Measuring the impact of information systems in Malaysia

Information Systems researchers have employed a diversity of sometimes inconsistent measures of IS success, seldom explicating the rationale, thereby complicating the choice for future researchers. In response to these and other issues, Gable, Sedera and Chan introduced the IS-Impact measurement model. This model represents “the stream of net benefits from the Information System (IS), to date and anticipated, as perceived by all key-user-groups”. Although the IS-Impact model was rigorously validated in previous research, there is a need to further generalise and validate it in different context. This paper reported the findings of the IS-Impact model revalidation study at four state governments in Malaysia with 232 users of a financial system that is currently being used at eleven state governments in Malaysia. Data was analysed following the guidelines for formative measurement validation using SmartPLS. Based on the PLS results, data supported the IS-Impact dimensions and measures thus confirming the validity of the IS-Impact model in Malaysia. This indicates that the IS-Impact model is robust and can be used across different context.

Exposure of pipe insulation to high temperatures from domestic pumped storage (split) solar water heating systems in Australia and New Zealand

Pipe insulation between the collector and storage tank on pumped storage (commonly called split), solar water heaters can be subject to high temperatures, with a maximum equal to the collector stagnation temperature. The frequency of occurrence of these temperatures is dependent on many factors including climate, hot water demand, system size and efficiency. This paper outlines the findings of a computer modelling study to quantify the frequency of occurrence of pipe temperatures of 80 degrees Celsius or greater at the outlet of the collectors for these systems. This study will help insulation suppliers determine the suitability of their materials for this application. The TRNSYS program was used to model the performance of a common size of domestic split solar system, using both flat plate and evacuated tube, selective surface collectors. Each system was modelled at a representative city in each of the 6 climate zones for Australia and New Zealand, according to AS/NZS4234 - Heat Water Systems - Calculation of energy consumption, and the ORER RECs calculation method. TRNSYS was used to predict the frequency of occurrence of the temperatures that the pipe insulation would be exposed to over an average year, for hot water consumption patterns specified in AS/NZS4234, and for worst case conditions in each of the climate zones. The results show; * For selectively surfaced, flat plate collectors in the hottest location (Alice Sprints) with a medium size hot water demand according to AS/NZS2434, the annual frequency of occurrence of temperatures at and above 80 degrees Celsius was 33 hours. The frequency of temperatures at and above 140 degrees Celsius was insignificant. * For evacuated tube collectors in the hottest location (Alice Springs), the annual frequency of temperatures at and above 80 degrees Celsius was 50 hours. Temperatures at and above 140 degrees Celsius were significant and were estimated to occur for more than 21 hours per year in this climate zone. Even in Melbourne, temperatures at and above 80 degrees can occur for 12 hours per year and at and above 140 degrees for 5 hours per year. * The worst case identified was for evacuated tube collectors in Alice Springs, with mostly afternoon loads in January. Under these conditions, the frequency of temperatures at and above 80 degrees Celsius was 10 hours for this month only. Temperatures at and above 140 degrees Celsius were predicted to occur for 5 hours in January.

Energy and cost savings from pipe insulation on domestic, pumped storage (split), solar water heating systems in Australia and New Zealand

Appropriate pipe insulation on domestic, pumped storage (split), solar water heating systems forms an integral part of energy conservation measures of well engineered systems. However, its importance over the life of the system is often overlooked. This study outlines the findings of computer modelling to quantify the energy and cost savings by using pipe insulation between the collector and storage tank. System sizes of 270 Litre storage tank, together with either selectively surfaced, flat plate collectors (4m2 area), or 30 evacuated tube collectors, were used. Insulation thicknesses of 13mm and 15mm, pipe runs both ways of 10, 15 and 20 metres and both electric and gas boosting of systems were all considered. The TRNSYS program was used to model the system performance at a representative city in each of the 6 climate zones for Australia and New Zealand, according to AS/NZS4234 – Heat Water Systems – Calculation of energy consumption and the ORER RECs calculation method. The results show:  Energy savings from pipe insulation are very significant, even in mild climates such as Rockhampton. Across all climates zones, savings ranged from 0.16 to 3.5GJ per system per year, or about 2 to 23 percent of the annual load.  There is very little advantage in increasing the insulation thickness from 13 to 15mm. For electricity at 19c/kWh and gas at 2 c/MJ, cost savings of between $27 and $100 per year are achieved across the climate zones. Both energy and cost savings would increase in colder climates with increased system size, solar contribution and water temperatures.  The pipe insulation substantially improves the solar contribution (or fraction) and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), as well as giving small savings in circulating pump running costs in milder climates. Solar contribution increased by up to 23 percent points and RECs by over 7 in some cases.  The study highlights the need to install and maintain the integrity of appropriate pipe insulation on solar water heaters over their life time in Australia and New Zealand.

Interpreting regional frequencies from synchronized phasor measurement in multi-area power systems

In this paper a new approach is proposed for interpreting of regional frequencies in multi machine power systems. The method uses generator aggregation and system reduction based on coherent generators in each area. The reduced system structure is able to be identified and a kalman estimator is designed for the reduced system to estimate the inter-area modes using the synchronized phasor measurement data. The proposed method is tested on a six machine, three area test system and the obtained results show the estimation of inter-area oscillations in the system with a high accuracy.

Biaxial cell stimulation : a mechanical validation

To analyse mechanotransduction resulting from tensile loading under defined conditions, various devices for in vitro cell stimulation have been developed. This work aimed to determine the strain distribution on the membrane of a commercially available device and its consistency with rising cycle numbers, as well as the amount of strain transferred to adherent cells. The strains and their behaviour within the stimulation device were determined using digital image correlation (DIC). The strain transferred to cells was measured on eGFP-transfected bone marrow-derived cells imaged with a fluorescence microscope. The analysis was performed by determining the coordinates of prominent positions on the cells, calculating vectors between the coordinates and their length changes with increasing applied tensile strain. The stimulation device was found to apply homogeneous (mean of standard deviations approx. 2% of mean strain) and reproducible strains in the central well area. However, on average, only half of the applied strain was transferred to the bone marrow-derived cells. Furthermore, the strain measured within the device increased significantly with an increasing number of cycles while the membrane's Young's modulus decreased, indicating permanent changes in the material during extended use. Thus, strain magnitudes do not match the system readout and results require careful interpretation, especially at high cycle numbers.

The course of bone healing is influenced by the initial shear fixation stability

Fracture healing is influenced by fixation stability and experimental evidence suggests that the initial mechanical conditions may determine the healing outcome. We hypothesised that mechanical conditions influence not only the healing outcome, but also the early phase of fracture healing. Additionally, it was hypothesised that decreased fixation stability characterised by an increased shear interfragmentary movement results in a delay in healing. Sixty-four sheep underwent a mid-shaft tibial osteotomy which was treated with either a rigid or a semi-rigid external fixator. Animals were sacrificed at 2, 3, 6 and 9 weeks postoperatively and the fracture callus was analysed using radiological, biomechanical and histological techniques. The tibia treated with semi-rigid fixation showed inferior callus stiffness and quality after 6 weeks. At 9 weeks, the calluses were no longer distinguishable in their mechanical competence. The calluses at 9 weeks produced under rigid fixation were smaller and consisted of a reduced fibrous tissue component. These results demonstrate that the callus formation over the course of healing differed both morphologically and in the rate of development. In this study, we provide evidence that the course of healing is influenced by the initial fixation stability. The semi-rigid fixator did not result in delayed healing, but a less optimal healing path was taken. An upper limit of stability required for successful healing remains unknown, however a limit by which healing is less optimal has been determined.

A crash avoidance framework for heavy equipment control systems using 3D imaging sensors

This paper presents a preliminary crash avoidance framework for heavy equipment control systems. Safe equipment operation is a major concern on construction sites since fatal on-site injuries are an industry-wide problem. The proposed framework has potential for effecting active safety for equipment operation. The framework contains algorithms for spatial modeling, object tracking, and path planning. Beyond generating spatial models in fractions of seconds, these algorithms can successfully track objects in an environment and produce a collision-free 3D motion trajectory for equipment.

Local adjustment and global adaptation of control periods for QoC management of control systems

Linking real-time schedulability directly to the Quality of Control (QoC), the ultimate goal of a control system, a hierarchical feedback QoC management framework with the Fixed Priority (FP) and the Earliest-Deadline-First (EDF) policies as plug-ins is proposed in this paper for real-time control systems with multiple control tasks. It uses a task decomposition model for continuous QoC evaluation even in overload conditions, and then employs heuristic rules to adjust the period of each of the control tasks for QoC improvement. If the total requested workload exceeds the desired value, global adaptation of control periods is triggered for workload maintenance. A sufficient stability condition is derived for a class of control systems with delay and period switching of the heuristic rules. Examples are given to demonstrate the proposed approach.

Development of the response coefficient-root function method for the transient vibration serviceability design of flat concrete floors

The vibration serviceability limit state is an important design consideration for two-way, suspended concrete floors that is not always well understood by many practicing structural engineers. Although the field of floor vibration has been extensively developed, at present there are no convenient design tools that deal with this problem. Results from this research have enabled the development of a much-needed, new method for assessing the vibration serviceability of flat, suspended concrete floors in buildings. This new method has been named, the Response Coefficient-Root Function (RCRF) method. Full-scale, laboratory tests have been conducted on a post-tensioned floor specimen at Queensland University of Technology’s structural laboratory. Special support brackets were fabricated to perform as frictionless, pinned connections at the corners of the specimen. A series of static and dynamic tests were performed in the laboratory to obtain basic material and dynamic properties of the specimen. Finite-element-models have been calibrated against data collected from laboratory experiments. Computational finite-element-analysis has been extended to investigate a variety of floor configurations. Field measurements of floors in existing buildings are in good agreement with computational studies. Results from this parametric investigation have led to the development of new approach for predicting the design frequencies and accelerations of flat, concrete floor structures. The RCRF method is convenient tool to assist structural engineers in the design for the vibration serviceability limit-state of in-situ concrete floor systems.

Robust suspicious behaviour detection for smart surveillance systems

Video surveillance technology, based on Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras, is one of the fastest growing markets in the field of security technologies. However, the existing video surveillance systems are still not at a stage where they can be used for crime prevention. The systems rely heavily on human observers and are therefore limited by factors such as fatigue and monitoring capabilities over long periods of time. To overcome this limitation, it is necessary to have “intelligent” processes which are able to highlight the salient data and filter out normal conditions that do not pose a threat to security. In order to create such intelligent systems, an understanding of human behaviour, specifically, suspicious behaviour is required. One of the challenges in achieving this is that human behaviour can only be understood correctly in the context in which it appears. Although context has been exploited in the general computer vision domain, it has not been widely used in the automatic suspicious behaviour detection domain. So, it is essential that context has to be formulated, stored and used by the system in order to understand human behaviour. Finally, since surveillance systems could be modeled as largescale data stream systems, it is difficult to have a complete knowledge base. In this case, the systems need to not only continuously update their knowledge but also be able to retrieve the extracted information which is related to the given context. To address these issues, a context-based approach for detecting suspicious behaviour is proposed. In this approach, contextual information is exploited in order to make a better detection. The proposed approach utilises a data stream clustering algorithm in order to discover the behaviour classes and their frequency of occurrences from the incoming behaviour instances. Contextual information is then used in addition to the above information to detect suspicious behaviour. The proposed approach is able to detect observed, unobserved and contextual suspicious behaviour. Two case studies using video feeds taken from CAVIAR dataset and Z-block building, Queensland University of Technology are presented in order to test the proposed approach. From these experiments, it is shown that by using information about context, the proposed system is able to make a more accurate detection, especially those behaviours which are only suspicious in some contexts while being normal in the others. Moreover, this information give critical feedback to the system designers to refine the system. Finally, the proposed modified Clustream algorithm enables the system to both continuously update the system’s knowledge and to effectively retrieve the information learned in a given context. The outcomes from this research are: (a) A context-based framework for automatic detecting suspicious behaviour which can be used by an intelligent video surveillance in making decisions; (b) A modified Clustream data stream clustering algorithm which continuously updates the system knowledge and is able to retrieve contextually related information effectively; and (c) An update-describe approach which extends the capability of the existing human local motion features called interest points based features to the data stream environment.

Review of the under the limit drink driving rehabilitation program

The combination of alcohol and driving is a major health and economic burden to most communities in industrialised countries. The total cost of crashes for Australia in 1996 was estimated at approximately 15 billion dollars and the costs for fatal crashes were about 3 billion dollars (BTE, 2000). According to the Bureau of Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development and Local Government (2009; BITRDLG) the overall cost of road fatality crashes for 2006 $3.87 billion, with a single fatal crash costing an estimated $2.67 million. A major contributing factor to crashes involving serious injury is alcohol intoxication while driving. It is a well documented fact that consumption of liquor impairs judgment of speed, distance and increases involvement in higher risk behaviours (Waller, Hansen, Stutts, & Popkin, 1986a; Waller et al., 1986b). Waller et al. (1986a; b) asserts that liquor impairs psychomotor function and therefore renders the driver impaired in a crisis situation. This impairment includes; vision (degraded), information processing (slowed), steering, and performing two tasks at once in congested traffic (Moskowitz & Burns, 1990). As BAC levels increase the risk of crashing and fatality increase exponentially (Department of Transport and Main Roads, 2009; DTMR). According to Compton et al. (2002) as cited in the Department of Transport and Main Roads (2009), crash risk based on probability, is five times higher when the BAC is 0.10 compared to a BAC of 0.00. The type of injury patterns sustained also tends to be more severe when liquor is involved, especially with injuries to the brain (Waller et al., 1986b). Single and Rohl (1997) reported that 30% of all fatal crashes in Australia where alcohol involvement was known were associated with Breadth Analysis Content (BAC) above the legal limit of 0.05gms/100ml. Alcohol related crashes therefore contributes to a third of the total cost of fatal crashes (i.e. $1 billion annually) and crashes where alcohol is involved are more likely to result in death or serious injury (ARRB Transport Research, 1999). It is a major concern that a drug capable of impairment such as is the most available and popular drug in Australia (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, 2007; AIHW). According to the AIHW (2007) 89.9% of the approximately 25,000 Australians over the age of 14 surveyed had consumed at some point in time, and 82.9% had consumed liquor in the previous year. This study found that 12.1% of individuals admitted to driving a motor vehicle whilst intoxicated. In general males consumed more liquor in all age groups. In Queensland there were 21503 road crashes in 2001, involving 324 fatalities and the largest contributing factor was alcohol and or drugs (Road Traffic Report, 2001). 23438 road crashes in 2004, involving 289 fatalities and the largest contributing factor was alcohol and or drugs (DTMR, 2009). Although a number of measures such as random breath testing have been effective in reducing the road toll (Watson, Fraine & Mitchell, 1995) the recidivist drink driver remains a serious problem. These findings were later supported with research by Leal, King, and Lewis (2006). This Queensland study found that of the 24661 drink drivers intercepted in 2004, 3679 (14.9%) were recidivists with multiple drink driving convictions in the previous three years covered (Leal et al., 2006). The legal definition of the term “recidivist” is consistent with the Transport Operations (Road Use Management) Act (1995) and is assigned to individuals who have been charged with multiple drink driving offences in the previous five years. In Australia relatively little attention has been given to prevention programs that target high-risk repeat drink drivers. However, over the last ten years a rehabilitation program specifically designed to reduce recidivism among repeat drink drivers has been operating in Queensland. The program, formally known as the “Under the Limit” drink driving rehabilitation program (UTL) was designed and implemented by the research team at the Centre for Accident Research and Road Safety in Queensland with funding from the Federal Office of Road Safety and the Institute of Criminology (see Sheehan, Schonfeld & Davey, 1995). By 2009 over 8500 drink-drivering offenders had been referred to the program (Australian Institute of Crime, 2009).

Variable structure control for power systems stabilization

The application of variable structure control (VSC) for power systems stabilization is studied in this paper. It is the application, aspects and constraints of VSC which are of particular interest. A variable structure control methodology has been proposed for power systems stabilization. The method is implemented using thyristor controlled series compensators. A three machine power system is stabilized using a switching line control for large disturbances which becomes a sliding control as the disturbance becomes smaller. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the methodology proposed as an useful tool to suppress the oscillations in power systems.

Comparison of scoring systems for invasive pests using ROC analysis and Monte Carlo simulation

Different international plant protection organisations advocate different schemes for conducting pest risk assessments. Most of these schemes use structured questionnaire in which experts are asked to score several items using an ordinal scale. The scores are then combined using a range of procedures, such as simple arithmetic mean, weighted averages, multiplication of scores, and cumulative sums. The most useful schemes will correctly identify harmful pests and identify ones that are not. As the quality of a pest risk assessment can depend on the characteristics of the scoring system used by the risk assessors (i.e., on the number of points of the scale and on the method used for combining the component scores), it is important to assess and compare the performance of different scoring systems. In this article, we proposed a new method for assessing scoring systems. Its principle is to simulate virtual data using a stochastic model and, then, to estimate sensitivity and specificity values from these data for different scoring systems. The interest of our approach was illustrated in a case study where several scoring systems were compared. Data for this analysis were generated using a probabilistic model describing the pest introduction process. The generated data were then used to simulate the outcome of scoring systems and to assess the accuracy of the decisions about positive and negative introduction. The results showed that ordinal scales with at most 5 or 6 points were sufficient and that the multiplication-based scoring systems performed better than their sum-based counterparts. The proposed method could be used in the future to assess a great diversity of scoring systems.

Online environmental information systems

In today’s information society, electronic tools, such as computer networks for the rapid transfer of data and composite databases for information storage and management, are critical in ensuring effective environmental management. In particular environmental policies and programs for federal, state, and local governments need a large volume of up-to-date information on the quality of water, air, and soil in order to conserve and protect natural resources and to carry out meteorology. In line with this, the utilization of information and communication technologies (ICTs) is crucial to preserve and improve the quality of life. In handling tasks in the field of environmental protection a range of environmental and technical information is often required for a complex and mutual decision making in a multidisciplinary team environment. In this regard e-government provides a foundation of the transformative ICT initiative which can lead to better environmental governance, better services, and increased public participation in environmental decision- making process.