Workshops, Seminars, Symposiums & Conferences

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://192.248.9.226/handle/123/8855

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 1498

item: Conference-Full-text
169 Invisible Architecture; Integrating Subterranean Brussels in Active Neighbourhood Revitalization
(2015-10-02) Dissanayake, A
Brussels is a city with immense potentials and opportunities. Being at the heart of Europe, it is coherently connected with rest of the world both physically and figuratively. However, these opportunities and connections constantly attract people from around the world; giving way to a heterogenic society of diverse ethnicities and cultures. This heterogenic society creates a strong tension in some quarters of Brussels – especially when there is a prominent arrival magnet as with the case of neighbourhood Fountains with Brussels south railway station in close proximity. As with any infrastructure project, the proposed metro and tram station of Lemonier, is a potential for not only the neighbourhood of Fountains but also for entire metropolis of Brussels. The proposed MetCom program incorporating the Brussels underground gives these commonly mono-functional mobility infrastructure projects a new meaning; transforming them into effective urban public spaces. Introduction of this proposed novel logistic system for urban freight transportation allows new possibilities for the use of existing unused space within the metro stations as well as in the adjoining gray buildings. The project not only helps revitalize the neighbourhood by introducing a new economy but also encourages better interaction of the heterogenic society by providing a place for activity. The project however does not create an architectural object; on the contrary, it creates an invisible architecture
item: Conference-Abstract
A 3DOF transtibial robotic prosthetic limb
Madusanka, DGK; Wijayasingha, LNS; Sanjeevan, K; Ahamed, MAR; Edirisooriya, JCW; Gopura, RARC
A robotic prosthesis is a device which is used to replace a missing body part. These devices are intended to return the amputees to their pre-amputation functional status. Below knee (Transtibial) amputation is the most common amputation occurred in the lower limb. That is caused by reasons such as diseases, injury due to explosions of anti-personnel land mines and accidents. The existing prostheses for transtibial amputees have yet to be improved to reinstate the biomechanical functions normally provided by the ankle joint. Therefore, the purpose of this research is to develop a transtibial robotic prosthesis which would provide functions usually provided by the ankle. The proposed design consists of 3 Degrees of Freedom (DOF) to generate similar biomechanical motions at the ankle joint. Further it includes a passive regenerative system to reduce motor power requirement of dorsiflexion/plantarflexion. Experiments are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed prosthetic limb and to verify the possibility of using electromyographic (EMG) signal based control of the prosthesis.
item: Conference-Abstract
A concept of weather window (WW) in managing the rain risks in construction projects of Sri Lanka
Wiratunga, IVH; De Silva, N
Different weather conditions such as rain, wind and snow would directly impact on the performance of any construction project. Being a tropical country, the effect from rain would be experienced mostly in Sri Lanka. Within this context, risks caused from rain can be defined in financial terms as a loss or gain due to a change in weather conditions over a period of time. Weather records available in the Meteorological Department of previous years are analysed to establish the different rain risk categories based on dry spell, rain spell, and wet spell which are derived from a "wet day" as define by the Meteorological Department. In this research the value used' to define the wet day is modified to establish the '"weather windows• (WW.s)," under above rain risk categories, namely as major weather window, moderate weather window and minor weather window. These established WWs are applied to a completed project and analyzed at different risk conditions.lt was identified that the concept could be used effectively to manage the rain risks. The results showed that 3.5% of the total project cost would have been saved, if the weather sensitive items such as excavation and earth works, landscaping and external works, etc., of the project were scheduled by analysing the WWs, during the planning stage, even though the rain is considered as an Act of God and a totally uncertain event.
item: Conference-Abstract
A Review on Multi‐Agent systems in micro grid applications
Kulasekera, AL; Gopura, RARC; Hemapala, KTMU; Perera, N
The applications of Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) in electrical power systems are becoming popular due to their inherent benefits such as increased autonomy, reactivity, pro activity and social ability. This paper reviews current research on the application of multi-agent systems in micro grid schemes. The paper is mainly focused on recent developments of multi-agent systems in different aspects of micro grids such as control, market modeling, optimization and power restoration. The future directions of multi-agent systems in micro grid applications are also discussed briefly. Furthermore, this review is concluded by discussing the development of an enhanced multi-agent based distributed control framework for micro grids.
item: Conference-Abstract
Abnormal activity recognition using spatio-temporal features
Chathuramali, KGM; Ramasinghe, S; Rodrigo, BKRP
Abnormal activity detection plays an important role in many areas such as surveillance, military installations, and sports. Existing abnormal activity detectors mostly rely on motion data obtained over a number of frames to characterize abnormality. However, only motion may not be able to capture all forms of abnormality, in particular, poses that do not amount to motion “outliers”. In this paper, we propose two different spatiotemporal descriptors, a silhouette and optic flow based method and a dense trajectory based method which additionally include trajectory shape descriptor, to detect abnormalities. These two descriptors enable us to classify abnormal versus non-abnormal activities using SVM. Comparison with existing methods, using five standard datasets, shows that dense trajectory based method outperforms state-of-the-art results in crowd dataset and silhouette and optic flow based method outperforms others in some datasets.
item: Conference-Full-text
Accelerated bridge construction in USA
(2013-11-26)
Rush hour traffic is a common daily occurrence in the USA. Highway and bridge construction further aggravates the situation. The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and the Departments of Transportation in several states are looking for ways to expedite construction. The Accelerated Bridge Construction (ABC) initiative is the result of this. It is accomplished in two ways; accelerated construction of bridges in place or moving completed bridges to position by using moving technology. Reduced disruption to traffic due to faster construction, enhanced safety due to reduced exposure of workers to construction activities, better quality control as most of the components are fabricated offsite, reduced environmental issues due to fewer construction activities on site, and lower costs are some of the advantages of Accelerate Bridge Construction. This is achieved by the use of Prefabricated Bridge Elements and Systems (PBES) in the bridge superstructures and substructures or building entire spans off site and moving them to the final location. In this paper, various prefabricated elements used in bridge superstructures, substructures, and retaining walls are presented.
item: Conference-Abstract
Accelerating complex event processing through GPUs
Rodrigo, PS; Bandara, HMND; Perera, S
Complex Event Processing (CEP) is a well-known technology in real-time Big Data processing systems. Performance of CEP engines is expected to scale with ever-increasing data rates and complex use cases. CEP operators like stream join and event patterns involve high computational complexity; hence, have a considerable impact on the overall query processing performance. Distributed event processing and CPU-level parallel event processing algorithms are common approaches for improving the performance. We explore how commodity massively parallel architectures like modern Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) can be utilized to improve the performance of frequently used CEP operators. We demonstrate how CEP operators such as event filter, event window, and stream join can be redesigned and implemented on GPUs to gain an order of magnitude improvement in throughput compared to a CPU-based mplementation. This work is demonstrated using NVIDIA CUDA based implementation of CEP operators for Siddhi CEP engine on low-end GPUs. Moreover, this approach reduces event queuing at the incoming event queue, even with a large number of event streams, high arrival rates, and several complex queries. Consequently, the average latency experienced by incoming events is also reduced.
item: Conference-Abstract
Acceptance of reed bed sewer treatment system with owner-driven method for bulk resettlement projects – a case study
Hikkaduwa, HN; Halwatura, RU
Tsunami, which made a massive damage and which made a massive resettlement in the country let the government, NGOs (None Governmental Organizations) as well as the community to rethink of their traditional construction methods as well as the sustainability. More than the construction, the high concentration of dwellings led high level of environmental pollution due to massive discharge of waste. Above all sewer was the key, since many of the house owners were not used to proper hygienic practices. Human practice was to release there sewers directly or indirectly to the environment without an appropriate treatment. Physically it can be evident that some of the reservoirs and cannels were polluted drastically due to release of sewers directly to it and with the amount added to natural environments difficult to bear with its treatment capacity. So, more than introducing sustainable cost effective means, it was more important to train them as well as motivate them for best hygienic practices. Hence, Reed bed sewer treatment mechanism was design with respect to SLS 745:2003 and constructed under the tsunami recovery program, American Red Cross in 2009.Through that it showed the optimistic level on treatment of sewer and people involvement in construction of their sanitation system (Owner-driven) and home gardening with the treated sewer waste water. The research was carried out to investigate the acceptance of the new system as well as to investigate the pluses and minuses with the new system. The housing schemes were reviewed with respect to sewer systems and a detail survey was carried out to investigate how the household have accepted the system. Even though the systems were design and constructed using the standards, since there wasn’t much follow up by the respective officials the process was abundant at few places. However, it was noted that people are keener to go for new systems, which has some visible extra benefits such as gardening. Further, this surely will be a good option for the ongoing massive resettlements in north and northeast for war victims, since the water is an issue as well as most of of the areas are running less water for gardening and the water table is considerably law.
item: Conference-Full-text
Accessibility to transit station in multi modal transport framework for Delhi
(2013-11-15) Kumar, P; Jain, SS; Kulkarni, SY; Parida, M
Recently, Multi Modal Transit Station has been recognized as a symbol of ‘Urban Identity’ and ‘Urban Mobility’ in Delhi which integrates built environment with multiple modes and provides an important link to complete the journey. It is either as a single station or an interchange hub, accessed by human, mechanical and vehicular system. Hence, it is important that such transit station must meet minimal level of service and be a part of overall efforts to improve transit services for increasing rider ship. In this context, Multi Modal Oriented Design (M2OD) is used which defines neighborhood character in design and provides mobility friendly environment. It also encourages a mix of mobility options to cater needs of both present and future travel demands. Further, the role and responsibilities of transit operators, facilitators and users are crucial to extend better accessibility to transit station.
item: Conference-Full-text
Achieving energy efficiency in buildings design through innovative planning and design solutions
(2013-11-21) Mandal, SK; Sinha, K
The idea that the, earth is a finite planet in the mathematical sense is commonly accepted today. In 1972, both the Club of Rome, in its report, (Meadows et al, 1972), and the first Earth summit in Stockholm expressed this idea. This amounts to all its resources including fossil energy being limited. Renewable resources, already partially tapped, will only replace a portion of this energy. This substitution will be difficult to accomplish since the level of predation of human beings on the planet is causing serious malfunctioning of the biosphere. The building sector does not escape from today’s spotlight on the environmental impacts of human activities. Buildings are major energy consumer during both construction and ‘usage, and also generate large quantities of waste. Built up structures are consumers of 40% of the global primary energy and generator of 24% co2 emission. As such, criticality of buildings and their role in minimizing energy consumption and promoting sustainability of human habitat assumes importance. The options relating to building materials, building technologies, landscaping, heating and cooling system etc have already been explored. It is logical to apply the principles of energy costing to building prospects and look for ways to minimize energy consumption during their entire lifetime. Accordingly, the paper focuses on design strategies for making building highly energy efficient and sustainable in terms of site planning, macro and micro climatic conditions, landscaping, orientation, fenestration and shading and building materials. It discusses two case studies from India incorporating innovative design solutions to achieve energy efficiency.
item: Conference-Abstract
Action recognition by single stream convolutional neural networks : an approach using combined motion and static information
Ramasinghe, S; Rodrigo, BKRP
We investigate the problem of automatic action recognition and classification of videos. In this paper, we present a convolutional neural network architecture, which takes both motion and static information as inputs in a single stream. We show that the network is able to treat motion and static information as different feature maps and extract features off them, although stacked together. We trained and tested our network on Youtube dataset. Our network is able to surpass state-of-the-art hand-engineered feature methods. Furthermore, we also studied and compared the effect of providing static information to the network, in the task of action recognition. Our results justify the use of optic flows as the raw information of motion and also show the importance of static information, in the context of action recognition.
item: Conference-Abstract
Action recognition by single stream convolutional neural networks : an approach using combined motion and static information
Ramasinghe, S; Rodrigo, R
We investigate the problem of automatic action recognition and classification of videos. In this paper, we present a convolutional neural network architecture, which takes both motion and static information as inputs in a single stream. We show that the network is able to treat motion and static information as different feature maps and extract features off them, although stacked together. We trained and tested our network on Youtube dataset. Our network is able to surpass state-of-the-art hand-engineered feature methods. Furthermore, we also studied and compared the effect of providing static information to the network, in the task of action recognition. Our results justify the use of optic flows as the raw information of motion and also show the importance of static information, in the context of action recognition.
item: Conference-Abstract
Action recognition using a spatio-temporal model in dynamic scenes
Chathuramali, KGM; Rodrigo, R
Action recognition in a video plays an important role in computer vision and finds many applications in areas such as surveillance, sports, and elderly monitoring. Existing methods mostly rely on stationary backgrounds. Action recognition in dynamic backgrounds typically requires standard preprocessing steps such as motion compensation, background modeling, moving object detection and object recognition. The errors of the motion compensation step and background modelling increase the mis-detections. Therefore action recognition in dynamic background is challenging. In this paper, we use a combination of pose characterized by a silhouette and optic flows synthesized into a histogram. This enables us to classify the movement of the actor versus movement of the background. We use four background models to extract the silhouette from the frame. We use SVM to recognize actions, according to several evaluation protocols. We perform several experiments and compare over a diverse set of challenging videos, including the new Change Detection Challenge Dataset. Our results perform better than existing methods.
item:
Adaptability of integrated project delivery in a construction industry
Jayasena, HS; Senevirathna, NS
Within the traditional procurement system, level of achievement of client and contractor objectives may vary depending on the type of procurement used This may further create a gap between the expected and actual performance of the project. Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) is the modern development of the procurement systems in the industry where collaborative innovation is the path used to achieve the goals of a project. Appreciable characteristics and benefits of this concept convert the construction industry towards it. It is observed that United States of America is the jirst to develop and implement this concept specially focusing on the public sector. Although, the concept is not yet popular around the world, it is likely that the clients will demand for it in future due to economic and managerial advantages it brings. Thus, it is important that an industry be prepared to adapt the system as and when the need arises. Identifying this need, a literature synthesis on requisites and barriers for successful implementation of IPD is presented in this paper. The findings shall become valuable source for any construction industry to assess their readiness and take necessary steps to be ready to implement IPD system successfully.
item: Conference-Abstract
Adaptive prediction of power fluctuations from a Wind Turbine at Kalpitiya Area in Sri Lanka
Narayana, M; Witharana, S
Hydro power is the major renewable energy contributor to the national grid in Sri Lanka amounting to 48% of the total installed capacity. Further expansion of hydropower however is limited due to environmental and resource constraints. Meanwhile the demand for electricity is estimated to rise at an annual rate of 8% - 10% prompting the need to find alternative power options. The wind energy has been identified as a promising candidate to generate electricity in Sri Lanka. However for a reliable integration of wind energy the volatile nature of wind has to be understood. Wind speedtime series data typically exhibit autocorrelation, which can be defined as the degree of dependence on preceding values. Generally, statistical models and neural network techniques being used for time series analysis. Present study shows how an adaptive digital filter can serve as a modelling, forecasting and monitoring technique, and, how they contribute to a successful integration of wind power into the national grid. The north-western region of Kalpitiya has been identified as one of the potential location for wind power generation in the country. This study also predicts power generation and investigates power fluctuations for grid integrations of a commercially available wind turbine installed in Kalpitiya area by using measured wind speeds and performance of the wind turbine.
item: Conference-Abstract
Addressing fashion: a historical study on dress and fashion styles described in sri lankan poetical work (sandesakavyas)
(2015-09-11) Karunaratne, PVM
In Sri Lanka it was in the 16th century that Sandesa poetical literature came to the fore. Poets of that period have excelled at locating dress and fashion style as well as some unique socially accepted norms regulated in relation of dress and fashion in Sandesa poetry. Poets identified unique dress fashion and its amalgamated etiquettes followed by the royalty, court dancers and commoners. These poetical descriptions led visual interpretation of a unique fashion legacy in particular era. The objective of this paper is to study in further how poetical work expressed in which ways that said people had their space of spirit satisfaction in dressing and the desire of expressing themselves. On the other hand the poetical work gave an impression of fashion of dress that is an artifact, practice and institution that constitute a society’s beliefs, values, ideas and experiences. The study revealed that the dress is a way in which people created fashion legacy by communicating none verbally , not only feelings and mood, but also the values and norms, beliefs of dressing the body in the social groups of which they were members. Data for this research were gathered from many original historical records, texts, and pictorial records from the sculpture, temple murals, museum artifacts, wood and ivory carvings pertaining to the era. A qualitative research method was adopted for the study
item: Conference-Full-text
Adopting distance learning in Fashion Design education : collaborative learning approach during Covid-19 pandemic
(2021-07-30) Dharmakeerthi, M.G.C.C.; Wickramasinghe, A.
There is an ongoing debate regarding the best approach to educate undergraduates in arts and design (AD) subjects through online mode due to the Covid-19 pandemic. AD students are predominantly learning through experimental and reflective learning, hence facilitating teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) activities in an online platform and maintaining an active learning environment were the identified issues of the study. The outcomes of this study will be beneficial for academia, undergraduates and service providers of online education platforms. This study targeted level two, term three undergraduates of the Bachelor of Design (Hons), Fashion Design and Product Development degree course as a group project, according to the learning outcomes defined in the curriculum. Outcomes were analyzed through mixed methodology while it was evaluated through the observations of the two examiners and post project feedback collected by students for qualitative data analysis. Quantitative analysis was done with the results obtained from summative and formative assessments of the sample of 51 students (in 12 groups). It was evident that 100% of participants were able to adapt to the online learning while the majority (90%) could virtually interact with group members in order to engage in active learning with real-time connectivity. Students’ feedback revealed that the virtual factory visits and online guest lectures were able to fill the knowledge gaps of the industry-linked project. Results of the summative assessments evidenced 8.3% of A+s while B+ has recorded as the lowest result gained by a group. In conclusion, it was observed that the possibilities of adopting the online approach were overweighing the challenges and limitations encountered as the overall results of the students are higher than the previous academic year which was conducted physically. The experimental learning was limited due to lack of materials and technical resources however it was overcome through peer group learning. Furthermore, the study has revealed that the need of TLA is to be adhering in relation to constructive alignment considering the pros and cons of distance mode teaching.
item: Conference-Full-text
Adoption of Precast Hollow Core Panels for External Walls of Multistorey Buildings
(University of Ruhuna, 2023-03-16) R. Subakaran; H.M.S.T. Herath; M.T.R. Jayasinghe; T.M. Rengarasu
Due to the increasing population and reduced availability of usable lands for construction activities, many residential and commercial buildings are becoming medium- to high-rise structures globally. Complementing this trend, the Sri Lankan construction industry has incorporated precast products as core elements in several projects due to their better performance, enhanced quality, elevated control, reduced leading time of construction, adaptability of novel technologies in construction and controlled material processing during manufacturing. During the past decade, precast wall panels became one of the popular precast panel elements satisfying both load-bearing and non-load bearing structural requirements in Sri Lanka. Originally, precast wall panels were intended to be used as internal partition wall panels, which are not expected to resist loading nor undergo significant deformations. This paper focuses on verifying the usability of such precast panels as external wall panels in multi-storey buildings, where their load resistance is investigated under lateral wind loads and vertical deformations due to column shortening effects. In addition, using the shape optimization technique in-built into ABAQUS CAE advanced finite element software, a better layout for the precast wall is also proposed and their performance is compared with the current standard layout under similar loading and boundary conditions. It was found out that the optimized precast hollow core panels are 19.88% less in volume with similar performance and can be used as external wall panels to withstand wind induced lateral loads in multistorey buildings. The recommendations on how many panels shall be used in a single assembly are also presented.
item: Conference-Full-text
Advancements in sustainable housing practices in Australia
(2013-11-15) De Silva, S
Australian housing industry practices, especially in the single and low to medium density housing development sectors are predominantly driven by the volume builders. Here the term, volume builders, refers to a practice of high volume of cloning. Individually designed owner builder house are very limited in Australia. Within such an industry environmentally unsustainable practice could multiply significantly at much faster rate. Australian living standard is resource intensive and the life style is high on the consumption of water and energy. For example living space, energy consumption, water consumption and embodied energy usage per capita are, relatively, at a much higher level. It is therefore envisaged that the positive influence on the sustainable practices can be affected efficiently through policy innovations and regulatory measures. Since early 2000, the topic of sustainable housing has been a very active area of discussion. Therefore, over the last ten years, notable progress was made in this sphere. Attention was drawn by the media through public debates and significant improvements have been observed in policy improvements, R&D activities and in engineering curricula. This paper presents the positive outcomes of current practices, policy innovations, research and education.
item: Conference-Abstract
Affective e-learning model for recognising learner emotions in online learning environment
(2014-06-26) Sandanayake, TC; Madurapperuma, AP
Today online learning provides wider coverage many different approaches such as distance learning, classroom-based electronic learning and self-access learning. Online learning has been recognized as a support tool for educators and researchers simply it gives is luxury of using at anytime, anywhere. Like any learning process, online learning depends on effective communication of human knowledge, whether this occurs in a face-to-face classroom or across the Internet. Emotions can have enormous affects on learning and play a vital role in decision making, managing learning activities, timing, and reflecting on the studies. Emotions are also important in teaching and learning and often find expression in particular ways, such as interactions with others and motivation in learning. The aim of the research is to develop a computational model for recognizing leaner emotions in online learning environment. The research study was focused on developing a tool to recognise the online learner's emotions. Therefore, the study has developed Online Achievement Emotion Questionnaire (AEQ) based on the AEQ which is suited for the online learning environment. Also the study has identified a methodology for recognising learner performances during learning. That has being measured through six parameters which represent the learner's level of learning during the learning experience. These parameters are analysed using multiple regression analysis and a model equation was developed to compute the online learner's level of learning. Finally the study has analysed and evaluated the correlation between the learner emotions and the observed behaviour. This research study therefore developed a novel model of affective online learning which can be use as a tool to recognise online learner's emotions with regard to the performance in learning

Browse

Browsing Workshops, Seminars, Symposiums & Conferences by Title