Abdul-Rahim Ahmad | Dalhousie University (original) (raw)

Papers by Abdul-Rahim Ahmad

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2017

An assessment consists of questions addressing the required learning outcomes of a course. If a p... more An assessment consists of questions addressing the required learning outcomes of a course. If a pool of questions of various types is made available then assessment design reduces to selection of questions, one by one, from the pool. Since the number of possible questions for a course may be quite large, and several preferences have to be matched, manual selection of a suitable question is not possible. This paper presents an enhanced implementation of a previously presented idea of a methodology for assessment design with an application to a course of Hydraulics with an initial pool of 1,000 questions. Each question is tagged with a set of attributes. The rules are generated by the expert system itself. The idea of a score of relevance has been introduced. The enhanced implementation displays a set of questions with their relevance scores rather than a single question to let the instructor choose from them. An instance of MS SQL Server at Azure database is used for the web-based cl...

Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation, 2021

This study was conducted to analyze the test instrument used to measure the ability of students i... more This study was conducted to analyze the test instrument used to measure the ability of students in the odd semester final exam in mathematics. Sampling using purposive sampling technique. These students consist of 67 people. The questions given are in the form of multiple choice questions totaling 40 items related to the odd semester final exam material. The data analysis technique used quantitative descriptive analysis. The Rasch model is used to obtain fit items. This analysis was carried out with the help of Winsteps 3.73 software. From the output of the Winsteps program, 35 items were obtained according to the Rasch model with an average value of Outfit MNSQ for persons and items of 1.09 and 1.09, respectively. While the Outfit ZSTD values for person and item are -0,1 and -0,2 respectively. Meanwhile, the instrument reliability expressed in Cronbach's alpha is 0.77.

... Joanna Yarker MSc, PhD, C Psychol Rachel Lewis MSc, C Psychol Goldsmiths, University of Londo... more ... Joanna Yarker MSc, PhD, C Psychol Rachel Lewis MSc, C Psychol Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross SE16 6NW Emma Donaldson-Feilder MA, MSc, C Psychol Affinity Health at Work 20A Park Road New Barnet EN4 9QA ...

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advances in Mobile Computing and Multimedia - MoMM '10, 2010

Learning outcomes of a course (CLOs) and the abilities at the time of graduation referred to as S... more Learning outcomes of a course (CLOs) and the abilities at the time of graduation referred to as Student Outcomes (SOs) are required to be assessed for ABET accreditation. A question in an assessment must target a CLO as well as an SO and must represent a required level of competence. This paper presents the idea of an Expert System (ES) to select a proper question to satisfy ABET accreditation requirements. For ES implementation, seven attributes of a question are considered including the learning outcomes and Bloom's Taxonomy level. A database contains all the data about a course including course content topics, course learning outcomes and the CLO-SO relationship matrix. The knowledge base of the presented ES contains a pool of questions each with tags of the specified attributes. Questions and the attributes represent expert opinions. With implicit rule base the inference engine finds the best possible question satisfying the required attributes. It is shown that the novel id...

Facility layout problem (FLP) is an inherently difficult combinatorial problem for which the ques... more Facility layout problem (FLP) is an inherently difficult combinatorial problem for which the quest for analytical, heuristic, and metaheuristic solution approaches has received significant attention. To this end, genetic algorithm (GA) has been an extensively studied metasearch approach. In this regard, we report a very effective memetic search algorithm (MA), which is a simple but novel variation of traditional GAs. The proposed MA is tested using a range of benchmark problems and results attest to its efficacy. Such effective search algorithms offer a significant promise in the quest of more efficient and effective decision aids for FLP. We conclude with some interesting future research directions.

2021 1st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (CAIDA), 2021

Artificial Intelligence (AI) fundamentally works on the antecedents of business management’s expl... more Artificial Intelligence (AI) fundamentally works on the antecedents of business management’s exploration, systematical incorporation of businesses details, and focus on business extension. The main purpose of this study is to know the morals of services related to AI in order to develop the marketing and businesses. This study shows the opinions of marketers to know the value of Artificial Intelligence. We propose the research model so that study can be seen in one frame. Study indicates the observations of marketers regarding AI which is composed of 12 services of marketing, the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), the 4Cs (Consumer, Cost, Convenience, Communication), and the 4Es (Experience, Exchange, Everyplace, Evangelism). Using Cronbach’s alpha to analyze the data collected from 508 samples. We showed the reliability and validity of the data so that it can be used for further analysis. We proposed the hypothesis which showed the relationship of each marketing service with AI for developing the business. Consequently, results indicates that all the services, except Evangelism, have positive relationship with AI. Additionally, study also showed that AI highly works on the business development. And marketing also shows significant effect on Business development. Study also offers some important implications for business development that further research should be done on different services, area and audience.

The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2017

Improving the performance of supply chains is imperative in the contemporary competitive business... more Improving the performance of supply chains is imperative in the contemporary competitive business environment. Integrated decision models incorporating various important aspects and decision variables into a single model are desired towards this end. An important issue lacking in the supply chain literature relates to the incorporation of such quintessential and omnipresent supply chain practices as repairing or replacing non-conforming items supplied by the vendor. Specifically, this paper proposes two integrated models. The first model incorporates the notion of repairing non-conforming items supplied by the vendor at the site of the buyer/manufacturer. The second model incorporates the notion of replacing non-conforming items supplied by the vendor through local purchases at the site of the buyer/manufacturer. Illustrative examples and sensitivity analyses are provided to demonstrate the model application, efficacy, and managerial insights. Some very interesting and challenging future research directions are also provided.

2012 Ninth Conference on Computer and Robot Vision, 2012

This paper addresses the problem of full body articulated human motion tracking from multi-view v... more This paper addresses the problem of full body articulated human motion tracking from multi-view video data recorded in a laboratory environment. The problem is formulated as a high dimensional (31-dimensional) non-linear optimization problem. In recent years, metaheuristics such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Artificial Immune System (AIS), Firefly Algorithm (FA) are applied to complex non-linear optimization

2014 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2014

ABSTRACT This paper addresses a mixed-integer linear programming model by integrating just-in-tim... more ABSTRACT This paper addresses a mixed-integer linear programming model by integrating just-in-time delivery along with green objectives in a logistics network. Multi-objective genetic algorithm optimization has been applied in order to minimize the delivery lead-time as well as environmental impact of logistic network. Moreover, this evolutionary based algorithm incorporates non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm, so as to allow this heuristic for parallel optimization of the objective functions. Computational results demonstrate efficiency of the proposed model for minimizing the objective functions. Finally, the conclusion and some areas of further research are proposed.

ABSTRACT An highly effective algorithm is presented to solve open space facilities layout plannin... more ABSTRACT An highly effective algorithm is presented to solve open space facilities layout planning problems involving modules with constant aspect ratios. This algorithmm is a novel combination of steepest descent and corner search. Layout solutions produced by the proposed algorithm for well-known test problems were found superior to the published layouts as well as the best layouts produced by commercial layout design software VIP-PLANOPT.

Omega, 2014

It is imperative for contemporary businesses to proactively search for ways of continuously impro... more It is imperative for contemporary businesses to proactively search for ways of continuously improving the performance of their supply chains. Supply chain coordination and integrated decision making across the supply chain among various supply chain partners are frequently employed towards this end. Such supply chain coordination strategies include the use of common cycle time, quantity discounts, optimal lot sizing, quality improvements and inspections, etc. An important issue lacking in the supply chain literature relates to the incorporation of such quintessential and omnipresent human factors as errors in quality inspections and production improvements due to learning. This paper provides a simple but integrated mathematical model for determining an optimal vendor–buyer inventory policy by accounting for quality inspection errors at the buyer’s end and learning in production at the vendor’s end. The objective is to minimize the joint annual cost incurred in the supply chain. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the application and the substance of the proposed model. We discuss how such integrated models can be used for justifying investments in such strategic and operational areas as relationship management, product design, process design, and personnel training. We also provide some very interesting and challenging future research directions.

EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2017

The South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2015

Procedia CIRP, 2015

The goal of this research is to develop a novel multi-objective mathematical model in a green sup... more The goal of this research is to develop a novel multi-objective mathematical model in a green supply chain network consisting of manufacturers, distribution centers and dealers in an automotive manufacture case study. The main objectives considered are: minimizing the costs of production, distribution, holding and shortage cost at dealers as well as minimizing environmental impact of logistic network. In addition to minimizing the costs and environmental impacts particularly the emission of CO 2 , the model can determine the green economic production quantity using Just-In-Time logistics. Furthermore, multi-objective genetic algorithm is applied in order to minimize these two conflicting objectives simultaneously. Finally, the performance of the proposed model is evaluated by comparing the obtained Pareto fronts from MOGA and goal attainment programing solver in Matlab.

2011 International Conference on Semantic Technology and Information Retrieval, 2011

Abstract—This research study was basically aimed at addressing the current lack of Arabic support... more Abstract—This research study was basically aimed at addressing the current lack of Arabic support within majority of semantic web tools technologies and applications. It will also address the on-going problem of the lack of resources for Arabic research or semantic ...

International Journal of Cancer, 2000

Proceedings of the Canadian Engineering Education Association, 2017

An assessment consists of questions addressing the required learning outcomes of a course. If a p... more An assessment consists of questions addressing the required learning outcomes of a course. If a pool of questions of various types is made available then assessment design reduces to selection of questions, one by one, from the pool. Since the number of possible questions for a course may be quite large, and several preferences have to be matched, manual selection of a suitable question is not possible. This paper presents an enhanced implementation of a previously presented idea of a methodology for assessment design with an application to a course of Hydraulics with an initial pool of 1,000 questions. Each question is tagged with a set of attributes. The rules are generated by the expert system itself. The idea of a score of relevance has been introduced. The enhanced implementation displays a set of questions with their relevance scores rather than a single question to let the instructor choose from them. An instance of MS SQL Server at Azure database is used for the web-based cl...

Journal of Educational Research and Evaluation, 2021

This study was conducted to analyze the test instrument used to measure the ability of students i... more This study was conducted to analyze the test instrument used to measure the ability of students in the odd semester final exam in mathematics. Sampling using purposive sampling technique. These students consist of 67 people. The questions given are in the form of multiple choice questions totaling 40 items related to the odd semester final exam material. The data analysis technique used quantitative descriptive analysis. The Rasch model is used to obtain fit items. This analysis was carried out with the help of Winsteps 3.73 software. From the output of the Winsteps program, 35 items were obtained according to the Rasch model with an average value of Outfit MNSQ for persons and items of 1.09 and 1.09, respectively. While the Outfit ZSTD values for person and item are -0,1 and -0,2 respectively. Meanwhile, the instrument reliability expressed in Cronbach's alpha is 0.77.

... Joanna Yarker MSc, PhD, C Psychol Rachel Lewis MSc, C Psychol Goldsmiths, University of Londo... more ... Joanna Yarker MSc, PhD, C Psychol Rachel Lewis MSc, C Psychol Goldsmiths, University of London New Cross SE16 6NW Emma Donaldson-Feilder MA, MSc, C Psychol Affinity Health at Work 20A Park Road New Barnet EN4 9QA ...

Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Advances in Mobile Computing and Multimedia - MoMM '10, 2010

Learning outcomes of a course (CLOs) and the abilities at the time of graduation referred to as S... more Learning outcomes of a course (CLOs) and the abilities at the time of graduation referred to as Student Outcomes (SOs) are required to be assessed for ABET accreditation. A question in an assessment must target a CLO as well as an SO and must represent a required level of competence. This paper presents the idea of an Expert System (ES) to select a proper question to satisfy ABET accreditation requirements. For ES implementation, seven attributes of a question are considered including the learning outcomes and Bloom's Taxonomy level. A database contains all the data about a course including course content topics, course learning outcomes and the CLO-SO relationship matrix. The knowledge base of the presented ES contains a pool of questions each with tags of the specified attributes. Questions and the attributes represent expert opinions. With implicit rule base the inference engine finds the best possible question satisfying the required attributes. It is shown that the novel id...

Facility layout problem (FLP) is an inherently difficult combinatorial problem for which the ques... more Facility layout problem (FLP) is an inherently difficult combinatorial problem for which the quest for analytical, heuristic, and metaheuristic solution approaches has received significant attention. To this end, genetic algorithm (GA) has been an extensively studied metasearch approach. In this regard, we report a very effective memetic search algorithm (MA), which is a simple but novel variation of traditional GAs. The proposed MA is tested using a range of benchmark problems and results attest to its efficacy. Such effective search algorithms offer a significant promise in the quest of more efficient and effective decision aids for FLP. We conclude with some interesting future research directions.

2021 1st International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Data Analytics (CAIDA), 2021

Artificial Intelligence (AI) fundamentally works on the antecedents of business management’s expl... more Artificial Intelligence (AI) fundamentally works on the antecedents of business management’s exploration, systematical incorporation of businesses details, and focus on business extension. The main purpose of this study is to know the morals of services related to AI in order to develop the marketing and businesses. This study shows the opinions of marketers to know the value of Artificial Intelligence. We propose the research model so that study can be seen in one frame. Study indicates the observations of marketers regarding AI which is composed of 12 services of marketing, the 4Ps (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), the 4Cs (Consumer, Cost, Convenience, Communication), and the 4Es (Experience, Exchange, Everyplace, Evangelism). Using Cronbach’s alpha to analyze the data collected from 508 samples. We showed the reliability and validity of the data so that it can be used for further analysis. We proposed the hypothesis which showed the relationship of each marketing service with AI for developing the business. Consequently, results indicates that all the services, except Evangelism, have positive relationship with AI. Additionally, study also showed that AI highly works on the business development. And marketing also shows significant effect on Business development. Study also offers some important implications for business development that further research should be done on different services, area and audience.

The International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology, 2017

Improving the performance of supply chains is imperative in the contemporary competitive business... more Improving the performance of supply chains is imperative in the contemporary competitive business environment. Integrated decision models incorporating various important aspects and decision variables into a single model are desired towards this end. An important issue lacking in the supply chain literature relates to the incorporation of such quintessential and omnipresent supply chain practices as repairing or replacing non-conforming items supplied by the vendor. Specifically, this paper proposes two integrated models. The first model incorporates the notion of repairing non-conforming items supplied by the vendor at the site of the buyer/manufacturer. The second model incorporates the notion of replacing non-conforming items supplied by the vendor through local purchases at the site of the buyer/manufacturer. Illustrative examples and sensitivity analyses are provided to demonstrate the model application, efficacy, and managerial insights. Some very interesting and challenging future research directions are also provided.

2012 Ninth Conference on Computer and Robot Vision, 2012

This paper addresses the problem of full body articulated human motion tracking from multi-view v... more This paper addresses the problem of full body articulated human motion tracking from multi-view video data recorded in a laboratory environment. The problem is formulated as a high dimensional (31-dimensional) non-linear optimization problem. In recent years, metaheuristics such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Ant Colony Optimization (ACO), Artificial Immune System (AIS), Firefly Algorithm (FA) are applied to complex non-linear optimization

2014 IEEE International Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management, 2014

ABSTRACT This paper addresses a mixed-integer linear programming model by integrating just-in-tim... more ABSTRACT This paper addresses a mixed-integer linear programming model by integrating just-in-time delivery along with green objectives in a logistics network. Multi-objective genetic algorithm optimization has been applied in order to minimize the delivery lead-time as well as environmental impact of logistic network. Moreover, this evolutionary based algorithm incorporates non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm, so as to allow this heuristic for parallel optimization of the objective functions. Computational results demonstrate efficiency of the proposed model for minimizing the objective functions. Finally, the conclusion and some areas of further research are proposed.

ABSTRACT An highly effective algorithm is presented to solve open space facilities layout plannin... more ABSTRACT An highly effective algorithm is presented to solve open space facilities layout planning problems involving modules with constant aspect ratios. This algorithmm is a novel combination of steepest descent and corner search. Layout solutions produced by the proposed algorithm for well-known test problems were found superior to the published layouts as well as the best layouts produced by commercial layout design software VIP-PLANOPT.

Omega, 2014

It is imperative for contemporary businesses to proactively search for ways of continuously impro... more It is imperative for contemporary businesses to proactively search for ways of continuously improving the performance of their supply chains. Supply chain coordination and integrated decision making across the supply chain among various supply chain partners are frequently employed towards this end. Such supply chain coordination strategies include the use of common cycle time, quantity discounts, optimal lot sizing, quality improvements and inspections, etc. An important issue lacking in the supply chain literature relates to the incorporation of such quintessential and omnipresent human factors as errors in quality inspections and production improvements due to learning. This paper provides a simple but integrated mathematical model for determining an optimal vendor–buyer inventory policy by accounting for quality inspection errors at the buyer’s end and learning in production at the vendor’s end. The objective is to minimize the joint annual cost incurred in the supply chain. A numerical example is presented to illustrate the application and the substance of the proposed model. We discuss how such integrated models can be used for justifying investments in such strategic and operational areas as relationship management, product design, process design, and personnel training. We also provide some very interesting and challenging future research directions.

EURASIA Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 2017

The South African Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2015

Procedia CIRP, 2015

The goal of this research is to develop a novel multi-objective mathematical model in a green sup... more The goal of this research is to develop a novel multi-objective mathematical model in a green supply chain network consisting of manufacturers, distribution centers and dealers in an automotive manufacture case study. The main objectives considered are: minimizing the costs of production, distribution, holding and shortage cost at dealers as well as minimizing environmental impact of logistic network. In addition to minimizing the costs and environmental impacts particularly the emission of CO 2 , the model can determine the green economic production quantity using Just-In-Time logistics. Furthermore, multi-objective genetic algorithm is applied in order to minimize these two conflicting objectives simultaneously. Finally, the performance of the proposed model is evaluated by comparing the obtained Pareto fronts from MOGA and goal attainment programing solver in Matlab.

2011 International Conference on Semantic Technology and Information Retrieval, 2011

Abstract—This research study was basically aimed at addressing the current lack of Arabic support... more Abstract—This research study was basically aimed at addressing the current lack of Arabic support within majority of semantic web tools technologies and applications. It will also address the on-going problem of the lack of resources for Arabic research or semantic ...

International Journal of Cancer, 2000

AIRCC Publishing Corporation, 2012

The Semantic Web was designed to represent the enormous data that is existing on the World Wide W... more The Semantic Web was designed to represent the enormous data that is existing on the World Wide Web in a machine readable format. The research shows the long period of time that was spent on the Emails for communication and information exchange. Adding the semantics to the existing Email systems could not only provide for the valuable usage of time and resources, but also refreshes the meaning of Email communication. The presented research work examines the ontology extraction process from the Email
systems adopting scalable pattern rules that is based on the extracted techniques. The proposed architecture is designed to handle the unstructured Emails and the ontologies that are extracted from the Email which is divided into four main components as follows: the Ontology Learning Component, the Management Component, the Semantic Email Component and the Client Side Plugin.