College of Art and Built Environment

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    Virtualization of knust’s tangible heritage: an Alternative medium to enhance access
    (KNUST, 2020-11) Asiamah, Kwabena Ofori
    Indisputably, museums provide research, educational and recreational benefits to mankind. This has been carried out manually for centuries. But with the emergence, and spread of Information Communication Technologies (ICT’s) this manual services are changing rapidly to virtual services; all because the current generation of students and researchers alike unconsciously resonate towards electronic platforms to access and utilize information. Not very mindful of this, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology attempted to establish a brick and mortar museum between 2002 -2012 to showcase her heritage but to no avail. Meanwhile huge sums of money, technical and managerial resources had gone into it. In order to salvage such investment and to be able to enjoy the benefits inherent in museum services, the idea of a virtual museum was hatched as an alternative medium to achieve the same goals. The study therefore, analyzed museum services in Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), designed, developed and implemented a demonstration virtual museum (Virtual Museum of KNUST– (VIMU KNUST) and finally evaluated the effectiveness and efficiency of VIMU KNUST in enhancing access to KNUST’s tangible Heritage. In advocating for the creation of such a resource, the Sequential Exploratory Design in (mixed method) was employed. Questionnaires, interviews, documentary reviews and observation were used to gather data. Initial assessment results were reinforced by a subsequent survey in order to be sure of the preference of the virtual museum by the University. Additionally, a demonstration virtual museum was designed for evaluation and the evaluated opinions were used to refine it for implementation. Analysis of Data revealed that, apart from access enhancement of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s (KNUST) heritage by the Virtual Museum (VIMU KNUST), it will also provide monetary, visibility and educational benefits. More so, it became evident that the preference of the university community was on a virtual museum where patrons could sit anywhere and access it via the internet. As a sequel to these, the study recommended among others that the University Management Committee prioritizes the creation of a virtual museum as needed by the University community while ensuring that, the resource is well advertised and that the interactivity as well as navigability features of the resource is up to task.
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    Health and safety knowledge transfer and diffusion From the construction industry to the community as a Corporate social responsibility
    (KNUST, 2020-06) Williams, Justice
    Clear evidences have shown that poor state of health and safety cultural practices have existed among Ghanaian citizenry. This has created much debate among government, academics, religious bodies, opinion leaders and the media, thereby calling for immediate action to improve the situation. Reports from some national institutions like The National Statistical Service Report, (2016) and the Ghana National Fire Service Incident Report, (2016) have pointed out the urgent need to improve the state of Health and safety in the country. The reports have acknowledged that ignorance and negligence rank high as causes of most health and safety problems reported in the country. In recent years, awareness of Health and safety in the construction industry has increased. Meanwhile, these construction companies operate in the communities and are socially expected to go beyond the execution of their projects and engage in corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a give back to society. However, contractors complain about several factors that affect their ability to fulfil this expectation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to develop a framework for the transfer of health and safety knowledge and its diffusion into Ghanaian communities by construction companies as a corporate social responsibility. In order to facilitate the understanding of the processes of transferring knowledge from a construction company to the Ghanaian communities, two theories were integrated: innovation diffusion theory and knowledge transfer and conversion theory. Through a questionnaire survey and semistructured face-to-face interviews, both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from road and building contractors of all classes across the country. The data were analysed using chi-square test of independence, one sample t-test, cumulative scale analysis and factor analysis for the quantitative data while thematic analysis was used for the qualitative data. Findings from both the quantitative and qualitative studies confirmed the improvement of health and safety knowledge in the Ghanaian construction industry. The study found that road contractors are better performers in Health and safety than building contractors. Furthermore, the study established that the maturity of health and safety culture in the Ghanaian construction industry is at its first stage of the health and safety culture maturity ladder. The study further found six major challenges confronted by Ghanaian contractors engaged in corporate social responsibility. Topmost among these are the view that Ghanaian contractors have of i v CSR as avoidable expense, the absence of a legal framework to guide CSR implementation and lack of incorporation of CSR into the Vision and Mission Statements of organisations. The study also identified five knowledge transfer enablers and four barriers to knowledge transfer from the Ghanaian construction firms to the communities. Six enablers were also found to be significant in diffusion of knowledge in the Ghanaian communities by contractors with four associated barriers. The findings from the study resulted in the development of stage by stage knowledge transfer and diffusion framework for facilitating transfer of knowledge and its subsequent diffusion from construction companies to the communities as a corporate social responsibility to construction companies. The study contributed immensely to the academia where it tests, extends and integrates innovation diffusion theory and Nonaka and Takeuchi’s knowledge conversion and transfer theory to a new context thereby helping to better explain external knowledge transfer and diffusion from the construction company to the community. Practically, the dynamic factors in integrating innovation decision processes, knowledge transfer and conversion processes, knowledge transfer influencers and complexities and knowledge diffusion influencers and complexities would assist researchers to understand external knowledge transfer from the perspectives of construction companies to the communities. Further, the framework proposed provides a practical step towards actions and activities required to be institutionalised to enhance the transfer process. Therefore, the findings of this study can be used as a practical guide for construction companies to transfer knowledge from the industry to any community in which they find themselves.
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    Construction of a novel convolution based fractional derivative mask for image edge analysis
    (KNUST, 2016-08) Appati Justice Kwame
    This thesis presents a new approach in constructing a more efficient fractional derivative mask for image edge analysis based on the definition and properties of convolution. By the definition of convolution, the generalised Strivastiva-Owa’s operator was rewritten with its order restricted to the Riemann-Liouville fractional derivative. Applying linearity, commutative and derivative properties of convolution to the resultant expression, a new mask with higher efficiency, memory effect and computational equivalence to the classical edge detector is developed as per the experimental results obtained. From the experimental results, it is observed that, the new mask has the potency to find edges in details quite significantly as well as hidden edges which is a deficiency of the classical edge detectors. It can also be used on a region growing algorithm during region segmentation acting as an edge function in its termination process. The experiments conducted on the mask were done using some selected well known synthetic and medical images with realistic geometry. Using visual perception and performing both mean square error and peak signal-to noise ratios analysis, the method demonstrated significant advantages over other known methods
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    Divergence regularization method for solving ill-posed Helmholtz equation
    (KNUST, 2016-06) Barnes,Benedict
    n this work, we introduce Divergence Regularization Method (DRM) for regularizing the Cauchy problem of the Helmholtz equation where the boundary deflection is not equal to zero in Hilbert space H. The DRM incorporates a positive integer scaler which homogenizes inhomogeneous boundary deflection in Cauchy problem of the Helmholtz equation to ensure the existence and uniqueness of solution for the equation. The DRM employs its regualarization term (1 + α2m)em to restore the stability of the regularized Helmholtz equation, and guarantees the uniqueness of solution of Helmholtz equation when it is imposed by Neumann boundary conditions in the upper half-plane. The DRM gives better stability approximation when compared with other methods of regularization for solving Cauchy problem of the Helmholtz equation where the boundary deflection is zero. In the process, we introduce Adaptive Wavelet Spectral Finite Difference (AWSFD) method to obtain the approximated solutions of the regularized Helmholtz equation with regularized Cauchy boundary conditions, regularized Neumann boundary conditions in the upper half-plane, and finally with regularized both Dirichlet and Cauchy boundary conditions where the boundary deflection is equal to zero. The AWSFD method captures the boundary points to obtain approximated solution of Helmholtz equation. This method reduces the Helmholtz equation in two dimensions to one dimension which is then solve spectrally using a suitable wavelet basis. The solutions by AWSFD method confirms the analytic solutions of regularized Helmholtz equation by DRM. The norm of relative error between the analytic solution by DRM and the approximated solution by AWSFD method is minimal. Moreover, we introduce interpolation scheme in the AWSFD method to obtain the approximated solutions of the regularized Helmholtz equation with above boundary conditions.
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    Tensile properties, water absorption and enzymatic degradation studies of polyethylene/starch filled hydroxyapatite blend for orthopaedic applications
    (KNUST, 2016-06) Bernard Owusu Asimeng,
    Linear low-density polyethylene (LLDPE)/starch blends filled with hydroxyapatite have been synthesized by injection moulding. The aim was to control the rate of biodegradation of LLDPE/starch blends for bone screw fixation using hydroxyapatite (HA). Hydroxyapatite contents were varied from 1.0% to 3.0% in intervals of 0.5% by parts and the blend phases were characterised using X-ray diffractometry (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Biodegradation was studied by performing water absorption and enzymatic tests. Water uptakes by the samples were carried out according to ASTM D570 and enzymatic test was carried out on samples in phosphate buffered saline (PBS) containing α-amylase. Tensile properties of the samples before and after enzymatic degradation were determined using Titan and Testometric’s universal testing machine while the surface changes were determined with Meiji Techno optical microscope. Seven different samples were formed for the study, two of the samples; one composed of LLDPE only and the other of 60% LLDPE, 40% starch and 0% hydroxyapatite, were used as controls. The results obtained show that the incorporation of starch granules into the LLDPE reduces the tensile strength but almost doubles the tensile modulus and this was attributed to starch granules expanding the amorphous tie chain of LLDPE. Addition of hydroxyapatite into the blend gave an increase in the tensile strength. The increase in strength with increasing HA content was statistically significant at a p-value of 0.0008 and the improvement slowed the rate at which the blend degraded. Hydroxyapatite is suspected to have affected the intermediate phase of the LLDPE by the hydroxyl group through hydrogen bonding. The water absorption by the blends showed that as hydroxyapatite content increased, the moisture uptake of the blends increased and enzymatic degradation rate increased, giving rise to high percentage loss in tensile strength and v | P a g e modulus. Conversely there was a high gain in percentage elongation. Optical micrographs of the surfaces of the degraded samples showed surface erosion and agglomerates. The samples that showed higher erosion and more agglomerates had the highest water uptake and highest percentage loss in tensile strength and those with less erosion and fewer agglomerates had less water uptake and less percentage loss in tensile strengt