanced materials and cooling technology, and hence deeper understanding of aerothermal design becomes a premium. The study reported here shows how a simplified model for the flow in the annulus of the gas turbine can produce accurate results in relation to blade cooling. In this design, the axial, tangential and radial components of velocities are included, together with the compressibility effect and probability of introducing resonant forcing frequencies. This design exercise of finding the particulars of the geometry, gas angles, degree of reaction and cooling configuration represents the first step towards further analysis of heat transfer and overall performance. This could be carried out as a senior course project associated with a course on gas turbines and turbomachines.

General Characteristics and Common Practices for ICT Projects: Evaluation Perspective

In today’s business world, organizations are more dependent on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) resources. Cloud services, communication services and software services are most common resources, enterprises are spending large amount. To install new services and upgrade existing services, ICT project are essential part of organization’s business strategies. Researchers highlighted the real problem for the organization is to initiate new ICT projects and its evaluation after implementation. This research investigated the common approaches organizations using to start with ICT projects and how to evaluate its impact on after implementation. For this, we have extracted the number of steps with the help of literature review. To validate those steps, six case studies are selected for collecting the samples. The findings of this study elaborate that every ICT project has list of objectives i.e. strategic, informational, IT infrastructure and others. Furthermore, the results highlight that organizations believe on both financial and non-financial evaluation methods based on the type of organization i.e. public or private. Moreover, measurement process applied on project wise, monthly and yearly bases. Importantly, we have found that currently outsourcing plays significant role in success of ICT projects. The results of this study can be helpful for the organization to understand the type of ICT investments, approaches and possible impact on the organizations goals.

A proposed model to measure the impact of business architecture

The business architecture of an enterprise offers a combination of services in operating and modeling business activities. It helps to drive the business operation, integration of multiple systems, an allocation of information technology (IT) and other resources in an efficient manner. This paper discusses the business architecture’s standing in an enterprise, demonstrating the working and importance of business architecture in an organization. Furthermore, collaboration and relationships between key components of business architecture are a major point of discussion in this paper. A conceptual framework is presented that composes and enhances the idea of business architecture by extending it through the identification of benefits, thereby enabling an enterprise to achieve based on three models: strategic, operational, and IT. The extraction of parameter and developing the proposed model is based on published literature review. Ultimately, this study enhances the purpose of implementing business architecture and its key dimensions. Moreover, identifying benefits using different measuring factors presented in the model (i.e. strategic, operational, IT infrastructure) can help the business organizations and decision-makers evaluate the potential benefits of business architecture in an enterprise.

Toward cloud-based mixed reality e-learning system

This paper presents design and implementation of a mixed reality e-learning architecture integrated with cloud computing technology. Consequently, the paper discusses a cloud based mixed reality computing framework for e-learning collaboration model. The proposed framework for the cloud-based mixed reality is designed to open the mixed reality dataset courses and related contents. The framework employees’ four modules, each module implements various services related to this module. Also, the framework provides an environment of online mixed reality learning courses. The structure of the framework includes (1) learner, (2) mixed reality, (3) learning objects and styles, and (4) manager with user friendly modules. Consequently, ways of deploying such cloud computing can be defined as public, private or hybrid followed by the security and privacy techniques to protect the proposed framework. So, confidentiality, integrity and availability of material of courses will satisfied, to examine the threats and security issues for the cloud computing framework.

Mobile Player Experience Evaluation in RA Geolocalized Serious Games

The aim of this paper is to propose the most appropriate tools and techniques to evaluate geolocated video games with augmented reality (RA). To do this, we have studied the assessment tools recommended by leading authors and User Experience (UX) researchers, Playability and Player Experience (PX). Of these instruments and techniques, tools and methods suitable for these types of games were selected. As a study case, it has been taken Progrezz assessment, a platform that allows gamificating real social actions, using this technology as support for mobile augmented reality geographic location. Finally, an organized initial assessment phase guide, which allows a multidimensional measure for UX/PX geolocated mobile games with RA is proposed.

A fedearted E-learning cloud system based on mixed reality

The continuous evolution of new technologies and devices encourage researchers and specialists, in learning and E-learning domain, to take advantage of them in order to enhance learning and E-learning tasks. Due to its flexibility and some other benefits compared to the conventional learning, E-learning gained a lot from the field of learning and training. Cloud computing presents today a very important low-cost infrastructure which can respond to all kinds of software and hardware user needs. In this paper, we propose a federated E-learning cloud system capable of enhancing, substantially, the quality of E-learning by using the mixed reality technology. Actually, our system is intended to be used by any learner including those having some special needs (talent and smart peoples). One of the attractive sides of the proposed system is its capability to use existing courses and learning objects provided on the Internet in order to deliver them to the end-user in a customized manner. The proposed system is intended to be built on a federated cloud infrastructure as a set of ubiquitous services that can be accessed by any user.

Universal metadata repository for document analysis and recognition

Document Analysis and Recognition (DAR) has two main objectives, first the analysis of the physical structure of the input image of the document, which should lead to the correct identification of the corresponding different homogeneous components and their boundaries in terms of XY coordinates. Second, each of these homogeneous components should be recognized in such a way that, if it is a text image, consequently this image should be recognized and translated into an intelligible text. DAR remains one of the most challenging topics in pattern recognition. Indeed, despite the diversity of the proposed approaches, techniques and methods, results remain very weak and away from expectations especially for several categories of documents such as complex, low quality, handwritten and historical documents. The complex structure and/or morphology of such documents are behind the weakness of results of these proposed approaches, techniques and methods. One of the challenging problems related to this topic is the creation of standard datasets that can be used by all stakeholders of this topic such as system developers, expert evaluators, and users. In addition, another challenging problem is how one could take advantages of all existing datasets that unfortunately are dispersed around the world without knowing, most of the times, any information about their locations and the way to reach them. As an attempt to solve the two mentioned above problems, we propose in this paper a Universal Datasets Repository for Document Analysis and Recognition (UMDAR) that has, in fact, a twofold advantage. First, it can help dataset creators to standardize their datasets and making them accessible to the research community once published on the proposed repository. Second, it can be used as a central which bridges in a smart manner between datasets and all DAR stakeholders.

Consonantal Phonation: Appling ICTs for Diagnosis and Treatment of Vocalization Problems

Speech and language therapists assess and treat speech, language and communication problems in people of all ages to help them communicate better. In this case, technology is a tool that can support therapy. However, related resources presentation and utilization for these vocalization difficulties are limited to pictograms and static web pages developed by speech therapists. This chapter describes a prototype based on mobile devices (tablets) and cloud computing aiming at supporting speech therapists and teachers towards the diagnosis and treatment of vocalization problems with particular interest in consonantal phonemes. The proposal have been designed and evaluated for therapist’s sessions. It provides an initial diagnosis, creation word’s composition, phonemes histories generation and management, lips positioning, and phonetic exercises tables. This process is conducted by the speech therapists or the system as such, and, at the same time, prepares the exercises collection in order to provide with the therapeutic a sequence to support the patient’s treatment. Cloud technologies provide the appropriate place to host a platform supporting the system with the associated features due to the wider development and distribution for tablets cloud computing provided.

A General Framework for Measuring Information and Communication Technology Investment

Growing concerns of decision makers about measuring Information and Communication Technology (ICT) investments has increased the wide interest in developing and analyzing the return on investment (ROI) methodologies. Researchers and professionals have presented several models for accessing return on ICT investment from the financial and non-financial perspectives. Due to disperse dimensions of investment and its measuring return, still the government and ICT investors are puzzled to opt the best comprehensive evaluation strategy which can help them out for entire evaluation phases. Conceptually ROI can be divided into two types of measuring returns; financial and non-financial value. In this paper, we aim to develop the framework for building return methodology which can deal with both values. Therefore, we investigate the relationship between types of ICT investment and its returns value type. Stakeholder analysis and value measuring variables give strength to our proposed model and increase its feasibility. Overall the methodology has six stages to evaluate ICT investment which are dependent on its investment type, evaluation type, value measuring variables and stakeholders.