Azlinah Mohamed

Optimization approaches for macroscopic emergency evacuation planning: A survey

Emergency evacuation planning is essential in disaster management. Numerous evacuation model and optimization algorithms have been developed and implemented for various types of emergencies mainly in natural and man-made disaster. This paper reviews such approaches focusing on macroscopic in emergency evacuation planning. The strength and weaknesses of algorithms and models are described. Variables considered in algorithms such as number of evacuee and evacuation time have been seen important to be applied to real evacuation scenario. Most of optimization algorithms demonstrate promising results in minimizing travelling time from the affected area to safety. Thus, algorithms should be enhanced to consider different scales of evacuation in different type of disasters. With the provision of efficient evacuation planning, it would help relevant authorities to reduce risk disaster management by offering a tool to support evacuation processes.

Automated Grading of Palm Oil Fresh Fruit Bunches (FFB) Using Neuro-fuzzy Technique

Automated fruit grading in local fruit industries are gradually receiving attention as the use of technology in upgrading the quality of food products are now acknowledged. In this paper, outer surface colors of palm oil fresh fruit bunches (FFB) are analyzed to automatically grade the fruits into over ripe, ripe and unripe. We compared two methods of color grading: 1) using RGB digital numbers and 2) colors classifications trained using a supervised learning Hebb technique and graded using fuzzy logic. A total of 90 images are used as the training images and 45 images are tested in the grading process. Overall, automated grading using RGB digital numbers produced an average of 49% success rate, while the neuro-fuzzy approach achieved an accuracy level of 73.3%.

Chaos issues on communication in Agile Global Software Development

Currently, the distance related to time and location between distributed software development teams is considered contributing to the chaotic environment of Global Software Development (GSD). Furthermore, when it involves using Agile method where communication is crucial between developers and customers. This paper aim to discussed the issues that have occurred related to the communication in Agile Global Software Development (AGSD). Literature survey has been carried out to gather information from the previous works as well as from forum feedback by practioners globally. The chaos issues are then illustrated using conceptual model, tabulated based on authors and then discussed. Identification of chaos issue is important in order to highlight the real problems that had happened in AGSD. Based on the identified chaos issues related to communication, it will somehow help the researchers and practitioners to acknowledge the real problems that had occurred in AGSD.

Information security risk factors: Critical threats vulnerabilities in ICT outsourcing

Information Communication Technology (ICT) Outsourcing provides an effective ways to cut cost, launch new business venture and improve efficiency. Sometimes, ICT outsourcing can lead to an information security risk incident that might be difficult to manage and mitigate. Hence, the objectives of the research are to determine the information security risk factors, consisting of threats and vulnerabilities; and to discuss their criticalness in Malaysian ICT outsourcing projects. Questionnaires were distributed to various private companies and government agencies for the study. The findings of the research show that the most critical threats are system error and ICT failures; and the most critical vulnerability is insufficient attention to human factors in system design and implementation. This paper also highlights other critical information security risk factors in ICT outsourcing projects. Through the findings, private companies and government agencies would be able to identify critical information security risk factors and address them appropriately and effective.

Solving vehicle assignment problem using evolutionary computation

This paper examines the use of evolutionary computation (EC) to find optimal solution in vehicle assignment problem (VAP) The VAP refers to the allocation of the expected number of people in a potentially flooded area to various types of available vehicles in evacuation process A novel discrete particle swarm optimization (DPSO) algorithm and genetic algorithm (GA) are presented to solve this problem Both of these algorithms employed a discrete solution representation and incorporated a min-max approach for a random initialization of discrete particle position A min-max approach is based on minimum capacity and maximum capacity of vehicles We analyzed the performance of the algorithms using evacuation datasets The quality of solutions were measured based on the objective function which is to find a maximum number of assigned people to vehicles in the potentially flooded areas and central processing unit (CPU) processing time of the algorithms Overall, DPSO provides an optimal solutions and successfully achieved the objective function whereas GA gives sub optimal solution for the VAP.

Development of Rasch-based descriptive scale in profiling information professionals’ competency

The development of Rasch measurement model has rapidly expanded from social science, educational fields to other technology and engineering field as well. This study is an attempt to apply Rasch Measurement in the field of technology to assess Information Professionals’ (IP) competency. Bloom’s Taxonomy is used as the framework for assessment whilst utilising Rasch model in constructing the measurement in evaluating the competencies. Assessment only generates raw score and need to be transformed into meaningful measurement values. Rasch model measurement enable tabulation the IP; person and, a given task; the items, on a distribution map (PIDM) on a common scale termed logit. It gives a more accurate estimate of the IP’s achievement on a linear scale of measurement. Comparative analysis against the traditional histogram tabulation and simple mean shows that Rasch measurement was found to give a better exploratory depth in understanding the ability of each IP. Despite the small sample size, the IP were clearly categorized according to the respective workgroup cluster, knowledge and skills. This leads to a new paradigm in assessing competency of IP individuals using Rasch model. A new descriptive scale is developed to classify IP’s by class intervals as measured by Rasch Model.

Risk management practices in IT outsourcing projects

Risk management in IT outsourcing projects is a process of identifying, analyzing, controlling and reducing risks in IT outsourcing projects life cycle. Risk management is important as the practices of risk management will reduce the risks thus lead to success in IT outsourcing projects. Risk management should be conducted in IT outsourcing as it will foresee risks that might disturb the smooth flowing of IT outsourcing and prevent or reduce the impact of risks if they occur. Therefore, the primary objective of this paper is to analyze how organizations conducted risk management in IT outsourcing practices. The findings revealed that organizations highly considered the last phase of risk management in IT outsourcing which is on-going monitoring. The organizations least considered the first phase; analysis of decision to outsource whereas this phase is very important as a preparation to enter IT outsourcing activities. Therefore, even though other phases were highly considered, lack of initial preparation will reduce the probability of success in IT outsourcing. For future works, the weaknesses and vulnerability of current practices will then be enhanced and framework of risk management in IT outsourcing will then be developed.

Towards emotional control recognition through handwriting using fuzzy inference

Emotion control is one of personality characteristics that can be detected through handwriting or graphology. One of the advantages is it may help the counselor that has difficulties in identifying the emotion of their counselee. This study is to explore the fuzzy technique for feature extraction in handwriting and then identify the emotion of person. This study uses baseline or slope of the handwriting in determining the level of emotion control whether it is very low, low, medium, high or very high, through Mamdani inference.

Telecommunication Fraud Prediction Using Backpropagation Neural Network

Telecommunication fraud prediction in this paper is an interpolation problem that uses the daily telecommunication network services information to analyze and predict the alarm information generated from a detection engine by minimizing false cases. This paper proposed the use of backpropagation neural network (BPNN) to perform telecommunication interpolation based on local telecommunication network services. The backpropagation algorithm is adjusted accordingly to control the speed of obtaining solution. The validation of this method is carried out following a series of experiments to establish the suitable BPNN parameters value for this interpolation problem. 20,000 cases were used and divided suitably into training and testing samples in analyzing the performance of the BPNN network. It is observed that the performance of BPNN in predicting fraud was merely 100% if the threshold value was set to 0.64 and above the predicted value. Consequently, the network model created could be used to analyze fraud risk classification and subsequently, provide contribution to the domain of fraud detection system.

Information Security Risk Management: An Empirical Study on the Difficulties and Practices in ICT Outsourcing

Information Communication Technology (ICT) services become more importance in today business environment. Most of the organizations which were not have enough resources and expertise outsource their ICT project to vendors. Conversely, the strategy could also contribute to some risks especially information security risks that could expose organizational information assets directly involved with ICT services at risks. An appropriate information security risk management (ISRM) in ICT outsourcing should be in place to facilitate efficiency of practices how to manage information security risks in ICT outsourcing. The objective of this research is to conduct an empirical study on the relationship between difficulties and practices of ISRM in ICT Outsourcing. Questionnaires were distributed to 300 private companies from various industry and government agencies in Malaysia for the study. Findings of the study show that difficulty of ISRM process influences its practices in ICT outsourcing. Through the findings, influence strength between difficulties and practices of information security risk management approach in ICT outsourcing project has been discovered. Risk treatment planning task was considered as the most difficult and risk control task was considered the least difficult in ISRM cycle. However most of the organization plans their risk treatment task since an appropriate plan could ensure more effective information security risk management implementation. In conclusion, difficulties of organization current (ISRM) practices for ICT Outsourcing shows that their current practices required for review and improvement appropriately for ICT outsourcing implementation. Hence, it’s would encourage development of more comprehensible and effective approach managing information security risk for ICT outsourcing project.