Rozana Zakaria

A multi-criteria recommendation system using dimensionality reduction and Neuro-Fuzzy techniques

Multi-criteria collaborative filtering (MC-CF) presents a possibility to provide accurate recommendations by considering the user preferences in multiple aspects of items. However, scalability and sparsity are two main problems in MC-CF which this paper attempts to solve them using dimensionality reduction and Neuro-Fuzzy techniques. Considering the user behavior about items’ features which is frequently vague, imprecise and subjective, we solve the sparsity problem using Neuro-Fuzzy technique. For the scalability problem, higher order singular value decomposition along with supervised learning (classification) methods is used. Thus, the objective of this paper is to propose a new recommendation model to improve the recommendation quality and predictive accuracy of MC-CF and solve the scalability and alleviate the sparsity problems in the MC-CF. The experimental results of applying these approaches on Yahoo!Movies and TripAdvisor datasets with several comparisons are presented to show the enhancement of MC-CF recommendation quality and predictive accuracy. The experimental results demonstrate that SVM dominates the K-NN and FBNN in improving the MC-CF predictive accuracy evaluated by most broadly popular measurement metrics, F1 and mean absolute error. In addition, the experimental results also demonstrate that the combination of Neuro-Fuzzy and dimensionality reduction techniques remarkably improves the recommendation quality and predictive accuracy of MC-CF in relation to the previous recommendation techniques based on multi-criteria ratings.

Potential Retrofitting of Existing Campus Buildings to Green Buildings

Green building is building that the focus is to maximize the energy efficiency and resources used. While, retrofitting is the process of renovate or refurnish the existing building. Therefore by retrofit existing buildings that comply with green building requirement, it improves the environmental attributes of the buildings. In Malaysia, existing buildings and its communities contribute over 40% of green house gases to the environment. This paper describes a study that explores the potential to retrofit existing campus buildings that response to sustainable green building standard. A validation survey was carried out and the data collected was analysed using SPSS in order to confirm the significance of retrofitting Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) buildings toward green building initiative. The results show that all the twenty eight identified green elements recorded average index of higher than 3.5 which means that there is significant needs to retrofit the existing buildings to green buildings. This study concludes that it is urgently need for the campus to response to green building requirements in order to achieve higher energy effeciency and this can be done through effective etrofitting of existing buildings.

Smart and sustainable inhabitation in residential-industrial neighbourhood

In developing countries, urbanisation has been synonymous with industrialisation where the growth of industries offers job opportunities and incentives for economic development, urban settlements and rapid housing expansions. In Malaysia, the lack of usable land for urban development means that a proportion of the housing estates may have to nestle within industrial establishments. Industrial activities often cause environmental problems such as poor air quality, local temperature increase, excessive noise levels, which in turn affect the natural environment, health and quality of life in these residential-industrial areas. This paper reports the development processes of a research aimed at applying sustainability principles in housing development specific to a Malaysian residential-industrial neighbourhood by drawing experiences from exemplar projects in Australia and comparing them with the development needs under local Malaysia conditions, through a case study in a city of Johor, Malaysia. It responds to the lack of environmental policies for housing development in residential-industrial areas in Malaysia. The ongoing development of this research will eventually lead to designs and construction approaches specific to the needs of the local residents and guidelines for promoting smart and sustainable living in these residential-industrial areas.

Importance of Sustainable Concrete Formwork System

Construction industry is seen to be able to play a bigger role into a sustainable society by offering sustainable construction. As the premier construction material across the world, concrete has a major determining role on the effects, good or bad, of construction on the environment, meanwhile the formwork system is one of the important construction methods in building construction, which eventually will lead to more sustainable construction. In this context, this study focuses on the importance of the formwork system and its influence on achieving sustainable construction. The study aims to identify the basic sustainability objectives that considered responsive to formwork system. Using questionnaire survey distributed among construction experts, the economic category had been selected as the most important factor that considered respond to the formwork system, and the environmental category comes second while social comes the third. Furthermore, fifty percent of the respondents agree that type of formwork system effect on the sustainability of the construction project and about forty percent was moderate about it. Determination the objectives of sustainability that respond to the formwork system, which covers all activities and processes related to the formwork system can assist developers and others stakeholders to evaluate the performance of the system in order to make enhancement to the system.

Daylight Factor for Energy Saving in Retrofitting Institutional Building

In Malaysia, lighting is the second electric power consumption after air conditioning and it is increasing every year. Most of the lighting design standard for building in Malaysia is based on MS1525, and this being taken without further measure on daylight consideration. Movement from inefficient and unsustainable energy practice to more energy efficient initiatives is vital for building. Universiti Teknologi Malaysia as one of the major institutional building is consuming 9 to 16 million kWh per year. Thus, about 20% of energy consumed was from artificial lighting. This paper aim to highlights the cost benefit study of lighting retrofit, which integrates the utilization of daylight into existing building. Data for this study was obtained through illumination in-situ measurement on two types of artificial lighting with the inclusive of day lighting before and after lighting retrofit. The measurement was conducted in a typical building in Block C09 of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). Annual saving and payback period were analysed from the collected data. It is estimated that total energy consumption decreasing around 47.7% over a year from 84,232kWh to 44,014kWh by retrofitted the fluorescent T8, 36W with fluorescent T5, 25W. The estimated total annual electricity bill saving is at RM11,073 (USD3500.00). The return in retrofitting cost is at 2.5 years payback period. The payback analysis portray that lighting design is best integrated with daylight. The significant amount of saving in energy consumption and the cost of retrofit is obtained by integrating daylight as a source of lighting for interior space.

Sustainable Neighbourhood Planning and Design in Malaysian Perspective

Sustainable development becomes the significant tool of planning and design of building structures and infrastructures in this decade. The land use development for neighbourhood construction should be protected from being overused and devastated. Malaysia must starts to incorporate sustainable neighbourhood planning and design so that the future generation can be benefited from this type of development. However less focus is being paid to this type of development which needs attention to be given especially on small-scale green areas. The main concern of this paper is to address the practice of sustainable neighbourhood planning and design in Malaysia as it gives much impact to the living environment of a group of community. The issues pertaining Malaysian sustainable development planning and sustainable neighbourhood design were discussed in this paper. Results from the Malaysian Local Council Structure Plan review were discussed to highlight the sustainable neighbourhood importance. The result indicates that the sustainable neighbourhood planning and design in Malaysia needs to be improved over the current practices to create more environmental-friendly neighbourhood.

RANKING THE MICRO LEVEL CRITICAL FACTORS OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS ADOPTION USING TOPSIS METHOD

In many countries, the health care sector is entering into a time of unprecedented change. Electronic Medical Record (EMR) has been introduced into healthcare organizations in order to incorporate better use of technology, to aid decision making, and to facilitate the search for medical solution. This needs those professionals in healthcare organizations to be in the process of changing from the use of paper to maintain medical records into computerized medical recordkeeping opportunities. However, the adoption of these electronic medical records systems has been slow throughout the healthcare field. The critical users are physicians which play an important role to success of health information technology including Electronic Medical Record systems. As a result user adoption is necessary in order to understand the benefits of an EMR. Therefore, in the current paper, a model of ranking factors of micro-level in EMRs adoption was developed. Surveys distributed to physicians as this study’s respondent in two private hospitals in Malaysia. The findings indicate that physicians have a high perception means for the technology and showed that EMR would increase physician’s performance regarding to decision making. They have been and continue to be positively motivated to adopt and use the system. The relevant factors according to micro-level perspective prioritized and ranked by using the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS). The aim of ranking and using this approach is to investigate which factors are more important in EMRs adoption from the micro-level perspectives. The results of performing TOPSIS is as a novelty which assist health information systems (HIS) success and also healthcare organizations to motivate their users in accepting of new technology.

Potential of solar farm development at UTM campus for generating green energy

Energy is an important element in human life. Previous study discovered that buildings consumed more than 40% of global energy mainly electricity and emit 1/3 of global greenhouse gas through combustion of fossil fuels for generating electricity. Nowadays, global warming come to be a major issue facing the world and it leads to a better awareness about renewable energies as alternatives in generating electricity. In certain countries, solar farm has been adopted as an alternative in producing electricity. UTM spent millions of money every year for electricity bills and UTM could consider solar farm as an energy option in generating green electricity due to suitable climate and huge land bank. Governments incentives and decreasing PV panel price are opportunities to be appreciated for UTM to implement solar farm. However, high initial investment is needed to construct the solar farm. Additionally, decision will be based on financial benefits of the solar farm development. The aim of this study is to identify potential of solar farm implementation in generating green electricity. Data will be acquired via literature review, questionnaire survey, record review, and expert interview. Calculations on payback period and net present value were made based on interview data to identify potential of investment for solar farm. The study outlines the suitability factors for UTM to implement solar farm, at the same time financial benefits of solar farm implementation is portrayed.

A Review of Application Building Information Modeling (BIM) During Pre-Construction Stage: Retrospective and Future Directions

Pre-construction is one of the biggest areas of risk and uncertainty in construction project as it deals with subsurface ground conditions information. The amount of detail data needed in pre-construction especially for existing data modelling and site analysis should be sufficient enough to ensure that significant risks could not reasonably be anticipated. Current practicing method in interpreting data during this stage tasks reveal limitation. Construction industry faced many obstacles due to the depends on the traditional practice; paper-based document which missing and redundant data always happened. In recent years, there has been a shift in construction where people move to BIM application because of its potential to reduce the problem faced by infrastructure world. BIM has become a successful technology and widely popular in the construction world especially in developed countries because of its potential. Nowadays, people are moving one step ahead in BIM which is adoption of BIM during pre-construction stage. Thus, this paper review studies centered on BIM-integrated modelling during preconstruction stage. But there is lack of practical researches have been made during this stage. Although a large number of studies on BIM have been conducted in the past decade, a lack of consensus remains among researchers and practitioners regarding the applications of BIM during pre-construction stage, the availability of subsequent data integration tool for geotechnical activity. A comprehensive literature review was conducted for data collection and analysis. After in-depth review of journal articles widely cover the application of BIM, this study summarizes an overview and critical reflection of geotechnical data integration using BIM during pre-construction stage. The results are useful for the identification of research clusters and topics in the BIM community.

Bio-composite materials potential in enhancing sustainable construction

AbstractAccording to the sustainability principles, building should have zero-embodied energy in order to minimize the amount of carbon. In previous practices, construction materials have been composed with non-recyclable materials and after demolition of buildings the debris were put on different landfills. Nowadays, most of the material manufacturers have shifted their concerns to produce materials by using renewable resources, and also gained opportunity in utilizing wasted streams. The proposed biomaterials have been produced using natural fibers which reinforce biodegradable polymeric, in which naturally occurring aliphatic thermoplastic polyesters are produced by microbes via bacterial fermentation in carbon-rich environments. The composite material produced exhibits comparable properties to structural grade wood and is rapidly biodegradable in specific anaerobic conditions, at the end of its useful life. Using anaerobic digester sludge from local wastewater treatment plants as the biodegradation me...