Table of contents

Preface

24 & 25 November 2016, Kings Green Hotel Melaka, Malaysia.

The International Engineering Research and Innovation Symposium (IRIS) is organized by researchers from various disciplines. It aims to provide a better platform for communication and discussion among academics, researchers, industrial players as well as post-graduate students. It also aims to provide a better platform for sharing knowledge and ideas, networking, presenting research findings and exploring other potential benefits that might be contributed for a better future.

Our first conference was organized in September 2015 at Everly Hotel Putrajaya, and it was a very successful event with four satellite conferences. To continue our successful story, this year IRIS 2016 will be comprised of five satellite conferences with broader coverage of engineering areas:

• International Conference on Energy and Combustion (ICEC2016)

• International Conference on Advances in Mechanics (ICAM2016)

• International Conference on Industrial and Design Engineering (InCIDE2016)

• International Conference on Sustainable and Green Technology (SiGHT2016)

• International Conference on Electronics Engineering and Computing (ICEEC2016)

We received overwhelming responses from researchers, and 115 papers were finalized to be included in the IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering.

We would like to thank everyone associated in managing and participating in the conference including UTHM Holdings Sdn. Bhd., Professor Dr. Yusri Yusof as our inspiring keynote speakers, committee members, and scientific reviewers and not to forget, all presenters and participants. We do hope the connection which was built through this conference could lead to further and better cooperation between us.

All papers published in this volume of IOP Conference Series: Materials Science and Engineering have been peer reviewed through processes administered by the proceedings Editors. Reviews were conducted by expert referees to the professional and scientific standards expected of a proceedings journal published by IOP Publishing.

The possibility of errors in the process of offer price determination could be enormous, so it can affect the possibility of project underestimate cost which can impact and reduce the profit if being implementing. Government Equipment/Service Procurement Policy Institution (LKPP) assesses that the practices of cheaper price in the government equipment/service procurement are still highly found and can be potential to decrease the project quality. This study aimed to analyze the most dominant factors happened in underestimate cost offer practice, to analyze the relationship of underestimate cost offer risk factors to road construction project quality in Aceh Province and to analyze the most potential factors of underestimate cost offer risk affecting road construction project quality in Aceh Province. Road construction projects observed the projects which have been implemented in Aceh Province since 2013 - 2015. This study conducted by interviewing Government Budget Authority (KPA), and distributing the questionnaire to the road construction contractors with the qualification of K1, K2, K3, M1, M2 and B1. Based on the data from Construction Service Development Institution (LPJK) of Aceh Province on 2016, the populations obtained are 2,717 constructors. By using Slovin Equation, the research samples obtained are 97 contractors. The most dominant factors in underestimate cost offer risk of the road construction projects in Aceh Province is Contingency Cost Factor which the mean is 4.374.

Modern manufacturing industries nowadays encounter with the challenges to provide a product variety in their production at a cheaper cost. This situation requires for a system that flexible with cost competent such as Mixed-Model Assembly Line. This paper developed a mathematical model for Mixed-Model Assembly Line Balancing Problem (MMALBP). In addition to the existing works that consider minimize cycle time, workstation and product rate variation, this paper also consider the resources constraint in the problem modelling. Based on the finding, the modelling results achieved by using computational method were in line with the manual calculation for the evaluated objective functions. Hence, it provided an evidence to verify the developed mathematical model for MMALBP. Implications of the results and future research directions were also presented in this paper.

The inventory model had been utilized since the early 1900s. The implementation of the inventory management model is generally to ensure that an organisation is able to fulfil customer's demand at the lowest possible cost to improve profitability. This paper focuses on reviewing previous published papers regarding inventory control model mainly in the food and beverage processing industry. The author discusses four inventory models, which are the make-to-stock (MTS), make-to-order (MTO), economic order quantity (EOQ), and hybrid of MTS-MTO models. The issues raised by the researchers on the above techniques as well as the elements need to be considered upon selection have been discussed in this paper. The main objective of the study is to highlight the important role played by these inventory control models in the food and beverage processing industry.

The instability in today's market and the ever increasing and emerging demands for mass customized and hybrid products by customers, are driving companies and decision makers to seek for cost effective and time efficient improvements in their product development process. Design concept evaluation which is the end of conceptual design is one of the most critical decision points in product development. It relates to the final success of product development, because poor criteria assessment in design concept evaluation can rarely compensated at the later stages. This has led to real pressure for the adaptation of new developmental architecture and operational parameters to remain competitive in the market. In this paper, a new integrated design concept evaluation based on fuzzy-technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solution (Fuzzy-TOPSIS) is presented, and it also attempts to incorporate sustainability practices in assessing the criteria. Prior to Fuzzy-TOPSIS, a new scale of "Weighting criteria" for survey process is developed to quantify the evaluation criteria. This method will help engineers to improve the effectiveness and objectivity of the sustainable product development. Case example from industry is presented to demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed methodology. The result of the example shows that the new integrated method provides an alternative to existing methods of design concept evaluation.

Two-sided assembly line balancing (2S-ALB) problems is practically useful in improving the production of large-sized high-volume products. Many published papers have proposed various approaches to balance this well-known ALB problem. However, little attention is given in formulating the 2S-ALB problems. In this paper, 2S-ALB is modelled with four different objective functions comprising minimization of workstations, mated- workstation, idle time and resource constraints. In different with existing model, this paper also considers resource constraint with a mathematical modelling formulation in solving the 2S- ALB problems. The modelling procedures are present for each objective functions with a simple 2S-ALB example problem. Then, the anticipated performance solution is obtained from the test problem.

Unnatural process variation (UPV) is vital in quality problem of a metalstamping process. It is a major contributor to a poor quality product. The sources of UPV usually found from special causes. Recently, there is still debated among researchers in finding an effective technique for on-line monitoring-diagnosis the sources of UPV. Control charts pattern recognition (CCPR) is the most investigated technique. The existing CCPR schemes were mainly developed using raw data-based artificial neural network (ANN) recognizer, whereby the process samples were mainly generated artificially using mathematical equations. This is because the real process samples were commonly confidential or not economically available. In this research, the statistical features - ANN recognizer was utilized as the control chart pattern recognizer, whereby process sample was taken directly from an actual manufacturing process. Based on dynamic data training, the proposed recognizer has resulted in better monitoring-diagnosis performance (Normal = 100%, Unnatural = 100%) compared to the raw data- ANN (Normal = 66.67%, Unnatural = 26.97%).

The EU directive 2001/85/EC is an official European text which describes the specifications for "single deck class II and III vehicles" required to be approved by the regulation UN/ECE no.66 (R66). To prevent the catastrophic consequences by occupant during an accident, the Malaysian government has reinforced the same regulation upon superstructure construction. This paper discusses collapse mechanism analysis of a superstructure vehicle using a Crash D nonlinear analysis computer program based on this regulation. The analysis starts by hand calculation to define the required energy absorption by the chosen structure. Simple calculations were then performed to define the weakest collapse mechanism after undesirable collapse modes are eliminated. There are few factors highlighted in this work to pass the regulation. Using the selected cross section, Crash D simulation showed a good result. Generally, the deformation is linearly correlates to the energy absorption for the structure with low stiffness. Failure of critical members such as vertical lower side wall must be avoided to sustain safety of the passenger compartment and prevent from severe and fatal injuries to the trapped occupant.

Computerized monitoring-diagnosis is an efficient technique to identify the source of unnatural variation (UV) in manufacturing process. In this study, a pattern recognition scheme (PRS) for monitoring-diagnosis the UVs was developed based on control chart pattern recognition technique. This PRS integrates the multivariate exponentially weighted moving average (MEWMA) control chart and artificial neural network (ANN) recognizer to perform two-stage monitoring-diagnosis. The first stage monitoring was performed using the MEWMA statistics, whereas the second stage monitoring-diagnosis was performed using an ANN. The PRS was designed based on bivariate process mean shifts between 0.75σ and 3.00σ, with cross correlation between ρ=0.1 and 0.9. The performance of the proposed PRS has been validated in quality control of hard disk drive component manufacturing. The validation proved that it is efficient in rapidly detecting UV and accurately classify the source of UV patterns. In a nutshell, the PRS will aid in realizing automated decision making system in manufacturing industry.

Bicycle frames have to bear variety of loads and it is needed to ensure the frame can withstand dynamic loads to move. This paper focusing on dynamic study for bicycle frame structure with a purpose to avoid the problem regarding loads on the structure and to ensure the structure is safe when multiple loads are applied on it. The main objectives of dynamic study are to find the modal properties using two method; finite element analysis (FEA) and experimental modal analysis (EMA). The correlation between two studies will be obtained using percentage error. Firstly, 3D model of mountain bike frame structure has been draw using computer-aided design (CAD) software and normal mode analysis using MSC Nastran Patran was executed for numerical method meanwhile modal testing using impact hammer was performed for experimental counterpart. From the correlation result, it show that percentage error between FEA and EMA were below 10% due to noise, imperfect experiment setup during perform EMA and imperfect modeling of mountain bike frame structure in CAD software. Small percentage error differences makes both of the method can be applied to obtain the dynamic characteristic of structure. It is essential to determine whether the structure is safe or not. In conclusion, model updating method is required to reduce more percentage error between two results.

Ground building pillars is to be used as ground rod. The pillars are design, fabricated, and formulated with new ground fillers. The additives will be used from recycle waste materials mainly from the palm oil plant process. Micro scale building pillars will be fabricated and install in the test ground at all of the location. Earth tester meter are used to measure and collect the data of the soil resistivity when the research is conducted. In collecting these data, 3-terminal methods are used to carry the measurements. This experiment will be conducted for 30 weeks and regular measurements at the test ground copper grids will be conducted to measure the ground electrode resistance. The study will mainly base on IEC 62503-3. The used of reinforcing rods and mixture of recycle additives could produce a better grounding system that are suitable and can be used in all kind of soil condition and large industries.

Both TQM and Innovation are the competitive key factors that intensely embedded into organizational products, service and process. In order to achieve higher business performance, organizations are needed to adopt both quality and innovation. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to identify the relationship between TQM and business performance with a mediator's effect of Innovation. After detailed review the extensive literature, a new TQM model is presented. The proposed model integrates the TQM practices and different type of innovation attempt to develop a theoretical knowledge to help academician and manufacturer to understand the relationship that design quality in product and service and engaging innovation in the activities. To this end, the SEM-PLS (Structural Equation Modelling - Partial Least Squares Structural) is used to identify and evaluate the relationship among TQM, Innovation and business performance in establishing a new TQM model.

Every customer preference is different but yet important. The global market is shifting rapidly, organizations are needed to continuously identify new opportunity to obtain competitive advantages. Literature suggested that manufacturing companies are needed to differentiate themselves through emphasize on quality and continuous improvement in product and services as a crucial part to secure and success in the future. The Total Quality Management (TQM) practices has developed a strong bearing on growth and competitiveness in market. Therefore, a proper continuous improvement (Kaizen) practice is needed to eliminate waste and value added in production to remain competitiveness and retained the potential customer. However, based on the previous study it had indicated an inconsistent result between TQM and BP. Besides that, researcher also less emphasized on mediator in previous work. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to recommend the relationship between TQM and business performance with a mediator's effect of Kaizen. This proposed model attempt to create knowledge to both academician and company players to acquire a better understanding among the TQM and Kaizen practices. Consequently, the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques is applying to identify and evaluate the relationship among TQM, Kaizen, and business performance in developing a new TQM model.

This study aims to investigate the influence of apparent viscosity induced by spinneret geometry and extrusion rate on morphology of Kaolin/PESf hollow fiber membranes. Different extrusion rates at two different rheology properties were introduced on a straight and conical spinneret resulting in various shear rates. The hollow fiber membrane precursors were spun using the wet spinning method to decouple the effect of shear and elongation stress due to gravity stretched drawing. The morphology of the spun hollow fiber was observed under Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and the overall porosity were measured using mercury intrusion porosimeter. Shear rate and apparent viscosity at the tip of the spinneret annulus were simulated using a computational fluid dynamics package; solidworks floworks. Simulation data shows that extrusion rate increment increases the shear rate at the spinneret wall which in turn reduce the apparent viscosity; consistent with a non Newtonian shear thinning fluid behavior. Thus, the outer finger-like region grows as the shear rate increases. Also, overall porosity of hollow fiber membrane decreases with extrusion rate increment which is caused by better molecular orientation; resulting in denser hollow fiber membrane. Thin outer finger-like region is achieved at low shear experience of 109.55 s-1 via a straight spinneret. Increasing the extrusion rate; thus shear rate will cause outer finger-like region growth which is not desirable in a separation process.

Simple Structural Surfaces (SSS) method is offered as a means of organizing the process for rationalizing the basic vehicle body structure load paths. The application of this simplified approach is highly beneficial in the design development of modern passenger car structure especially during the conceptual stage. In Malaysia, however, there is no real physical model of SSS available to gain considerable insight and understanding into the function of each major subassembly in the whole vehicle structures. Based on this motivation, a physical model of SSS for sedan model with the corresponding model vehicle tests of bending and torsion is proposed in this work. The proposed approach is relatively easy to understand as compared to Finite Element Method (FEM). The results show that the proposed vehicle model test is capable to show that satisfactory load paths can give a sufficient structural stiffness within the vehicle structure. It is clearly observed that the global bending stiffness reduce significantly when more panels are removed from a complete SSS model. It is identified that parcel shelf is an important subassembly to sustain bending load. The results also match with the theoretical hypothesis, as the stiffness of the structure in an open section condition is shown weak when subjected to torsion load compared to bending load. The proposed approach can potentially be integrated with FEM to speed up the design process of automotive vehicle.

Dynamic probing is a continuous soil investigation technique, which is one of the simplest soil penetration test. It basically consist of repeatedly driving a metal tipped probe into the ground using a drop weight of fixed mass and travel. Testing was carried out continuously from ground level to the final penetration depth. Once the soil investigation work done, it is difficult to pull out the probe rod from the ground, due to strong soil structure grip against probe cone and prevent the probe rod out from the ground. Thus, in this case, a tool named Extracting Probe was created to assist in the process of retracting the probe rod from the ground. In addition, Extracting Probe also can reduce the time to extract the probe rod from the ground compare with the conventional method. At the same time, it also can reduce manpower cost because only one worker involve to handle this tool compare with conventional method used two or more workers. From experiment that have been done we found that the time difference between conventional tools and extracting probe is significant, average time difference is 155 minutes. In addition the extracting probe can reduce manpower usage, and also labour cost for operating the tool. With all these advantages makes this tool has the potential to be marketed.

In this study, the main objective is to determine the percentage difference of part weight between experimental and simulation work. The effect of process parameters on weight of plastic part is also investigated. The process parameters involved were mould temperature, melt temperature, injection time and cooling time. Autodesk Simulation Moldflow software was used to run the simulation of the plastic part. Taguchi method was selected as Design of Experiment to conduct the experiment. Then, the simulation result was validated with the experimental result. It was found that the minimum and maximum percentage of differential of part weight between simulation and experimental work are 0.35 % and 1.43 % respectively. In addition, the most significant parameter that affected part weight is the mould temperature, followed by melt temperature, injection time and cooling time.

The daily routine of bus traffic controller which involves high mental processes would have a direct impact on the level of workload. To date, the level of workload on the bus traffic controllers in Malaysia is relatively unknown. Excessive workload on bus traffic controllers would affect the control and efficiency of the system. This paper served to study the workload on bus traffic controllers and justify the needs to conduct further detailed research on this field. The objectives of this research are to identify the level of workload on the intrastate bus traffic controllers. Based on the results, recommendations will be proposed for improvements and future studies. The level of workload for the bus traffic controllers is quantified using questionnaire adapted from NASA TLX. Interview sessions were conducted for validation of workload. Sixteen respondents were involved and it was found that the average level of workload based on NASA TLX was 6.91. It was found that workload is not affected by gender and marital status. This study also showed that the level of workload and working experience of bus traffic controllers has a strong positive linear relationship. This study would serve as a guidance and reference related to this field. Since this study is a preliminary investigation, further detailed studies could be conducted to obtain a better comprehension regarding the bus traffic controllers.

Public transportation acts as social mobility and caters the daily needs of the society for passengers to travel from one place to another. This is true for a country like Malaysia where international trade has been growing significantly over the past few decades. Task analysis assessment was conducted with the consideration of cognitive ergonomic view towards problem related to human factors. Conducting research regarding the task analysis on bus traffic controllers had allowed a better understanding regarding the nature of work and the overall monitoring activities of the bus services. This paper served to study the task analysis assessment on intrastate bus traffic controllers and the objectives of this study include to conduct task analysis assessment on the bus traffic controllers. Task analysis assessment for the bus traffic controllers was developed via Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA). There are a total of five subsidiary tasks on level one and only two were able to be further broken down in level two. Development of HTA allowed a better understanding regarding the work and this could further ease the evaluation of the tasks conducted by the bus traffic controllers. Thus, human error could be reduced for the safety of all passengers and increase the overall efficiency of the system. Besides, it could assist in improving the operation of the bus traffic controllers by modelling or synthesizing the existing tasks if necessary.

Nowadays, synthetic fibres for an example glass fibres is frequently used to wrap the metallic tubes in order to increase their load-bearing capacity. Due to environmental considerations and non-biodegradable behaviour, natural fibres or materials are increasingly used to replace synthetic fibres. The use of synthetic fibres can be minimized by combining them with natural fibres. Based on the literature survey, combining both fibres (synthetic and natural) for crushing applications are relatively new and therefore the main work of this paper is to present the crushing performances of hybridized fibres wrapped around the aluminium tubes when subjected to quasi-static crushing forces. Glass fibres are then combined with yarn kenaf fibres according to these volume fractions: 0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%. The hybridized fibres are wrapped around the tubes twice using different orientations [0^o/0^o], [15°/-15°], [30^o/-30^o] and [45^o/-45^o] included empty tubes before they are immersed into polyester resin bath. The composite tubes are then quasi-statically compressed using a constant cross-head displacement of 10mm/min. The force-displacement curves for each tube conditions are recorded automatically and analysed. The relation between hybridized fibbers and fibre orientations with crashworthiness parameters are investigated and discussed associating with their crushing mechanisms.

This paper presents the role of fibre orientations on the woven-type kenaf fibre reinforced composites. According to literature survey, lack of information regarding to the fracture toughness of woven kenaf fibre reinforced composites. Fracture toughness tests were performed using ASTM D5045. Four fibre orientations were used such as 0/15/0/-15/0, 0/30/0/-30/0, 0/45/0/-45/0 and 0/90/0/-90/0 and on the other hand virgin polyester and unidirectional fibre reinforced composites were also used for comparisons. Based on the experimental works, woven-typed composites produced lower fracture toughness compared with the unidirectional fiber composite. Fracture toughness obtained from different fibre orientations composites are almost identical however 0/30/0/-30/0 and 0/90/0/-90/0 produced higher toughness relative with others. Fracture mechanisms revealed that as expected the fibres aligned along the stress direction capable to sustain better mechanical deformation and therefore producing higher fracture toughness.

The development of lamina intraply composite is a novel approach that can be adopted to address the challenges of balance mechanical properties of polymer composite. This research will focuses on the effects of weave designs on the mechanical behavior of a single ply or also known as lamina intraply composite. The six (6) specimens of lamina intraply composites were made by kenaf fiber as a reinforcement and unsaturated polyester resin as a matrix in various weave designs which were plain, twill, satin, basket, mock leno and leno weave. The vacuum infusion technique was adopted due to advantages over hand lay-up. It was found that the plain, twill and satin weave exhibited better mechanical properties on tensile strength. The fiber content of the specimen was 40% and the result of the resin content of the specimen was 60% due to the higher permeability of natural fiber.

The topic of natural fiber is one of the most active areas in thermoset composite research today. This paper will focuses on the effect of weave designs on the mechanical behaviour of lamina intraply hybrid composites. Twelve specimens were used and they were made of kenaf fibre and glass fibre as a reinforcement and unsaturated polyester resin as a matrix in various weave designs which were plain, twill, satin, basket, mock leno, and leno weave. Vacuum infusion technique was used due to its superior advantages over hand lay-up. The specimens were produced in two types which were kenaf fibre in warp direction interlace with glass fibre in weft direction (WK-WG) and glass fibre in warp direction interlace with kenaf fibre in weft direction (WG-WK). Various weave designs were found to affect the tensile properties. Glass fibre in warp direction has a greater effect on tensile strength compared to kenaf fibre in warp direction. Mock leno weave exhibited better mechanical properties for WK-WG and WG-WK, about 54.74 MPa and 99.46 MPa respectively.

The constitutive models adopted to represent dynamic plastic behaviour are of great importance in the current design and analysis of forming processes. Many have studied this topic, leading to results in various technologies involving analytical, experimental and computational methods. Despite of this current status, it is generally agreed that there is still a need for improved constitutive models. There are still many issues relating to algorithm implementation of the proposed constitutive model in the selected code to represent the proposed formulation. Using this motivation, the implementation of a new constitutive model into the LLNL-DYNA3D code to predict the deformation behaviour of commercial aluminium alloys is discussed concisely in this paper. The paper initially explains the background and the basic structure of the LLNL-DYNA3D code. This is followed by a discussion on the constitutive models that have been chosen as the starting point for this work. The initial stage of this implementation work is then discussed in order to allow all the required material data and the deformation gradient tensor F to be read and initialised for the main analysis. Later, the key section of this implementation is discussed, which mainly relates to subroutine f3dm93 including equation of state (EOS) implementation. The implementation of the elastic-plastic part with isotropic plastic hardening, which establishes the relationship between stress and strain with respect to the isoclinic configuration Ω̄_i in the new deviatoric plane, is then presented before the implemented algorithm is validated against Plate Impact test data of the Aluminium Alloy 7010. A good agreement is obtained in each test.

Flights of dragonflies, various insects and birds have been a subject of active research that may offer insight towards enhanced aerodynamic performance at low Reynolds numbers. To that end, we mimick the flapping biomechanics of a dragonfly by two thin flat airfoils plunging in tandem with each other. In the present study, we aim to investigate the effect of difference in flapping phase between fore and hind wings towards their aerodynamic performances. We computationally simulate incompressible, viscous, laminar flow around two thin flat airfoils that are purely plunging, at a Strouhal number of 0.25 and Reynolds number of 6500, using a flow solver in an Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian framework. Kinematics of both fore and hind wing flapping followed a similar sinusoidal function but with relative phase angle difference to each other, that were varied between -50° to +50° including two cases were phase difference is 0° (i.e. in-phase fore-hind wing flapping) and +90° (i.e. fore wing lags hind wing by 90°). Numerical results indicate that maximum lift and drag forces for each fore and hind wings occur at phase angle of -40° and that power efficiency of tandem wings are better at phase angles when hind wing leads the fore wing, with maximum power efficiency occurring at a fore-hind wing phase difference of +30°. The complex fore-hind wing vortex interaction indicate likely benefit on the hind wing as it interacts with the fore wing at different phase angles.

Carburizing process is a method to disperse carbon into the steel surface in order to enhance its mechanical properties such as hardness and wear resistance. This paper study investigates the effect of carburizing temperature to the carbon dispersion layer in stainless steel. The standard AISI 304 stainless steel was carburized in two different temperatures which were 900°C and 950°C. The effect of carbon dispersion layers were observed and the results indicated that the increasing value of the average dispersion layer from 1.30 mm to 2.74 mm thickness was found to be related to increment of carburizing holding temperature . The increment of carbon thickness layer also resulted in improvement of hardness and tensile strength of carburized stainless steel.

The effects of boronizing temperatures on the wear and hardness properties of austenitic stainless steel were investigated in this study. The samples were prepared in accordance to standard samples preparation for wear and hardness test. Pack boronizing were conducted using EKabor®1 powder medium at two different temperatures which are 850°C and 950°C. The wear resistance properties were evaluated though pin on disk test and the surface characterization was analyzed through scanning electron microscopy (SEM), observation. Vickers microhardness tester was performed to obtain the hardness of the samples. The results indicated that there are presences of FeB and Fe2B phases on both samples, but thicker FeB phase was produced at Po-950 samples. This resulted in reduction of abrasion wear properties but major improvement of the hardness properties of boronized stainless steel.

This study investigates the effect of corrosion behaviour of stainless steel before and after carburizing process. All samples were prepared based on the testing specification requirement and the chemical compositions of the stainless steel were obtained using spectrometer tester. Samples were then undergoing pack carburizing process by adding 50g of carbon powder as the carburizing agent. Then the samples were heated at 900 °C and 950 °C for 8 hours. To obtain corrosion rate, weight loss test was conducted and the samples were immersed in three different solutions which were distilled water, hydrochloric acid and sodium chloride. Hardness and density test were employed to measure the physical properties of the ASTM 304 stainless steel. The microstructures of all samples were observed using Olympus BX41M optical microscope. The resulting phases after each heat treatment were tested by x-ray diffraction (XRD) tester. The percentage of corrosion values, determined from this technique, showed fairly good agreement. Carburizing process produced a carburizing layer improved mechanical properties and corrosion resistance abilities

Aerial crop spraying, also known as crop dusting, is made for aerial application of pesticides or fertilizer. An agricultural aircraft which is converted from an aircraft has been built to combine with the aerial crop spraying for the purpose. In recent years, many studies on the aerial crop spraying were conducted because aerial application is the most economical, large and rapid treatment for the crops. The main objective of this research is to study the airflow of aerial crop spraying system using Computational Fluid Dynamics. This paper is focus on the effect of aircraft speed and nozzle orientation on the distribution of spray droplet at a certain height. Successful and accurate of CFD simulation will improve the quality of spray during the real situation and reduce the spray drift. The spray characteristics and efficiency are determined from the calculated results of CFD. Turbulence Model (k-ɛ Model) is used for the airflow in the fluid domain to achieve a more accurate simulation. Furthermore, spray simulation is done by setting the Flat-fan Atomizer Model of Discrete Phase Model (DPM) at the nozzle exit. The interaction of spray from each flat-fan atomizer can also be observed from the simulation. The evaluation of this study is validation and grid dependency study using field data from industry.

The new Kuala Lumpur Monorail Fleet Expansion Project (KLMFEP) uses semiactive technology in its suspension system. It is recognized that the suspension system influences the ride quality. Thus, among the way to further improve the ride quality is by fine- tuning the semi-active suspension system on the new KL Monorail. The semi-active suspension for the monorail specifically in terms of improving ride quality could be exploited further. Hence a simulation model which will act as a platform to test the design of a complete suspension system particularly to investigate the ride comfort performance is required. MSC Adams software was considered as the tool to develop the simulation platform, where all parameters and data are represented by mathematical equations; whereas the new KL Monorail being the reference model. In the simulation, the model went through step disturbance on the guideway for stability and ride comfort analysis. The model has shown positive results where the monorail is in stable condition as an outcome from stability analysis. The model also scores a Rating 1 classification in ISO 2631 Ride Comfort performance which is very comfortable as an overall outcome from ride comfort analysis. The model is also adjustable, flexibile and understandable by the engineers within the field for the purpose of further development.

In this research, the effect of fibre content, fibre size and alkali treatment to the impact resistance of the composite material have been investigated, The composite material employs oil palm fibre as the reinforcement material whereas the matrix used for the composite materials are polypropylene. The Oil Palm fibres are prepared for two conditions: alkali treated fibres and untreated fibres. The fibre sizes are varied in three sizes: 5mm, 7mm and 10mm. During the composite material preparation, the fibre contents also have been varied into 3 different percentages: 5%, 7% and 10%. The statistical approach is used to optimise the variation of specimen determined by using Taguchi method. The results were analyzed also by the Taguchi method and shows that the Oil Palm fibre content is significantly affect the impact resistance of the polymer matrix composite. However, the fibre size is moderately affecting the impact resistance, whereas the fibre treatment is insignificant to the impact resistance of the oil palm fibre reinforced polymer matrix composite.

Algae oil methyl esters produced from algae oil were blended with diesel at various volumetric percentages to evaluate the variations in the fuel properties. Microalgae biodiesel production has received much interest in an effort for sustainable development as the microalgae seem to be an attractive way to produce the biodiesel due to their ability to accumulate lipids and their very high actual photosynthetic yields. Correlations between fuel properties, including the calorific heat, density, kinematic viscosity, and oxidation stability of the Algae oil-diesel blends, and the blending ratio of the algae biodiesel have been established. As a result, low blending ratio of the Algae oil with diesel was recommended up to 2vol % in comparison with other type of biodiesel-diesel blends. The objective of this research is to investigate effect of biodiesel blending ratio on ignition delay, combustion process and emission for different type of biodiesel. The combustion tests of the Algae-Derived biodiesel blends were performed in a Rapid Compression Machine (RCM). The combustion tests were carried out at injection pressure of 130 MPa and ambient temperature were varied between 750 K and 1100 K. The result from the experiment is compared with Palm-Oil biodiesel which are varied in biodiesel percentage from 5vol% to 15vol% and jatropha biodiesel. Higher ignition delay period were clearly observed with higher blending ratio. It seems that increasing blending ratio exhibits relatively weakens in fuel ignitibility and therefore prolongs the ignition delay of algae biodiesel. A2 had the lowest ignition delay period when compared with J2, B5, B10 and B15 due to lower density that present in A2 molecules.The concentration of carbon dioxide and nitrogen monoxide in the exhaust gas increased with higher blending ratio while the concentration of carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon decreased.

Biodiesels are attractive renewable energy sources, particularly for industrial boiler and burner operators. However, biodiesels produce higher nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions compared with diesel. Although water-emulsified fuels can lower NOx emissions by reducing flame temperature, its influence on atomization needs to be investigated further. This study investigates the effects of water on spray formation in air-assisted atomizers. The Schlieren method was used to capture the spray images in terms of tip penetration, spray angle, and spray area. The experiment used palm oil biodiesel at different blending ratios (B5, B10, and B15) and water contents (0vol%-15vol%). Results show that water content in the fuel increases the spray penetration and area but reduces the spray angle because of the changes in fuel properties. Therefore, biodiesel-water application is applicable to burner systems.

The present work encompasses the impact of temperature (450, 500, 550, 600 °C) on the properties of pyrolysis oil and on other product yield for the co-pyrolysis of Polypropylene (PP) plastics and rice straw. Co-pyrolysis of PP plastic and rice straw were conducted in a fixed-bed drop type pyrolyzer under an inert condition to attain maximum oil yield. Physically, the pyrolysis oil is dark-brown in colour with free flowing and has a strong acrid smell. Copyrolysis between these typically obtained in maximum pyrolysis oil yields up to 69% by ratio 1:1 at a maximum temperature of 550 °C. From the maximum yield of pyrolysis oil, characterization of pyrolysis product and effect of biomass type of the composition were evaluated. Pyrolysis oil contains a high water content of 66.137 wt.%. Furfural, 2- methylnaphthalene, tetrahydrofuran (THF), toluene and acetaldehyde were the major organic compounds found in pyrolysis oil of rice straw mixed with PP. Bio-char collected from co-pyrolysis of rice straw mixed with PP plastic has high calorific value of 21.190 kJ/g and also carbon content with 59.02 wt.% and could contribute to high heating value. The non-condensable gases consist of hydrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane as the major gas components.

In the temperature field, a small particle will move towards the lower temperature side. This phenomenon is called thermophoresis, which influences the movement of soot particles in exhaust gas from combustors. It is important to understand the behavior of soot particles in the combustion field for emission control. The main problem for measuring the thermophoretic velocity is the natural convection. The velocity of such natural convection is usually comparable to the thermophoretic velocity and cannot be measured directly. To avoid this problem, experiments should be conducted under microgravity conditions. . In the present work, device has been developed for conducting experiments repeatedly under a microgravity environment in a very short period time, i.e. 0.3 s, by means of the free-fall method, to accumulate data of the thermophoretic velocity. Experiments have been conducted to measure the movement of particles in the microgravity environment with and without temperature gradient. For the former experiment, it is seen that the particles has almost no movement in the horizontal and the vertical directions. Results confirmed that there is negligible effect of blowing and gravitational on the particles movement. For the later one, experiments have been done in a surrounding of a pure gas of argon. The thermophoretic velocity is measured at 313±2 K for various pressure conditions from 20 kPa to 100 kPa. The thermophoretic velocity for each particle is individually measured, and the mean value and its 95% confidence interval for each experimental condition are statistically obtained. Result from experiments are compared with the theory and satisfactorily agreement is found for tested gas.

In this study, sulfonated graphene oxide (SGO) nanocomposite were produced as potential nanofiller to improve the properties of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) for fuel cell applications. The GO is produced by modified Hummers's method and the as-synthesized GO was used to prepare SGO with three distinctive precursors, namely 3- mercaptomethoxysilane (MPTMS), sulfanilic acid (SA) and butane sultone (BS). The SGO samples were characterized with several physical characterization techniques (XRD, FTIR, SEM-EDX and XPS) to provide the insights into the morphology; the state of homogenization; the crystallography and the functional groups. The experimental result indicated that the sulfonic acid group has been successfully incorporated with GO and can be used as filler in PEM.

The electricity consumption nowadays has increased due to the increasing development of portable electronic devices. The development of low cost micro gas turbine engine, which is designed for the purposes of new electrical generation Micro turbines are a relatively new distributed generation technology being used for stationary energy generation applications. They are a type of combustion turbine that produces both heat and electricity on a relatively small scaled.. This research are focusing of developing a low-cost micro gas turbine engine based on automotive turbocharger and to evaluation the performance of the developed micro gas turbine. The test rig engine basically was constructed using a Nissan 45V3 automotive turbocharger, containing compressor and turbine assemblies on a common shaft. The operating performance of developed micro gas turbine was analyzed experimentally with the increment of 5000 RPM on the compressor speed. The speed of the compressor was limited at 70000 RPM and only 1000 degree Celsius at maximum were allowed to operate the system in order to avoid any failure on the turbocharger bearing and the other components. Performance parameters such as inlet temperature, compressor temperature, exhaust gas temperature, and fuel and air flow rates were measured. The data was collected electronically by 74972A data acquisition and evaluated manually by calculation. From the independent test shows the result of the system, The speed of the LP turbine can be reached up to 35000 RPM and produced 18.5kw of mechanical power.

Presented herein are the effects of thermal hysteresis analyses of the MEMS packaged capacitive pressure sensor (CPS). The MEMS CPS was employed on Si-on-3C-SiC wafer that was performed using the hot wall low-pressure chemical vapour deposition (LPCVD) reactors at the Queensland Micro and Nanotechnology Center (QMNC), Griffith University and fabricated using the bulk-micromachining process. The MEMS CPS was operated at an extreme temperature up to 500°C and high external pressure at 5.0 MPa. The thermal hysteresis phenomenon that causes the deflection, strain and stress on the 3C-SiC diaphragm spontaneously influence the MEMS CPS performances. The differences of temperature, hysteresis, and repeatability test were presented to demonstrate the functionality of the MEMS packaged CPS. As expected, the output hysteresis has a low hysteresis (less than 0.05%) which has the hardness greater than the traditional silicon. By utilizing this low hysteresis, it was revealed that the MEMS packaged CPS has high repeatability and stability of the sensor.

The effect of alcohol addition has been experimentally in vestgated in the current study by blending it with diesel and palm based biodiesel on the combustion of a compression ignition engine. The experiment was run by single-cylinder, naturally aspirated, direct injection, four-stroke diesel engine. Based on the pressure-crank angle data collected from the pressure transducer and crank angle encoder, the combustion analysis such as incylinder pressure, incylinder temperature, energy release rate, cumulative energy release and ignition delay are analysed. In this comparative study, the effects of alcohols namely butanol BU20 (20% butanol addition on the commercially available diesel biodiesel emulsion) is compared and evaluated with pure diesel (D100). The results revealed that the the ignition delay for BU20 is longer as compared to that of D100 in all engine speeds and loads compared. Besides, the incylinder temperatures were rudecued with the butanol addition. The energy release rate for BU20 was higher than that for diesel, whereas the peak positions concerning the energy release rate for BU20 was discovered at 2400 rpm. Therefore addition of butanol will have positive role on the NOx emissions and stability of the engine due to its higher latent heat of vaporization.

Wind power is one of the important renewable energy sources. Currently, many researches are focusing on improving the aerodynamic performance of wind turbine blades through simulations and wind tunnel testing. In the present study, the aerodynamic performance of the perforated Eqwin blade (shell type blade) is investigated by using numerical simulation. Three types of slots namely circular, horizontal rectangular and vertical rectangular were evaluated. It was found that the optimum angle of attack for a perforated shell type blade was 12° with maximum C_l/C_d value of 6.420. In general, for all the perforated blade cases, C_l/C_d tended to decrease as the slot size increased except for the circular slot with 5 mm diameter. This was due to the disturbance of the airflow in lower side region which passed through the bigger slot size. Among the modified slots; the circular slot with diameter of 5 mm would be the best slot configuration that can be considered for blade fabrication. The C_l/C_d obtained was 6.46 which is about 5% more than the value of the reference blade. Moreover, the introduced slot would also reduce the overall weight of the blade by 1.3%.

This paper presents the investigation of the effect of high injection pressure on the ignition delay period and emission characteristics. Few experiments were conducted in a rapid compression machine (RCM). Four types of fuels were tested inside a RCM which are standard diesel (SD), Algae biodiesel (A2), Palm Oil biodiesel (B5, B10, and B15) and Jatropha biodiesel (J5, J10, J15). The experiments were conducted at high injection pressure of 130 MPa. The ambient temperature of constant volume chamber at the time of fuel injection was set at 850 K. The results indicate that the combined factors of specific of ambient temperature and higher injection pressure produces shorter ignition delay time. B5 has the shortest ignition delay with 1.5 ms. Biodiesel has the shorter ignition delay which is prolonged with increasing biodiesel content in the blends. In terms of emissions, Carbon dioxide (CO₂), Carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbon (HC) and smoke emissions decreased with all biodiesel-diesel blends. However, oxides of nitrogen (NOx) emission of the biodiesel was relatively higher than those of the diesel under all test conditions. In addition, the increase of blends in terms of biodiesel ratio was found to be significant in enhancing the combustion process.

This study explores the movement of an object placed in an air tunnel. In expectation this exploration leads to obtaining a suitable shape of the object and the flow parameters, the object moves along the air tunnel has a particular trajectory. This study used the body of the main object is a cube in which a rectangular wing of aspect ratio 2 is set in the middle of body object. The object can be used as a carrier to transport goods from one place to another through an air tunnel. Three types wing-cube configurations, they are namely wing- cube configuration with airfoil sections (1) FX63-137, (2) NACA 4412, and (3) NACA 0012 are evaluated by using Fluent's software. The flow problems are treated as an internal flow problem with the assumption that the pressure ratio between the inlet and outlet of the air tunnel is 700 N/m². The flow is treated as turbulent flow with k — as its turbulence modelling. In this respect Fluent uses a SIMPLE scheme for solving their governing equation of fluid motion. Their computational results on the way the object moves along the air tunnel, it had been the carrier which uses airfoil NACA 0012 has better performance than the carrier that uses airfoil FX 63-137 or airfoil NACA 4412. This research work gives contribution in understanding the movement of the carrier in the form wing-cube configuration inside an air tunnel.

This review covers different ways of transporting goods through tubes and tunnel systems and summarizes their technologies from a mechanical engineering point of view as well as provides a synopsis of the works over the past three decades which were carried out all over the world. The review explored their implementation possibilities in order to meet the high demand of fast and reliable transportation system, especially in big cities. Such of the new system may provide and offer many environmental and safety benefits, such as reducing traffic jams, accidents, air pollution. It had been found that many research and developments concerning the transport technologies have been accomplished. Basically, there are two transportation systems that can be adapted for transporting goods, people, and variously freights through a tube or tunnel, namely pneumatics air tube base, and magnetic levitation approach. The progress of these approaches is discussed in this paper.

There are many technologies about exhaust emissions reduction for wide variety of spark ignition (SI) engine have been considered as the improvement throughout the combustion process. The stricter on legislation of emission and demands of lower fuel consumption needs to be priority in order to satisfy the demand of emission quality. Besides, alternative fuel such as methanol-gasoline blends is used as working fluid in this study due to its higher octane number and self-sustain concept which capable to contribute positive effect to the combustion process. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of methanol-gasoline fuel with different blending ratio and variant ambient pressures on flame development and emission for gasoline engine. An experimental study is carried towards to the flame development of methanol-gasoline fuel in a constant volume chamber. Schlieren optical visualization technique is a visual process that used when high sensitivity is required to photograph the flow of fluids of varying density used for captured the combustion images in the constant volume chamber and analysed through image processing technique. Apart from that, the result showed combustion burn rate increased when the percentage of methanol content in gasoline increased. Thus, high percentage of methanol-gasoline blends gave greater flame development area. Moreover, the emissions of CO, NOX and HC are performed a reduction when the percentage of methanol content in gasoline is increased. Contrarily, the emission of Carbon dioxide, CO₂ is increased due to the combustion process is enhanced.

Gasoline spark ignition system in cars remains one of the main consumption of fuel in the world nowadays. During combustion process, spark plug is one important key features in a gasoline engine. The incompatibility of spark plug gap width and the fuel used causing backfire and knocking in the combustion engine. Thus, the spark plug gap was studied with focussing in controlling the combustion process to improve the performance of the engine. The main purpose of this research is to investigate the effect of spark plug air gap on flame development. The parameters studied in this research include spark plug air gap width (1.0 mm, 1.2 mm, 1.4 mm, 1.6 mm and 1.8 mm), injection pressure (0.3 MPa, 0.4 MPa, 0.5 MPa and 0.6 MPa) and flame characteristics such as flame front area and the flame intensity. The flame front area of different spark plug gap and injection pressure were investigated through Schlieren photography method. The Schlieren images taken were analysed with the time changes. The experiment results proved that the increase of spark plug gap width will led to better flame development in shorter time while increased the chance of misfire.

The government of Libya aims to position Libya as one of the most sustainable countries in the region, with the hope that this success will create an inspiring example for surrounding countries. To achieve this, an indicator based assessment framework needs to be developed to assess neighborhood sustainability in Libya as it is important in achieving sustainable urban development. The aim of this paper is to identify a significant set of indicators to assess the sustainable development in Tripoli, Libya. Firstly, a number of indicators for sustainable development from various studies were collected into a preliminary list. The list of indicators was then assessed and filtered by experts in the industry, thus resulting in 50 assessment indicators that are relevant to the sustainable development in Tripoli, Libya. Based on measurement issues, 50 indicators were then grouped into 30 main indices or themes that reflect either sustainable economic, environmental, social, or institutional indicators. Therefore, the final sustainable neighborhood assessment framework will hopefully be used as assessment framework or guidelines in strategic planning for the development of sustainable neighborhood in Tripoli, Libya.

Sustainability assessment frameworks are becoming increasingly important to assist in the transition towards a sustainable urban environment. The urban environment is an effective system and requires regular monitoring and evaluation through a set of relevant indicators. The indicator provides information about the state of the environment through the production value of quantity. The indicator creates sustainability assessment requests to be considered on all spatial scales to specify efficient information of urban environment sustainability in Tripoli-Libya. Detailed data is necessary to assess environmental modification in the urban environment on a local scale and ease the transfer of this information to national and global stages. This paper proposes a set of key indicators to monitor urban environmental sustainability developments of Libyan residential neighborhoods. The proposed environmental indicator framework measures the sustainability performance of an urban environment through 13 sub-categories consisting of 21 indicators. This paper also explains the theoretical foundations for the selection of all indicators with reference to previous studies.

Sustainability assessment is recognized as a powerful and important tool to measure the performance of sustainability in a company or industry. There are various initiatives exists on tools for sustainable development. However, most of the sustainability measurement tools emphasize on environmental, economy and governance aspects. Some of the companies also implement different of sustainability indicators to evaluate the performance of economy, social and environmental separately. In this research, a new methodology for assessing sustainability in the context of Malaysian industry has been developed using integration of Green Project Management (GPM) P5 Integration Matrix, new scale of "Weighting criteria" and Rough-Grey Analysis. This systematic assessment will help the engineers or project managers measure the critical element of sustainability compliance.

The aim of the present work is to investigate the capability of microalgae, known as Botryococcus sp. for wastewater phycoremediation and potential biodiesel production. The vertical closed photobioreactors (PBR) were employed and supplemented with domestic wastewater (DW) and food industry wastewater (FW) at different batch of study. The cultivation was conducted under natural outdoor condition for 12 days. The results revealed that the removal of pollutant and nutrients presence in both wastewaters with constantly decrease proportionate to the increase in cultivation time. The chemical oxygen demand (COD), total phosphorus (TP) and total organic carbon (TOC) were successfully removed up to 84.9%, 69.3% and 93.3%, respectively in DW while 96.1%, 35.5% and 87.2%, respectively in FW. The result on FT-IR analysis of microalgae oil was shown comparable with conventional palm oil based biodiesel in term of IR spectra. This study suggests that Botryococcus sp. has tremendous potential in pollutants removal and biodiesel production for renewable energy development.

Illegal dumping of solid waste not only affecting the environment but also social life of communities, hence authorities should have an effective system to cater this problem. Malaysia is experiencing extensive physical developments and this has led to an increase of construction waste illegal dumping. However, due to the lack of proper data collection, the actual figure for construction waste illegal dumping in Malaysia are not available. This paper presents a mapping of construction waste illegal dumping in Kluang district, Johor using Geographic Information System (GIS) software. Information of the dumped waste such as coordinate, photos, types of material and quantity of waste were gathered manually through site observation for three months period. For quantifying the dumped waste, two methods were used which are the first method is based on shape of the waste (pyramids or squares) while the second method is based weighing approach. All information regarding the waste was assigned to the GIS for the mapping process. Results indicated a total of 12 types of construction waste which are concrete, tiles, wood, gypsum board, mixed construction waste, brick and concrete, bricks, sand, iron, glass, pavement and tiles, and concrete at 64 points locations of illegal dumping on construction waste in Kluang. These wastes were accounted to an estimated volume of 427.2636 m³. Hopefully, this established map will assist Kluang authority to improve their solid waste management system in Kluang.

Transportation is one of the important elements in solid waste management. Effective transportation by selecting the shortest route can save time and cost in handling the waste. Thus, this paper presents a case study on deciding shortest waste transportation route from residential area to sanitary landfill in Kluang district handled by Solid Waste and Public Cleansing Management Corporation (SWCorp). The shortest transportation distance was determined using ArcGIS software on the basis of coordinate tracking, data collection for network analysis and fuel consumption estimation. The case study focuses on municipal solid waste collection routes from residential area in Kluang district to Ladang CEP 1 sanitary landfill and Seelong sanitary landfill. The study found that SWCorp could save up to 18% and 7.3% of fuel consumption per day by following the effective routes for transporting solid waste to Ladang CEP 1 sanitary landfill and to Seelong Sanitary landfill respectively. The findings could assist SWCorp saving management cost and also keep environment cleaner.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the Aspergillus niger (A. niger) growth on substrates after incorporates with different compounds of antifungals which is normally used in food industry. The antifungals named as potassium sorbate (PS), calcium benzoate (CB) and zinc salicylate (ZS) were applied on concrete substrate covered with different wall finishing such as acrylic paint (AP), glycerol based paint (GBP), thin wallpaper (THIN) and thick wallpaper (THICK). The concrete substrate were inoculated with spore suspension, incubated at selected temperature (30^oC) and relative humidity (90%)in plant growth chamber. The observations were done from the Day 3 until Day 27. The results showed that the growth of the A. niger for concrete treated by PS for AP, GBP, THIN, and THICK were 64%, 32%, 11% and 100%, respectively. Meanwhile for CB, the growth of A. niger on AP, GBP, THIN, and THICK were 100%, 12%, 41%, and 13%, respectively. Similarly, treated concrete by ZS revealed that the growth of A. niger on the same substrate cover were 33%, 47%, 40%, and 39%, respectively. The results obtained in this study provide a valuable knowledge on the abilities of antifungals to remediate A. niger that inoculated on the concrete substrate. Consequently, this study proved that the PS covering with THIN more efficiency compares CB and ZS to prevent A. niger growth.

Most research conducted on slope failures can broadly be attributed to the convergence of three factors, i.e. rainfall, steepness of slope, and soil geological profile. The mechanism of the failures is mainly due to the loss of matric suction of soils by rainwater. When rainwater infiltrates into the slopes, it will start to saturate the soil, i.e., reduce the matric suction. A good understanding of landslide mechanisms and the characteristics of unsaturated soil and rock in tropical areas is crucial in landslide hazard formulation. Most of the slope failures in unsaturated tropical residual soil in Malaysia are mainly due to infiltration, especially during intense and prolonged rainfall, which reduces the soil matric suction and hence decreases the stability of the slope. Therefore, the aim of this research is to determine the matric suction for barren soil and to model an unsaturated slope with natural rainfall to evaluate the effects of matric suction on rainfall intensity. A field test was carried out using the Watermark Soil Moisture Sensor to determine the matric suction. The sensor was connected to a program called SpecWare 9 Basic which also used Data Logging Rain gauge Watermark 1120 to measure the intensity and duration of rainfall. This study was conducted at the Research Centre for Soft Soil which is a new Research and Development (R & D) initiative by Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Parit Raja. Field observation showed that the highest daily suction was recorded during noon while the lowest suction was obtained at night and early morning. The highest matric suction for loose condition was 31.0 kPa while the highest matric suction for compacted condition was 32.4 kPa. The results implied that the field suction variation was not only governed by the rainfall, but also the cyclic evaporation process. The findings clearly indicated that the changes in soil suction distribution patterns occurred due to different weather conditions.

Waste tires pose significant health and environmental concerns if not recycled or discarded properly. At the same time, natural sand is becoming scarcer and costlier due to its non-availability. Waste tires as fine aggregate can be an economical and sustainable alternative to the natural sand. Recent years, the interest on recycling waste tires into civil engineering applications by the researchers has increased. In this research, the chemical and physical properties of the tires rubber ash and the natural sand have been analysed. The densities of the rubber ash are lower than the natural sand. Rubber ash had finer particle size compared to the natural sand. Almost all chemical in the natural sand had in rubber ash with the additional sulphur trioxide and zinc oxide in the rubber ash, made the rubber ash better than natural sand. Rubber ash seems to be a suitable material to use in concrete as sand replacement.

Solidification/Stabilization (S/S) treatment was used in this study to immobilise copper (Cu) in contaminated river sediment. The sediment was artificially contaminated by spiking the solution of Copper sulphate (CuSO₄.5H₂O) to so as to get an average of 1000 ppm target concentration. Portland composite cement and Rice husk ash (RHA) were used as S/S agents. The amount of cement added to the mixture was l0% and while rice husk ash at the rate of 5%, l0%, 15% and 20% to the total dry weight of the mixture and then was cured for 7, 14 and 28 days. The unconfined compressive strength test (UCS) and toxicity characteristic leaching procedure (TCLP) were used to evaluate the effectiveness of the S/S treatments. From the results obtained it indicates that the partial replacement of cement with RHA in the binder system has increased the strength and the leachate concentration of copper was less in the treated sediment samples if compared with the untreated ones.

Discarded scrap tyres have become one of the major environmental problems nowadays. There has been increasing public worry about the mining of natural resources in recent years. In order to minimize the consumption of natural resources, rubber ash has been postulated as a potential material for partial replacement of sand in concrete materials especially for applications which are subjected to impact and vibration such as road and bridge construction. Thus, it contributes to the development of the construction industry in a sustainable way. This paper mainly emphasizes on the use of rubber ash from waste tyres in cement mortar. 100mm cubic specimens were produced by adding rubber ash volume ratios of 0%, 3%, 5% and 7% as sand replacement in M30 quality cement mortar. A compressive stress test and a density test were conducted at the end of 7, 14, and 28 days. The result shows that 5% is the optimum value for sand replacement in the cement mortar. Therefore, rubber ash is acceptable to be used as sand replacement.

The objective of this study is to determine the physical and chemical characteristics of Coal Bottom Ash (CBA) obtained from Tanjung Bin Power Plant Station and compare them with the characteristics of natural river sand (as a replacement of fine aggregates). Bottom ash is the by-product of coal combustion during the electricity generating process. However, excess bottom ash production due to the high production of electricity in Malaysia has caused several environmental problems. Therefore, several tests have been conducted in order to determine the physical and chemical properties of bottom ash such as specific gravity, density, particle size distribution, Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM) and X- Ray Fluorescence (XRF) in the attempt to produce sustainable material from waste. The results indicated that the natural fine aggregate and coal bottom ash have very different physical and chemical properties. Bottom ash was classified as Class C ash. The porous structure, angular and rough texture of bottom ash affected its specific gravity and particle density. From the tests, it was found that bottom ash is recommended to be used in concrete as a replacement for fine aggregates.

Silicon carbide nanomaterials especially silicon carbide nanowhiskers (SiCNWs) has been known for its excellent properties such as high thermal stability, good chemical inertness and excellent electronic properties. In this paper, a green synthesis of SiCNWs by microwave heating of blends of palm kernel shell (PKS) and silica was presented. The effect of ratio of PKS and silica on the synthesis process was also studied and reported. Blends of PKS and silica in different ratio were mixed homogenously in ultrasonic bath for 2 hours using ethanol as liquid medium. The blends were then dried on hotplate to remove the ethanol and compressed into pellets form.. Synthesis was conducted in 2.45 GHz multimode cavity at 1400 °C for 40 minutes. X-ray diffraction revealed that β-SiC was detected for samples synthesized from blends with ratio of PKS to silica of 5:1 and 7:1. FESEM images also show that SiCNWs with the average diameter of 70 nm were successfully formed from blends with ratio of PKS to silica of 5:1 and 7:1. A vapour-liquid-solid (VLS) mechanism was proposed to explain the growth of SiCNWs from blends of PKS and silica.

Shear strength of soil is required to determine the soil stability and design the foundations. Peat is known as a soil with complex natural formations which also contributes problems to the researchers, developers, engineers and contractors in constructions and infrastructures. Most researchers conducted experiment and investigation of shear strength on peat using shear box test and simple shear test, but only a few had discovered the behavior of peat using triaxial consolidated undrained test. The aim of this paper is to determine the undrained shear strength properties of reconstituted peat and undisturbed peat of Parit Nipah, Johor for comparison purposes. All the reconstituted peat samples were formed with the size that passed opening sieve 3.35 mm and preconsolidation pressure at 100 kPa. The result of undrained shear strength of reconstituted peat was 21kPa for cohesion with the angle of friction, 41° compare to the undisturbed peat with cohesion 10 kPa and angle of friction, 16°. The undrained shear strength properties result obtained shows that the reconstituted peat has higher strength than undisturbed peat. For relationship deviator stress-strain, σ^d_max and excess pore pressure, Δu, it shows that both of undisturbed and reconstituted gradually increased when σ' increased, but at the end of the test, the values are slightly dropped. The physical properties of undisturbed and reconstituted peat were also investigated to correlate with the undrained shear strength results.

Coconut Shell Powder were obtained from coconut shell that had been discarded and grinded until it become in a form of powder. This study were conducted to determine the chemical and physical properties of coconut shell powder to be used as a filler inside concrete. In order to do that, an experimental setup of X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), Particle Size Distribution, Scanning Electron Microscopic (SEM), Density, and Specific Gravity were conducted. The coconut shell powder consist mostly carbon (C) and potassium oxide (K₂O). The presents of silicon dioxide (SiO₂) is crucial in order to be mix with concrete. The size of the coconut shell is ranging from 600μm and below. From all the testing, it is show that the coconut shell powder can be use in mixing with concrete as a filler.

Butanol is receiving huge interest in the area of alternative fuel in the compression ignition (CI) engines. In this work, butanol is used as an oxygenated additive to diesel and biodiesel blend fuels to evaluate the performance and emission of CI engine. The commercially available pure diesel fuel (D100) and 80% commercially available diesel- biodiesel bled (5% biodiesel and 95% by volume) and 20% butanol (BU20) fuels were investigated to evaluate the effects of the fuel blends on the performance and exhaust emissions of a single cylinder diesel engine. The experiment was conducted at fixed load of 75% with the five engine speeds (from 1200-2400 rpm with an interval of 300 rpm). The engine performance parameters such as power, torque, fuel consumption and thermal efficiency and exhaust gas emissions such as nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and exhaust gas temperature were analysed from the experimental data. The results shows that although butanol addition has caused a slight reduction in power and torque values (11.1% and 3.5%, respectively), the emission values of the engine were improved. With respect to the exhaust gas temperature, CO and NOx emissions, of BU20 is reported to have reduction by 17.7%, 20% and 3%, respectively than the B100. Therefore, butanol can be used as a fuel additive to diesel-biodiesel blends.

Palm kernel shell filled recycled high density polyethylene (rHDPE/PKS) biocomposites were produced in order to reduce the waste product from palm oil production. The biocomposites at various filler loading were prepared by melt mixing at 180 °C. Ultra Plast TP0' was selected as coupling agent in rHDPE/PKS biocomposites, in order to modify the properties of biocomposites. It was found that the higher filler loading had reduced the melt flow index (MFI) values. However, with the increasing of testing temperature from 180 to 210 °C, the MFI values of the biocomposites were increased. The presence of Ultra Plast TP01was capable to increase MFI values of the biocomposites. The thermal studies showed that thermal stability of the biocomposites was affected by PKS loading and coupling agent. Though the thermal stability of biocomposites was reduced by PKS, it can be improved by Ultra Plast TP01. Hence, Ultra Plast TP01 can serve as an effective coupling agent for rHDPE/PKS.

This paper presents the homogeneity characterisation of MIM feedstock consisting Stainless steel alloy (316 L) powder mix with binder 60wt% of waste polystyrene and 40wt% palm kernel oil. It is one of a critical step that must be conducted in MIM process in order to have a feedstock that is homogeneous and moldable. Water atomised Stainless Steel powder was mixed with the newly developed binder system in a Brabender Plastograph EC rotary mixer. Several tests were performed to assess the homogeneity of the feedstock that was produced at 60 vol % powder loading . The 60 vol.% was chosen because the Critical Powder Volume Concentration (CPVC) of the Powder was found to be 64.8 vol.%. The tests conducted were feedstock density, binder burn-out, rheology and SEM morphology observation. Rheological results exhibited pseudoplastic or shear thinning flow behavior, where its viscosity decreased with increasing shear rate. The feedstock viscosity also decreased with increasing temperature and was found to be suitable for molding. From all the tests conducted, it was found that the feedstock shows good homogeneity and suitable for subsequent processes in MIM.

The influence of the leaching temperatures on the solvent debinding process of SS316L stainless steel alloy compact has been investigated. Solvent debinding process of injection moulded SS316L feedstock was conducted to eliminate palm kernel oil by using n- heptane solution at various temperatures of 40, 50 and 60°C and at different time duration up to 9 hours. The samples were prepared by injection molding a mixture of stainless steel SS316L alloy with waste polystyrene polymer and palm kernel oil at powder loading 60% vol. The weight loss percentages of palm kernel were calculated and the pore structure evolution was analyzed by scanning electron micrograph to observe the pores created after solvent extraction process. Results show that a complete diffusion of the palm kernel molecules out of the compact part best at 60°C within 6 hours of extraction time

Sustainable construction is a rapidly increasing research area. Investigators of all backgrounds are using industrial and agro wastes to replace Portland cement in concrete to reduce greenhouse emissions and the corresponding decline in general health. Many types of wastes have been used as cement replacements in concrete including: fly ash, slag and rice husk ash in addition to others. This study investigates the possibility of producing a sustainable approach to construction through the partial replacement of concrete using biofillers. This will be achieved by studying the physical and mechanical properties of two widely available biological wastes in Malaysia; eggshell and palm oil fuel ash (POFA). The mechanical properties tests that were studied and compared are the compression, tensile and flexural tests.

Concrete is widely used in the world as building and construction material. However, the constituent materials used in concrete are high cost when associated with the global economic recession. This exploratory aspires to have an alternative source of replacing natural aggregate with plastic wastes. An investigation of the Modified Artificial Polyethylene Aggregate (MAPEA) as natural aggregate replacement in concrete through an experimental work was conducted in this study. The MAPEA was created to improve the bonding ability of Artificial Polyethylene Aggregate (APEA) with the cement paste. The concrete was mixed with 3%, 6%, 9%, and 12% of APEA and MAPEA for 14 and 28 curing days, respectively. Furthermore, the compressive strength test was conducted to find out the optimum composition of MAPEA in concrete and compared to the APEA concrete. Besides, this study observed the influence and behaviour of MAPEA in concrete. Therefore, the Scanning Electron Microscopy was applied to observe the microstructure of MAPEA and APEA concrete. The results showed the use of high composition of an artificial aggregate resulted inferior strength on the concrete and 3% MAPEA in the concrete mix was highest compressive strength than other content. The modification of APEA (MAPEA) concrete increased its strength due to its surface roughness. However, the interfacial zone cracking was still found and decreased the strength of MAPEA concrete especially when it was age 28 days.

Investigation of Rice Husk Ash (RHA) thoroughly under controlled burning is regular issue to obtain result to produce the amorphous silica that has high pozzolanic reactivity characteristic. This paper offered an observation about characteristic of ground and un-ground of un-controlled burning temperature RHA that were taken from rice millings in Muar, Johor Malaysia. Such tests as X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Particle Size Analysis and Specific Area Surface, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR), and Scanning Electron microscope (SEM) were conducted in this investigation to carry out the characteristic of RHA samples. The results show that the RHA was consist approximately 89.90% of silica and the RHA possessed the amorphous particle were dominant than its crystalline part. This proves that the RHA has a big potential as a pozzolanic material considering the silica content and porous structure. In addition, particle size analysis decides whether the pozzolanic reactivity can be increased by grinding process.

In light of the importance of crude oil to the world's economy, it is not surprising that economists have devoted great efforts towards developing methods to forecast price and volatility levels. Crude oil is an important energy commodity to mankind. Several causes have made crude oil prices to be volatile such as economic, political and social. Hence, forecasting the crude oil prices is essential to avoid unforeseen circumstances towards economic activity. In this study, daily crude oil prices data was obtained from WTI dated 2^nd January to 29^th May 2015. We used Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and Forward-Backward Algorithm to forecasting the crude oil prices. In this study, the analyses were done using Maple software. Based on the study, we concluded that model (0 3 0) is able to produce accurate forecast based on a description of history patterns in crude oil prices.

This paper uses System Dynamics (SD) simulation to investigate the concept green logistics in terms of energy efficiency in automotive industry. The car manufacturing industry is considered to be one of the highest energy consuming industries. An efficient decision making model is proposed that capture the impacts of strategic decisions on energy consumption and environmental sustainability. The sources of energy considered in this research are electricity and fuel; which are the two main types of energy sources used in a typical vehicle assembly plant. The model depicts the performance measurement for process- specific energy measures of painting, welding, and assembling processes. SD is the chosen simulation method and the main green logistics issues considered are Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) emission and energy utilization. The model will assist decision makers acquire an in-depth understanding of relationship between high level planning and low level operation activities on production, environmental impacts and costs associated. The results of the SD model signify the existence of positive trade-offs between green practices of energy efficiency and the reduction of CO₂ emission.

This paper presented a Discrete Event Simulation (DES) model for investigating and improving energy efficiency in vehicle assembly line. The car manufacturing industry is one of the highest energy consuming industries. Using Rockwell Arena DES package; a detailed model was constructed for an actual vehicle assembly plant. The sources of energy considered in this research are electricity and fuel; which are the two main types of energy sources used in a typical vehicle assembly plant. The model depicts the performance measurement for process- specific energy measures of painting, welding, and assembling processes. Sound energy efficiency model within this industry has two-fold advantage: reducing CO₂ emission and cost reduction associated with fuel and electricity consumption. The paper starts with an overview of challenges in energy consumption within the facilities of automotive assembly line and highlights the parameters for energy efficiency. The results of the simulation model indicated improvements for energy saving objectives and reduced costs.

The quickly developing worldwide halal in business sector has given a remarkable window of chance, which empowers Malaysia to the renowned halal centre in worldwide (known as Halal-hubs). Malaysia also has proactively taken a lead in halal activities, which is presently considered as the benchmark for a halal framework worldwide. Malaysia also set up the Halal Industry Development Corporation (HDC) which driving a wide range of halal activities since the demand of halal food has increased significantly which is very crucial for a Muslim in ensuring its authenticity and integrity. Even in parallel to this developments, many studies has been conducted because there are many issues still occurs in the food industry. The issue of consumer awareness and understanding the halal principles, mixing of halal and non- halal products, halal certification and logo compliance with Shariah law and lack of regulation and enforcement need the serious attention by all parties along the supply chain. The challenges occur mainly in the halal food segregation and halal traceability of the products. The unit of analysis in this study different halal stakeholders group which are JAKIM, Halal Development Centre (HDC), Raw Material Manufacturers, Retailers and Government Agencies. This paper attempt discusses the issues and challenges occurs in the halal supply chain and faced by the practitioners as well as the relevant parties involved in the industry especially for food products manufacturers. The study would like to give a basic information about the issues and challenges in the contribution of Halal Supply Chain Management (HSCM) as well as for the future studies.

Light-pipes system are simple structures that allow the transmission of daylight from the outside to the inside of a room. It is a practical application in many buildings where daylight cannot reach due to building design and limited facade to placing windows. Since roof is the element directly exposed to the sunlight, light pipes system could be introduced. This paper examines the illumination levels obtained using light pipes system under Malaysia climate conditions. A light-pipe system that was installed in a test room located in Batu Pahat. Indoor illuminance distributions and concurrent outdoor illuminance were monitored at a 30 minutes interval for 5 days. The results indicated that the amount of daylight penetrated into the building are varied with less than 150lux in the early morning and late evening, and maximum at over 350lux in the noon and early afternoon. The average internal illuminance levels offer by light pipe system met the MS 1525:2007 recommendation for application in Malaysian buildings. These findings indicated that the light pipe system has a potential as a tool for introducing daylight indoors in Malaysia.

The demand for better and efficient road network has increased tremendously due to the rapid development experienced by the nation in the past few decades. Thus, the tendency to construct roads on the hilly terrain and forced the cuts and fills activities to be carried out. From Public Work Department (PWD) data, the second East West Highway (EWH) found 1335 numbers of non-failed and failed slopes along the highway that are need to be inspected. This case study was focused along the federal road of Simpang Pulai from section 35 to 45 which is part of the second EWH. Therefore, in order to manage the large number of the slopes, it is impossible to access the location and condition of slopes by conducting site inventory without any references. The Slope Smart Proforma A1 and Slope Management and Risk Tracking System (SMART) assessment was used to collect all the slopes data and analyzed the slope in order to verify the condition in terms of hazard and risk. The process of slope mapping was conducted using the Geographic Information System (GIS) application. As a result, the map of slope hazard and risk produced based on rating that has been designed by PWD in SMART. In conclusion, the map produced with data collected through proforma can be useful for the responsible parties to evaluate and inspect the condition of the slopes in order to take early preventive measures.

Sustainability issues will provide impact on the environment, social and economy. The importance of these three aspects of sustainability must be look at in tandem. Some issues of these three pillars getting more attention by companies since they are more interested to identify issues that may affect performances related to their people or profit. Through CSRs report released by various international companies, this paper identified the value which companies place for social and economic sustainability. Result shows that human right and, occupational and safety have highest concern by companies while Product Utilities is less concern from other social issues. From an economic aspect, sales and net profit are the most influencing factors of sustainability while the raw material cost is shown as of the least concern. Based on the results, companies should consider the issues on social and economic aspects following these priorities.

'Environmental and sustainability' is one of the Program Outcome (PO) designated by the Board of Engineers Malaysia (BEM) as one of the accreditation program requirement. However, to-date the implementation of sustainability elements in engineering programme in the technical universities in Malaysia is within individual faculty's curriculum plan and lack of university-level structured learning pathway, which enable all students to have access to an education in sustainability across all disciplines. Sustainability Graduate Community (SGC) is a framework designed to provide a learning pathway in the curriculum of engineering programs to inculcate sustainability education among engineering graduates. This paper aims to study the required attributes in Sustainability Graduate Community (SGC) framework to produce graduates who are not just engineers but also skilful in sustainability competencies using Global Project Management (GPM) P5 Standard for Sustainability. The development of the conceptual framework is to provide a constructive teaching and learning plan for educators and policy makers to work on together in developing the Sustainability Graduates (SG), the new kind of graduates from Malaysia Technical Universities Network (MTUN) in Malaysia who are literate in sustainability practices. The framework also support the call for developing holistic students based on Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) and address the gap between the statuses of engineering qualification to the expected competencies from industries in Malaysia in particular by achieving the SG attributes outlined in the framework

Malaysian Engineering Accreditation (Engineering Programme Accreditation Manual, 2007) requires all bachelor degree in engineering programmes to incorporate a minimum of two months industrial training in order for the programme to be accredited by the council. The industrial training has the objective to provide students on the insights of being an engineer at the workplace hence increasing their knowledge in employability skills prior to graduation. However the current structure of industrial training is not able to inculcate good leadership ability and prepare students with sustainability competencies needed in the era of Sustainable Development (SD). This paper aims to study project management methodology as a framework to create a training pathway in industrial training for students in engineering programs using Green Project Management (GPM) P5 standard for sustainability in project management. The framework involves students as interns, supervisors from both university and industry and also participation from NonProfit Organisation (NPO). The framework focus on the development of the student's competency in employability skills, lean leadership and sustainability competencies using experiential learning approach. Deliverables of the framework include internship report, professional sustainability report using GPM P5 standard and competency assessment. The post-industrial phase of the framework is constructed for students to be assessed collaboratively by the university, industry and the sustainability practitioner in the country. The ability for the interns to act as a change agent in sustainability practices is measured by the competency assessment and the quality of the sustainability report. The framework support the call for developing holistic students based on Malaysian Education Blueprint (Higher Education) 2015-2025 and address the gap between the statuses of engineering qualification to the sustainability competencies in the 21^st century in particular by achieving the Sustainability Graduates (SG) attributes outlined in the framework.

Residual acidic slopes which are not covered by vegetation greatly increases the risk of soil erosion. In addition, low soil pH can bring numerous problems such as Al and Fe toxicity, land degradation issues and some problems related to vegetation. In this research, a series of electrokinetic bioremediation (EK-Bio) treatments using Bacillus sphaericus, Bacillus subtilis and Pseudomonas putida with a combination of Vetiver grass were performed in the laboratory. Investigations were conducted for 14 days and included the observation of changes in the soil pH and the mobilization of microorganism cells through an electrical gradient of 50 V/m under low pH. Based on the results obtained, this study has successfully proven that the pH of soil increases after going through electrokinetic bioremediation (EK-Bio). The treatment using Bacillus sphaericus increases the pH from 2.95 up to 4.80, followed by Bacillus subtilis with a value of 4.66. Based on the overall performance, Bacillus sphaericus show the highest number of bacterial cells in acidic soil with a value of 6.6 × 102 cfu/g, followed by Bacillus subtilis with a value of 5.7 × 102 cfu/g. In conclusion, Bacillus sphaericus and Bacillus subtilis show high survivability and is suitable to be used in the remediation of acidic soil.

Landfills are major sources of contamination due to the presence of harmful bacteria and heavy metals. Electrokinetic-Bioremediation (Ek-Bio) is one of the techniques that can be conducted to remediate contaminated soil. Therefore, the most prominent bacteria from landfill soil will be isolated to determine their optimal conditions for culture and growth. The degradation rate and the effectiveness of selected local bacteria were used to reduce soil contamination. Hence, this enhances microbiological activities to degrade contaminants in soil and reduce the content of heavy metals. The aim of this study is to investigate the ability of isolated bacteria (Lysinibacillus fusiformis) to remove mercury in landfill soil. 5 kg of landfill soil was mixed with deionized water to make it into slurry condition for the purpose of electrokinetic and bioremediation. This remediation technique was conducted for 7 days by using 50 V/m of electrical gradient and Lysinibacillus fusiformis bacteria was applied at the anode reservoir. The slurry landfill soil was located at the middle of the reservoir while distilled water was placed at the cathode of reservoir. After undergoing treatment for 7 days, the mercury analyzer showed that there was a significant reduction of approximately up to 78 % of mercury concentration for the landfill soil. From the results, it is proven that electrokinetic bioremediation technique is able to remove mercury within in a short period of time. Thus, a combination of Lysinibacillus fusiformis and electrokinetic technique has the potential to remove mercury from contaminated soil in Malaysia.

Contaminated soil with heavy metals, especially Arsenic (As) has become a major issue worldwide. As is reported to be a metal that affects human health and is related to have caused serious diseases that interrupts the nervous system, blood vessels and kidneys. However, proper treatment techniques such as Stabilization/Solidification (S/S) method can be employed and is capable of controlling these heavy metals from contaminating the soil strata and groundwater resources. This study is to investigate the leachability of Arsenic (As) in S/S method when bagasse ash (BA) is added to remedy contaminated Landfill soil. Cement is added at a proportion of 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% in sample weights without BA while in another sample; the cement replaces BA at a proportion of 2.5%, 5%, 7.5%. and 10%. All samples were allowed to harden and cured at room temperature for 7, 14 and 28 days. The effectiveness of the treatment was assessed by conducting Synthetic Precipitation Leaching Procedure (SPLP). Results indicate that pH and leachability are found to have major influence on metal release. The final pH after leaching tests showed improvements especially samples containing BA. In addition, the concentration of As in the SPLP test after the curing period of 28 days were detected to be below the leachability limit as regulated by WHO's Guidelines for Drinking-water Quality. As a whole, the results obtained from testing showed that sample containing 10% cement with 10% BA is the most effective and is the optimum mix since this proportion succeeded in minimising the leachability of As at total reduction by 100%, In conclusion, partial replacement of cement with BA in the binder system has been successful in reducing the leachability.

Site investigation is a very important process by which geotechnical, geological and other relevant information which might affect the construction or performance of a civil engineering or building project is acquired. However, common practice in site investigations is not always in accordance to the standard that has been defined. Reliability on the information obtained depends upon several factors that involves correct procedures and competent workers and also supervision. Several examples on site investigation methods are discussed in this paper. Explanation on the difference between the site investigation methods used for real practices in the field and how it should be done are discussed in detail. Therefore, it is hoped that site investigation should always be uniquely planned and should be an interactive and flexible process of discovery and changes according to the condition of the soil.

The determination and identification of slope instability are often rely on data obtained from in-situ soil investigation work where it involves the logistic of machineries and manpower, thus these aspects may increase the cost especially for remote locations. Therefore a method, which is able to identify possible slope instability without frequent ground walkabout survey, is needed. This paper presents the method used in prediction of slope instability using spatial integrated mapping framework which applicable for remote areas such as tropical forest and natural hilly terrain. Spatial data such as geology, topography, land use map, slope angle and elevation were used in regional analysis during desktop study. Through this framework, the occurrence of slope instability was able to be identified and was validate using a confirmatory site- specific analysis.

Geo hazard can result in reducing of environmental health and huge economic losses especially in mountainous area. In order to mitigate geo-hazard effectively, cloud computer technology are introduce for managing geo hazard database. Cloud computing technology and it services capable to provide stakeholder's with geo hazards information in near to real time for an effective environmental management and decision-making. UNITEN Integrated Geo Hazard Management System consist of the network management and operation to monitor geo-hazard disaster especially landslide in our study area at Kelantan River Basin and boundary between Hulu Kelantan and Hulu Terengganu. The system will provide easily manage flexible measuring system with data management operates autonomously and can be controlled by commands to collects and controls remotely by using "cloud" system computing. This paper aims to document the above relationship by identifying the special features and needs associated with effective geohazard database management using "cloud system". This system later will use as part of the development activities and result in minimizing the frequency of the geo-hazard and risk at that research area.

Land degradation in Malaysia due to water erosion and water logging cause of loss of organic matter, biodiversity and slope instability but also land are contaminated with heavy metals. Various alternative such as physical remediation are use but it not showing the sustainability in term of environmental sustainable. Due to that, erosion and soil contamination control using coconut flakes and plantation of Centella asiatica and Chrysopogon zizanioides are use as alternative approach for aid of sophisticated green technology known as phytoremediation and mycoremediation. Soil from cabonaceous phyllite located near to Equine Park, Sri Kembangan are use for monitoring the effect of phytoremediation and mycoremediation in reducing soil contamination and biotechnology for erosion control. Five laboratory scale prototypes were designed to monitor the effect of different proportion of coconut flakes i.e. 10%, 25%, 50% & 100% and plantation of Centella asiatica and Chrysopogon zizanioides to reduce the top soil from eroding and reduce the soil contamination. Prototype have been observe started from first week and ends after 12 weeks. Centella asiatica planted on 10% coconut flakes with 90% soil and Chrysopogon zizanioides planted on 25% coconut flakes with 75% soil are selected proportion to be used as phytoremediation and mycoremediation in reducing soil contamination and biotechnology for erosion control.

Green technology method using vegetable waste are introduced in this paper for improvement of phyllite residual soil from UNITEN, Campus. Residual soil from phyllite are known as micaceous soils and it give problem in managing the stability of the slope especially in wet and extensively dry seasons. Micaceous soil are collected using tube sampler technique and mixed with liquid contain microorganism from fermented vegetable waste name as vege-grout to form remolded sample. The remolded sample are classify as 15.0%, 17.5%, 20.00% and 22.5% based on different incremental percentages of vege-grout. The curing time for the sample are 7, 14, 21, 28, and 35 days before the tests were conducted. Observation of the effect of treatment shows 20.0% of liquid contain Bacillus pasteurii and Bacillus Subtilis with 21 days curing time is the optimum value in strengthening the soil and improve the permeability.

Marine clay is found widely along the coastal area and had caused expensive solutions in the construction of coastal highways. Hence, soil stabilization was suggested by some consultant to increase the strength of this soil in order to meet the highway construction requirement and also to achieve the specification for the development. Biomass Silica (BS), particularly the SH85 as a non-traditional stabilisation method, has been gaining more interest from the engineers recently. Rubber chips (RC), derived from waste rubber tyres, are considered 'green' element and had been used previously in some geotechnical engineering works. This paper presents the effect of using BS and RC as a mixture (BS-RC mixture), to increase the strength of marine clay for highway construction. Samples of marine clay, obtained from the West Coast Expressway project at Teluk Intan, Perak, were oven dried and grind to fine-grained sized. The marine clay was mixed with 9 % by weight proportion of BS- RC; that were 8%-l% and 7%-2%, respectively. For comparison purposes the result of BS-RC was compared to the result of stabilization by using 9% BS only. Laboratory tests were then carried out to determine the Atterberg limits and compaction characteristics of the untreated and treated marine clay. The Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS) of the untreated and treated marine clays, compacted at the optimum moisture content was later obtained. The treated marine clay was tested at 0, 3 and 7 days curing periods. The results show that the Plasticity Index of BS-RC treated marine clay was lower than the untreated marine clay. From the UCS test results, it is shown that BS-RC mixtures had significantly improved the strength of marine clay. With the same percentage of 9% BS-RC, the increased of BS from 7% to 8% increased the UCS further to about six times more than untreated marine clay soils in 7 days curing period. The strength gained by using BS-RC at 8%-1% is slightly below the strength by using 9% BS only. From the experimental results, it is shown that BS, in the form of SH85, admixed with rubber chips could significantly improve the strength of marine clay soils.

Microtissue can be grown on soft substrates of hydrogel or liquid crystal gel. These gels are adherent to the microtissues and they may interfere fluorescence imaging as background noise due to their absorbance property. A microfluidic vibrational cleaner with polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) microfluidic chip platform was proposed and developed to remove the residual gel of liquid crystal adhered to the microtissues. The microtissues were placed in a microfluidic chip attaching to a microfluidic vibrational platform. In the system design, two motorised vibrators vibrating attached to a microfluidic platform and generating vibration signals at 148 Hz and 0.89 Grms to clean the microtissues. The acceleration of the vibration increased gradually from 0 to 0.96 Grms when the duty cycle of PWM pulses increased from 50 - 90%. It dropped slightly to 0.89 Grms at 100% duty cycle. Irrigation water valve was designed to control the fluid flow from water pump during cleaning process. Water pumps were included to flush the channels of the microfluidic device. The signals in controlling the pump, motor and valve were linearly proportional to the duty cycles of the pulse width modulation signals generated from a microcontroller.

Microencapsulation using flow focusing microfluidic devices attract great interest because of the simple fabrication technique using polymeric material. Simulation of the microfluidic device provides the advantage of reducing the waste of material before actual implementation of the fabrication. This paper reports the design of a flow focusing microfluidic device based on emulsification of two immiscible fluids. The system was build and simulated in COMSOL Multiphysics software by varying the outlet width in examining the effects of the flow and pressure at the outlet. The simulation results reveal that both the flow rate and the pressure decreased dramatically when the ratio of outlet channel to inlet channel (R) is greater than 2. The width of the outlet is critical in ensuring the flow of microcapsules without accumulation of microcapsules at the output pool due to the poor flow rate at the outlet channel and avoidance of leakage problem. The recommended R to achieve the objective of microencapsulation is between 2 and 4.

Cloud computing is a new paradigm shift in information technology. Most of the studies in the cloud are business related while the studies in cloud based e-learning are few. The field is still in its infancy and researchers have used several adoption theories to discover the dimensions of this field. The purpose of this paper is to review and integrate the literature to understand the current situation of the cloud based e-learning adoption. A total of 312 articles were extracted from Science direct, emerald, and IEEE. Screening processes were applied to select only the articles that are related to the cloud based e-learning. A total of 231 removed because they are related to business organization. Next, a total of 63 articles were removed because they are technical articles. A total of 18 articles were included in this paper. A frequency analysis was conducted on the paper to identify the most frequent factors, theories, statistical software, respondents, and countries of the studies. The findings showed that usefulness and ease of use are the most frequent factors. TAM is the most prevalent adoption theories in the literature. The mean of the respondents in the reviewed studies is 377 and Malaysia is the most researched countries in terms of cloud based e-learning. Studies of cloud based e-learning are few and more empirical studies are needed.

This paper addresses the calculation of the LSA-02 UAV electrical power requirement as a technology demonstrator. To answer this issue, the method from ASTM F2490 Standard is used. By adopting that method, the condition of aircraft operation must be defined. Therefore, there are 2 aircraft conditions that will be investigated further. First, the LSA-02 aircraft will be fitted with EO/IR camera and support payload for conducting real-time surveillance system. The other condition is conducting the aerial photography mission to investigate the vegetation condition by equipping the aircraft with a multispectral camera. The results show that the real-time mission will need bigger electrical power requirement comparing to aerial photography mission. To support the mission without sacrificing the other electrical equipment for functioning, the onboard power generator system inside LSA-02 aircraft should be upgraded, at least with 3.5 kVA capacity.

This paper presents the use of multispectral imaging system to investigate variability in transcutaneous oxygen saturation (S_tO₂) amongst different individuals and at different skin sites. Noncontact reflectance data are collected from central forehead, posterior forearm, thenar region of palm and proximal ankle of three healthy Asians. The prediction of the required S_tO₂ value is via fitting Extended Modified Lambert (EMLB) model to the measured attenuation data using extinction coefficient of hemoglobin components in the wavelength range of 520 - 600 nm as its priori knowledge. The obtained results revealed a relatively high mean S_tO₂ of 54 ± 1.9% at the palm of the hand site. This is followed by measurement at foot ankle and forehead with S_tO₂ of 52.3 ± 2.4% and 51.2 ± 7.7%, respectively. Meanwhile the lowest reading of S_tO₂ of 48.8 ± 5.1% is observed at the posterior forearm. Based on these findings, this work concluded that palm of the hand would provide considerably consistent measurement of S_tO₂ among individuals. This is largely owing to the higher density of circulatory anastomosis at this skin site. This implied viability of using the developed strategy in the studies of microcirculation mechanism especially on wound at this skin region.

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is among the key technology of Internet of Things (IOT). It is a sensor device that can monitor, identify, locate and tracking physical objects via its tag. The energy in RFID is commonly being used unwisely because they do repeated readings on the same tag as long it resides in the reader vicinity. Repeated readings are unnecessary because it only generate duplicate data that does not contain new information. The reading process need to be schedule accordingly to minimize the chances of repeated readings to save the energy. This will reduce operational cost and can prolong the tag's battery lifetime that cannot be replaced. In this paper, we propose an approach named SELECT to minimize energy spent during reading processes. Experiments conducted shows that proposed algorithm contribute towards significant energy savings in RFID compared to other approaches.

Location based service is an information and entertainment service, accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network and utilizing the ability to make use of the geographical position of the mobile device. NFC location based service is using one of the modes of NFC such as peer-to-peer, reader/writer, and card emulation to obtain the information of the object and then get the location of the object. In this paper, the proposed solution is I- NFC-enabled Pervasive Social Networking apps for florists. It combines the NFC location based service with Online Social Network (OSN). In addition, a smart advisor in the system to provide output in making their own decision while purchasing products.The development of the system demonstrates that a designed commerce site is provided which enable a communication between NFC-enabled smartphone, NFC-enabled application and OSN. GPS functionalities also implemented to provide map and location of business services. Smart advisor also designed to provide information for users who do not have ideas what to purchase.

The instability of crude oil price in global market as well as the sensitivity towards green energy increases, more research works being carried out to find alternative energy replacing the depleting of fossil fuels. Photobiological hydrogen production system using algae is one of the promising alternative energy source. However, the yield of hydrogen utilizing the current photobioreactor (PBR) is still low for commercial application due to restricted light penetration into the deeper regions of the reactor. Therefore, this paper studies the feasibility of vortex flow impact utilizing magnetic stirring in hydrogen production for fuel cell applications. For comparison of results, a magnetic stirrer is placed under a PBR of algae to stir the algae to obtain an even distribution of sunlight to the algae while the controlled PBR of algae kept in static. The produced hydrogen level was measured using hydrogen sensor circuit and the data collected were communicated to laptop using Arduino Uno. The results showed more cell counts and hydrogen produced in the PBR under the influence of magnetic stirring compared to static PBR by an average of 8 percent in 4 days.

This project presents the fabrication of MEMS employing a cubic silicon carbide (3C- SiC) on silicon wafer using newly developed ProTEK PSB as biotechnology photosensitive protection mask. This new biotechnology can reduce the number of processes and simplify the process flow with minimal impact on overall undercut performance. The 680 pm thick wafer is back-etched, leaving the 3C-SiC thin film with a thickness of 1.0 μm as the flexible diaphragm to detect pressure. The effect of the new coating of ProTEK PSB on different KOH solvents were investigated depending on various factors such as development time, final cure temperature and the thickness of the ProTEK PSB deposited layer. It is found that 6.174 μm thickness of ProTEK PSB offers some possibility of reducing the processing time compared to silicon nitride etch masks in KOH (55%wt, 80°C). The new ProTEK PSB biotechnology photosensitive protection mask indicates good stability and sustains its performance in different treatments under KOH and IPA for 8 hours. This work also revealed that the fabrication of MEMS sensors using the new biotechnology photosensitive protection mask provides a simple assembly approach and reduces manufacturing costs. The MEMS sensor can operate up to 500 °C as indicated under the sensitivity of 0.826 pF/MPa with nonlinearity and hysteresis of 0.61% and 3.13%, respectively.

The number of children dying because of heatstroke after being left in the car is worrying. From 1998, there are about 618 children have died in the United State of America (USA) because of heatstroke. It was the leading cause of fatalities in non-crash incident in USA. The same situation also arises in other countries. Life stress is being identified as among the factor that lead to this incident. In this paper, we proposed the used of Android Apps with an Estimote Beacon, a bluetooth device, to warn parents or guardians about their children being left in the car. An alarm will be raised after the parent leaves their children at prespecified range to avoid any risk of heatstroke from occurring.

The applications of quantum information science move towards bigger and better heights for the next generation technology. Especially, in the field of quantum cryptography and quantum computation, the world already witnessed various ground-breaking tangible product and promising results. Quantum cryptography is one of the mature field from quantum mechanics and already available in the markets. The current state of quantum cryptography is still under various researches in order to reach the heights of digital cryptography. The complexity of quantum cryptography is higher due to combination of hardware and software. The lack of effective simulation tool to design and analyze the quantum cryptography experiments delays the reaching distance of the success. In this paper, we propose a framework to achieve an effective non-entanglement based quantum cryptography simulation tool. We applied hybrid simulation technique i.e. discrete event, continuous event and system dynamics. We also highlight the limitations of a commercial photonic simulation tool based experiments. Finally, we discuss ideas for achieving one-stop simulation package for quantum based secure key distribution experiments. All the modules of simulation framework are viewed from the computer science perspective.

Crime Map is an online web based geographical information system that assists the public and users to visualize crime activities geographically. It acts as a platform for the public communities to share crime activities they encountered. Crime and violence plague the communities we are living in. As part of the community, crime prevention is everyone's responsibility. The purpose of Crime Map is to provide insights of the crimes occurring around Malaysia and raise the public's awareness on crime activities in their neighbourhood. For that, Crime Map visualizes crime activities on a geographical heat maps, generated based on geospatial data. Crime Map analyse data obtained from crime reports to generate useful information on crime trends. At the end of the development, users should be able to make use of the system to access to details of crime reported, crime analysis and report crimes activities. The development of Crime Map also enable the public to obtain insights about crime activities in their area. Thus, enabling the public to work together with the law enforcer to prevent and fight crime.

Lack of bus information for example bus timetable, status of the bus and messy advertisement on bulletin board at the bus stop will give negative impact to tourist. Therefore, a real-time update bus information bulletin board provides all information needed so that passengers can save their bus information searching time. Supported with Android or iOS, Beacon Bus Information System (BBIS) provides bus information between Batu Pahat and Kluang area. BBIS is a system that implements physical web technology and interaction on demand. It built on Backend-as-a-Service, a cloud solution and Firebase non relational database as data persistence backend and syncs between user client in the real-time. People walk through bus stop with smart device and do not require any application. Bluetooth Beacon is used to achieve smart device's best performance of data sharing. Intellij IDEA 15 is one of the tools that that used to develop the BBIS system. Multi-language included front end and backend supported Integration development environment (IDE) helped to speed up integration process.

Evolutionary algorithm is one of the algorithms inspired by the nature. Within little more than a decade hundreds of papers have reported successful applications of EAs. In this paper, the Selfish Gene Algorithms (SFGA), as one of the latest evolutionary algorithms (EAs) inspired from the Selfish Gene Theory which is an interpretation of Darwinian Theory ideas from the biologist Richards Dawkins on 1989. In this paper, following a brief introduction to the Selfish Gene Algorithm (SFGA), the chronology of its evolution is presented. It is the purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the concepts of Selfish Gene Algorithm (SFGA) as well as its opportunities and challenges. Accordingly, the history, step involves in the algorithm are discussed and its different applications together with an analysis of these applications are evaluated.

Presently, the issue of processing large data on a timely manner poses as a challenge to many ICT researchers. Most commodity computers are interconnected in a network forming a cluster computing resource simulating a super computer. This paper explores heuristically the performance of homogeneous, heterogeneous and multi-core clusters. This work consists of five experiments: Equal task partitioning according to the number of nodes in homogeneous cluster, number of nodes in heterogeneous cluster, number of nodes in heterogeneous cluster with multithreading, number of cores in heterogeneous cluster and number of cores in heterogeneous cluster with multithreading. The task is Sobel edge detection method tested with an array of images. The images are processed in three different sizes; 1K × 1K, 2K × 2K and 3K × 3K. The performance evaluations are based on processing speed. The results yield promising impact of equal partitioning and threading in parallel processing hierarchical heterogeneous cluster.

Developing software through Global Software Development (GSD) became very common now days in the software industry. Pakistan is one of the countries where projects are taken and designed from different countries including Afghanistan. The purpose of this paper is to identify and provide an analysis on several communication barriers that can have a negative impact on the project and to provide management guidelines for medium size software organizations working in Pakistan with clients from Afghanistan and to overcome these communication barriers and challenges organizations face when coordinating with client. Initially we performed a literature review to identify different communication barriers and to check if there are any standardized communications management guidelines for medium size software houses provided in the past. The second stage of the research paper involves guidelines with vendor's perspective that include interviews and focus group discussions with different stakeholders and employees of software houses with clients from Afghanistan. Based on those interviews and discussions we established communication management guidelines in order to overcome the communication problems and barriers working with clients from Afghanistan. As a result of the literature review, we have identified that barriers such as cultural barriers and language barrier were one of the main reasons behind the project failure and suggested that software organizations working in Pakistan should follow certain defined communication guidelines in order to overcome communication barriers that affect the project directly.

Nowadays, some people facing the problem to wake up in the morning. This was result to absence of the classes, meetings, and even exams. The aim of this project is to develop an android application that can force the user to wake up. The method used in this application are pedometer and Short Message Service (SMS) function. This application need the user to take their smartphone and walk about 10 steps to disable it, when the alarm clock is activated. After that, when the alarm clock was rang, this alarm application has automatically send a message to the users' friends or parents phone to wake them up.

In smart antenna system, it is extremely crucial to estimate the direction of incoming signals in order to achieve better reception. Reliability of DOA estimation depends on several factors such as the choice of DOA algorithm, size of antenna array as well as array geometry. Therefore, it is particularly desirable to have a configuration of antenna array that could produce an accurate azimuth estimation. In this work, a new planar array is proposed to address the problem of azimuth estimation. This is achieved by having a flexible element position on the x- y plane that improves the steering vector, hence significantly enhances the accuracy of DOA estimation. Besides, a fair distribution of the antenna elements on the x-y plane also helps to eliminates estimation failure in the azimuth range between 240° and 360°. A comparison study between the proposed array and V-shape array is performed in order to gauge the performance of the proposed array in DOA estimation. Simulation results show that the proposed array has acquired better estimation resolution than V-shape array. On top of that, the proposed array has reduced estimation error in V-shape array. It is concluded that the proposed array has shown potential as an excellent choice of antenna array geometry for smart antenna system.

In effort to attract higher tourist expenditure along with higher tourist arrivals, this paper proposes a travel application called the SmartG, acronym for Spontaneous Malaysian Augmented Reality Tourist Guide, which operates by making recommendations to user based on the travel objective and individual budget constraints. The applications relies on augmented reality technology, whereby a three dimensional model is presented to the user based on input from real world environment. User testing returned a favorable feedback on the concept of using augmented reality in promoting Malaysian tourism.

Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES) had become a viable option for movement restoration, therapy and rehabilitation in neurologically impaired subjects. Although the number of such subjects increase globally but only few orthosis devices combine with the technique are available and are costly. A factor resulting to this could be stringent requirement for such devices to have passed clinical acceptance. In that regard a new approach which utilize the patient wheelchair as support and also a novel control system to synchronize the stimulation such that the movement is accomplished safely was proposed. It is expected to improve well-being, social integration, independence, cost, and healthcare delivery.

In this research we explore the application of normalize denoted new techniques in advance fast c-mean in to the problem of finding the segment of different breast tissue regions in mammograms. The goal of the segmentation algorithm is to see if new denotes fuzzy c- mean algorithm could separate different densities for the different breast patterns. The new density segmentation is applied with multi-selection of seeds label to provide the hard constraint, whereas the seeds labels are selected based on user defined. New denotes fuzzy c- mean have been explored on images of various imaging modalities but not on huge format digital mammograms just yet. Therefore, this project is mainly focused on using normalize denoted new techniques employed in fuzzy c-mean to perform segmentation to increase visibility of different breast densities in mammography images. Segmentation of the mammogram into different mammographic densities is useful for risk assessment and quantitative evaluation of density changes. Our proposed methodology for the segmentation of mammograms on the basis of their region into different densities based categories has been tested on MIAS database and Trueta Database.

Cloud computing is an Internet-based computing service provided by the third party allowing share of resources and data among devices. It is widely used in many organizations nowadays and becoming more popular because it changes the way of how the Information Technology (IT) of an organization is organized and managed. It provides lots of benefits such as simplicity and lower costs, almost unlimited storage, least maintenance, easy utilization, backup and recovery, continuous availability, quality of service, automated software integration, scalability, flexibility and reliability, easy access to information, elasticity, quick deployment and lower barrier to entry. While there is increasing use of cloud computing service in this new era, the security issues of the cloud computing become a challenges. Cloud computing must be safe and secure enough to ensure the privacy of the users. This paper firstly lists out the architecture of the cloud computing, then discuss the most common security issues of using cloud and some solutions to the security issues since security is one of the most critical aspect in cloud computing due to the sensitivity of user's data.

Today's online banking is a convenient mode of finance management. Despite the ease of doing online banking, there are people that still sceptical in utilizing it due to perception and its security. This paper highlights the subject of online banking security in Malaysia, especially from the perspective of the end-users. The study is done by assessing human computer interaction, usability and security. An online survey utilising 137 participants was previously conducted to gain preliminary insights on security issues of online banking in Malaysia. Following from those results, 37 participants were interviewed to gauge deeper understanding about end-users perception on online banking within the context of usable security. The results suggested that most of the end-users are continuingly experiencing significant difficulties especially in relation to the technical terminologies, security features and other technical issues. Although the security features are provided to provide a shield or protection, users are still incapable to cope with the technical aspects of such implementation.

Cuckoo Search (CS) and Differential Evolution (DE) algorithms are considerably robust meta-heuristic algorithms to solve constrained optimization problems. In this study, the performance of CS and DE are compared in solving the constrained optimization problem from selected benchmark functions. Selection of the benchmark functions are based on active or inactive constraints and dimensionality of variables (i.e. number of solution variable). In addition, a specific constraint handling and stopping criterion technique are adopted in the optimization algorithm. The results show, CS approach outperforms DE in term of repeatability and the quality of the optimum solutions.

According to the US governments, more than 125,000 people die each year due to failure to manage their medications, leading to approximately USD100 billion in preventable costs to healthcare systems. The core failure in medication management is attributed by patients failing to adhere their medication regimens, whether by accident, negligence, or intentional. Recognizing the importants of vigilant monitoring in medication management, this paper is set to review the latest android-based healthcare trends and propose a new mobile medication reminder application called IcHeart.

Direction of arrival (DOA) estimation using isotropic antenna arrays are commonly being implemented without considering the mutual coupling effect in between the array elements. This paper presents an analysis of DOA estimation with mutual coupling compensation using a linear antenna array. Mutual coupling effect is represented by mutual coupling coefficients and taken into account when calculating the array output. The mutual coupling compensation technique exploits a banded mutual coupling matrix to reduce the computational complexity. The banded matrix reflects the relationship between mutual coupling effect and the element spacing in an antenna array. The analysis is being carried out using the Capon algorithm, one of spectral-based DOA algorithms, for estimating the DOA of incoming signals. Computer simulations are performed to show the performance of the mutual coupling compensation technique on DOA estimation. Simulation results show that, in term of estimation resolution, the mutual coupling compensation technique manages to obtain a comparable results compared to the case without mutual coupling consideration. However, the mutual coupling compensation technique produces significant estimation error compared to the case without mutual coupling. The study concludes that the banded matrix of mutual coupling coefficients should be properly designed to improve the performance of mutual coupling compensation technique in DOA estimation.

This study was carried out to improve student learning in ICT course using a collaborative mobile augmented reality learning application (CoMARLA). This learning application was developed based on the constructivist framework that would engender collaborative learning environment, in which students could learn collaboratively using their mobile phones. The research design was based on the pretest posttest control group design. The dependent variable was students' learning performance after learning, and the independent variables were learning method and gender. Students' learning performance before learning was treated as the covariate. The sample of the study comprised 120 non-IT (non-technical) undergraduates, with the mean age of 19.5. They were randomized into two groups, namely the experimental and control group. The experimental group used CoMARLA to learn one of the topics of the ICT Literacy course, namely Computer System; whereas the control group learned using the conventional approach. The research instrument used was a set of multiple-choice questions pertaining to the above topic. Pretesting was carried out before the learning sessions, and posttesting was performed after 6 hours of learning. Using the SPSS, Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) was performed on the data. The analysis showed that there were main effects attributed to the learning method and gender. The experimental group outperformed the control group by almost 9%, and male students outstripped their opposite counterparts by as much as 3%. Furthermore, an interaction effect was also observed showing differential performances of male students based on the learning methods, which did not occur among female students. Hence, the tool can be used to help undergraduates learn with greater efficacy when contextualized in an appropriate setting.

Nowadays, there are various types of robot have been invented for multiple purposes. The robots have the special characteristic that surpass the human ability and could operate in extreme environment which human cannot endure. In this paper, an autonomous robot is built to imitate the characteristic of a human cutting grass. A Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) is used to control the movements where all data and information would be processed. Very High Speed Integrated Circuit (VHSIC) Hardware Description Language (VHDL) is used to describe the hardware using Quartus II software. This robot has the ability of avoiding obstacle using ultrasonic sensor. This robot used two DC motors for its movement. It could include moving forward, backward, and turning left and right. The movement or the path of the automatic lawn mower is based on a path planning technique. Four Global Positioning System (GPS) plot are set to create a boundary. This to ensure that the lawn mower operates within the area given by user. Every action of the lawn mower is controlled by the FPGA DE' Board Cyclone II with the help of the sensor. Furthermore, Sketch Up software was used to design the structure of the lawn mower. The autonomous lawn mower was able to operate efficiently and smoothly return to coordinated paths after passing the obstacle. It uses 25% of total pins available on the board and 31% of total Digital Signal Processing (DSP) blocks.

Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is an electronic banking outlet that allows bank customers to complete a banking transactions without the aid of any bank official or teller. Several problems are associated with the use of ATM card such card cloning, card damaging, card expiring, cast skimming, cost of issuance and maintenance and accessing customer account by third parties. The aim of this project is to give a freedom to the user by changing the card to biometric security system to access the bank account using Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) algorithm. The project is implemented using Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) DE2-115 board with Cyclone IV device, fingerprint scanner, and Multi-Touch Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) Second Edition (MTL2) using Very High Speed Integrated Circuit Hardware (VHSIC) Description Language (VHDL). This project used 128-bits AES for recommend the device with the throughput around 19.016Gbps and utilized around 520 slices. This design offers a secure banking transaction with a low rea and high performance and very suited for restricted space environments for small amounts of RAM or ROM where either encryption or decryption is performed.

This project presents the development of an artificial hand controlled by Electroencephalograph (EEG) signal datasets for the prosthetic application. The EEG signal datasets were used as to improvise the way to control the prosthetic hand compared to the Electromyograph (EMG). The EMG has disadvantages to a person, who has not used the muscle for a long time and also to person with degenerative issues due to age factor. Thus, the EEG datasets found to be an alternative for EMG. The datasets used in this work were taken from Brain Computer Interface (BCI) Project. The datasets were already classified for open, close and combined movement operations. It served the purpose as an input to control the prosthetic hand by using an Interface system between Microsoft Visual Studio and Arduino. The obtained results reveal the prosthetic hand to be more efficient and faster in response to the EEG datasets with an additional LiPo (Lithium Polymer) battery attached to the prosthetic. Some limitations were also identified in terms of the hand movements, weight of the prosthetic, and the suggestions to improve were concluded in this paper. Overall, the objective of this paper were achieved when the prosthetic hand found to be feasible in operation utilizing the EEG datasets.

Body mass index is a familiar term for those who are weight conscious. It is the term that let user know about the overall body composition in terms of fat.The available body mass index calculators whether online or on Play Store do not provide Malaysian meal suggestions. Hence, this paper proposes an application for body mass index calculator together with Malaysian meal suggestion. The objectives of the study are to design and develop BMI Calc android application for the purpose of calculating body mass index while embedding meal suggestion module. The design and methodology involve in the process are also presented.