Volume 8, Issue 7, December 2017


Health Related Quality of Life Among Engineering Professionals-Pilot Study

Ahmed S. Alabdulwahab

Dean of Jeddah Community College, Director of KAU Accelarator (KAUACC)
Department of Electrical Engineering, College of Engineering, King Abdulaziz University

Abstract– The present study tends to ascertain Health-Related Quality of Life (HRQoL) of engineering professionals who are sometimes exposed to unhygienic and deleterious conditions. To study health related conditions of engineering is as important as those of other professionals. However, a very limited empirical data in this regard are available which call for serious concern to carry on the present research. (HRQoL) is a multidimensional concept, not narrowed to mere physical well-being but expanded to mental, social and psychological aspects of professionals working in different domains. The study is drawn on a quantitative survey based on 223 respondents working on site or in an office environment, with a mean age of 37±9 years and 13 ± 8 years of experiences in engineering fields. The SF-8 Health self-administered survey was used in this study to assess the HRQoL of engineering professionals which was found overall in good shape. Hence, the study concluded that engineering professionals have a high HRQoL. One of the limitations of this study is the small sample size.

Keywords— Engineering Professionals, Quality of Life, Workplace and Engineers

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A Loss-Less Image Compression Technique Using Divide and Conquer Strategy

Khalid Imtiaz

Computer Science & Engineering Department, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract– Data or image compression is the method of reducing the size of data. In a compressed data set a fewer bits are used to represent the same data element as in the uncompressed data set. Huffman Coding uses the probability of occurrence of a data value in the data set and assigns a specific code to this probability, replacing the original value with this special code. This paper makes use of this technique by dividing the data set into two parts and then applying Huffman coding on each divided part separately. It is found that the compression rate is increased if the data part is divided before applying Huffman coding.

Keywords— Huffman Coding, Image Compression, Matrix and Image

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Integration of Buildability Concept at Design Stage of Some Tertiary Institution Buildings in North East Nigeria

MS Soji, OM Oraegbune, CH Salihu and PW Zakka

Department of Building, Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria
Department of Building, University of Jos, Nigeria

Abstract– The design process is considered as the most important stage in the project life cycle. Throughout this stage the level of involvement between design and construction team will affect the building quality. Therefore, this research investigates the level of integration of buildability at the design stage. The objectives specifically explored the buildability concept influencing quality of building design, identify the factors that causes buildability problem due to designers and identify the factors that influenced the design process. Three institutions were reviewed in North Eastern state which includes Taraba State University, Jalingo, Gombe State University, Gombe and Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola Adamawa State. 45 structured questionnaires were issued and 30 valid ones were analysed representing a 67% response rate. The data were analysed using percentage analysis; relative importance index and spearman rank correlation coefficient. The results showed that the buildability concepts influencing the quality of building design are: ease of change of plans or scope by the owners with average relative important index of 0.291 and lack of proper site investigation to avoid subsequent delay with average important index of 0.813. The research further showed that error and omissions by the design team with average relative index of 0.481 had the highest adverse effect on the integration of buildality concept. The study therefore recommends that designers should integrate buildability concept during design implementation process and also have close working relations with other project participants to produce quality building with cost effectiveness.

Keywords— Buildability, Design, Energy Efficient Buildings, Integration and Quality

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Publisher-Subscriber Based Architecture for Configuration of Heterogeneous Cloud Systems

Tasawer Nawaz, M. Junaid Arshad and Ahsan Nazir Raja

Department of computer science engineering, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract– Cloud provides quality of services; these services may be hardware, software or any other product. Clouds systems have advantages, like backup and security, easy access and cost efficient. Cloud users face problem of managing large number of cloud machines. Single project may be span over single instance to more than hundred or even thousands of cloud instances. May be as single project have separate type of machine for different tasks like web hosting, request handling, business logic, cache and database storage. The expansion of projects leads to problem of expansion of instances with same set of configurations. There are some existing methods for configuration with limitation. We proposed new architecture based on publisher-subscriber modal, which is known as “pub-sub”. Publisher will be the server where we will upload latest configuration scripts. Subscriber machines will get notification from server, download script and will run it for maintaining same state with sibling machines.

Keywords— Publisher, Subscriber, Script, Workstation and Pub-Sub

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Thermodynamic Optimization of Combined Gas and Steam Power Plant

Amir Vosough and Zahra Kosarian

Department of Mechanics, Mahshahr Branch, Islamic Azad University, Mahshahr, Iran
Musculoskeletal Rehabilitation Research Center, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical, Ahvaz, I.R. Iran

Abstract– Objectives: The aim of this study was to thermodynamic analyses of combined gas and steam power plant under different conditions. Methods/Statistical Analysis: At different thermodynamic conditions the energy and exergy plant efficiency were studied. Also to achieve a better approach near to the actual condition, the energy and exergy analysis considered via the condenser pressure. Findings: the result shows that best places that appropriate for optimization is combustion chamber following by turbine due to the most irreversibilities rate. Ambient temperature increasing has undesirable effect on exergy efficiency. Increase in Condenser pressure is an important parameter that must study carefully. Application/Improvements: results of this research may help optimization of energy consumption and decreasing the pollution of the environment.

Keywords— Combined Gas and Steam Power Plant, Irreversibility Rate, Energy and Exergy Efficiency and Condenser Pressure

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