Chaos-Based Encryption Keys And Neural Key-Store For Cloud-Hosted Data Confidentiality, N.N Mosola, M.T Dlamini, Jonathan Blackledge, J.H.P Eloff, H.S Venter

Conference papers

Cloud computing brings flexible and cost-effective services. However, security concerns plague the cloud. Data confidentiality is one of the security concerns inhibiting the adoption of cloud computing. This concern stems from various cyberattacks directed towards gaining unauthorised access to cloud-bound or cloud-hosted data. This paper proposes a clientend encryption and key management system to curb cyberattacks that target compromising data confidentiality on the cloud.

Reneb - Running The European Network Of Biological Dosimetry And Physical Retrospective Dosimetry, Ulrike Kulka, Michael Abend, Liz Ainsbury, Christophe Badie, Joan-Francesc Barquinero, Leonardo Barrios, Christina Beinke, Emanuela Bortolin, Alexandra Cucu, Fiona Lyng

Articles

Purpose: A European network was initiated in 2012 by 23 partners from 16 European countries with the aim to significantly increase individualized dose reconstruction in case of large-scale radiological emergency scenarios.

Application Of Artificial Intelligence For Detecting Computing Derived Viruses, Jonathan Blackledge, Omotayo Asiru, Moses Dlamini

Conference papers

Computer viruses have become complex and operates in a stealth mode to avoid detection. New viruses are argued to be created each and every day. However, most of these supposedly ‘new’ viruses are not completely new. Most of the supposedly ‘new’ viruses are not necessarily created from scratch with completely new (something novel that has never been seen before) mechanisms. For example, most of these viruses just change their form and signatures to avoid detection. But their operation and the way they infect files and systems is still the same. Hence, such viruses cannot be argued to be new. In …

Nano-Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Nano-Mri) Gives Personalized Medicine A New Perspective, Lorenzo Rosa, Jonathan Blackledge, Albert Boretti

Articles

This paper reviews some of the major and most recent advances in nanoscale-magnetic resonance imaging (nano-MRI) for personalized medicine (PM). Nano-MRI may drastically expand the capabilities of the traditional magnetic resonance images (MRI), down to the nanometer scale and possibly, in the near future, at the atomic scale. Nano-MRI is potentially able to observe structures which cannot be seen using today’s molecular imaging, with sensitivities of many billions of times better than MRI as currently used in hospitals, for example. The paper briefly reports on the foremost research themes in nano-MRI.

Operational Analysis Of Improved Γ-Z-Source Inverter With Clamping Diode And Its Comparative Evaluation, Zeeshan Aleem, Mohamed Moin Hanif

Articles

Due to a substantial shortage of conventional energy sources, the utilization of renewable energy is gaining attention. Power converters form interfaces to provide power from renewable energy sources to end user systems. Impedance-source inverters (ZSIs) have become a research hotspot and are widely used to overcome the drawbacks of conventional voltage-source inverters and current-source inverters such as two-stage power conversion and less immunity to electromagnetic interference noises. This paper presents various transformer-based ZSIs mainly classified as trans-ZSIs, improved trans-ZSIs, inductor-capacitor-capacitor transformer ZSI, TZSIs, and their comparisons with a new family of ZSIs called Γ-Z-source inverters (ΓZSI). Full operational analysis of …

Grid Voltage Sensorless Single-Phase Half-Bridge Active Filter And Dc Bus Voltage Regulation, Samet Biricik

Articles

In this paper, a method is presented for the control of grid voltage sensorless single-phase half-bridge shunt active power filter to reduce the grid current harmonics of low-power single-phase non-linear loads. The proposed system forces the grid current to be sinusoidal without sensing and processing the grid voltage on the line. For this reason, instead of grid voltage the load current is processed by using self-tuning filter to generate reference grid current to eliminate current harmonic distortions. In order to design a low-cost system, a half-bridge voltage source converter is used to reduce driver circuits. In addition, the switching losses …

Geospatial Drivers Of The Groundwater Δ18o Isoscape In A Temperate Maritime Climate (Republic Of Ireland), S. Regan, R. Goodhue, O. Naughton, Paul Hynds

Articles

In recent years, the concept of “isoscapes” has been used to describe spatiotemporal stable isotope distributions within natural environments including groundwater systems at multiple scales. This study presents an updated groundwater δ18O isoscape for the Republic of Ireland and describes the climatic and geological drivers influencing 18O composition. In all, 142 geographically and geologically representative groundwater installations were sampled and analysed, in addition to 35 samples from six nested boreholes. Geospatially, Irish groundwater exhibits high δ18O values in southern and western coastal regions, becoming progressively depleted inland before reaching lowest measured values along the eastern coast, equating to a national …

Application Of Artificial Intelligence For Detecting Derived Viruses, Omotayo Asiru, Moses Dlamini, Jonathan Blackledge

Conference papers

Computer viruses have become complex and operates in a stealth mode to avoid detection. New viruses are argued to be created each and every day. However, most of these supposedly ‘new’ viruses are not completely new. Most of the supposedly ‘new’ viruses are not necessarily created from scratch with completely new (something novel that has never been seen before) mechanisms. For example, most of these viruses just change their form and signatures to avoid detection. But their operation and the way they infect files and systems is still the same. Hence, such viruses cannot be argued to be new. In …

The Feasibility Of Utilising Compressed Natural Gas As Part Of A Systematic Approach To Establishing The Necessary Groundwork For The Hydrogen Based Transport Economy, James Brunton, John Howlett, David Kennedy

Conference Papers

One key objective for vehicle manufacturers is to develop technology and infrastructure to facilitate the progression from combustion to conversion by the year 2050. In the short to medium term however, the combustion of fossil fuels such as petrol and diesel, coupled with advanced transmission innovations and emission control technology that are governed by strict Euro VI regulations appears to be the main path forward for the transport sector and the environment. This paper presents the feasibility of utilising the developing compressed natural gas network capabilities as part of a systematic approach to establishing the necessary groundwork for a hydrogen …

Technological Assessment Of Different Solar-Biomass Systems For Hybrid Power Generation In Europe, Cm Iftekhar Hussain, Brian Norton, Aidan Duffy

Articles

Solar Tower thermal (ST), Parabolic Trough thermal (PT), Linear Fresnel thermal (LF) and Solar PV are discussed in the context of suitability for hybridization with biomass in Europe. Technical, economical and climate data have been compared to identify the key drivers of technology selection in setting up large scale solar-biomass hybrid power plants. The sole solar-biomass hybrid power plant is currently in operation in Spain uses PT technology due to its performance characteristics, comparatively easy installation process compared to ST and relatively higher heat and optical gain than LF. The climate condition in the EU shows that the region within …

Investigation Into The Predictive Capability Of Macro-Economic Features In Modelling Credit Risk For Small Medium Enterprises, Kevin Mctiernan

Dissertations

This research project investigates the predictive capability of macro-economic features in modelling credit risk for small medium enterprises (SME/SMEs). There have been indications that there is strong correlation between economic growth and the size of the SME sector in an economy. However, since the financial crisis and consequent policies and regulations, SMEs have been hampered in attempts to access credit. It has also been noted that while there is a substantial amount of credit risk literature, there is little research on how macro-economic factors affect credit risk. Being able to improve credit scoring by even a small amount can have …

An Exploration Of The Relationship Between The Partisan-Business Cycle And Economic Inequality Within Developed Economies, Richard O'Doherty

Dissertations

Recent contributions to the study of inequality have provided strong evidence towards the presence of an established trend, over several decades, of growing economic inequality (with a particular focus on distribution within their tails; i.e. top 10%, 1%) across countries with developed economies and indications of similar trends across developing economies. While the causality and influencing factors to these trends has widely been discussed, and has range from declining domestic growth rates as economies move towards high mass consumption states to globalisation, political decision making and policy application been referred to as both contributory or an instrument for dampening such …

A Techno-Economic Analysis Of Wind Generation In Conjunction With Compressed Air Energy In The Integrated Single Electricity Market., Brendan Cleary

Doctoral

The Integrated Single Electricity Market (I-SEM) is the proposed wholesale electricity market for Ireland and it is intended to replace the current Single Electricity Market (SEM) by 2018. Subsequently, substantial modifications will be required to the SEM and this has led to significant uncertainty for stakeholders. The SEM currently features no forecast risk for renewables such as wind and there is no concept of balance responsibility. Under the I-SEM, wind generation will be exposed to forecast risk and the requirement to be balance responsible. The use of Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) could represent a better system configuration which would …

A Literature Review Of The Evolution Of British Prefabricated Low-Rise Housing, Daniel O'Neill, Samantha Organ

Articles

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore academic papers and reports and present a chronology of the evolution of British low-rise prefabricated housing. The paper provides chronological information for construction and surveying researchers undertaking research in associated areas.

Design/methodology/approach – This is a qualitative literature review, providing an exploration and analysis of academic papers and reports on low-rise prefabricated housing.

Findings – A substantial literature was discovered. However, there are gaps in the available literature. The history of British construction technology is a rich research area but is under-researched. Prefabricated housing has a long history dating back …

A New Educational Mobile Devices Platform For Social Inclusion In Tanzania, Fredrick Mtenzi

Articles

Abstract— It is evident that advances in technology has led to improvement in societal wellbeing. In this paper we demonstrate how mobile phones are used in providing reliable and quality education to students in disadvantaged areas of Tanzania. The main contribution is on leveraging on the success that Tanzania has had on using mobile banking to the un-banked population. These lessons are adapted to the education sector, where clever/smart integration of existing disruptive technologies such as mobile phones and social networks are be used to provide access to high quality educational contents. Further, the paper shows how educational content can …

Time Series Analysis For A 1/Tb Memory Function And Comparison With The Lyapunov Exponent Using Volatility Scaling, Paddy Walsh, Jonathan Blackledge

Articles

Being able to provide accurate forecasts on the trending behaviour of time series is important in a range of applications involving the real time evolution of signals, most notable in financial time series analysis but control engineering in general. A critical solution for providing high accuracy forecasts is the filtering operation used to identify the position in time at which a trend occurs subject to a time delay factor that is inherent in the filtering strategy used. The paper explores this strategy and presents some example results that provide a quantitative measure of the accuracy used.

Specification Development For Cold In-Situ Recycling Of Asphalt, Amir Tabakovic, Ciaran Mcnally, Eanna Fallon

Research and Innovation - Articles

In-situ cold recycling provides a valuable means to reduce the environmental impact of road construction. The reduced energy requirements relative to traditional hot mix recycling can lead to significant reductions in cost and associated CO₂ emissions. Worldwide, in-situ cold recycling has been found to be particularly useful in the rehabilitation of rural roads where site locations are far from asphalt plants. However, practical issues remain due to the evolving nature of cold bituminous materials. Unlike hot-mix asphalts which gain strength quickly as they cool, cold-mix bituminous materials gain strength slowly over time. This is particularly an issue in countries …

Hvdc Systems Fault Analysis Using Various Signal Processing Techniques, Benish Paily

Doctoral

The detection and fast clearance of faults are important for the safe and optimal operation of HVDC systems. In HVDC systems, various types of AC faults (rectifier & inverter side) and DC faults can occur. It is therefore necessary to detect the faults and classify them for better protection and diagnostics purposes. Various techniques for fault detection and classification in HVDC systems using signal processing techniques are presented and investigated in this research work. In this research work, it is shown that the wavelet transformation can effectively detect abrupt changes in system signals which are indicative of a fault. This …

The Application Of Industry Standards As An Alternative To In-House Proprietary Standards Within The Aec Iindustry, Robert Moore, Alan Hore, Barry Mcauley

Conference papers

The move from traditional 2D Computer Aided Design (CAD) practices towards Building Information Modelling (BIM) has witnessed some practices trying to adopt and update their own in-house CAD standards. These standards are wholly inadequate for working in a collaborative BIM environment and mean that they repetitively create and recreate local, non-reusable, non-interoperable solutions to the same problems, which leads to the employees potentially having to learn a new collaborative process every time they have to work with a new project team. Collaborative standards help teams produce information through a standardised process, so as to ensure the same form and quality …

Adopting Of Pas 1192-2 By Irish Aec Companies – A Formula For Winning International Work, Robert Moore, Alan Hore, Barry Mcauley

Conference papers

Forfás Ireland policy advisory board for enterprise, trade, science, technology and innovation have recently recommended that the Irish Architecture Engineering Construction (AEC) industry should engage in more international work and in doing so have advised the industry to work within a Building Information Management (BIM) environment, so as to avoid the possibility of a competitive disadvantage in overseas markets. According to Forfás BIM can help develop the appropriate technical skills amongst Irish construction firms so that they can successfully compete in markets where BIM is widely adopted or a requirement. More importantly they have encouraged the industry to strive to …

A Novel And Domain-Specific Document Clustering And Topic Aggregation Toolset For A News Organisation, Claire Mcmahon

Dissertations

Large collections of documents are becoming increasingly common in the news gathering industry. A review of the literature shows there is a growing interest in datadriven journalism and specifically that the journalism profession needs better tools to understand and develop actionable knowledge from large document sets. On a daily basis, journalists are tasked with searching a diverse range of document sets including news gathering services, emails, freedom of information requests, court records, government reports, press releases and many other types of generally unstructured documents. Document clustering techniques can help address problems of understanding the ever expanding quantities of documents available …

Using Problem Based Learning To Develop Graduate Attributes In First Year Engineering Students., Una Beagon, Dervilla Niall

Conference papers

This paper investigates the use of a PBL project in a developing country community setting to assess how effectively this teaching pedagogy can develop graduate attributes in first year students. The project requires engineering students to design sustainable infrastructural projects for developing countries. The basis of this project was to design a pedestrian bridge to span 6m across a river. Nairobi was chosen as the locality for the project and the research and design needed to take cognisance of the local conditions, materials and labour available in that area.

Eighty first year engineering students were given six weeks to research, …

Investigating Correlation Between Availability Of Free Time Facilities For Pupils And Their Educational Achievements While Exploiting Linked Data And Volunteered Geographic Information, Peter Kovar

Dissertations

The advent of Semantic Web as an extension of the current World Wide Web (Web) brings methods and technologies to structure the data, interlink it with other related data and capture its semantics. This holds for new data to be published as well as for the data already on the Web. The interlinking of data led to definition of a linked data paradigm and the Semantic Web allows for creating a Global Linked Data Space. The linked data sets can combine data coming from heterogeneous sources. Using ontologies the meaning in data from different areas of interest can be compared …

Risk Management In Motorway Ppp Projects: Empirical-Based Guidelines, Nunzia Carbonara, Nicola Costantino, Louis Gunnigan, Roberta Pellegrino

Articles

This paper deals with the topic of risk management in Public–Private Partnership (PPP). The analysis of the related literature reveals that risks must be analyzed and managed on a context-specific approach, and that there is a lack of a comprehensive study on the appropriate risk mitigation strategies for each risk embedded in PPP projects. Focusing on the transport sector, based on the results of a Delphi survey, the paper provides guidelines for both public and private parties in defining a list of significant risks in PPP motorway projects, and identifying for them both the effective allocation and the suitable mitigation …

The Epistemological Basis Of Engineering, And Its Reflection In The Modern Engineering Curriculum, Mike Murphy, William Grimson

Books/Book chapters

Perhaps unlike other professions, engineering is strangely difficult to define or describe. This is nowhere as evident as when an attempt is made to articulate its epis-temological basis. Engineering has a rich and complex ‘gene pool’ which goes back to when people first built shelters and shaped implements for agricultural purposes. Throughout the ages one constant characteristic of engineering has been its readiness to avail of whatever material is on hand together with whatever knowledge or skill is available to meet the challenge of enhancing an object or making something which nev-er previously existed. On occasion engineers have created new …

Bs News January/February

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Introducing Pbl Into Civil And Structural Engineering, Niall Holmes, Una Beagon

Teaching Fellowships

The benefits of problem based learning for students are a deeper understanding of lecture material, and the development of problem solving and collaboration skills which will greatly enhance their educational experience. This approach has been successful in other programmes as it departs from the traditional ‘what I am told I need to know’ to ‘what I need to know to solve the problem’ promoting self-directed learning. Lecturers in turn transition from the giver of information to the facilitator of learning through support, guidance and monitoring. This project introduced an active learning element into two concrete technology modules by replacing traditional …

A Collagen‐Glycosaminoglycan‐Fibrin Scaffold For Heart Valve Tissue Engineering Applications, Claire Brougham, Stefan Jockenhoevel, Thomas Flanagan, Fergal O'Brien

Conference Papers

The field of heart valve biology and tissue engineering a heart valve continue to expand. The presentatio ns at this meeting reflect the advances made in both areas due to the multi-disciplinary approach taken by many laboratories.

The Impact Of Fuzzy Requirements On Medical Device Software Development, Martin Mchugh, Abder-Rahman Ali, Fergal Mccaffery

Conference papers

Any software development project can experience difficulties with unclear or vague requirements. Unfortunately, this problem can be experience two fold in regulated environments such as the medical device software development industry. In the medical device software development industry, development organisations must contend with vague or “fuzzy” both the customer and regulatory bodies. As new requirements are introduced they can have a knock on effect on other requirements. These requirements should be analysed to determine if they are conflicting, cooperative, mutually exclusive and irrelevant. Only when the requirement is classified can a clear method be established as how to integrate that …

An Analysis Of The Barriers To And Drivers Of Green Public Procurement In Achieving A More Sustainable Construction Industry, Myles Keaveney, Paul Butler

Conference papers

The public sector in Ireland possesses enormous purchasing power which has the strength to affect production and consumption trends in all market sectors. Environmental purchasing tools such as Green Public Procurement (GPP) are seen by many as the solution to greener purchasing decisions in order to obtain and maintain not only a more sustainable construction sector but also a more sustainable economy. The purpose of this research is to determine and examine the key barriers to and drivers of implementing GPP in public procurement departments in order to reduce the effect construction works have on the environment. There was limited …