Improving ecological performance of industrialized building systems in Malaysia

For construction stakeholders to fully embrace sustainability, its long-term benefits and associated risks need to be identified through holistic approaches. Consensus among key stakeholders is very important to the improvement of the ecological performance of industrialized building systems (IBS), a building construction method gaining momentum in Malaysia. A questionnaire survey examines the relative significance of 16 potentially important sustainability factors for IBS applications. To present possible solutions,semi-structured interviews solicit views from experienced IBS practitioners, representing the professions involved. Three most critical factors agreed by key stakeholders are material consumption, waste generation and waste disposal. Using SWOT analysis, the positive and negative aspects of these factors are investigated, with action plans formulated for IBS design practitioners. The SWOT analysis based guidelines have the potential to become part of IBS design briefing documents against which sustainability solutions are contemplated, selected and implemented. Existing knowledge on ecological performance issues is extended by considering the unique characteristics of IBS and identifying not only the benefits, but also the potential risks and challenges of pursuing sustainability. This is largely missing in previous research efforts. Findings to date focus on providing much-needed assistance to IBS designers, who are at the forefront of decision-making with a significant level of project influence. Ongoing work will be directed towards other project development phases and consider the inherent linkage between design decisions and subsequent sustainability deliverables in the project life cycle.

A simple test method for profiled steel cladding systems under wind uplift

A new simple test method using small scale models has been developed for testing profiled steel cladding systems under wind uplift/suction forces. This simple method should replace the large scale test method using two-span claddings used at present. It can be used for roof or wall cladding systems fastened with screw fasteners at crests or valleys.

Understanding requirements of novel healthcare information systems for management of advanced prostate cancer

Effective management of chronic diseases is a global health priority. A healthcare information system offers opportunities to address challenges of chronic disease management. However, the requirements of health information systems are often not well understood. The accuracy of requirements has a direct impact on the successful design and implementation of a health information system. Our research describes methods used to understand the requirements of health information systems for advanced prostate cancer management. The research conducted a survey to identify heterogeneous sources of clinical records. Our research showed that the General Practitioner was the common source of patient's clinical records (41%) followed by the Urologist (14%) and other clinicians (14%). Our research describes a method to identify diverse data sources and proposes a novel patient journey browser prototype that integrates disparate data sources.

User expertise in contemporary information systems : conceptualization, measurement and application

This research proposes a method for identifying user expertise in contemporary Information Systems (IS). It also proposes and develops a model for evaluating expertise. The aim of this study was to offer a common instrument that addresses the requirements of a contemporary Information System in a holistic way. This study demonstrates the application of the expertise construct in Information System evaluations, and shows that users of different expertise levels evaluate systems differently.

On effective accounting information systems in a dynamic business environment : the role of complementing capabilities

The global business environment is witnessing tough times, and this situation has significant implications on how organizations manage their processes and resources. Accounting information system (AIS) plays a critical role in this situation to ensure appropriate processing of financial transactions and availability to relevant information for decision-making. We suggest the need for a dynamic AIS environment for today’s turbulent business environment. This environment is possible with a dynamic AIS, complementary business intelligence systems, and technical human capability. Data collected through a field survey suggests that the dynamic AIS environment contributes to an organization’s accounting functions of processing transactions, providing information for decision making, and ensuring an appropriate control environment. These accounting processes contribute to the firm-level performance of the organization. From these outcomes, one can infer that a dynamic AIS environment contributes to organizational performance in today’s challenging business environment.

Design LED innovation to rejuvenate local food systems and healthy communities : an emerging research agenda

Food Sovereignty (food freedom) is about empowering people to develop their own local food system. Food Sovereignty challenges designers to enable people to innovate the local food system, rather than having a food system which is dictated by corporate interests and failed business ethics. Communities are realising the potential for design to assist in the innovation process, and add strategic value to potentially localise the food system. Design Led Innovation (DLI) offers a strategic framework to address large-scale cultural, systemic and economic changes. The DLI approach empowers communities to take organised action to achieve a healthy, prosperous and happy way of life. DLI can assist with business models in the business world and it is evident this approach can assist with creating social change too. This paper presents on an emerging research agenda aimed to assist designer’s focus from individuals and systems to communities and urban problems. This paper also presents the research proposition that DLI and service design coupled with social entrepreneurial ventures such as local food projects and creative community inventions, have the potential to enable social innovation for healthy and happy communities.

The 4C spectrum of fundamental behavioral relations for concurrent systems

The design of concurrent software systems, in particular process-aware information systems, involves behavioral modeling at various stages. Recently, approaches to behavioral analysis of such systems have been based on declarative abstractions defined as sets of behavioral relations. However, these relations are typically defined in an ad-hoc manner. In this paper, we address the lack of a systematic exploration of the fundamental relations that can be used to capture the behavior of concurrent systems, i.e., co-occurrence, conflict, causality, and concurrency. Besides the definition of the spectrum of behavioral relations, which we refer to as the 4C spectrum, we also show that our relations give rise to implication lattices. We further provide operationalizations of the proposed relations, starting by proposing techniques for computing relations in unlabeled systems, which are then lifted to become applicable in the context of labeled systems, i.e., systems in which state transitions have semantic annotations. Finally, we report on experimental results on efficiency of the proposed computations.

A basis for instrusion detection in distributed systems using kernel-level data tainting

This project was a step forward in developing intrusion detection systems in distributed environments such as web services. It investigates a new approach of detection based on so-called "taint-marking" techniques and introduces a theoretical framework along with its implementation in the Linux kernel.

Decision making guidelines for sustainable construction of industrialised building systems

The construction industry has an obligation to respond to sustainability expectations of our society. Solutions that integrate innovative, intelligent and sustainability deliverables are vital for us to meet new and emerging challenges. Industrialised Building Systems (IBS), or known otherwise as prefabrication, employs a combination of ready-made components in the construction of buildings. They promote quality of production, enhance simplification of construction processes and minimise waste. The unique characteristics of this construction method respond well to sustainability. Despite the promises however, IBS has yet to be effectively implemented in Malaysia. There are often misconceptions among key stakeholders about IBS applications. The existing rating schemes fail to assess IBS against sustainability measures. To ensure the capture of full sustainability potential in buildings developed, the critical factors and action plans agreeable to all participants in the development processes need to be identified. Through questionnaire survey, eighteen critical factors relevant to IBS sustainability were identified and encapsulated into a conceptual framework to coordinate a systematic IBS decision making approach. Five categories were used to separate the critical factors into: ecological performance; economic value; social equity and culture; technical quality; and implementation and enforcement. This categorisation extends the "Triple Bottom Lines" to include social, economic, environmental and institutional dimensions. Semi-structured interviews help identify strategies of actions and solutions of potential problems through a SWOT analysis framework. These tools help the decision-makers maximise the opportunities by using available strengths, avoid weaknesses, and diagnose possible threats in the examined issues. The recommendations formed an integrated action plan to present information on what and how to improve sustainability through tackling each critical factor during IBS development. It can be used as part of the project briefing documents for IBS designers. For validation and finalisation the research deliverables, three case studies were conducted. The research fills a current gap by responding to IBS project scenarios in developing countries. It also provides a balanced view for designers to better understand sustainability potential and prioritize attentions to manage sustainability issues in IBS applications.

Sensemaking and sustainable practicing: Functional affordances of information systems in green transformations

This paper explores how a world-wide operating software solutions provider implemented environmentally sustainable business practices in response to emerging environmental concerns. Through an interpretive case study, we develop a theoretical framework that identifies four important functional affordances originating in information systems, which are required in environmental sustainability transformations as they create an actionable context in which (1) organizations can engage in a sensemaking process related to understanding emerging environmental requirements, and (2) individuals can implement environmentally sustainable work practices. Through our work, we provide several contributions, including a better understanding of IS-enabled organizational change and the types of functional affordances of information systems that are required in sustainability transformations. We describe implications relating to (1) how information systems can contribute to the creation of environmentally sustainable organizations, (2) the design of information systems to create required functional affordances, (3) the management of sustainability transformations, and (4) the further development of the concept of functional affordances in IS research.

Shifting from asset dominant to service centric delivery systems: engaging users and communities

Research and practice has observed a shift toward service-oriented approaches that depend on input from users and community as co-producers of services. Yet, in delivering public infrastructure the focus is still on assets rather than services. The contribution of external stakeholders in the co-production of public services is still limited. Using the Policy Delphi with a panel of experts, we found that although practitioners understand the need for asset management to follow the service approach, guidelines and policies still lack that service-centric perspective. Findings revealed a range of obstacles to effective service delivery, related to the sub-optimal involvement of stakeholders’, asymmetric levels of power, the lack of accountability, transparency and availability of government, and the lack of genuine consultations between government and stakeholder groups. The paper concludes by offering directions and strategies for asset managers and policymakers to support and reconnect disengaged government-citizen relations for optimal service delivery outcomes in asset management.

Aqueous phase synthesis of copper nanoparticles : a link between heavy metal resistance and nanoparticle synthesis ability in bacterial systems

We demonstrate aqueous phase biosynthesis of phase-pure metallic copper nanoparticles (CuNPs) using a silver resistant bacterium Morganella morganii. This is particularly important considering that there has been no report that demonstrates biosynthesis and stabilization of pure copper nanoparticles in the aqueous phase. Electrochemical analysis of bacterial cells exposed to Cu2+ ions provides new insights into the mechanistic aspect of Cu2+ ion reduction within the bacterial cell and indicates a strong link between the silver and copper resistance machinery of bacteria in the context of metal ion reduction. The outcomes of this study take us a step closer towards designing rational strategies for biosynthesis of different metal nanoparticles using microorganisms.

Pull-out strength of steel roof and wall cladding systems

When steel roof and wall cladding systems are subjected to wind uplift/suction forces, local pull-through/dimpling failures or pull-out failures occur prematurely at their screwed connections. During extreme wind events such as storms and hurricanes, these localized failures then lead to severe damage to buildings and their contents. An investigation was therefore carried out to study the failure that occurs when the screw fastener pulls out of the steel battens, purlins, or girts. Both two-span cladding tests and small-scale tests were conducted using a range of commonly used screw fasteners and steel battens, purlins, and girts. Experimental results showed that the current design formula may not be suitable unless a reduced capacity factor of 0.4 is used. Therefore, an improved design formula has been developed for pull-out failures in steel cladding systems. The formula takes into account thickness and ultimate tensile strength of steel, along with thread diameter and the pitch of screw fasteners, in order to model the pull-out behavior more accurately. This paper presents the details of this experimental investigation and its results.

Cyclic pull-out strength of steel roof and wall cladding systems

When crest-fixed thin steel roof cladding systems are subjected to wind uplift, local pull-through or pull-out failures occur prematurely at their screwed connections. During high wind events such as storms and cyclones these localised failures then lead to severe damage to buildings and their contents. In recent times, the use of thin steel battens/purlins has increased considerably. This has made the pull-out failures more critical in the design of steel cladding systems. Recent research has developed a design formula for the static pull-out strength of steel cladding systems. However, the effects of fluctuating wind uplift loading that occurs during high wind events are not known. Therefore a series of constant amplitude cyclic tests has been undertaken on connections between steel battens made of different thicknesses and steel grades, and screw fasteners with varying diameter and pitch. This paper presents the details of these cyclic tests and the results.

Beyond compliance : project on an integrated systems approach for pest risk management in South East Asia

The Beyond Compliance project, which began in July 2011 with funding from the Standards and Trade Development Facility for 2 years, aims to enhance competency and confidence in the South East Asian sub-region by applying a Systems Approach for pest risk management. The Systems Approach involves the use of integrated measures, at least two of which are independent, that cumulatively reduce the risk of introducing exotic pests through trade. Although useful in circumstances where single measures are inappropriate or unavailable, the Systems Approach is inherently more complicated than single-measure approaches, which may inhibit its uptake. The project methodology is to take prototype decision-support tools, such as Control Point-Bayesian Networks (CP-BN), developed in recent plant health initiatives in other regions, including the European PRATIQUE project, and to refine them within this sub-regional context. Case studies of high-priority potential agricultural trade will be conducted by National Plant Protection Organizations of participating South East Asian countries in trials of the tools, before further modifications. Longer term outcomes may include: more robust pest risk management in the region (for exports and imports); greater inclusion of stakeholders in development of pest risk management plans; increased confidence in trade negotiations; and new opportunities for trade.