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This joint conference is organized simultaneously of International Conference on Green Engineering & Technology 2020 (IConGETech2020) and International Conference on Applied Computing 2020 (ICAC2020). This joint conference invites papers from various fields in both green engineering & technology and applied computing related fields. The primary goal of the conference is to provide the opportunities for academicians, professionals, practitioers and policy makers in the engineering and computing fields to share their thoughts and empirical works both to those involved in their field or those interested in the subject being researched.

The objectives of this Joint conference are:

1. To provide a forum for researchers, educators, students and industries to share and exchange ideas and research findings in both fields of researches.

2. To give an opportunity to both academia and industries to communicate on problems faced in current research and the industries.

3. To create networks and stimulate potential collaborations between researchers in the same field of research.

International Conference on Green Engineering & Technology 2020 (IConGETech2020) will foster the progress in green engineering and related technology by contributing your expertise to what promises to be a very comprehensive and exciting meeting. The aim of the IConGETech2020 is exploring the advances and challenges in Green Engineering & Technology between academia, scientists and engineers by bringing together again the world class researchers and Industrial heads to discuss the latest developments and innovations in the fields of related field of research works.

International Conference on Applied Computing 2020 (ICAC2020) aims to address the main issues of concern within the applied computing area and related fields. This conference offers a great opportunity to bring together professors, researchers, and scholars around the globe, having a great platform to deliver the latest innovative research result and the most recent development and trends in applied computing. We cordially invite all prospective authors to submit their original manuscripts to ICAC2020.

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.

Perovskite is known as potential decent ceramic metal oxides catalyst for wastewater treatment particularly in catalytic oxidation process. Perovskites can be uniquely and chemically tailored due to its simple structure which able to accommodate wide range of A and/or B-site cations. In this work, detailed investigations on the substitution effect of different B-site cations into the main structure of perovskite compounds towards catalytic oxidation of orange II solution were performed. Four (4) different types of B-site metal cations (Cu, Ni, Mo and Co) were substituted into perovskites structure via a combined EDTA-citric acid complexation method. The reactivity of resultant perovskites was found to be in sequence of Na_0.27Ca_0.48Cu_0.25O₃ > Na_0.25Ca_0.48Ni_0.27O₃ ≍ Na_0.09Ca_0.29Mo_0.62O₃ > Na_0.02Ca_0.33Co_0.39O₃ in the absence of stimulant or oxidant during 2 hours heterogeneous reaction. Interestingly, Na_0.09Ca_0.29Mo_0.62O₃ perovskites catalyst exhibited superior catalytic activity by having complete Orange II removal (≍99%) in the presence of oxidant (0.022M H₂O₂) within 15 min of reaction. The reactivity of B-site perovskites catalysts changed significantly in presence of oxidant during heterogeneous reaction that can be represented as Na_0.09Ca_0.29Mo_0.62O₃> Na_0.27Ca_0.48Cu_0.25O₃>Na_0.02Ca_0.33Co_0.39O₃>Na_0.25Ca_0.48Ni_0.27O, respectively. Such findings confer tunable and unique catalytic properties of B-site perovskites catalysts in enhancing the oxidative degradation of recalcitrant dye contaminated wastewater effluents.

The aim of this paper is to study the effect of magnesium hydroxide burning rate, mechanical properties and surface morphology analysis of Arenga pinnata fibre hybrid with polyester yarn (APF/PET) reinforced epoxy composite with the addition of magnesium hydroxide as flame retardant. The composites were prepared with different amount of fibres (i.e. 0%, 20%, 35% and 50% by weight percent) and two constant material of 5% which are the magnesium hydroxide and the polyester yarn with epoxy resin as the matrix. With the incorporation of the flame retardant the horizontal burning rate of APF/PET reinforced epoxy decreased with the amount of 35% APF. The fibre loading increased to 50% as the mechanical properties of the hybrid composite decreased which due to the lack of interfacial bonding between the fibres and matrix. Surface morphology studies through scanning electron microscopy showed the similar distribution of Arenga pinnata fibres and matrix with less adhesion which reduce the mechanical properties of the hybrid composites.

Steel corrosion and biofouling have adverse impacts on various high-end engineering applications including, in biomedical and maritime industries. Smart functional polymer coatings have been developed to simultaneously control corrosion and prevent biofouling problems on steels. In this study, translucent epoxy coatings loaded with 1, 3, and 5 wt% of functional hybrid composite (HC) microparticles were formulated. The HC particles contained cerium doped ZnO encapsulated in conductive poly(3,4-ethylene dioxythiophene) polystyrene sulfonate (PEDOT: PSS) polymer at mixing ratio of 3:1. The effects of HC composition towards the corrosion inhibition and antifouling properties of the coating were evaluated. The microstructure and composition analyses were performed by using SEM and EDX techniques. The anticorrosion performance of the coating films deposited on stainless steel (SS 316 L) substrates was evaluated by using the Potentiodynamic Polarization (PP) technique. The antifouling characteristics of the coatings were investigated by performing the antimicrobial susceptibility test and a series of photodegradation test in medium containing ∼10⁸ CFU/ml of bacteria under UV light in 180 minutes. The findings revealed that the presence of PEDOT:PSS-Ce doped ZnO HC increased the barrier properties of the epoxy matrix on SS 316 L against corrosion. The corrosion inhibition properties increased with increasing HC composition. The formulated coatings also exhibited antifouling effects against bacteria. The Gram positive-S. aureus exhibited susceptibility against the coating whereas the Gram negative – S. aureus showed resistant. The coatings demonstrated photocatalytic properties under UV light irradiation and capable of inactivating <99% of bacteria in less than 180 min. The epoxy coating functionalized with 5wt% HC exhibited the highest corrosion inhibition performance (corrosion rate of 0.0001 mm/year) and excellent antifouling effects against selected bacteria.

Palm slag in previous studies has proven to have the potential to be used as alternative filler in friction composite. However, the reported hardness is still high and not within the proper range and might cause damage to the disc brakes. As is well known, the good damping, soft and flexible nature of rubber, being the main reason for waste tire dust to be selected as an additive to reduce or moderate the hardness of friction palm slag composite. Weight percentage and the filler size of waste tire dust used are the main parameters considered in this research paper. The hardness and wear rate of the friction composite produced are measured. The result revealed that friction composite with ratio of palm slag/waste tire dust (30/10) and the highest filler size (>600 µm) give a moderate hardness with better wear rate which comparable with the commercial brake pad used. Morphological view also give a prove that the worn surface of composite have less wear defects. Overall the used of waste tire dust can improve the hardness and wear rate properties of palm slag friction composites in order to become alternative for non-asbestos brake pads.

This paper investigates the incorporation of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) concentration and CaO-Si component on ground granulated blast furnace slag geopolymers (GGBFS). An optimal mechanical property of GGBFS with various NaOH concentrations had been determined by performing a number of compressive strength tests. It was found that GGBFS with 10M NaOH concentration resulted in high compressive strength at 65.31 MPa after 28 days curing. The microstructure analysis of the GGBFS geopolymers using SEM and FTIR revealed the formation of calcium silicate hydrate (Ca₅Si₆O₁₆(OH)₂.4H₂O) and calcium carbonate (CaCO₃₎ phase within the geopolymer backbone chain. The optimum NaOH concentration allows the acceptable formation of CaO-Si bond on the GGBFS geopolymers main structure and thus leads to optimum compressive strength.

The quality of groundwater at Rumah Nur Kasih consist high concentration of iron (6.12 mg/L) and manganese (0.56 mg/L). The groundwater only used for external usage such as cleaning purposes. In order to reduce iron and manganese, it is proposed cascade aerator system for oxidation process and horizontal roughing filter using limestone as the media for further removal. The oxidation process can reduce iron and manganese in water by increasing the dissolved oxygen. Meanwhile, the filtration by various size of the limestone can help to reduce the concentration of heavy metals as these limestones able to adsorp heavy metals into theirs surface. In this study, two lab scale cascade aerators with different in height of cascade were used to find the highest removal of iron and manganese. It was found out that the optimum flowrate for both cascade aerator was 22mL/s. Model B with higher in height has higher dissolved oxygen and aeration efficiency. The highest removal of iron and manganese for model B are 45.2% and 21.68% respectively. The highest removal of iron and manganese for model A are 39.95% and 12.09% respectively. Three different sizes of limestone were filled into horizontal bed filtration for further removal. The adsorption of these limestone was observed and the smallest range of the limestone has the highest removal for both iron and manganese. The optimum sizes of the limestone are 0.425mm – 2.35mm with removal of 82.75% for iron and 56.78% for manganese.

The presence of hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) is one of the most problematic contaminants in biogas which emitted from industrial processes causing odour nuisance to the surrounding community. Thus, the ability of sulphur oxidizing bacteria (SOB) could eliminate H₂S by changes it into non-odorous elemental sulfur or sulfate was investigated. Basically, most of identified sulphur oxidizing bacteria belongs to the Thiobacillus, Thiothrix, Thiomicrospira, Achromatium, Desulfuromonas and Paracoccus which occurs in heterotropic bacteria isolated from soil and marine environment. In corresponding of that, about 400 million of palm oil mill effluent (POME) pond found in Malaysia that could be one of the potential supply places for isolation of SOB as it contains elevated concentration of H₂S which can support the growth of SOB. To date, many reports utilized SOB can eliminate the high concentration of H₂S in environments. Hence, in this study the bacteria of Paracoccus solventivorans ATCC 700252 were used as SOB and mixed with media by biofiltration process. Based on final result, these bacteria demonstrated reduction of H₂S with removal efficiency 31% to 64.02% with the sulphate content production is 30 mg/l compare without SOB, the removal efficiency of H₂S about 23% to 46% with sulphate content production is 12 mg/l after 28 days. The suitable condition for the growth of sulphur oxidizing bacteria affected on H₂S removal efficiency from palm oil mill biogas by biofilter system. Besides that, the odour reduction for media with SOB is higher (73.5%) compared to media without SOB (66.9%). The reason for this phenomenon is due to the ability of SOB to absorb the odorous 'rotten egg' smell and changes into elemental sulfur that is no longer hazaroud. In this regard, the utilization of Paracoccus solventivorans ATCC 700252 will create a new industry for application in the H₂S removal and protect the environment from odour pollution.

The heat evolved during setting of class C fly ash geopolymers with different molarity of sodium hydroxide are discussed. The reaction kinetics and microstructure properties of geopolymers are studied towards the early strength development. Differential Scanning Calorimeter was applied to determine the heat evolved and Johnson-Mehl-Avrami-Kolmogrov Model was used to analyse the reaction kinetics during setting of the geopolymers. Morphology and strength development were monitored. The results revealed that the heat evolved increased proportionally with increasing molarity of sodium hydroxide. This indicated rapid reaction of geopolymerization due to the increasing of hydroxide ion content thus mainly affect dissolution process. It was also found that the geopolymerization during setting was governed by one-dimensional growth with instantaneous heterogeneous nucleation and this was supported by the morphology of the geopolymers observed. Among the activator molarities, the molarity of 12 (12M) was observed to be most influential based on its highest compressive strength (up to 46MPa at 7-days) and supported by the morphology properties results.

This paper investigates the correlation of thermal conductivity versus bulk density, porosity and compressive strength of metakaolin geopolymer for different mixing parameters (that are, alkali concentration, activator (AA) ratio and metakaolin/activator (MK/AA) ratio). Metakaolin was alkali-activated with NaOH and Na₂SiO₃ solution to produce geopolymer. Varying NaOH concentration (6M, 8M, 10M, 12 M and 14M), AA ratio (0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0 and 1.2) and MK/AA ratio (0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 and 1.0) were used to study the effect on bulk density, porosity, compressive strength and thermal conductivity. Result showed that metakaolin geopolymer with maximum compressive strength (33 MPa), bulk density of 1680 kg/m³, porosity of 18% and thermal conductivity of 0.40 W/mK is achieved with alkali concentration of 10M, AA ratio of 1.0 and MK/AA ratio of 0.8. From the gradation analysis of the strength result, AA ratio is the most influential mixing parameter in determining the compressive strength. In contrast, MK/AA ratio significantly affected the thermal conductivity. From the Pearson correlation coefficient, TC had strong relationship with bulk density and porosity and poor relationship with compressive strength.

Concrete density was optimised by substituting part of the normal-density aggregates (fine aggregate, coarse aggregate, or both) with that of comparable quantities of low-density aggregate, which enhanced structural efficiency (strength to density ratio), improved hydration and decreased transportation costs. These days, focus is given on enhancing the characteristics of concretes in order to make them more efficient. A factor associated in compressive strength, packing particle, water absorption and density is concrete proportioning. A good proportioning mix results in greater strength for concrete at optimum density and specified age. The filler effect is regarded as a physical feature pertaining to small particles for a concrete material since it allows generating extra compressive strength by filling voids by making mortar or concrete more homogeneous. This behaviour allows conferring additional compressive strength as well as optimise or minimise the concrete's density without having to use a pozzolanic reaction or a chemical reaction. Mainly, this objective has been implemented through using three different lightweight particle sizes of sand group a-(1.18 mm ≤ Sand size < 200 ɱm), b-(2.36 mm ≤ Sand size < 1.18 mm) and (5.0 mm ≤ Sand size < 2.36 mm). The parameters that are taken consideration during the investigation were sand particle size, water/cement ratio, cement/sand ratio. In general, the results demonstrated that there was a decrease in compressive strength when the sand's particle sizes increased. In case the particle size group (b) and (c) used the decrease rate in compressive strength was 7.97% and 12.39% respectively in comparison with particle size group (a) where the optimum values of the water/cement and cement/sand ratio were used. On the other hand, low density was achieved at the point of the higher compressive strength, whereas 4.4% and 3.66 % increase in the density was recorded over the particle sizes of sand (b and c) respectively. Meanwhile, we put forward the relationships existing between the compressive strength as well as density of concrete mixtures with various proportions of the lightweight aggregates as given above. The conducted experimental studies showed that there were tendencies to possibly utilise various quantities of fine lightweight aggregates as well as their combinations to yield concrete mixtures based on the requirements in practical application. As per the study conclusion, the considered mixtures could be used to yield structural elements that need high compressive strength and lower density.

Recent research reveals that formulation of blended geopolymers based on the association of two aluminosilicate precursors had a better performance than one precursor geopolymers. This study presents a facile method to enhance the compressive strength of fly ash-metakaolin blend geopolymer by incorporating monoaluminum phosphate (MAP) during the geopolymerization reaction. The effect of the thermal exposure on the microstructure and compressive strength of the geopolymer are investigated. Results show that the MAP is transformed to granule structures, bonded and surrounded by geopolymer gel. The unique microstructure increases the compressive strength of the room temperature curing geopolymer from 54.7 MPa to 64.21 MPa (14.8%) with an optimum addition of 1.0 wt% MAP. This enhancement in compressive strength was ensured by the formation of an amorphous structure of aluminosilicophosphate (SiO₂.Al₂O₃.P₂O₅.nH₂O) phase. At higher temperatures, the formation of stable crystalline phase of berlinite and nepheline contribute to strength retention of the geopolymer. Hereby, it can be concluded that the addition of 1.0wt% MAP in the geopolymer reinforced the structure.

In Malaysia, the demand for green building kept rising from year to year. The design concept of the green building which provides better indoor environment to make occupant more comfortable and healthier. The Green Building Index (GBI) as a rating system in Malaysia was used to evaluate the environmental design and performance of a building by the occupant, due to that, it is used for this research to investigate the relationship between the indicator of the Indoor Environment Quality (IEQ) and occupant satisfaction's element in a private university in Sarawak. The building occupants are the most important feedback to determine the occupant's satisfaction level for IEQ within the campus. A quantitative method was applied to reach the objectives by using simple random sampling. A total of 254 copies of the questionnaire survey form were distributed to respondents at School of Business and Management (SBM) and School of Built Environment (SBE) in the university. However, there are only 238 responds are usable for this research. The result shows that the temperature (57.0%) and the indoor air quality (66.7) in IEQ's indicator had moderate positive and significant relationship with thermal comfort, and ventilation respectively.

Clay soils provide several challenges for geotechnical and civil engineers. This type of soils has a low strength, high plasticity and can cause damage to the road pavement such as crack and soil strength reduction. Thus, require stabilization method. Continue of research and investigations have been done to find other alternative in soil stabilization that eco-friendly. Geopolymer, one of the alterative eco-friendly soil stabilization method offering small swelling potential and outstanding adhesion to soil properties, which could be an effective soil stabilizer. Geopolymer is a reaction that chemically integrates minerals that involves naturally occurring silicoaluminates sources. The geopolymer synthetized from soil, fly ash, ground granulated blast slag and an alkaline solution made from sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and sodium silicate (Na₂SiO₃). The characterization testing includes physical properties, X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF), X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) to examine the physical properties, elemental chemical composition, mineralogical properties, microstructure, and bonding chemical of the raw material, respectively. Based on the characterization result, the soil, fly ash and ground granulated blast slag consists mainly of silica (SiO₂) and alumina (Al₂O₃) which make it suitable to be used as raw materials for geopolymer formation. This paper presents a characterization analysis of soil, fly ash and ground granulated blast slag as raw materials for soil stabilization application using geopolymerization method.

Concrete in seawater is subjected to various aggressive constituents in seawater commonly sulphate, chloride and carbonate. This paper investigates the potential effects towards mechanical and physical properties of geopolymer when used as underwater concreting material. Besides identifying the microstructure using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), the sample is also characterized using Synchrotron based micro X-Ray Fluorescence (µ-XRF) to identify the elemental distribution that had occurred in the underwater geopolymer. Other essential properties for concrete such as compressive strength, water absorption and density were also determined. The compressive strength result indicates a slightly lower strength for underwater geopolymer (31.40 MPa) compared to normal geopolymer (35.91 MPa). Relevant to the strength, the water absorption and density also shows a slight difference between the geopolymer samples. The µ-XRF analysis shows the presence of chlorine (Cl) element only for underwater geopolymer which indicates that the are chloride penetration for underwater geopolymer. Additionally, other element distribution such as Silica (Si), Aluminum (Al) and Calcium (Ca) shows a different value when comparing normal geopolymer and underwater geopolymer. Despite the difference in elemental distribution between sample, geopolymer is proven to have the potential to be used as underwater material since it is able to retain at least 70% strength of the control sample.

The Building sector is the largest consumer of energy worldwide. Net Zero Energy Residential Building (NZERB) is one of the prudent approaches to reduce pressure on primary sources of energy. The main objective of this study is to use Taguchi simulation based on orthogonal arrays approach to optimize thermal envelope of a building, SEER value of HVAC system, lighting power density, and ventilation level to reduce the Building Energy Intensity (BEI) 50% lower than the base case building according to International Energy Conservation Codes 2015. In this study whole building energy simulation was performed by Hourly Analysis Energy Program and PVWatts calculator was used to estimate the size of the PV system for balancing the energy demand of the house. The results of Taguchi simulation approach show that by decreasing the U value of wall, windows, roof, floor to 0.1, 0.8, 0.1, 0.2 W/m2. °K respectively and ventilation rate 0.15 l/s-m2, lights of 110 lm/W and SEER of the HVAC system 4 (W/W option) reduce BEI from 147.78 kWh/m2/year for base case building to 67.085 kWh/m²/year for optimal design case. PV system size estimation was performed with PVWatts calculator. PV Watts recommended the size of 13kW DC rating system (open rack type) of 15% efficiency for the weather of Johor Bahru to meet the annual energy demand of the proposed optimal building design.

This paper deals with the development of high calcium fly ash based geopolymers. Geopolymer paste was prepared from fly ash alkaline activator solutions using various mix design including molarity of sodium hydroxide used (6-14M) with solid-to-liquid ratio (1.0-3.0) and the sample were curing at ambient temperature. In this paper, flow value, setting time and unconfined compressive strength of high calcium fly ash based geopolymer paste was carried out using flow table equipment, Vicat's apparatus and compression testing machine to measure the properties caused by high calcium fly ash. It was found that solid to liquid ratio of 2.0 and NaOH molarity of 12M was the best mix design to be applied due to its maximum unconfined compressive strength achieved (up to 19MPa at 28 days) as well as its flow ability of the fresh paste which shown better result compared to other mix designs. High calcium was also found to result in higher strength.

Geopolymers were synthesized using fly ash as raw material from six steam power plants, Adipala (FA1), Indramayu (FA2), Paiton 9 (FA3), Asam-asam (FA4), Pulau Pisang (FA5), and Sanggau (FA6). Fly ash was tested for several characteristics using XRF, XRD, and SEM. XRF analysis showed FA1, FA4, and FA5 included in class C fly ash while FA2, FA3, and FA5 included in class F. The XRD analysis results showed that there were typical peaks of quartz, mullite, calcite, magnetite, and hematite in the fly ash samples. SEM analysis shows the morphology of the fly ash FA1, FA2, FA3, and FA4 spherical with different particle sizes, but in the fly ash FA5 and FA6, the morphological shape is irregular. The highest compressive strength test results obtained by geopolymers made from FA3 after 28 days with compressive strength values of 36.62 MPa. The intensity of the crystalline geopolymer phase decreases when compared to its fly ash. Geopolymer morphology shows the presence of unreacted fly ash particles.

Filtering Facepieces (FFPs) are commonly use as personal protective equipment (PPE). It is disposable Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE). Basically it is used for protection against dusts, particles and aerosols. Available in 3 classes FFP1, FFP2 and FFP3. Various Respiratory Protective Equipment (RPE) offered in Malaysia's market today are not being controlled and monitored by expert bodies and authorities. This has led to various perceptions among the users, especially on the quality and safety and health features of the products offered by different companies. This situation also makes it difficult for users to decide appropriate RPE based on quality and standard compliance. The tendency of consumers to choose RPE is mainly based on the price but not the technical aspect of RPE. Hence, the RPE they purchased not necessary enhance user protection, as there is no guidance available to assist user before they purchase the most appropriate RPE. This study describes market surveillance testing of FFP2 respirator from 30 different brand in Malaysia. The objective is to determine performance requirements required by the Malaysia standard. 3 types of testing were used on this study Filter Penetration, Breathing Resistance and Carbon Dioxide Content. All testing was carried out based on Malaysia Standard; MS 2323:2010 and MS2553:2014.All 30 sample were passed the breathing resistance and carbon dioxide content except 10 brand was failed the filter penetration testing. It is noticed that the user and consumer should aware with their PPE basic requirement.

This study utilized fly-ash and TiO₂/rGO as raw materials to produce membrane for absorbing harmful heavy metals and liquid organic waste. Graphene oxide (GO) was synthesized by using modified Hummer's method and then transformed into reduced Graphene Oxide (rGO) by means of hydrothermal reduction at 160°C for 4 hours. The objective of this research was to identified the structure and morphology as well as the ability of the produced membrane to absorb heavy metals. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) examination showed the high purity of GO and rGO nanoparticles. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images for each TiO₂ concentration showed that membrane added with 1% TiO₂ result in homogenous distribution of TiO₂ and rGO on the surface of geopolymer. Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy (ASS) showing significant differences of Fe heavy metal of the contaminant concentration before and after filtration. Fe concentration in the first concentration was 1.226 ppm and become 0.239 ppm after filtration process was performed. The results of this study indicate that the membrane based on geopolymer/TiO₂-rGO contain 1% of TiO₂ and rGO relative to the mass of the starting fly-ash can be used as a membrane of heavy metal absorption.

Conventional energy sources depletion, energy insecurity, fluctuating petroleum prices and global climate change have driven countries worldwide to consider alternative and renewable energy options. The use of biofuel such as bioethanol is as an option over conventional petroleum and important for the development of sustainable and eco-friendly energy resources. However, bioethanol manufactured from various biomass resources is different in terms of its processing stages and the need for extra pre-treatments. This study aims to suggest the most feasible biomass resource for bioethanol generation by using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), one of the multi-criteria decision-making methods based on priority estimation model. Among biomass resources, the issue of selecting the most feasible resource is evaluated, using numerous criteria influencing the biomass selection which are chosen through Focus Group Discussion (FGD) with experts in the biomass research field. Out of the five selected biomass resources, sugarcane is preferable as a bioethanol feedstock with an overall priority of 31.69%, followed by palm oil residues (overall priority= 23.51%), compared to corn (overall priority= 22.59%), rice straws (overall priority= 13.53%) and sugar beet (overall priority= 8.67%). Sugarcane is claimed to be the most feasible bioethanol feedstock due to its high availability over years, high energy ratio, high cellulose and hemicellulose content. Although sugarcane takes a longer time to grow, it is easier to be planted and harvested with the help of developed machineries. However, an ideal bioethanol-producing feedstock should not be food crops. Thus, as a suggestion for future research, more factors to determine the potential and suitability of the crops should be considered.

Turning waste product into the valuable resources is the best alternative way to overcome the waste management issue. Generally, rice is grown and planted twice a year where a lot of rice by-products have been produced after harvesting the matured paddy. Rice straw is one of turning waste products into the valuable resources and to manage the environmental issues. Generally, rice is grown and planted twice a year where a lot of rice by-products are produced. Rices straw is one of the rice by-products, generated roughly 0.7-1.4 kg per kilograms of harvested milled rice. With the nanotechnological approach, silica particles at nano-size can be produced using the incinerated rice straw. In addition to that, this research will report the synthesis, characterization and adsorption analysis towards the heavy metal removal.

Activated carbon can be call as "material of the future" due to its versatility usage from medical aspect, water and air treatment and a very good adsorbent characteristic. Process involved in the production of activated carbon were carbonization of raw material and activation of the charcoal to be a carbonized material. Basically the activation can be either physical or chemical activation or a combination of it. This paper is to review the potential of agricultural waste and introduce the potential base material that can be utilized as raw material for activated carbon. The process and the material selected on agricultural waste is coconut shell, palm kernel shell and rubber seed shell. The downstream industry of agricultural waste could look into material for the product development in the near future.

The increasing consumption of fisheries product causes large amount of wastewater produced from fish processing industry. General wastewater treatment includes the use of harmful chemical such as chlorine. This research opens a new platform to treat wastewater by using ionic cupric copper which is also known as copper nanoparticles (CuNP). Copper nanoparticles are synthesized through chemical reduction method by using Copper sulphate pentahydrate (CuSO₄.5H₂O) as precursor and Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) as reducing agent. The physical characterizations of CuNP are carried out by using SEM and the chemical characterizations are carried out by using XRD and FTIR. The efficiency of CuNP to treat wastewater from fish processing industry are determined by the removal of COD, Total coliform and E.Coli. The optimum concentration to reduce COD is 1000mg/L which causes 59.4% percentage removal of COD. The optimum concentration for COD removal is used to determine the volume of CuNP needed to remove total coliform and E.Coli. The optimum volume for removal of total coliform and E.Coli are 40µL and 30 µL respectively.

Palm kernel oil (PKO) naturally composed of lauric, myristic and oleic acid. Oleic acid is one of the unsaturated fatty acids that has double bond in its chain. This double bond can be altered into epoxide acid by epoxidation reaction. This study investigated the effect of oxygen carriers and reaction temperature in epoxidation of palm kernel oil. The result showed that formic acid is the best oxygen carrier with the maximum conversion to oxirane (RCO) of 60.59% under optimum temperature of 55°C. The formation of epoxide from palm kernel oil was confirmed by FTIR analysis which shows the functional groups of epoxide ring at 2922.12 cm⁻¹, 1742.74 cm⁻¹ and 650.4 cm⁻¹.

In this work, the surface of Ag/CeO₂ which was prepared using hydrothermal method was modified using three types of organic acid such as ascorbic acid, citric acid and oxalic acid as the post treatment of as-synthesized Ag/CeO₂ catalyst. The modified catalyst was further characterized using energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) for its elemental composition and BET surface area. The sonocatalytic degradation of caffeine under ultrasonic irradiation was examined to investigate the effect of these organic acids on the modification of Ag/CeO₂ catalyst. The result showed that ascorbic acid demonstrated the highest sonocatalytic degradation of caffeine compared to citric and oxalic acids. Meanwhile, the degradation of caffeine was improved from 72.8% to 78.9% for modified Ag/CeO₂ catalyst using ascorbic acid as the surface modifier. Thus, this result indicates that this kind of organic acid might have potential to modify Ag/CeO₂ catalyst surface and improve the sonocatalytic degradation of caffeine.

The immobilisation of enzymes offer improvement in enzyme stability and characteristics as well as overcome the limitations of free enzyme systems for commercial purposes. In the current study, xylanase was immobilised using a combination technique of entrapment and covalent binding within and onto calcium alginate beads. The sodium alginate and calcium chloride (CaCl₂) concentration used for the preparation of alginate beads which is the support matrix for xylanase immobilisation were fixed at 3% (w/v) and 0.3 M, respectively. The effect of immobilisation conditions (agitation rate, enzyme loading, and glutaraldehyde concentration) were studied using One-Factor-At-a-Time (OFAT) approach. The best condition for optimum immobilisation yield (83.93%) was found to be made up of the following parameter combination: agitation rate, 200 rpm; xylanase loading, 200 U; and glutaraldehyde concentration, 12% (w/w). The study shows the immobilisation conditions play a significant role towards the immobilisation yield of xylanase.

Biodiesel or fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) is one of the best alternative renewable energy source and environmental friendly fuel to replace diesel. Cr-Ti mixed oxides catalysts were synthesized via sol-gel method for the transesterification of cooking palm oil (CPO) to produce FAME. The reactions were conducted in a batch reactor. The effects of calcination time and ethanol solvent volume were studied. The calcination time of the Cr-Ti mixed oxides between 1 h to 5 h and ethanol volume between 20 mL to 60 mL shows effect on the FAME density obtained in the reaction. It was also observed that calcination time affects the catalyst surface area, pore diameter and pore volume. The results shows that the Cr-Ti catalyst prepared at 2 h calcination time with 50 mL ethanol volume has the highest surface area, pore volume and pore diameter among the prepared catalysts and obtained FAME density of 841.5 kg/m³. The FAME density is within the value range of the biodiesel fuel property. Thus, Cr-Ti mixed oxides catalyst shows good potential as heterogenesous catalyst for transesterification of CPO to produce FAME.

Recently, biodiesel is used as an alternative fuel to reduce the air pollution. However, storage stability comes as it reduces the biodiesel properties after it been stored for a long period. This study was conducted to investigate the effect of storage duration on the stability degradation of biodiesel and the influence of metal additives nanoparticles blend to retard the deterioration of biodiesel. Biodiesel was synthesized using transesterification of waste cooking oil Gas Chromatography was performed to characterized the elements of biodiesel. Silver, manganese and iron nanoparticles were synthesized following sol-gel method. Nanoparticles were blended with biodiesel in concentration of 100 and 500 ppm using the ultrasonicator bath. Storage stability observation was performed according to ASTM4625 method which is 43 °C for one week. Gas Chromatography peaks shows similar components as standard biodiesel such as methyl palmitate, methyl stearate and methyl linoleate. Density and acid value were sis results proved that nanoparticles can help to retard the stability degradation of biodiesel.

The potential of Cu/Zn/Al/Zr – ZSM-5 zeolite hybrid catalyst, prepared by using the newly-improvised technique, namely ultrasonic spray precipitation (USP) is being explored in converting CO₂ into methanol. In this study, the effect of reaction temperature (400–560K) and pressure (20–50 bar) towards catalytic activity were investigated. This technique had influenced the formation of ultrafine particles (75 nm) with relatively high BET surface area (167 m2 g-1) and both Cu surface area (12.5 m2 g -1) as well as Cu dispersion (8.88 %). TPD profile of H2 and CO₂ revealed that this catalyst possess a multiple adsorption states at low (353–383 K) and high (653–858 K) temperature region. Reactivity – wise, an increment of pressure had improved the CO₂ conversion and methanol selectivity with maximum value of 35.5 % and 28 %, respectively. In contrast, the exothermic nature of CO₂ hydrogenation reaction had retarding both CO₂ conversion and methanol selectivity at temperature higher than 523 K with the highest value for both were 36.3 % and 20.7 %, respectively.

Development of the new generation of Ultra Supercritical (USC) power plant that has successfully achieved the targeted working temperature of 970 K. Nonetheless, increasing the operating temperature will further accelerate the high temperature oxidation of ferritic alloys of the boiler. Furthermore, water vapour in humid environment will make it easier for the alloy to further oxidize at high temperature. It is hypothesized that water vapour provides hydrogen that dissolves into the ferritic alloy susbstrate, hence altering their electronic state at the metal-semiconductor (oxide) interface. This study aims to measure Schottky Barrier Height (SBH) in dry and wet environment and relates it with acclerated oxidation behaviour. The Schottky Barrier was prepared by sputtering Cr2O3 onto the T91 boiler tube in high vacuum condition of 0.4 Pa, RF power 150W for an hour. The existance of Cr2O3 / Fe junction was confirmed by XRD analysis. The junction was then connected with platinum wire to act as the electrode for the current-voltage, I-V and capacitance-voltage, C-V test at high temperature. From the I-V graph, the reversed saturated current, Io was estimated and the SBH was calculated from the results. The SBH increased as the conductivity increased with the increment of temperature. From the C-V plots the value of Vbi was determined and used to calculate the SBH. The SBH increased with the increased of built in voltage. The result obtained from the two method agrees with one another. SBH value in wet condition is higher than that in dry condition. This is explained by the formation of space charge layer at metal/oxide interface due to dissolved hydrogen in metal, thus may change the transport property and accelerate the oxidation rate in water vapor.

Power plant industry extensively using ferritic Fe-Cr alloys as boiler materials due to its good resistant to creep, low in thermal shock and thermal expansion. However, the development of new generation of Ultra Supercritical (USC) power plant requires boiler materials to be operate at higher temperature and pressure, thus make it susceptible to high temperature oxidation. The USC power plant successfully reaching the target of working temperature at temperature more than 873K (600°C). By increasing the operating temperature, the efficiency of power plant also increases at the expense of acceleration of high temperature oxidation. This project explored the application of impressed current cathidic protection (ICCP) at 1073 K. At high temperature, gas may dissociates into charged ions that make it possible to conduct electrons. Typical boiler material of T91 was used in high temperature oxidation at 1073K, under Ar-20%O2 mixed gas. The sample is connected to potentiostat with Pt wire to measure the value of corrosion potential (Ecorr), and Icorr. Blank experiment is conducted to determine the presence of reaction by the presence of current conductivity at high temperature in oxygen condition. The weight gain is following parabolic's rate law, which shows that diffusion is the rate determing step. Blank test shows that as potential induced, current flows from one Pt terminal to another Pt terminal through intermediate mixed gas. Corrosion potential (Ecorr) of the sample show the value is greater than value at room temperature. It is concluded that ICCP is feasible to be conducted for controlling corrosion at high temperature.

Torrefaction is a thermal treatment process used for upgrading lignocellulosic biomass properties into a promising renewable energy, which is performed under inert condition at a temperature range of 200 - 300°C between 15 – 60 minutes residence times. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of torrefaction treatment on chemical composition and energy properties at different temperature 240, 270, 300 and 330°C with different residence time at 15, 30 and 60 minutes for oil palm biomass (empty fruit bunch). The analysis demonstrated an increase degradation of biomass hence an increase of mass loss was observed due to the combined effect of temperature and treatment duration. Higher heating values was increased by 55% which attributes the energy generations from the torrefied materials. Hemicellulose and cellulose content degraded as temperature and treatment duration increased, while lignin content increased due to the decomposition of hemicellulose and cellulose which accumulated the lignin content in the torrefied biomass. This study proves that torrefied biomass can be used as biofuel as it has higher heating value, and improved the chemical and physical properties of biomass.

Leading and managing form the framework for skills and abilities that are necessary for an individual to drive team success. Occupational safety and health (OSH) Leadership modeled the organisational commitment in OSH and for the commitment to growth and sustained, it requires management support for employees OSH engagement. Both of the leadership and management support are addressed in the safety and health policy as stipulated in the Section 16 of Occupational Safety and Health Act 1994 to provide assurance on the OSH compliance as well as providing opportunity for employer to establish decent work through freedom from injury and ill health and provision of safe and healthy workplaces. The aim of this paper is to determine the influence of OSH management support in the relationship between OSH leadership and Safety Performance in Malaysian Industries in the context of organisational culture model. 300 responses who were OSH practitioners were collected from twelve different industries in Malaysia. Data were analysed using SPSS and AMOS. Results showed that having a leadership alone is not sufficient to improve OSH performance, it needs the mediation effect of OSH management support on OSH performances.

Treating and cleaning corroded artefact has resulted in long-term loss of artefact integrity and intangible historical value in museum preservation method. Inhibitors and coatings are preferable methods applied in heritage conservation as it is the easiest way for corrosion protection. However, issue of health and environment has led conservators to find a better inhibitor, natural or green corrosion inhibitors. Surprisingly, Malay traditional practice has since long ago used Coconut water (CW) as corrosion inhibitor to preserve keris blades, showing that the knowledge in corrosion protection has been practiced in old Malay civilization for metal preservation. This paper intends to clarify the compositional effect of CW in the inhibition efficiency to iron-based keris blade. Through Tafel and Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and Energy dispersive analysis of X-rays (EDAX) analysis, the study showed that CW formed passivation with the highest IE of 92% as compared to other natural inhibitors existing and used in industries such as Ascorbic Acid (AA) and Tartaric acid (TA). EIS and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) study has shown and conclude that CW has displayed protective abilities that exceeds both AA and TA.

Soil-structure interaction (SSI) is often disregarded to reduce difficulties in analyses. Thus, most of analyses adopted rigid foundation despite ignoring SSI could lead to inaccurate response. Current study investigates the influence of SSI on low-to medium-rise existing frames considering non-seismic loading. A multichannel analysis of surface wave (MASW) is performed at several locations in Penang to obtain shear wave velocity of local site conditions. The frames are modelled with rigid and flexible (soil flexibility) and analyzed using nonlinear static analysis. Each of the frames is subjected with seismic zone factor to predict the seismic response using Acceleration-Displacement Response Spectra (ADRS) concept. A flexible base elongated the period mainly under soft soil (soil E), increasing by up to 6.27%, 9.44%, and 4.12% for 3-, 6-, and 16-story frames, respectively. The frames that considered SSI experienced degradation of their capacity curve, strength, and stiffness. Under a dissimilar seismic zone factor, low-story frames achieved high demand, whereas high-story frames delivered maximum displacement is observed.

Lead-free solder, especially Sn-0.7Cu has been evolving due to the restriction of the lead solder usage which is environmental and health unfriendly. However, most of the lead solder properties show a better result compared to the lead-free solder. To further improve the properties of lead-free solder, the solidification state of Sn-40Pb and Sn-0.7Cu, which is one of the important behaviour in thermal analysis that affects the solder properties and performance, was investigated and compared in this study by natural cooling curve method. The result showed that Sn-40Pb has two nucleation phase while Sn-0.7Cu has only one during the solidification. The primary lead-rich phase was first nucleated in Sn-40Pb following by the secondary tin-rich phase when cooling; while the phase of Cu6Sn5 was nucleated in Sn-0.7Cu. In addition, it is found that the undercooling of Sn-40Pb is lower than Sn-0.7Cu in the cooling curve.

The concentration of sodium hydroxide solution increased the reaction rate during geopolymerisation process and thus enhanced the development of early strength of concrete. While the percentage volume of aggregates played a vital role in the strength development due to the better durability then paste alone and also filling and packing ability. The aim of the study is to determine the optimum molarity of sodium hydroxide and aggregate to binder ratio of geopolymer concrete towards high strength performance concrete based on compressive strength. The variable samples investigated include the sodium hydroxide (NaOH) concentration and aggregate to binder ratio at room temperature curing; the ratio of alkali activator solution and solid to liquid ratio remained constant. This resulted the presents work on the development of fly ash based geopolymer concrete having increment on the rate of compressive strength development from 7 to 28 days was found between 61 MPa and 82 MPa, respectively.

This study aims to investigate the photocatalytic activity of ZnO nanoparticles as photocatalyst material which was doped onto a geopolymer paste. ZnO-doped geopolymer paste were prepared by mixing Class F fly ash and various amount of ZnO nanoparticles with alkali activator, which is combination of sodium hydroxide solution with sodium silicate. Meanwhile, geopolymer paste without ZnO was produced by mixing Class F fly ash and alkali activator. Then, both samples were cured in room temperature and aged for 28 days. The photocatalytic activity for geopolymer paste with and without ZnO nanoparticles were evaluated and compared through photocatalytic testing and discolouration testing. The experimental results revealed that, as increasing the amount of addition ZnO nanoparticles, the degradation of methylene blue also was increased. However, mineralogical determination of ZnO-doped geopolymer paste were characterized using X-ray Diffraction (XRD).

This paper presents corrosion control by using Aluminium as Sacrificial Anode Cathodic Protection (SACP) in geopolymer reinforced concrete. Geopolymer concrete for this research are the combination and reaction between kaolin, which is acting as a binder, fine aggregates such as river sand, coarse aggregates and an alkaline activator which contain 12 M of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) solution and sodium silicate (Na₂SiO₃) solution with the ratio of NaOH/Na₂SiO₃ is 0.8. There are two types of sample preparation in this experiment which are the control sample without attaching with Aluminium and SACP sample that attach to Aluminium. Three testing were conducted in this research such as compressive strength, open circuit potential and gravimetric weight loss method and these results were observed after days 7 and 14. Compressive strength testing for this geopolymer concrete shows that the highest compressive strength was at sample 14 days which is 7.04 MPa while sample 7 days is 3.96 MPa. The result shows the potential values of SACP samples were lower than the control sample for both 7 and 14 days. The potential values for the SACP sample for 7 and 14 days are 0.0152 V and -0.037 V while for control sample was 0.048 V and 0.051 V respectively. From the Pourbaix diagram, the control sample was located in the passivity region while SACP sample was located in the immunity region. The corrosion rate of the reinforcement bar in concrete has been performed by the gravimetric weight loss method. Analysis of the resulting proved that the corrosion rate of SACP sample was lower than the control sample for both 7 and 14 days, which were 3.60 x 10⁻⁵ mm/yr and 1.427 x 10⁻⁵ mm/yr respectively. This is due to the presence of Aluminium which act as the sacrificial anode that protects reinforcement bar in geopolymer concrete from the corrosive agent.

This paper reports the results of an experimental work conducted to investigate the correlation between thermal insulation properties with compressive strength and density of lightweight geopolymer prepared by using fly ash as source material and combination of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate as alkaline activator. The experiments were conducted by varying the ageing time of 3, 7, 28, 60 and 90 days, respectively. The specimens cured for a period of 90 days have presented the highest compressive strength and lowest density accompanied with satisfied value of thermal conductivity. From the results obtained, it was evident that the thermal conductivity had a high correlation coefficient with compressive strength and density.

This study investigates the effect of various geopolymer ceramic particles addition in matrix SnCu solder paste on its geopolymer ceramic's microstructure and their mechanical properties after being reinforced in solder alloy. The composite solder was prepared by mechanically mixed 1.0 wt.% geopolymer ceramic powder into SnCu powder and compacted via powder metallurgy (PM) technique. Based on microhardness results, the presence of slag geopolymer shows an improvement after being reinforced with SnCu.

Chili-based products are increasingly in demand. Realizing this demand, many companies are taking the opportunity to run a chili processing business including turning it into a grind chili and instant chili paste in bottle packaging. The processing of this product goes through several stages, including the process of separating the chilies from the stalks, the cleaning process, grinding the chilies, and ending with the packing work. The main problem is during the process of separating the chilies from the stalks as it is still traditionally practiced by manually separating the stalks from the chilies by workers. It takes a lot of workforce and takes a long time to complete in large quantities. The researchers have carried out a prototype study by designing and building a machine that has been tested and has the ability to separate the chilies from the stalks. The sample of this research was the Sri Azwani Company which had successfully passed the screening by a panel of selected evaluators to obtain the PPRN grant award. The company had encountered problems during the process of separating the bird's eye chilies from the stalks because it took a while to process 30kg-50kg of chilies for a mass production to produce 530-550 bottles at a time. The machine has a cylindrical main chamber that rotates according to the pre-determined resolution. The machine can process a maximum of 75kg-100kg per day of operation and it will impact the industry in terms of increased production volume, time savings, and cost.

Reduced graphene oxide nanoparticles (rGO NPs) is one of the advanced green nano-materials with valuable properties that offer promising novel applications particularly when it is combine with other materials. The main objective of this study was to investigate the influence of rGO addition on the microstructure character of metakaolin based geopolymer. Graphene oxide nanoparticles (GO NPs) was synthesized from graphite by using modified Hummer's method and rGO NPs was produced from GO through thermal calcination at 160°C for 4 hours in an autoclave. Geopolymer paste was produced through alkali activation method of metakaolin and cured at temperature 70°C for 2 hours. rGO NPs was dispersed into geopolymer paste with various concentrations, 0, 3, 6 and 9% relative to the mass of metakaolin. The crystal structure and morphology of rGO NPS and geopolymer-rGO NPs composites were investigated by means of x-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and The results indicated that rGO NPs as two-dimensional material were successfully produced and characterized. The addition of rGO NPs was found to form strong bond with geopolymer species and hence improve the microstructure character of geopolymer.

Diverse application for geopolymer so called inorganic polymer have been expanded as potential to continue growing at a realistic rate where the properties, processing tolerance and economical are comparable with the existing materials. An aluminosilicate inorganic polymer can be produced at low temperature under highly alkali conditions from a solid aluminosilicate and an alkali silicate solution. The conversion of amorphous to semi-crystalline behaviour of geopolymer into crystalline phases upon heating make the method be an alternate way in producing ceramic materials. For another application related to high temperature packaging and enclosure of electronical devices, piezoelectric behavior turn out to be important properties to the geopolymer ceramic materials. This paper summarize the review on the important research findings on the basic geopolymer systems, current knowledge of geopolymer ceramic, and outline potential piezoelectric effect on ceramic materials.

Debris flow is a kind of geological disasters occurred in a mountainous area and can cause serious impacts on human lives, infrastructure and houses. Therefore, the potential exposure to this hazard may occur in the surrounding area. This paper assesses some recent noncommercial Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) package for debris flow. SPH as a Lagrangian method, in recent decade SPH showed to be effective in solving in engineering problems involving numerical formulation. The paper considers the features and capabilities can be offer from the non-commercial SPH package that are available and accessible for researcher related to debris flow, solid fluid interaction and so on. Finally, researcher may consider the SPH package based on the suitability of the study as well as the accuracy of the experimental test that have been compared with SPH package.

A triangular web profile (TriWP) section is a structural steel section that is made of two flanges connected to a web plate of triangular profile. Only certain research works have been carried out to study the characteristic, behaviour and the advantages offered by this section compared to the normal flat web (I-beam). An area that is not given full attention is the capability of this section to resist the lateral torsional buckling moment capacity compared to that of the normal flat web. The objectives of this thesis are to study the lateral torsional buckling behaviour of Triangular Web Profile (TriWP) steel section and compare to that of the flat web by experimental and to find the value of M_b, moment buckling resistance for TriWP. The scope of study covered the experimental work and theoretical investigation of triangular web profile steel section subjected to lateral torsional buckling moment resistance. The effect of the shape of the triangular web profile beam compared to that of the flat web beam was also be studied. For the buckling moment resistance, several factors were taken into account such as buckling parameter, torsional index, warping constant and torsional constant. All these factors are related to the second moment of area with respect to minor axis. The lateral torsional buckling test includes 8 specimens (4 flat webs and 4 TriWP). Each specimen was tested in two different sizes which is 200x100x6x3 and 180x75x5x3. Findings from the lateral torsional buckling tests were compared to the manual calculation using BS 5950: Part 1:2000. The lateral torsional buckling test shows that the moment buckling resistance of the triangular web profile steel beam section is better than that of the flat web in smaller size while in bigger size flat web beam has better moment resistance than that of triangular web profile steel beam. The section properties such as width (B), depth (D), thickness of flange (t_f) and thickness of web (t_w) affect the buckling moment resistance, M_b of the steel section

This paper deals with the interaction between two inclined cracks in the upper part of bonded dissimilar materials subjected to various stresses which is normal stress (Mode I), shear stress (Mode II), tearing stress (Mode III) and mixed stress. This problem is formulated into hypersingular integral equations (HSIE) by using modified complex potentials (MCP) with the help of continuity conditions of the resultant force and displacement functions where the unknown is the crack opening displacement (COD) function and the tractions along the crack as the right hand terms. Then, the curve length coordinate method and appropriate quadrature formulas are used to solve numerically the obtained HSIE to compute the stress intensity factors (SIF) in order to determine the stability behavior of materials containing cracks. Numerical results showed the behavior of the nondimensionalSIF at the cracks tips. It is observed that the various stresses and the elastic constants ratio are influences to the value of nondimensional SIF at the crack tips.

Technology in fish preservation had gone through various scope in food industry. Application of new green chemistry of deep eutectic solvent (DES) as preservative capable to help in the prevention of fish contamination by pathogenic bacteria. The aims of this study were including the synthesis of DES, the evaluation of antibacterial activity and sterility testing of the DES using fish samples. The synthesis of choline chloride-based DES was prepared by mixing with acetic acid and oxalic acid respectively. Further testing was done using disc diffusion method for the analysis of the solvent's antibacterial activity towards E. coli, S. aureus, B. subtilis, S. Typhi and K. pneumonia. The sterility evaluation on the preservative solvent was carried out using fish samples in different temperature and time of storage. Results analysis showed potential of the DES in antibacterial activity even at low concentration of mixture. Sterility test showed promising result by maintaining pH of the solvent at 6-7. Reduction of bacteria concentration was found in the bacterial-spiked fish samples when preserved in the DES mixture. Thus, the study proved the potential of DES as a good preservative for fish compared with the controls from single component of choline chloride, acetic acid and oxalic acid respectively..

Online platforms have become a focus nowadays as an instrument to help expedite some daily routines such as e-commerce including food ordering, online banking, social networking, and many more. Food ordering through online platforms, for instance, have evolved due to the growing numbers of users of digital platforms, restaurant-goers, and many more. The recent pandemic of coronavirus has changed the scenario of brick-and-mortar businesses while most governments forced to shut down and impose strict regulations of lockdown and social distancing among citizens. Although this situation hit most businesses, statistics have shown there is an increasing amount of E-Commerce spending globally. There has been several commercial systems and studies in the market and literature related to food ordering platforms and processes discussed in the study. However, most systems focusing on order-to-delivery and imposed a higher price for delivery. This study introduces an O2O food ordering concept aiming the takeout customers segment and targeting to optimised orders that can be made in advanced and on-the-go. The concept generates models of a new O2O and distance food ordering for potential E-Commerce implementations. Out of the models, process improvement is analysed and suggest that customers would save time, effort, and able to maintain social distancing among citizens. The models can be generalised to be implemented in various industries and situations, depending on in-depth analysis that would be carried out in future studies.

Environmental degradation has always been discussed by previous studies. This is because environmental degradation can have impacts on human health. The global temperature is expected to continue to increase in the next 100 years. Therefore, it is important to investigate the determinants of CO₂ emissions in the long run and short run in Malaysia. Data ranging from 1985 to 2014 were collected and the ARDL approach was employed. The results show that economic growth can be detrimental to the environment in both of the long run and short run. The results also show that population can have deleterious effects on the environment in the long run only. Therefore, enhancing economic growth and increasing the number of population should be controlled to ensure that the environment can be preserved.

Medical image registration is one of the processes involved in medical image analysis. During the process, an image will be computed and transform it for mapping the reference image to the target image to analyze the similarity merits as to help in diagnosis the situation in the medical field. However, the accuracy of the image registration is in question, might be improved if we can make use some optimization during the image registration process. In this research, we propose an enhancement of image registration algorithms based on monomodal registration by incorporating Cuckoo Search (CS) method for Lévy flight generation while simultaneously modifying and optimizing it to work on MRI image scanners, specifically to detect brain cancer. The performance of the proposed monomodal registration with CS algorithm was compared with basic traditional monomodal registration. The experimental results were validated by measuring the Normalized Mutual Information (NMI) and CPU run-time for all cases investigated. Our results show that the proposed monomodal registration with CS algorithm achieved the best 2% improved in NMI results and 42% reduced in CPU run-time. The method evolved to be more promising and computationally efficient for medical image registration.

Surface reconstruction can be defined as the process of data retrieval via scanning of the object with certain device such as laser scanner and etc. as well as the process of reconstructing the object using the retrieved data. The process of surface reconstruction begins with the type of input data being collected. The types of input data can be unstructured or structured. Artefacts can be defined as the properties of the data retrieved and they indirectly affect the output obtained at the end of surface reconstruction. The different types of input data can be treated by selecting different methods for the process of surface reconstruction. These methods basically fall under the categories of implicit surface, explicit surface and lastly soft computing methods. However, each of these methods for the process of surface reconstruction had their own advantages and disadvantages but they are not discussed thoroughly here. The selection of methods for surface reconstruction lies solely in the interest of studies for other researchers as each method for the process of surface reconstruction can be explored and researched upon viably. This paper highlights a brief introduction and review on previous researches with the aim of providing basic knowledge involved in the process of surface reconstruction.

The smart manufacturing integrates Internet of Things (IoT), cloud systems, data analytics and machine learning for autonomous implementation particularly in the factory's supply chain. The additional components from Information Technology (IT) gives convenience accessibility in spike of welcomed threats from inside or outside the boundary to do harmful events. The valuable information in smart manufacturing consists of intellectual property (IP), assets (hardware and software) data and human talent that lead to data theft and illegal activities due to its monetary values. However, little work is done on assessing risks invaluable information particularly threats from inside. In fact, studies on risk assessments are focusing on financial profit, supply chain production and IT assets. Therefore, an enhanced approach of risk assessment for insider threat detection (RAFITD) is introduced. The proposed approach contributes to a log monitoring of the log on and log out activities, based on the role of employee on a software dashboard. From the result, the log monitoring produces two scenarios, which is the ideal and non-ideal. For the ideal scenario, a balanced ratio between log on and log out is accomplished. Meanwhile, a non-ideal scenario performs an imbalance ratio. The impact of the study brings an insider threat detection for better analysis.

This paper proposes a new sliding mode controller, as to enhance the performance of path tracking of three-wheeled mobile robot system. To begin with, backstepping design is used to construct a new sliding mode control law for better dynamic response and robustness. Next, in order to reduce chattering, the symbolic function is replaced with the critical saturation function in the conventional reaching law. At last, the simulation results show that backstepping design combined with saturation function can not only improve the response rate and robustness of the system, but also effectively reduce the chattering.

This paper mainly describes the basic principles of extended Kalman filter and unscented Kalman filter and the application of them in target tracking based on observation distance At last the two algorithms are compared by Matlab software The simulation results show that unscented Kalman filter has better matching effect than extended Kalman filter and the former has smaller error variation and better convergence than the latter

The increase in the occurrence of violent crimes is a major concern in all countries around the globe. Various approaches of crime analyses have been implemented in reducing the number of violent crimes and among them is crime forecasting. Crime forecasting is an effective solution as it assists law enforcement agencies in planning efficient crime prevention measures. It has been observed recently that the application of artificial intelligence (AI) techniques in crime forecasting and analysis is favoured by researchers. Motivated by this development, this study aims to conduct a comparative analysis on the forecasting performance of three artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, namely artificial neural network (ANN), support vector regression (SVR), and gradient tree boosting (GTB) in forecasting the rates of four types of crimes in the United States (US). The forecasting performance of each AI technique was compared in terms of quantitative error measurement. From the results obtained, GTB showed the highest forecast accuracy compared to ANN and SVR as the observed error measurements were the smallest.

University is required to keep printed documents for a certain duration. Documents are evidence, for instance, student's proof of payment or final exams script, which need to be stored in a safe place within five years or more. The creation of a physical or printed document follows the standard of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) due to quality management and interrelation between universities for sharing information. However, an inventive way of ISO documentation for storing the evidence from loss and document misallocation is highly requested. Therefore, to overcome the document misallocation problem, an Internet-of-Things (IoT) based file tracking prototype is implemented. The prototype devices consist of Radio-frequency Identification (RFID) that has two parts, which are RFID reader and RFID tag, Arduino Uno, and mobile application (Android). RFID reader scans the information from the RFID tags located at the ISO document's file. The RFID reader is integrated with Arduino to establish a connection to the network to communicate with mobile applications (Android). This method tracked the current location of the ISO document's file. The result shows that the ISO document's file is located in the respective area. Finally, the impact of this research brings efficiency in searching the ISO document's file in the university.

The edge detection technique is a fundamental phase of image segmentation. The purpose of the image segmentation algorithm is to distinguish the boundary of objects in different regions and it relies on discontinuities in image values between distinct regions. The objectives of this research are to a) develop an interface for image edge detection based on derivatives using MATLAB and b) measure the PSNR, SNR and MSE values for analysis based on experiments conducted. Results show that, Lena image produces PSNR values of 20.9 dB (Canny), 20.0 dB (Log), 20.1 dB (Prewitt), 20.0 dB (Sobel) and 20.0 dB (Robert). Meanwhile, MSE gives 80.5 dB (Canny), 83.1 dB (Log), 80.9 dB (Prewitt), 81.0 dB (Sobel) and 81.0 dB (Robert) after the edge detection process. The finding shows that Canny has given a winning performance in PSNR value and low in noise rate for JPEG type of image in image segmentation. Finally, the impact of edge detection techniques produces a better solution for image segmentation.

Feature selection determines the most significant features for a given task while rejecting the noisy, irrelevant and redundant features of the dataset that might mislead the classifier. Besides, the technique diminishes the dimensionality of the attribute of the dataset, thus reducing computation time and improving prediction performance. This paper aims to perform a feature selection for classification more accurately with an optimal features subset using Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) in Spline Model (SM) classifier. A comparative study of prediction performance was conducted with other classifiers including Decision Tree (DT), Neural Network (NN) and Support Vector Machine (SVM) with similar optimal feature subset produced by MARS. From the results, the MARS technique demonstrated the features reduction up to 87.76% and improved the classification accuracy. Based on the comparative analysis conducted, the Spline classifier shows better performance by achieving the highest accuracy (97.44%) compared to other classifiers.

Human have a complex organ that called as brain, every action and decision was instructed by brain. This research was conducted to identify the pattern of EEG brainwaves for psychomotor abilities between male and female focussing to non-Dyslexic or normal engineering students at UTHM. Non-Dyslexic is a person who has not learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding). In addition, psychomotor abilities tests are important to measure the ability of motor skill and hand on to manipulate and controlling objects such as constructing circuit or robot and do programming for coding. The other way to measure the development of psychomotor abilities by using accuracy test, reaction time, precision and procedure techniques. Other than that, psychomotor abilities test also can be used to identify the suitable occupation based on their tendency. Psychomotor abilities requests a creative thinking, focus and also involves human mind and body that link together while performing the psychomotor abilities. The objective of this research was to collect sample data off EEG from subject's brain during psychomotor learning activities, to analyse the brainwaves produces by brain while going through psychomotor learning activities and to analyse the data collected using statistical analysis and do comparison on term of psychomotor activities between difference genders. Based on the result that have been conducted, almost all psychomotor persons have Beta and Alpha band but Beta band will be more domain than Alpha band. As a conclusion, this research has found out that between male and female that involved in this research the number of male subjects higher than female subjects as a psychomotor person.

Predictive models have been developed over the years to identify patients at risk of readmission. The goal of this study is to identify the risk factors associated to a patient's readmission within one year in the cohort study including acute myocardial infarction (AMI), Heart Failure (HF), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and Pneumonia (PN) in a reputed Philippine hospital. Four predictive models were used and evaluated using performance metrics. The study found Logistic Regression as the most performing model in most of the cohort studies. There are 6 to 8 variables significantly associated with the readmission of high-risk patients.

As real systems become larger and complicated, the number of nodes of fuzzy Petri net (FPN) also increases rapidly, it further indicated that the algorithm complexity of related application using FPN grows up sharply. To solve this state-explosion issue, a decomposition algorithm using reachability tree is proposed to divide a large-scale FPN model into a series of sub-FPNs in this paper. Comparison experiments show that all obtained sub-FPNs do not destroy internal reasoning paths of the original large-scale FPN and represent a complete reasoning path from input place(s) to the output place.

Harmony search (HS) algorithm has received widely attention in various fields because of simple operation and outstanding performance. However, there exists some bottlenecks which hinders the further development of HS algorithm, such as easy trapping into local optimum and slow convergence velocity.This paper proposes an improvement HS algorithm by using segmented search strategy (SHS) to overcome these drawbacks. Comparative experiments reveal the proposed SHS algorithm has perfect performance, especially in high dimensions.

Part-of-speech (POS) tagging is a basic problem that needs to be solved in the informationization of Chinese-Hmong mixed text including square Hmong characters, so far no one has studied it. This paper proposes a POS tagging approach for Chinese-Hmong mixed text by utilizing improved Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to expand contextual information. The results of comparative experiments based on cross-validation reveal the proposed approach has perfect performance, and is able to obtain tagging results with good consistency and high coverage.

Artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) and particle swarm optimization (PSO) are both famous optimization algorithms that have been successfully applied to various optimization problems, especially in function optimization. Those two algorithms have been attracting more and more research interest because of their efficiency and simplicity. However, PSO has poor exploration capabilities and thus is easy to fall into the local optimum; Likewise, ABC has low convergence speed. To address these shortcomings, firstly, we improved the ABC with the combination of greedy selection and crossover, secondly, a sine-cosine method will be used to help PSO jump into local optimal. Finally, a new hybrid algorithm based on improved ABC and PSO are proposed. Moreover, four functions are used to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, and the results show that, compared with other well-known algorithms, ABC-PSO is more efficient, faster and more robust in function optimization.

Feature selection (FS) is a process of selecting a subset of relevant features depends on the specific target variables especially when dealing with high dimensional dataset. The aim of this paper is to investigate the performance comparison of different feature selection techniques on high dimensional datasets. The techniques used are filter, wrapper and hybrid. Information gain (IG) represents the filter, Fish Swarm Algorithm (FSA) represents metaheuristics wrapper and Hybrid FSA-IG represents the hybrid technique. Five datasets with different number of features are used in these techniques. The dataset used are breast cancer, lung cancer, ovarian cancer, mixed-lineage leukaemia (MLL) and small round blue cell tumors (SRBCT). The result shown Hybrid FSA-IG managed to select least feature that represent significant feature for every dataset with improved performance of accuracy from 4.868% to 33.402% and 1.706% to 25.154% compared to IG and FSA respectively.

Aiming at solving the problem of large tracking error in the tracking process of video moving targets with the unscented Kalman filtering method, a particle filter algorithm is proposed to track video moving targets to improve the tracking effect. Particle filtering is the minimum variance estimation of the system state through the posterior probability distribution. The applications of particle filtering and unscented Kalman filtering in tracking video moving target are compared by using Matlab simulation software. The results show that the particle filter has higher accuracy and better tracking performance than the unscented Kalman filter in tracking video moving target.

Optimisation is an interesting topic because various optimum results can be obtained using limited resources. This is the reason that researchers are interested in further investigating the possibility of optimisation by testing numerous optimisation methods. As the current research trends are preferred to solve the problems using Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods, hence more nature-inspired optimisation methods are developed. Particles Swarm Optimisation (PSO) is one of the well-known optimisation methods in Swarm Intelligence (SI). It can be used to solve many problems. However, PSO is easily trapped in local optimum and encountered premature convergence problem, which indirectly affects its performance. Besides that, its performance with different parameter factors and velocity clamping is always not considered by researchers. Therefore, the objective of this research is to compare the performance of PSO with different parameter factors and velocity clamping using average fitness values. 10 different types of PSO models are applied and tested using 10 benchmark functions. Based on the experimental results, PSO10 with constriction factor and velocity clamping is proved to be the best PSO model because it can obtain 10 out of 10 minimum average fitness values. The outcomes can assist the researchers while applying the method to their research.

Adaptive learning has become popular among researches in the recent decade. It is believed in giving good benefits which promotes effective ways or methods to improve youth performance in education either for computing field or any non-computing fields. This study focuses on investigating the contribution of adaptive learning in computing education including the adaptation environment involved. This systematic mapping study was undertaken to analyse all relevant and related studies. A set of three research questions were defined in which 68 primary studies, dated from 2012-2020, were analysed and evaluated. The mapping shows the trends and the taxonomy of the contribution adaptive learning in computing education. However, the result also can be applied for non-computing education field. Most of the studied areas are on providing adaptive learning environment and investigating the suitability of learning contents for the youth in teaching and learning. This study summarized the existing research of adaptive learning over past seven years and there is a potential for more research in this area.

Wheelchair are designed to enhance a patient's personal mobility. It should help users to engage as much as possible in events. Therefore, rather than having a negative impact on its health or safety, the consumer should be able to live more active lives. Researchers have constantly worked to provide the patient with the best tool. At the time, patients had the option to use a wheelchair only, but now exoskeletons were introduced and proved as planned to have been successful. However, the use of wheelchair have never been brought down, in fact, the wheelchair that we all known are evolving into something fresh and new due to the effort of researchers applying new technology. Since a new idea for wheelchairs has been proposed, we conducted a systematic mapping study (SMS) on features introduced by researchers on wheelchairs. We identified 41 papers coming from conferences, symposium, workshops and journals. A total of 13 features exist in wheelchairs are identified. We present a qualitative analysis of the wheelchair, an overview on features for wheelchairs.

Microarray analysis able to monitor thousands of gene expression data, however, to elucidate the hidden patterns in the data is a complex process. These gene expression data show its imprecision, noise and vagueness due to its high dimensional properties. There are a handful of clustering algorithms have been proposed to extract the important information from the gene expression data. However, identifying the underlying biological knowledge of the data is still hard. To acknowledge these issues, clustering algorithms are used to reduce the data complexity. In this article, hybrid of agglomerative hierarchical clustering and modified k-medoids (partitional clustering) are proposed. Application of the proposed of clustering algorithms to group the genes that have similar functionality which might assist pre-processing procedures. In order to emphasize the quality of the clustering results, cluster quality index (CQI) is determined. Lung and ovary data sets used and the method retrieved a fair clustering with CQI, 0.37 and 0.48 respectively. This research contributes by avoiding biasness toward genes and provide true sense of clustering output using the advantage of hierarchical and partitional clustering methods.

Demand for greater volume of pediatric vitamin C syrups become higher every year whilst maintaining an expected high quality Current laboratory techniques employ costly time-consuming and destructive testing which inhibit manufacturers to attain higher process efficiency In this study machine learning methods: random forest RF support vector machine SVM artificial neural network ANN and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system ANFIS are used for the estimation of percentage ascorbic acid %AA assay Likewise these methods are compared to conventional linear regression LR model and to each other pH specific gravity viscosity and %AA assay measurements were used for the training of the network Preprocessing technique involving data smoothing was employed on each nonlinear main effect relationship to reduce the noise and achieve better prediction accuracy Upon training it was found the ANN coupled with Bayeasian Regularization exhibited 02314 MSE a higher accuracy among other algorithms Furthermore it generally pushed ANN to be relatively more accurate than ANFIS with a minimal MSE of 030810

Software testing is an important process in software development life cycle, which aims to guarantee the quality of software and reduce the number of errors and bugs. In such a process, software inputs and parameters are used to create a set of testing cases. Nevertheless, the number of testing cases increases enormously when considering all combinations of those inputs. Although t-way testing can reduce the test cases, generating the minimum, yet representative t-way testing set is challenging due to the large search space, which renders finding the best solution computationally prohibitive. The extant solutions suffer from the sensitivity to the random initialization and the subjectivity to the local minima, which adversely affects the reproducibility of these algorithms and obstructs finding the optimal solution. To this end, this paper proposes a novel meta-heuristic searching algorithm called Binary Black Hole (BBH) optimization that formulates the t-way testing as a binary optimization problem. Experimental results show the superiority of BBH over the famous Binary Particle Swarm Optimization (BPSO) algorithm. The achieved improvement shows the capability of BBH in generating smaller covering arrays with the same t-strength compared to those generated by BPSO.

Modelling and optimisation of sand-casting process have been widely studied in casting research. The present study was developed to compare the four types of mathematical model and find the best model used in the optimised process. The four types of mathematical model discussed in this paper were multiple linear regression model, full factorial model, fractional factorial model and response surface methodology model. The best model will used for the optimized process using soft computing technique. The input parameters of these models were silica sand, bentonite, water and coal dust. Meanwhile, permeability was the model output. The four types of mathematical model produced were statistically validated to test for model adequacy by using ANOVA and coefficient of determination. Each model was finally, validated by using mean square error (MSE) and root square error (RMSE). The research findings proved that respond surface methodology model was the best model as compared the other models, which was significant with p-values of less than 0.05. The model also produced the smallest MSE.

To some, the retail banking market is considered an oligopoly. This is not healthy for a country's economy and its people because it is important for competition to thrive in the banking industry. Any form of market failure or anti-competitive behaviour affects productive efficiency, consumer welfare and economic growth. With the introduction of the Base Rate (BR) to replace the Base Lending Rate (BLR), Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) seeks to inject transparency into the mortgage framework. Under this system, banks will have to disclose their margins and are not allowed to loan below the BR just to attract customers and boost loan growth. This new framework will allow customers to make better financial decisions whilst having little impact on borrowers. Even though this only applies to personal home loans, it still poses a challenge to competing banks. Those with a seemingly strong niche in consumer financing will be able to offer more attractive and competitive BR leading to better Effective Lending Rates (ELR). This paper proposes using Game Theory (GT) as a method to predict probable outcomes in strategic interactions for BR revision. Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) will then provide a means of weighing the probabilities of the contributing factors. With the ability to anticipate the competition's next moves in a quantifiable manner, strategists will be better prepared in understanding and navigating the complex banking system.

Customer churn prediction has been used widely in various kind of domain especially subscription-basis industries. With the rapid growth of telecommunication industry over the last decade, this industry not only focuses on providing numerous products, but also satisfying the customers as it is one of the key solutions to remain competitive. This research proposed MultiLayer Perceptron Method for churn prediction. The evaluation is compared with three classifiers which includes are Support Vector Machine, Naïve Bayes and Decision Tree in term of several aspects. In preprocessing phase, we employed Principal Component Analysis and normalization to find the correlation among all the variables. For the postprocessing, InfoGainAttribute is used to identify the highest factor attribute that leads to customer retention. It is found that MultiLayer Perceptron outperforms other classifiers and international plan plays important role to retain customer from leaving organization.

There is high demand of realistic facial expression in current computer graphics and multimedia research. Realistic and accurate facial expression can guarantee the animated character to deliver the expression correctly. However, generating facial expression requires hard work, effort and time since high realism of facial expression need to be in details. There are some available methods in current research area such as face warping to the target, re-use the existing images and also models for generating facial image with certain attribute. Based on literature reviews, current trend for facial expression is using the deep learning method such as generative model like Generative Adversarial Network (GANs). Some of GANs that recently available are Conditional Generative Adversarial Network (cGANs), Double Encoder Conditional GAN (DECGAN), Conditional Difference Adversarial AutoEncoder (CDAAE), Geometry-Guided Generative Adversarial Network (G2GAN), and Geometry-Contrastive Generative Adversarial Network (GC-GAN). These methods actually helped in creating more realistic images, reaching out the realistic facial expression and good identity preservation. This paper aims to review available GANs, find out related features to these methods and also performance of these methods that are useful in facial expression transfer process

The relation extraction of crime news can help the monitoring specialists to accelerate the crime investigation. However, constructing patterns or designing templates manually requires domain experts. Also the built patterns do not guarantee complete differentiation among different relation instances. The automatic detection of crime entities and relationship among entities can help the regulatory authorities to accelerate the crime investigation and decision support instead of being reliant on manual process. This study aims to increase the effectiveness of the extraction of crime entities and relationship among entities based on the determination of crime lingusitic pattern using Minimal Differentiator Expressions (MDEs) that represent the cases that will be used by the CBR classifier. The proposed extraction methods can help in compiling a highly accurate and machine-understandable crime knowledge bases which can support the regulatory authorities' investigation. This paper conducted on our proposed MDEs algorithm for linguistic pattern reuse in CBR approaches.

Breast cancer is a type of tumour that could be treated if the disease is identified at an earlier stage. Early diagnosis is crucial when it comes to reducing the mortality rate. In this study, deep neural network method is applied to facilitate the detection of breast cancer. The aim of this study is to implement deep neural network in breast cancer classification models that can produce high classification accuracy. Deep Neural Network (DNN) with multiple hidden layers was applied to learn deep features of the breast cancer data. Dataset used in this study was obtained from the UCI Machine Learning Repository which consists of Wisconsin Breast Cancer Dataset (WBCD) and used for the original and diagnostic dataset. The performance of the proposed DNN method was compared against previous machine learning classifier in terms of accuracy. From the results, the accuracy obtained for the original dataset was 97.14% and 97.66% for the diagnostic dataset, which is better than previous SVM method.

Iris segmentation is a crucial process in the iris recognition that it locates and captures the unique features inside the human iris image. However, iris image contains high noise rate and sometimes a genuine user is recognized as non-genuine by computer system. An algorithm from swarm-based intelligence is demanded for natural search images. Therefore, an experimental investigation was conducted to explore artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm for iris segmentation. The ABC algorithm measures the performance of convergence in learning the authentic iris features. Based on the findings, the average fitness is always less than or equal to the best fitness, and the differences between the two goes on decreasing over time, which is until the algorithm completely converges. The parameters of ABC Algorithm are programmed with at best 100 times of calculation to collect the best iteration and best fitness. In fact, results showed that ABC uses the population for every iteration instead of a single iteration. Number of iterations directly affect the time of optimal search for ideal convergence, which meets the aim of this study. As a conclusion, if the mean and standard deviation is low in values, it is proven that the speed of searching the iris features is faster and more robust.

Mixed Reality MR is a technology to make the combination of physical and digital worlds coexist with one another This paper is about to explore the potential MR technology to be used for telepresence Telepresence is a technology to allow user to feel present in specific place so he remotely transferred in a digital representation However in remote collaboration it is crucial to count when a localhost user can seizure and later transmission in a view of their backdrops This paper reviews about the existing works on video conferencing and discovers the many limitations such as limited shared view low resolution and lack of the realism This paper focuses on realism issue and real-time 3D reconstruction methods using depth sensors and provides a review for MR telepresence MR has the ability when users interact with the virtual objects it can admit the understanding of the real world and feel presence in real world when they interact to the surrounding

Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) is a variant of vehicle routing problem (VRP) in which vehicles with restricted capacities required to pick-up or deliver at various locations. The main constraint in CVRP is to pick-up or deliver the goods for the least cost without exceeding the vehicle capacity. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to minimize the distance travelled by vehicles. Hence, this paper proposed to use Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) with different heuristic strategies to optimize the distance travelled by the vehicles while not exceeding the vehicle capacities. Swapping, reversion, and insertion are the heuristic strategies used to examine the efficiency of neighbour creations in ACO. Christofides data sets are utilized in this paper to experiment on the solution construction in ACO with different heuristic strategies. The results showed that the use of ACO is efficient using the swap, reverse and insert strategies for distance minimization but there are possibilities for the vehicle visiting the same customer more than once. Meanwhile ACO with random combination with swap, reverse and insert are capable to solve CVRP without any possibilities for the vehicle visiting the same customer more than once.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is complicated to be diagnosed and many study had shown that machine learning technique have been proven to accurately diagnose ASD. However, there were also some drawbacks in the results obtained and one of it is related to the lower accuracy upon implementation. Thus, a feature selection method namely Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) is proposed to enhance the performance of the machine learning technique in the classification of ASD as it was proven too often produce high accuracy results. GRA is used to select relevant features and rank them from the highest to the lowest. The data used was the adult autism data, which consists of 608 data with 16 features. The machine learning techniques used are Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Artificial Neural Network with Multi Layer Perceptron (ANN-MLP) to classify ASD. From results obtained, the integration of GRA and machine learning techniques have managed to produce a high accuracy of more than 90%. The SVM gave the good accuracy of 98.1%, while ANN produce of 98.36%.

The importance of this study is to identify a human's almost round iris shape since the existing technique of iris recognition detects human iris using a circular segmentation method. However, the circular segmentation has limitations to detect and acquire iris in non-ideal conditions. In the non-ideal condition, the location of the iris is situated at a different angle and the information acquired may not be about the iris template. Thus, the non-ideal condition produces less accurate information about the iris template and creates a "not match" situation during verification since the information of the iris template acquired is not similar to the previous iris template. To overcome the problem, this paper proposes the development of the Modified Snake algorithm. The experiment results show that the Modified Snake algorithm reduced the influence of noise in iris images, good execution in learning the edge of images since the number of iteration reduced or maintain based on the iris image since iris image contains high noise. As a conclusion, the experiment used the public iris image database from the Center for Biometrics and Security Research for non-bias evaluation and demonstrates an efficient performance.

One approach to improve water resource management is by making use of streamflow forecasts. In this study, eigenvector pairs were clustered by employing fuzzy c-means (FCM) during the grouping stage as an enhancement to the singular spectrum analysis (SSA) technique for data pre-processing. The FCM-SSA pre-processed streamflow data was then supplied to an auto-regressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model for forecasting. The Department of Irrigation and Drainage Malaysia provided the monthly streamflow records of Sungai Muda (Jambatan Syed Omar) and Sungai Muda (Jeniang) for this research, wherein each was split into training (90%) and testing (10%) sets. The R software was the platform for building every FCM-SSA-ARIMA, SSA-ARIMA and ARIMA model, while the root mean squared errors and mean absolute errors were used to compare the performance between those models. The proposed FCM-SSA-ARIMA was discovered to be capable of surpassing the SSA-ARIMA and ARIMA models.

Data augmentation is a common approach that been implemented in order to increase the training data quantity for Convolutional Neural Networks in signal processing, image recognition and speech recognition. However, the conventional data augmentation methods usually implement the window slicing and overlap window slicing methods in the bearing fault analysis. Meanwhile, the audio deformation approach such as time stretching and pitch shifting methods have been commonly used as data augmentation approach in speech recognition. Thus, this paper proposed a data augmentation based on shift pitching technique for the vibration signal. The relationship between the audio and the vibration signal is evaluated for a bearing fault analysis using Convolution Neural Networks. The new dataset produce by the data augmentation is used to increase the number of training dataset and to improve the Convolutional Neural Networks training performance. The result shows that the shift pitching based data augmentation method able to achieve higher training accuracy compared to the window sliding data augmentation. The combinations of all ratio pitch obtain 93% accuracy whilst the accuracy for a single rate pitch are between 81% to 91%.Thus, the proposed method is competent and able to improve the performance of bearing fault classification

This paper discusses about the development of an IoT-based production output monitoring system in the production line of Chiga Light Industries Sdn. Bhd. which is a plastic packaging manufacturing company. Although the existing company Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system provides a platform for production manager and officers to monitor as well as collect the length of plastic film produced on a printing machine, only the total amount of finished goods in kilograms (kg) is recorded. However, the total length of plastic produced, and time taken to finish one tubing are needed for machine analysis and production planning. Therefore, a length encoder is used to detect the length of plastic film produced and connected to a counter meter to display the present value of plastic produced as well as the setting value for one roll of plastic. Besides, an Arduino board is used to read data from the counter meter while an ESP8266-01 Wi-Fi module is used to send the data to ThingSpeak^TM cloud for storing. ThingSpeak^TM analysed and visualised the collected present and setting values of the counter meter on a private channel. The duration for uploading a data is set to one hour. From the developed monitoring system, production manager and officers could monitor machine performance, operators working performance and collect the length of plastic produced on a printing machine. Besides, the total length of plastic in a roll could also be detected to ensure customer requirement is achieved.

This paper acknowledged the issues regarding HCR performances particularly in the classification stage. It is generally agreed that one of the main factors influencing performance in HCR is the development of classification model. As for the classification stage, the problems identified are related to classification model particularly in Artificial Neural Network (ANN) learning problem that results in low accuracy of handwritten character recognition. Thus, the aim of this study is to develop and enhance the ANN classification model in order to identify the handwritten character better. This paper proposed the hybrid Firefly Algorithm with Artificial Neural Network (FA-ANN) classification model for handwritten character. Firefly algorithm acts as optimisation approach in enhancing ANN particularly by optimize network training process of ANN. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) handwritten character database was applied in the experiment.

Optimization technique are solutions for finding for specific problems and solved existing limitation on common problems. This are especially in improving the output of WEDM processing where it involves more than a single objective or multiple output to be optimized synchronously. WEDM machining process usage increased rapidly as its capability in cutting complicated design formation. Thus the precision of the work piece is required. Therefore, this paper aims to provide a quick conceptual view of optimizing WEDM process by providing fundamentals parameters involved. Henceforth, perspective on WEDM optimization process on this paper may be use for future reference.

Tic-tac-toe is a fun game played by two players. Before starting the game, a 3x3 square grid is formed using two vertical and two horizontal lines. The player who succeeds in placing three of their marks in a horizontal, vertical, or diagonal row is the winner. In this study, we develop a computer program where a player can challenge artificial intelligent heuristic approach (opponent) to win the game. We want to prove that artificial intelligent heuristic approach enables in giving a great performance for development of tic-tac-toe game.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the game industry matures and continues to expand due to its capabilities to explore and exploit in bringing gaming to life. In this paper, we described the game design for the game Checkers, which is developed by using an AI heuristic approach using HTML and JavaScript. A group of people chosen in this study to test the game, which is a validation process to confirm that the game goes as per requirement. The testing activity ends after the final bug fix and the result shows that the game executes properly as expected. The result indicates that the game meets the objective of the system, which is the game, may learn and explore by itself as a heuristic element.

In this study, we developed an impartial game namely Nim by using a mathematical approach. The game consists of multiple ways of movement for player winning the game. A total of five players participating in the game testing. The experiment shows that the proposed impartial game for learning process is easy to use.

IOT - RepCO is a People Counting System that allows tracking and verification activities to be systematically carried out. This web-based system ensures that the accuracy and reliability of the information sent by the service provider company by changing the manual way to the online system. In addition, this system also allows information to be stored in digital form which indirectly creates a "paperless" environment. Security features are also enhanced by using IOT - RepCO. Python and OpenCV languages are used in the development of this system. While "ubidots" are used for data storage in "cloud". The requirement for this solution were carried out in Datasonic Corporation Sdn. Bhd. whereby it also provides a testing ground and verification of the system. The diversity of users in this system requires user-friendly interface design as well as minimal navigation and low fidelity concept as an appeal for all users who will use the IOT -RepCO system. It is hoped that the construction of the IOT - RepCO system will assist the companies as well as other parties such as fire department during the emergency evacuation such that it indirectly improve the quality of service to the customers as well as providing an important information during evacuation process.

Accurate tourist arrivals forecasting is essential for governments and the private sector to formulate policies and allocate funds more effectively. In this paper, the modeling of tourist arrivals time series data was introduced in a hybrid modeling that combines the deep neural network (DNN) with the Fourier series method. The proposed model approach applies the DNN to get the forecasted value and then employs the Fourier series to fit the residual error produced by the DNN. To verify the accurate prediction of the proposed model, different single models such as ARIMA, ANN and DNN, and modified ARIMA and ANN models using Fourier series are investigated. Historical data on monthly tourist arrivals to Langkawi Island with high trend and strong seasonality is used to compare the efficiency of the proposed model. A series of studies demonstrates that the performance of the single model can be further improved by taking into account the residual modification by Fourier series. The result shows that the proposed model is capable of forecasting tourist arrival series with higher reliability than other models used.

Multi-depot vehicle routing problem (MDVRP) is a real-world variant of the vehicle routing problem (VRP). MDVRP falls under NP-hard problem where trouble in identifying the routes for the vehicles from multiple depots to the customers and then, returning to the similar depot. The challenging task in solving MDVRP is to identify optimal routes for the fleet of vehicles located at the depots to transport customers' demand efficiently. In this paper, two metaheuristic methods have been tested for MDVRP which are Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) and Intelligent Water Drop (IWD). The proposed algorithms are validated using six MDVRP Cordeau's data sets which are P01, P03, P07, P10, P15 and P21 with 50, 75, 100, 249, 160 and 360 customers, respectively. Thus, the results using the proposed algorithm solving MDVRP, five out of six problem data sets showed that IWD is more capable and efficient compared to ACO algorithm.

The quality of cutting depends most on the cutting tool condition. Towards having a good quality finish, cutting tolerance becomes a major concern, especially when machining at micro-scale where highly precise cutting is desired. This research investigates the size-effect during the micro-milling of Ti-6Al-4V under dry condition where the observations were made on cutting edge rounding (CER) and workpiece surface roughness. The result showed that the lower the feed rate, the greater rounding on the cutting edges were observed. Similar trend in result was obtained when measuring the surface roughness. The best feed rate for both observations was at 60 mm/min, where this setting has brought the mechanism to shearing, as the ratio between undeformed chip thickness and cutting edge radius started at 1.

Rice husk was used as a silicate source to produce RHA-based zeolites through hydrothermal method. The synthesis of zeolite undergone different types and concentrations of alkaline solutions which were 3M and 5M of sodium hydroxide (NaOH) and 5M of potassium hydroxide (KOH), respectively. The rice husk ash and resulted zeolites were then being characterized by X-ray fluorescence (XRF), Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET), scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) analyses. Analyses of XRF, SEM and BET results shown that RHA has high content of silica (83.90%) with irregular particles due to large surface area of 48.7 m²g-1. For FTIR analysis, RHA at band 1040.52 cm-1 assigned to asymmetric Si-O-Si bond stretching in SiO₄ tetrahedron. The band at 794.71 cm-1 was corresponded to the stretching vibrations quartz of Si-O-Si. Subsequently, the zeolites were applied as an adsorbent in sugarcane bagasse wastewater and tested for total suspended solid (TSS) and chemical oxygen demand (COD). The adsorption capacity of TSS, COD and colour by the previous synthesized zeolites was then observed experimentally through the effects of contact time. Results indicated that adsorption capacity for COD is 13% to 22% and ranged from 50% to 57% for TSS.

Competencies are the process of equipping professional needs and skillsets, which allows a profession to take responsibility for a prescribed body of knowledge. It started by determining the fundamental range of competencies that the professional able to understand and then applying the competencies in the right areas. Quantity Surveyors who work in the construction industry are also not left behind in having specific competencies while delegating their profession as cost and contract advisor in the construction projects. The objective of this paper is to review guidelines and policies regarding Quantity Surveyor competency from different professional bodies governing the Quantity Surveyors profession locally and globally. The document works as a process in evaluating documents where, eventually, produced empirical knowledge and developed understanding. The data obtained from this document analysis will help the researcher to come out with a conceptual model to be used in the mixed-method research approach later. The conclusion summarises that from six professional bodies governing the Quantity Surveyors profession, each professional body emphasized the competencies to be divided into a sub-category of mandatory skills, core competency, and optional competencies.

Recently, the agricultural waste have been enticed increasing attention in geotechnical engineering as a natural soil reinforcement in improving strength and stability of soils. Agricultural waste fiber was chosen as it is cheap, locally available, bio-degradable and eco-friendly. In this study, the implementation of banana fibers has been used as a natural soil reinforcement in influencing the strength of clay soil. In order to investigate the influence of banana fiber in strengthen the clay soil, three different percentage mixing of banana fiber in clay soil has been tested using Unconsolidated Undrained Triaxial and California Ratio Bearing (CBR) tests. The results of X-Ray Fluorescense (X-RF) indicated that average 45% of chemical compositions inside the banana fibers are calcium hydroxide which resulting the pozzolanic reactions and lead to the modification of soil properties and improve the strength of soil. This research is important in order to find the suitability of banana fiber as admixture in soil stabilization. Banana fiber as admixture in soil stabilization will contribute to conservation of the environment. The results from the tests conducted have shown that the soil treated with 1% fibre content improved termendously in term of shear strength compared to untreated sample. However, based on the regression analysis, 0.5% mixing of banana content indicate the optimum percentage mixing of banana fiber in clay soil.

Application of biochar together with fertilizer is a promising strategy to minimize the loss of nutrient through surface runoff and leaching from agricultural field. Biochar has high surface area and can retain nutrients. Despite its advantages, low density of biochar leads to difficult in transporting, handling and mode of application. Our hypothesis is the densification of biochar with fertilizer could reduce transportation and handling costs and minimize loss of nutrient during soil application. Hence, the aim of this study was to determine the effects of mixture biochar-fertilizer with and without tableting on the soil chemical characteristics. There were four fertilization treatments including the control T1 (Soil), T2 (NPK), T3 (Biochar + NPK) and T4 (Biochar tablet embedded with NPK). Mineral clay soils were used and planted with maize. The soil chemical properties were determined for pH, electrical conductivity, total nitrogen, available phosphorus, exchangeable potassium and cation exchange capacity after 53 days planting. The application of biochar tablet embedded fertilizer to soil shows the highest total nitrogen, cation exchange capacity and lower available phosphorus after 53 days planting. The results suggest that the biochar tablet embedded with fertilizer is more efficient to minimize the losses of nutrients in soil.

In recent years, the usage and demand for biomass pellet has been increasing due to the need of substitution for non-renewable energy source. Therefore, high quality solid fuel is in need to cater this demand. Pellet qualities such as durability, calorific value and density are different depending on the type of material, size of particle and the density of the feedstock. In this study, the durability, calorific value and unit density of Khaya Senegalensis pellet was investigated. This was done to identify the optimum particle size to obtain the best qualities of pellet possible. The ground biomass material was separated into 0.15 mm, 0.50 mm and 1.00 mm particle sizes, pelletized and ultimately the pellet durability, calorific value and unit density were tested in this study. It was found that 0.15 mm particle size resulted in the highest pellet durability, and density value. 1.00 mm particle size pellet has the highest calorific value. As a conclusion, different raw biomass feedstock particle size will affect the durability, density and calorific value of pellet.

Practical work is part of the compulsory process of learning for any engineering student in polytechnic Malaysia. This study focuses on the ergonomic risk assessment during the practical work for Malaysian Polytechnic for mechanical diploma programme. Consequently, it is also implemented to identify potential harm caused by ergonomic risk factors. This study uses quantitative method through the Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire (CMQ) framework and is followed by a Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA). The instruments used are measuring tape, smartphones for recording audio and video as well as digital images, assessment checklists (CMQ and REBA), personal protective equipment, goniometers and weights scale. Based on the study, all elements of value provide high level risk score results and require ergonomic risk control. Therefore, it is recommended to review the body's posture and improve the techniques during the weld practical work process to reduce ergonomic risk factors.

This project proposes a scheme of TCP-Friendly Rate Control (TFRC) for transmitting real-time data application. Traditionally, real-time data transmission has been accomplished over the user datagram protocol (UDP). The challenging issues of using Transport Control Protocol (TCP) are restrictive bandwidth and lagging. Additionally, it is widely known that TCP is ill-suited to real-time multimedia streaming application. Having known these issues, this project aims to study the possibilities for improvement of real-time data application using TFRC which is designed for long-lived streams. As known, there are many advantages of TFRC, which are congestion control and guaranteeing the required throughput. Therefore, this project explores and proposes the advantages of TFRC in transmitting and receiving real-time data. It is proposed that the investigation of TFRC in real-time data is conducted using simulation technique. During the simulation, the developed model is representing the real-time application for analyzing the performance of modified TFRC. The modified TFRC mechanism is introduced as TFRC proposed scheme and evaluated through the simulation experiment. The simulation study of this project is to analyze and evaluate some parameters of existing TFRC mechanisms. The performance analysis and simulation experiment show that the proposed scheme performs better compared to the other mechanisms involved. Finally, this study has possibilities of the ongoing work to be carried for implementing in wireless environment and IPv6.

Cooperative communication system, which make use of the intermediate relays between the transmitter and the receiver, have been employed as an effective technique to combat the channel fading and to enhance system performance. Cooperative systems have some drawbacks such as high latency and diversity order not guaranteed. To alleviate the negative effects of these factors, relay selection protocol is employed in cooperative communication systems to increase overall cooperative system performance. Relay selection in the cooperative systems enables the source to cooperate with the single relay node rather than multiple relay nodes which guaranteed the diversity order.

Road safety is become an interesting field to be investigated due to high road accident that still occurred in the world and it increased every year. Second highest accident rate in the world signed by South-east Asia with 20.7 per 100.000 population. That rate include the road accident that occurred in Indonesia. There are several parameters in road accident such as infrastructure, driver behaviour, environment, driver performance, driver fatigue, over speed, vehicle and safety device. Therefore, this study approach a model to interconnect the variables in order to achieve a pattern of road accident factors. This study believe will be improve the awareness of the related agency to increase their responsibility in improving and applying road safety. Moreover, this study output will be comprehensive discuss and critical discussion in terms of road safety plan that may applied in order to reduce the road accident.

In this paper, it is suggested a cooperative protocol based on two controller nodes. In the proposed protocol, the outer body master node as well as the belt master one are used for the avoiding the retransmitting operation via more than one sensor that increase the probability of the colliding, a master node works cooperatively to reduce BER, Power consumption in term of Duty cycle. We present an arithmetical model of the cycle of duty accompanied by the WBAN suggested protocol.

Development of Hydro Generation Concept Trainer was created to show the basic concept of Hydro Power Plant which is a part of the Power System curriculum taught in Malaysian polytechnics. This trainer was designed to model hydroelectric power plant which converts energy derived from flowing water into electricity. This project was made based on Bill Kelsey's hydro concept whereby fast flowing water is used to spin a turbine which will then spin a metal shaft forming the equivalent of an electrical generator that produce electricity. The electromagnet in the generator will generate the electrical voltage and current in the stationary coils of wire inside them. This trainer uses only direct current (DC) which differs from most hydro generation trainers using alternating current (AC). Moreover, this low cost trainer successfully utilizes a battery as a capacitor bank, replacing the costly capacitor bank used to store electricity in an actual hydro power plant.

Young coconut shell and husk shredder machine is designed for shredding the husks after the process of coconut shell crushing. The main objective of this machine is to reduce coconut shell waste after the completion of harvest. The machine contains of two shafts of 25 blades per shafts (1st stage) and another two shafts of 30 blades per shaft (2nd stage) placed side by side in order to put pressure on the coconut shell and husk during the cutting process. At stage 1, which is the shredding stage, it has 2 shafts which both rotate in the opposite direction. The blades have bigger surface area, thick, hard-faced cutting surfaces and run in low rotation per minute (rpm) in order to crush the coconut shell and husk. At stage 2, which is the cutting stage, it consists of 2 shafts which rotate in the opposite direction and each shafts consist of 30 blades. The blades in stage 2 is thinner compared to the blades in stage 1, sharp cutting edge and the distance from each blades are closer to each other in order to cut and shred the coconut shell and husks into small, fine and desired size. Furthermore, the rotations of the blades are both in opposite directions toward each other which mean that the cutting process will consists pressure into the shell and husks. The output for the machine is able to produce 50 - 80 kg of young coconut shell and husks after the shredding process hourly. The machine uses electrical motor to reduce sound pollution. Besides that, a 1420 rpm motor is fitted to run the machine entirely which is equivalent to 1 Horsepower (Hp). The output power achieved is 544 kiloWatt hour (kWh) with an efficiency of 73%. Lastly, the objectives are achieved, that is to reduce young coconut shell and husks waste by converting to animal feeds.

Misalignment between pinions to wheel gears induces bending stresses continued influences the fatigue life of the spur gear system. Lack of research projected to the issues causes uncertain in their useful lifetime estimation. In this paper, the bending fatigue life of the spur gear in axial misalignments condition was predicted. A three teeth FEM model of spur gear with the same geometrical profiles was constructed according to ISO 6336-1:2006. The gear was subjected with five misalignment from 0.1mm to 0. 5mm at different torque loadings from 50Nm to 300 Nm. Exerted with quasi-static approach; the stress variant was analysed to stress life model as well as the damage accumulation model for fatigue life prediction in ANSYS V19. Results showed that the application of axial misalignment had a small impact significantly reduce the life of the gear, in percentage difference between 0.1 - 2%. This suggested that the bending fatigue life did not reflect to the existence of axial misalignments as the effect is very small that it is possible to be neglected.

High-speed machining (HSM) in milling has known is one of the technologies in rapid tooling and manufacturing applications. The cutting mechanism, spindle speed and feed rate are not the same for HSM compared to traditional machining. Coated carbide cutting tools are widely used in high speed and cutting temperature situations. It is more efficient and providing a lower surface roughness in HSM. Throughout these days, the demand of standard surface roughness is very high aligned to achieve quality in product. This paper shows an optimization method of machining parameters in milling process for high speed machining of glass fibre reinforce polymer (GFRP) using coated carbide cutting tool to achieve better surface roughness. Taguchi Method are used and it is the best method to optimize a parameter, where a response variable can be determined. Standard orthogonal array of L9 (3²) was applied in this research using signal to noise (S/N) ratio response analysis from optimization process results and analysis of variance (ANOVA) to identify the most significant parameters affecting surface roughness. The common machining parameters are significantly affecting surface roughness are spindle speed and feed rate. Then, conformation tests were executed to analyse the improvement of the optimization. As result, the feed rate parameter are significant for affecting the surface roughness and 90.3 % improvement on the surface roughness performance of milling process for glass fibre reinforce polymer (GFRP).

Toyota Manufacturing Company revival after World War II and its survival during 1973 global oil crisis had inspired many manufacturing organisations around the world to initiate lean transformation. However, due to lack of clear understanding of the lean sustainability concept, many manufacturers are unable to fully transform into a true lean organisation like Toyota. In fact, without a proper measurement, the organisation's transformation progress will be unknown and the specific gains made from lean improvement cannot be monitored. Hence, it will result in wrong strategy deployment in the lean transformation program. This paper therefore aims to theoretically define Lean Transformation Sustainability and propose set of indicators for measuring this concept. A myriad of literature related to theory and practices of lean manufacturing was studied to better understand this concept. The methodology adopted to better understand Lean Transformation Sustainability concept was based on steps to success in writing literature review by Machi and McEvoy. Apparently, Lean Transformation Sustainability can be measured in three dimensions; (1) lean elements momentum, (2) lean culture adaptation, and (3) enduring success. At the end of this article, the authors recommend several opportunities for future research that can be used for adding literature to lean body of knowledge.

A half-cutting fish cutting machine was designed, fabricated and evaluated for performance. The major components of the machine were made up of three main parts: mainframe (case), conveyor/rotator and cutter component. The conveyor and disc cutter are powered by a single phase, 1400rpm and 1hp electric motor. Analysis on size (length, width, depth) of fish, size of disc cutter and gap of roller at the cutter component had been made. The performance of the machine was evaluated using 5 types of major fish that used for salted fish industry. The results showed that this machine can produced 5 times more productivities compared to existing (manual) method. From the analysis data, the machine can produce an average of 21 fish/minute, so the average time to half-cutting 1000 fishes is 47 minutes. More energy saving and less labor needed for fish cutting process. Also, 81.2% significant time saving were obtained from this machine. This new innovation is an alternative choice to existing heavy-duty machines in the market with more expensive cost.

Composite is commonly used today attributed to the distinctive characteristics that can be acquired from the mixture of the components in them. However, as time passes on, our globe is heading towards providing green technology for the sector to use environmentally friendly methods. In this study, Fly Ash geopolymer is used as filler, in the production of LDPE / FA composite, to be inserted in a low-density polyethylene matrix. To enhance bonding between the fly ash filler and the LDPE matrix, alkali activator therapy with the use of sodium hydroxide and sodium silicate at the molarity of NaOH is in range of 12M and the ratio for fly ash to alkali activator is about 2.0. In this research properties of these composites are investigate using tensile test, morphology analysis, thermal properties and infrared spectrum analysis, FTIR. The result found that the tensile strength and modulus of elasticity of the composite increased with increasing of filler loading but the percentage of elongation decrease due to filler loading increase while fly ash filler show the interfacial adhesion on LDPE matrix as evidenced by images of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and this also proved by FTIR spectra explain that LDPE/FA charged with SiO which is fly ash composed with silica. Moreover, thermal properties explain that fly ash interface reaction which can change to amorphous crystallization during the temperature increase.

This study is to understand the side effect of wollastonite fillers in polymer compounding that caused different levels of thermo-mechanical degradation (TMD) during extrusion. Wollastonite has a needle-like structure with different ratio of L/D; it compounded with the polypropylene-ethylene copolymer (PPcoE) using a twin-screw extruder. The effect on the TMD of PPcoE was determined by analysing the by-products within the extrudates via FTIR. The rheology of PPcoE composite was measured using a capillary rheometer, and the thermal stability of composite was studied using TGA. In this study, TMD is classified as two levels: chain scission and oxidisation. The wollastonite filler were found to accelerate the TMD mechanism and generated oxidised products during extrusion. The reduction of filler size effectively minimised the chain cleavage of PPcoE matrix, also come with improvement in thermal stability. However, increasing the filler loading had a dominant effect of inducing more chain cleavage on the polymer matrix.

Coal blending technique in electric generating power plant has been widely used to reduce coal consumption cost. However, due to various coals from different places blended together, it had caused problems. Slagging formed during the operations can reduced boiler efficiency, resulting high costs for maintenance caused by blockage, corrosion and erosion. Many empirical indices and predictive method have been developed to minimize these problems but most are unreliable for coals from different places and many predictive methods are carried out in different environment. In this research, the method starts from fabricating the pre-blended and in furnace blend techniques at a local coal pulverized power plant. After feeding the coal blends for coal trial burn, the resulting ash deposition are collected at the burner where slagging usually occurs. The raw coals in used and the slagging samples are then characterized and determine their crystalline phase and compositions by using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Sacnning Electron Microscope Energy Dispersive Xray (SEM/EDX). From XRD analysis, compounds such as quartz, cristobalite low and manganosite were found as main species in ash deposition at all location of collected slagging. However, there are also some compound exist at specific location with specific technique being used. In the burner area for pre blended technique, compound Al₂SiO₅, Mg₂Al₄Si₅, KNO2 and FeO was found, whereas in furnace blend K₂Mn2(SO₄)₃ was found. At bottom part of the furnace, pre-blended graphite was presence and in furnace yield MnO2 and Al₂SiO₅. At top part where superheater reside, the existence of mullite, Al₂(Al₂.5Si1.5)9.75 was found for pre-blended technique and microcline, KAlSiO3O₈ is observed from in furnace blend technique. From the EDX analysis, in furnace technique shows more complete combustion and feasible for less slagging inside the furnace compared to pre-blended technique.

The effect of heat treatment of HR-120 Ni-based alloys on the isothermal oxidation at high temperature was studies. HR-120 Ni-based alloys was undergo a heat treatment process at two different temperatures, namely 1000 °C and 1200 °C for 3 h soaking time, followed by water quench. The heat-treated samples were then undergoing an isothermal oxidation test at 500 °C for 500 h exposure time in air. Oxidized samples have been characterized in terms of the kinetics of oxidation, phase analysis using x-ray diffraction (XRD) and oxide surface morphology using scanning electron microscope (SEM) and field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM) equipped with energy dispersive x-ray (EDX) spectrometer. The heat treatment process exhibits an increasing of average grain size alloy as the temperature increases. Whereas, the oxidation kinetics of oxidized samples exhibits a parabolic rate law, representing a diffusion-controlled oxide growth rate. The oxidized of heat-treated sample at 1000 °C recorded low oxidation rate with low parabolic rate constant values. The oxide surface morphology of oxidized samples indicates the formation of continuous oxide scales with overgrown Nb-rich oxide particles after exposure for 300 h. At 500 h exposure time, the formation of Nb-rich oxide particles was growing with evidence of crack occurred around the overgrown oxide particles.

Paddy leaves is good biomass that can be converted as renewable energy sources especially in Northern Malaysia. Dry paddy leaves can be burned into char which contains a high amount of carbon that useful in the production of charcoal. This paper reports the effect of the combustion temperature of paddy leaves in Northern Malaysia during the combustion process by using a universal oven on its thermal stability. The char was subjected to Thermogravimetric (TG) analysis in the investigation of its thermal stability at the range of combustion temperature 220-260°C for 4 hours. The average moisture content of paddy leaves before combustion was 9.23%. The investigation showed that 260°C was the best combustion temperature that can be used in the production of paddy leaves char.

Paddy leaves can be used to make charcoal briquettes and good as renewable energy sources. The charcoal briquettes were pressed at a pressure range of 50 – 90 bars using the cold press machine. This paper reports the physical and mechanical properties of charcoal briquettes produced from paddy leaves. The moisture content of paddy leaves charcoal briquettes was calculated after dried in an oven at 80°C until the briquettes reached a constant weight. Then, the paddy leaves charcoal briquettes were subjected to the Compression Test with a maximum load capacity of 500kg and crosshead speed of 0.305 mm/min until the briquettes came to a failure as for the investigation of its compressive strength. The average moisture content of paddy leaves charcoal briquettes were in the range of 7-8%. The lowest value of moisture content was 7.32%, recorded by CB5 charcoal briquette sample which, contributed to the highest value of its compressive strength. Its compressive strength was 2.176 MPa. The investigation showed that CB5 was the best charcoal briquette, and the compressive strength was affected by the moisture content in the paddy leaves charcoal briquettes.

Ultrasonic pulse velocity methods is one of the non-destructive testing methods. Commonly the compression test was used to determine the compression strength of concrete. Laboratory works had been carried out at heavy concrete laboratory to obtain the result for both non-destructive and destructive test. By using concrete cubes of sizes 100 x 100 x 100 mm and subjected to water curing for 7, 14, 21 and 28 days to obtained desire result for Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity and Compression test. Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity were initially done before the Compression test. The data obtained from each test has been evaluated and tabulated in this report. From this research, the variation between predicted strength and experimental strength for Ultrasonic Pulse Velocity testing was identified; the higher the pulse velocity, the higher the predicted strength and lower times passes by pulse velocity, the higher the predicted strength.

The effect of filler loading and in situ salicylic acid treatment on the mechanical properties and morphology of poly(hydroxybutyrate-co-valerate)/corn husk fiber (PHBV/CHF) biocomposites was studied. Both untreated and salicylic acid treated PHBV/CHF biocomposites were prepared by using heated two roll mill followed by compression moulding. It was found that the addition of CHF to PHBV biocomposites increased the tensile strength and Young's modulus while the elongation at break decreased. Salicylic acid treated PHBV/CHF biocomposite display superior tensile strength and Young's modulus than untreated PHBV/CHF biocomposite due to the enhanced filler–matrix interaction. The better interfacial adhesion between CHF and PHBV matrix was confirmed through scanning electron microscope (SEM) analysis.

Nowadays, there is huge demand for novel materials which are desired for new functions and new technological advancements. All technological demands for new applications cannot be implemented by many of the well-established materials, such as single plastics, metals or ceramics. Hence, engineers and scientists realized that, in comparison with pristine counterparts of material, the mixtures of materials can produce much better properties. Polymer nanocomposites is a new form of materials that resulted by the combination of polymers and nanofillers which contributed to various benefits over the neat polymer such as improvement in biocompatibility, biostability, thermal stability, flame retardancy, mechanical and barrier properties. Due to these factors, nanocomposites have received an extraordinary consideration for use in broad range of applications. However, the polymer nanocomposites which comprised of copolymer as matrix material are not widely studied, especially those involved poly(ethylene-co-vinyl acetate) (PEVA). The production of PEVA copolymer-based nanocomposites for various applications has been reported by few research papers. In this communication, a review on the properties of PEVA-based nanocomposites with different types of nanofiller was summarized, revealing the high potential of this class of nanocomposite for advanced applications.

The blend composites of recycled high density polyethylene (rHDPE)/ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) were prepared by melt blending technique at 160 °C with rotor speed of 50 rpm within 10 minutes. Based on Fatimah et al. study[1], the optimum ratio rHDPE/EVA at 70/30 were studied and prepared for different loading of uncarbonized (fresh) and carbonized eggshell powder (5 to 25 wt%). The ESP was collected, washed, crushed, and sieved to obtained size 63 µm by method Farahana et al,.[2]. But she founded that, the mechanical properties reduced with incorporation of ESP filler. Nowadays, carbonized natural filler are the focus of some researchers and the CESP was undergoing a combustion process for 3 hours at 700 °C with air combustion via muffle furnace. The result showed tensile properties decreased with increasing filler loading for both fillers. Then, the mass swell percentage after 46 hours soaked in dichloromethane, the results showed an increment of both fillers were increased the mass swell caused by the hydrophilic nature of fillers. The intensity ratio, interlayer spacing, and crystallinity percentage value decrease with increasing filler loading for both filler give better interaction between matrix and filler. The thermal stability increase for both filler with increasing filler loading. Overall, rHDPE/EVA/CESP blend composites had excellent properties with the addition of carbonized filler.

Pyrene is one of the chemical compounds of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that has been reported as toxic, carcinogenic, and mutagenic which commonly found in water, food, soil, and air. Therefore, a study of ultrasonic assisted dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (USA-DLLME) was conducted to extract pyrene from polluted water. The analytical parameters such as volume of extractant solvent, volume of disperser solvent, sonication time, and centrifugation speed were optimized using response surface method (RSM). Gas chromatography-flame ionization detector was used to analyse the pyrene content. The extraction recovery obtained for validation on real water based on optimization are in the range of 14.8%-49.8%. The low value of extraction recovery must be due to unsuitable types of extraction solvent used. However, this study have achieved all the objectives based on the developed method.

The purpose of this research is to evaluate the properties and characterization of porous polylactic acid (PLA). The porous PLA was fabricated via salt leaching method whereas PLA was first dissolved in chloroform under mechanical stirring for 7 minutes. Then, sodium chloride (NaCl) was added into the dissolved PLA. The mixture of PLA and NaCl was then left at room temperature for 24 hours for the chloroform to be evaporated. The solidified films was then been washed under tab water to remove the NaCl content. The removal of NaCl content will lead to porous PLA. The effect of NaCl content on the mechanical and morphological properties of PLA was been studied. The increased of NaCl content shown a reduction trend for tensile properties and elongation at break. Meanwhile, the Young's modulus had been found to increase with increasing NaCl content. The micrograph of the neat PLA showed a smooth surface at the tensile fractured surface. However, the effect of salt leaching method lead to a porous PLA as the NaCl content increased, the pores observed in the micrographs also increased. The higher the content of NaCl increashe amount of pores on the PLA and the number of interconnected pores with uniform pores morphology and well distributed pores.

Clinacanthus nutans or Belalai Gajah is one of the herbs that contain natural antioxidant. This natural antioxidant can be used commercially in food as well as pharmaceutical industries. This research explored antioxidant of C. nutans and it was extracted by using solid-liquid extraction. Antioxidant of C. nutans extract was determined by using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging assay and Total Phenolic Content (TPC) were determined using Folic-Ciocalteau reagent. Screening of the suitable particle size to be used in the extraction of C. nutans shows that mixture and leaves of C. nutans with particle size <63 μm was the best to obtain the highest DPPH scavenging activity. However, only mixture of C. nutans sample was used for the thermal extraction kinetic due to the availability of the samples. Thermal extraction kinetic of DPPH was fitted to the exponential growth model and show a good fit with R^2 = 0.9921. When transformed, the data gave a linear Arrhenius plot, R^2=0.717 with an activation energy of 17.35 ± 0.108 kJ/mol. Thermal extraction kinetic of TPC was fitted to the exponential growth model and show a good fit with R^2 = 0.9892. When transformed, the data gave a linear Arrhenius plot, R^2=0.897 with an activation energy of 5.3832 ± 0.451 kJ/mol. The model is adequate to predict DPPH scavenging activity and TPC of the C. nutans extracts with no significant different of the prediction and validation conducted at temperature of 70 °C for 30 min.

The low-noise amplifier (LNA) is a vital part of the radio frequency (RF) transceiver system. It amplifies weak signals with minimal distortion. The LNA performance is mainly determined by its noise figure (NF), gain, and power consumption. In this paper, the design of a 6 GHz low-noise amplifier (LNA) using enhancement-mode pseudomorphic high-electron-mobility transistor (E-pHEMT) technology is presented. In order to attain high gain with low S-parameters losses, a two-stage LNA configuration with single-stub matching is devised. The same bias conditions are applied to both of the LNA stages, V_DS = 2.7 V and I_DS = 10 mA. The LNA design is simulated and optimised by using electromagnetic (EM) software. To further improve the overall LNA performances, high impedance inductors and series resonators are implemented into the circuit. Simulated results of the designed LNA indicate a power gain, S₂₁ of 25.2 dB and NF of 2.4 dB at 6 GHz with 27 mW dissipation per stage. The circuit layout is fulfilled with an E-pHEMT technology (ATF-55143) on the FR4 substrate. The LNA is powered by a 3 V DC power supply.

In this paper, the parametric analysis of the configuration defected ground structure (DGS) for triple-band bandstop filter is proposed. The defected ground structures are used to improve the selectivity and S-parameters losses of the bandstop filter response. The rectangular-shaped DGS are added to the ground of the band stop filter. Initially, the DGS is applied to the first resonator (at 2.45 GHz) of the BSF. Several positions of the DGS are simulated to obtain the best S-parameters and selectivity performances. The same method is implemented on the second and third resonators of the BSF to obtain better performance in S-parameters and selectivity. Finally, all three resonators with the best DGS position are combined into one BSF to obtain triple-band BSF frequency response. This filter is designed by using Roger 4003C with relative dielectric constant, = 3.38 and substrate thickness, H = 0.508 mm. The bandstop filter is modelled and simulated by using high frequency Electromagnetic Simulator (EM). Simulated result shows the insertion losses are, S21 = -23.2 dB (at 2.45 GHz), -16.7 dB (at 3.5 GHz) and -24.4 dB (at 5.2 GHz). The return losses are, S11 = -0.49 dB (at 2.45 GHz), -0.64 dB (at 3.5GHz), 0.49 dB (at 5.2 GHz). The results of different configurations of DGS is analysed and discussed.

Geopolymer-based products help eco-accommodating sources of materials such as metakaolin, slag or fly ash. This review explores the blend configuration to generate geopolymer-based metakaolin membrane metakaolin and to evaluate the impact of a range of geopolymer-based metakaolin sintering temperatures at a temperature of 50 °C, 60 °C, 70 °C and 80 °C. As the quick development of a modern culture contributes to a large increase in interest in water, adsorption is taken closer to examined waste water extraction of the adsorption and repulsion of a metakaolin membrane geopolymer. Membrane waste water treatment is chosen to explore simple and inorganic membrane preparation techniques that have long help lives and low production costs. Reviews for geopolymer-based metakaolin membrane were therefore synthesized via a suspension that depends on the quick solidification method of high temperature suspension geopolymer slurries that were used as an adsorbent for treating waste water. Porous geopolymeric spheres have developed a homogenous structure with the aid of electron microscopy and Brunauer Emmett Teller (BET) investigations.Since permeable materials are regularly adsorbents, this examination has analyzed the adsorption by membrane geopolymers of heavy metals. This finding will advance the formation of improved wastewater treatment systems and along these lines give an elective answer for ecological harm brought about by substantial metal contaminations. Along these lines, molar (SiO₂/Na₂O) ratio of metakaolin and sodium silicate are fundamental in assembling a sort of geopolymer-based inorganic membrane which does not require a high temperature sintering process. Adsorption and dismissal consolidated can be utilized for wastewater auxiliary electrical plating forms not exclusively to proficiently wipe out center and low groupings of overwhelming metals in wastewater yet in addition to wipe out little sub-atomic contaminants in wastewater.

The paper presents the fire exposure, impact responses, and burst tests of glass-reinforced epoxy (GRE) composites pipes. Fire responses of three different fire exposure times (10 s, 20 s and 30 s) were conducted, followed by impact loadings. Three different energy levels (5 J, 7.5 J, and 10 J) were applied for impact responses and followed by monotonic burst tests. Monotonic burst tests were conducted on GRE samples using hydrostatic pressure testing equipment in accordance with ASTM D1599. The result shows that the longer the time of fire exposure towards GRE pipes, the higher the impact energy applied to the pipes, the lower the burst strength of the pipes. The maximum burst strength found decreased with an increase in the fire exposure time. The results also indicated that the strength of the GRE pipes significantly decreases with an increase in impact energy level.

Utilization of CO₂, which is the main contributor to the global climate change is one of the means to produce useful chemicals and fuels while at the same time reduce CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere. Ruthenium (Ru) was chosen as the probe catalyst in carbon dioxide hydrogenation based on its ability to selectively enhance methanation reaction. Ru supported on YSZ solid electrolyte (Ru/YSZ) was modified with alkaline earth metal promoters i.e. calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) at low coverage (0.16%). It was found that Ca-modified system is more favorable to enhance the catalytic activity and selectivity of reaction towards methane production compared to Mg-modified system, perhaps due to the higher basicity of Ca.

Emission of hazardous SO2 into the atmosphere due to the burning of fossil fuels in various industries is detrimental not only to the environment but also to human beings. Various mitigation techniques have been implemented to overcome this problem, with flue gas desulfurization (FGD) method being the most commonly used. Dry FGD does not typically perform as good as wet method and requires new type of sorbent to be tested. Mesoporous silica (MS), a sorbent with porosity in the range of 2-50 nm is considered as attractive alternative due to its high specific surface area, ordered pore structures and wide array of morphologies. Due to relatively weak interaction between MS and SO2 adsorbate during dry FGD process, additives are introduced to overcome this problem. These MS are modified with basic additives which are deemed more favorable for SO2 adsorption. Metal and amine-based additives are commonly employed where the latter are reported to obtain higher adsorption capacity. Increasing additive loading is beneficial up to an optimal value depending on the types of additives.

Helminth is one of the intestinal parasites that may cause harm and death to human. It is very important to have a system that is capable of assisting the technologist in investigating of fecal samples. In this paper, an automatic classification process is proposed to detect the different types of helminth eggs from fecal samples by using image processing technique. 50 samples of Ascaris Lumbricoides Ova (ALO) and Trichuris Trichiura Ova (TTO) are tested. First, these images undergo partial contrast stretching (PCS) technique to enhance the target images. Next, RGB and HSV color model have been compared in order to identify which color component is able to ease the segmentation process. S component shows a good results with high contrast between the target and the unwanted region. Then, Otsu's thresholding and k-means clustering are compared in order to to select the most suitable image processing method to be used in classification procedure. k-means clustering shows a better results compared to Otsu's thresholding. In classification process, area and size have been chosen as the feature to extract for the classification. The ratio for successfully detected ALO species is 84% while TTO is 76%.

Breakthroughs in the smart grid and promotion of "green communication" have encouraged wireless communication network to harness the local environment's resources and to function economic and ecological benefits in an energy-efficient manner. This paper presents a comtemporary review of recent advancement of energy trading including renewable energy sources, types of energy trading and the advantages of having energy trading.

Fig (Ficus carica L.) is an important crop worldwide and are consumed fresh or dried and it is included in diet since the ancient years and it is considered as the symbol of longevity. It is well known for its excellent flavour, attractive colour and high nutritional value. Due to these specifications, it has been cultivated and consumed since ancient times. The published literature on cultivation of this crop is meager. Thus, the aim of this paper is to describe the agroecology, economic importance, production of the plant, and its production requirements, but major emphasis is given to the agronomic and management aspects of the plant to be grown as a crop. This paper represents as effort to compile the literature on F.carica and review the production requrirement of the and its potential as an alternative high value crop in Malaysia.

The quality of groundwater at Rumah Nur Kasih consist high concentration of iron (6.12 mg/L) and manganese (0.56 mg/L). The groundwater only used for external usage such as cleaning purposes. In order to reduce iron and manganese, it is proposed cascade aerator system for oxidation process. The oxidation process can reduce iron and manganese in water by increasing the dissolved oxygen. Cascade aerator is greatly influenced by the flow rate along the step and the dimension of the cascade aerator. In this study, two lab scale cascade aerators with different in height of cascade were used to find the highest removal of iron and manganese. It was found out that the optimum flowrate for both cascade aerator was 22 ml/s. Model B with higher in height has higher dissolved oxygen and removal efficiency. The removal of iron and manganese for model B are 45.2% and 21.68% respectively. The removal of iron and manganese for model A are 39.95% and 12.09% respectively.

License plate recognition system is functional to identify the vehicle registration number. This system is popular in image processing field. It's played important role in transportation system, especially for security system. However, variation condition of image acquisition causes the segmentation of license plate difficult to handle. This paper proposed a methodology for segmentation of license plate number by using thresholding segmentation group. In this study, image segmentation based on threshold has been chosen due to its ability in separating the foreground and the background. Hence, this technique is very useful for segmenting the characters which have tons of noise. Several threshold methods from the most commonly used techniques had been chosen to be compared and analyze the results for license plate detection and recognition. In this research, threshold techniques such as Savoula and Niblack have been select to compare. A total of 100 images captured by using a digital camera has been used the experimental analysis. After segmentation process, unwanted pixel has been removed with fixed value for each technique. Template matching has been used for classification of character recognition. The final result shows that Savoula conquers highest placed with great value in accuracy percentage of license plate recognition.

The increasing trend of occupational accident due to unsafe behavior and unsafe act especially in construction site suggests the need for more effective assessment model or framework towards a more proactive measure. The objective of this study is to development of safety and health culture of construction project through academic institution and industry linkages through Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) platform. The cooperation of employers and employees, together with the government agencies, Academic institution, public –private networking and the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) of Malaysia towards excellence safety culture and sustainable development. The review on construction industry and related issues, Institutional perspectives on safety climate, a systems approach to workforce development and Malaysia's TVET developments is the key element of study and it is combination of several approaches. The framework of the study and flowchart were present to ensure the proposed study is ready to execute.

In the previous study, only pith part had been attracted to be investigated by researcher eventhough cortex had a high percentage content in the Napier grass stems (NG). Hence, further studied can help to achieve the aim of maximizing the use of NG stems by using cortex and pith in manufacturing biopolymers. For this purpose, the thermal,chemical, morphological characterization of cortex and pith of NG stems had been explore. The results of TGA, FTIR, microscope, and SEM had shown the difference in the cortex and pith of NG stems. Although their peak absorption value appear to be different, the group involved in pith still present in the cortex. The cortex showed a high decomposed percentage which was 93.79 % compared to the pith with 92.55 %. The micrographs images display the presence of hemicellulose, lignin, impurities, and wax on the surface of cortex and pith. Overall, the results of the cortex showed that it had the potential to be used the same as the pith for the production of biopolymers in the future.

Super-Resolution (SR) is used to recover a high-resolution (HR) image from the image with low-resolution (LR). SR is important in the biometric identification and the face recognition is an area that bring attention to people. However, the performance of the current systems is affected by the resolution of the input images. Thus, this paper is focusing on the analysis of feature representations in dictionary learning and sparse coding methods for LR image. The input image is the Lena image in grey scale. A total number of 23 features were extracted from the image patches to develop different learned dictionaries using the k-singular value decomposition (k-SVD) algorithm. The denoised images were then produced by using the Douglas-Rachford algorithm. Most of the feature representations were able to produce a final image with Peak-to-Signal Noise Ratio (PSNR) and Structural Similarity Index Matric (SSIM) values of approximately 29 dB to 30 dB and 0.8300 to 0.8600 respectively. However, the denoised image produced with gradient direction obtained only 27.6676 dB and 0.7881 for PSNR and SSIM. Therefore, when different features were extracted for conducting the dictionary learning and sparse coding algorithm, denoised image with different PSNR and SSIM were produced at the end of the process.

Stretchable conductive polymer composites (CPC) are fabricated by incorporating the conductive particles into the polymer matrix. In this paper, CPC was fabricated by incorporating the sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) modified graphene nanoplatelet (GNP) into natural rubber latex (NRL) by varying loading from 0phr to 9phr using a simple mechanical stirring method. The effect of the GNP-SDS loadings on the properties of the composites were study by investigated the crosslink density, tensile properties, morphology of the tensile fracture surface and electrical conductivity. The crosslink density of the composites shows a decreased trend. Then, due to the well dispersed GNP-SDS, the tensile strength increased but decreased at high filler loading caused by the agglomeration issue. The tensile modulus also increased with increasing filler loading due to the intrinsic high modulus of GNP and the reduction of chain mobility. However, the electrical properties of the composites improved as GNP-SDS loading increased and achieved a percolation threshold at 7phr.

This paper study the effect of ethylene scavenger treatments in different quantity (T₀: 0g, T₁: 1g, T₂: 3g, T₃: 5g and T₄: 10g per sachet) and types of packaging (T₅: non-perforated and T₆: perforated packaging) on Musa Acuminata to its shelf life and physicochemical quality. Potassium permanganate (KMnO₄) and zeolite were used as ethylene absorbent which stored together with the bananas under uniform atmospheric condition at temperature of 25-28°C and 85-95% of relative humidity (RH). Physicochemical analysis (e.g. weight loss, peel colour changes, firmness, total soluble solid content and titratable acidity) were performed to evaluate the effectiveness of each treatments throughout its storage period. Results showed that treatment with higher quantity of KMnO₄-zeolite (T₄: 10g) shows reduction and retardation in percent weight loss (9.62%), peel colour changes, firmness changes (28.2%), total soluble solid (TSS) (12.1% Brix), titratable acidity (TA) (0.084% malic acid) and also greater storability of banana. Therefore, postharvest losses can be reduced by the mentioned treatment and it can be implemented in postharvest industries for extending the shelf life of banana effectively.

The purpose of this research is to design and analysis of a Garlic Peeling Machine. The traditional hand peeling garlic method is very tedious and time-consuming work once a bulk quantity of garlic to be peeled, especially for restaurants. The pungent smell of garlic will make the uncomfortable for user's hands and eyes. Hence, the goals to be achieved in this research are to design a garlic peeling machine to replace the manual working in order to reduce the time taken compared to the hand peeling method. The research scopes involved of design and generate idea concepts, simulation and analysis structure and undergo experiment. The process flow of this research begins according to the standard design process flow. A survey was conducted to collect the customer's requirements. After idea generation, the final concept was selected using Pugh method and Weighted method. Simulation of fluid flow was carried out using computational fluid Dynamic (CFD) software.

Fused Deposition Modelling (FDM) is a process for developing Rapid Prototype (RP) objects according to numerically defined cross sectional geometry by depositing fused layers of material. This RP may used straight to the application. Therefore, this research has been done to optimize the best parameter towards better roughness on the surface. Plus, this research is to explore the influence of layer height, outline speed and extruder temperature with the surface roughness. A specimen has been proposed to fulfil the objective of the research. In order to build the specimen, it has been drawn by CAD. The, it was transfer to Standard Triangulation Language, (STL) file. The STL will read and the FDM will deposits the material from the bottom curve and build up the model to the top curve. In order to reduce experimental runs, Taguchi Method based on central composite design is adopted. L9 was used to run the specimen. Thus, there is nine experiment that will run. Specimens are prepared to improve surface roughness of the 3D printing. The specimen was measured by Mitutoyo CS3000 525-780EI. Relations among responses and process parameters are determined and their validity is proved using analysis of variance (ANOVA). Response surface are analysed to establish main factor effects and their interaction on responses. The specimen is proposed in flat and curve surface. For the result, it is stated that layer height was the main parameter that effects of the surface roughness, compare to the outline speed and extruder temperature.

A solar car is a lightweight, low power vehicle designed and built with a single purpose in mind–racing with and only drive during the day. It has limited seating (one or two peoples) and usually has very little cargo capacity. However, it offers an excellent opportunity to develop future technologies that can be applied to practical applications. This study will focus on design and analysis solar car chassis part. The primary challenge in developing an effective solar car chassis is to maximize strength and safety while minimizing the weight. Every extra pound requires more energy to move down the road. However, safety is a primary concern and the chassis must meet stringent strength and safety requirements. The purpose of the study is to understand the concept design of solar car chassis in terms of calculation, material selection, chassis style selection and virtual analysis for chassis using CATIA software.

This study aimed to determine the optimum washing of laboratory washing model that design to stimulate the active washing process and passive commercial washing machine are compared in order to determine the best washing result. Variables of the study include water speed, washing time and radial nozzle inclination angle. The rotational system of an automatic washing machine has two major technical difficulties. One is the collision of the tub against the frame at the beginning of its early spinning stage. A factor that causes such instability of the rotational object can be attributed to the deflection of the liquid inside the liquid balancer due to the unbalance mass. Proposed a new washing technology and new design of the washing machine can be as a base of its new type. These machines have better outcome data; improve quality of washing process and effective use of washing liquid. New washing machine is simple design, does not have rotary parts at all and uses active process of washing process with squeezing of linens and more productive then known washing machines. Also, this machine can recycle and feed cleaned washing liquid. Additionally, in use of ultrasonic technology of washing process, new machine today will be perfect design.

The aim of this study is to investigate the major properties of biodiesel causing filter-blocking issue in biodiesel especially for palm oil based, to identify the suitable solution to reduce or eliminate these factors for improving the filter properties of the palm based biodiesel by control the specific parameter (mono-glycerides during intermediate process and minimize or eliminate the Steryl Glycoside after post treatment. This study may give significant impact especially to local industry of biodiesel producer which operated with normal transesterification process and using palm base feedstock to conform international biodiesel specification such as ASTM D D7501 (Standard Specification for Biodiesel Fuel Blend Stock (B100) for Middle Distillate Fuels). In this paper the Filter Blocking Tendency (FBT) testing and Cold Soak Filterability Test (CSFT) testing procedure and result will be presented.

The egg-hatching machine comprises a several main factors that has been adapted and developed in this machine. The main factors are temperature, humidity, turning orientation and ventilation. The development of the machine without considering these factors will lead to failure or low percentage of hatching success. Therefore, these important factors must be included and adapted to machine. The best temperature for egg incubation is 37.8 °C or 100 °F and for relative humidity is from 55% to 65%. For egg, turning and orientation can be done from 2 to 6 times daily. The angle for turning is from 30° to 90°. The use of forced-air incubation method in this machine instead of still-air incubation had helped to regulate the air and supply oxygen to the eggs in the chamber. Besides considering all factors, other supportive factor that will help to increase the percentage of hatching success also must not be neglected. The supportive factors are location to place the machine, insulation for preventing heat loses and hygiene or cleanliness of the machine. Although these supportive factors are not the main parameter for egg incubation, these factors also need some attention as they also one the keys for hatching success.

This paper describes the suitability of a loudspeaker to be used as a linear alternator. The present study is intended to clarify experimentally that the ability of loudspeaker to detect a frequency of sound wave by applying the sound into a resonator with the different of length. The result of the experiment will determine the suitable length of resonator that give the best reading. The linear alternator is a linear motor which commonly used as an electrical generator. It is a type of alternating current electrical generator. The function of an alternator is to convert mechanical energy to electrical energy. The linear alternator operate under the principle of electromagnetic induction. Unlike linear alternator, other alternator work in rotary motion while the linear alternator work in linear motion. Electromagnetic induction is a result of an electromotive force across an electrical conductor cause by the dynamic interaction with magnetic field. The data of the experiment was conducted based on the three length of resonator. Based on the experiment, all three resonator give the best reading when the operating frequency of 200 Hz was used. The peak to peak voltage recorded for 100 mm length was 776 mV while the peak to peak voltage recorded for 150 mm length was 824 mV. The last resonator give the reading of 776 mV. For the decibel reading, the 100 mm resonator give the reading of 100.2 dB. The resonator of 150 mm give reading of 98.5 dB and the 200 mm give decibel reading of 99.8 dB. For the experiment with heat engine, the highest peak to peak reading is 40.7 mV and the decibel reading is 110.9 dB.

Fluid dynamic field is frequently classified and designated into two which are hydrodynamics and aerodynamics. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) has been exerted to many flow problems in a broad range. PIV application to the measurement of velocity distributions in fluid flow is represented by the Stokes number. PIV can be executed to practically for any sort of flow if the fluid is transparent to allow suspended particles image. The purpose of this paper is to present some examples of application of PIV in general cases. In the midst of numerous applications of PIV, turbulent flows are the most comprehensively demanding because of their three-dimensionality, naturally large ranges of length and unsteadiness. Sudden flow field measurements of PIV method can be applied for the demotion of turbulence quantities and mean velocities.

This paper discusses a construction clearing house framework to bridge knowledge management gap in the Malaysian construction industry. A clearing house is an agreed upon mechanism for transferring knowledge, which includes a centralized repository of information and resources on a collection of specific topics that are accessible by interested stakeholders. The focus is on resolving the problem of managing domain knowledge of the construction industry in Malaysia, emphasizing on the knowledge management practices through the capturing and transferring of construction knowledge and best practices of the industry players. The knowledge management research framework used is improvised from the previous researchers, while the transfer and sharing of construction best practices is based on the adapted framework also proposed by the previous researchers. This paper briefly described five areas namely knowledge need analysis, knowledge inventory analysis, knowledge flow, knowledge mapping and the knowledge creation in clearing house framework for sharing/transfer of best practices. The construction knowledge and best practices clearing house framework would facilitate the development of a clearing house system in the future, which will enable players in the industry to both contribute and benefit from the resources contained in the clearing house system. This clearing house framework will enable knowledge management of governance inculcate a good environment for practicing conducive knowledge management through knowledge and best practices sharing in the Malaysian construction industry.

Earthing systems acts as a significant part of the safety of the electric system. Under standard and failure situations, it should be necessary to be functioning efficiently in electrical system safety throughout all times. This project is to study the effect of Natural Enhancement Material (NEM) by using Fall of Potential Method to the eartihing resistivity. The NEM material used is Kenaf, Straw Rice ash and Palm Oil Residue Ashes. The measurement took part for 60 days. The purpose of this project is to compare the effect of the NEM as the additive material to the earthing system between three situations, Reference as bare soil, Kenaf with Straw Rice Ash and Kenaf with Palm Oil Residue Ashes. With two NEM material has been conducted, the analysis shown which the better material combing can improve the earth resistivity.

Metal Oxide (MOX) semiconductor gas sensors have been widely used in monitoring targeted gases that are present in the environment. This type of gas sensor can also be utilized as a safety device to detect the source of gas leakage. Their uses in many applications are due to being user-friendly, lower in cost, high sensitivity and relatively quick response time. However, there are several factors that could affect their performance. This work investigates the effects of the changes in ambient temperature and humidity on the readings of these sensors at various gas concentration levels. A PCB board was developed, which consists of temperature and humidity sensors, as well as eight different MOX gas sensors (TGS2600, TCS2602, CCS803, MiCS552, GM-402B, GM-502B, GM-702B and MiCS6814). The board was subjected to various temperatures (16˚C to 30˚C) and humidity levels (45% to 75%). At each of these parameter settings, the gas sensor responses were recorded at different ethanol gas concentrations. The results of the study showed that the temperature and humidity affected all the gas sensor response. The magnitude of the sensors responses was observed to decrease with rising temperature and humidity levels, except for MICS6814 (NH3 sensor) which responses in the opposite manner. Hence, there is the need to take into consideration of the drift of gas sensors' responses when there are changes in temperature and humidity.

This study was conducted for testing the hypothesis of the relationship between contingency and institutional variables and the adoption of the performance measurement system (PMS) in the construction industry in Yemen. These variables were ordered as external and internal contextual factors that facilitate or hinder the adoption of the modern managerial account systems such as PMS. A survey questionnaire was deployed in this study to gather the data from the largest construction firms representing classes 1, 2, and 3. Then, 104 were returned and usable questionnaires were used for the analysis by employing Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) using SmartPLS 0.3 software. The results show that the stakeholder involvement has the highest impact on the adoption of PMS whereas environmental uncertainty has no effect at all. In addition, leadership, information system, and quality management practices have significant positive effects, while the competition and strategy have significant but negative impacts on the adoption of PMS in construction firms in Yemen. Based on the findings, some implications have been drawn for promoting the adoption of performance measurement system in organizations in developing countries, including Yemen.

This work presents printing parameter optimization of 3D printed biodegradable PLA stent. This study is motivated by a gap in current knowledge in 3D printing of stents identified in an extensive literature review. With the demand of coronary artery stents rising every year, the stent production demands a higher quality, lower cost, faster and economical process. Due to its availability relatively low-cost price and adaptability, PLA has been identified for an ideal material for biodegradable stents. Previously, laser micromachining was widely used for processing coronary stent. The emerging of 3D printing process has gained attention for its low cost, high reliability, simple operation and flexibility has shown potential as promising solutions in stents fabrication. The use of 3D printing for stent manufacturing purpose is newly emerge and not widely reported. Up to now, less research has been conducted on 3D printed PLA coronary artery stents. This work therefore, aims to study the relationship of the 3D printing processing parameter towards stents quality. Strut thickness become the key aspects in stents manufacturing. Processing parameter optimization was performed by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM). Nozzle temperature and printing speed were both effecting the strut thickness formations regardless of printing orientations.

Water is the most demanding resource in the world especially in the era of the rapid growth of population and development. Therefore, delivering good quality water to consumers is important for their security of lives. Gravitational Filter Based on Origami Concept (G-Filtro) is a water filtration device that will be placed in a water tank at the residential area before people consumed it for everyday used. The specialty of this device, it does not necessarily attach to any power source. The objective of this project is to design and develop 3D G-Filtro using 3D CAD software and CFD analysis is used to determine the efficiency of the G-Filtro by simulating and model the pressure, velocity and streamline. Based on the result, the maximum water velocity for simulation without the filter is 0.266 m/s and the maximum velocity for first and second designed filter are 0.254 m/s and 0.243 m/s respectively. From the CFD simulation, the G-Filtro can remove the contaminants in water tank efficiently. Hence, it is proven that G-Filtro can be added as a new water filtration device.

Meningitis remains one of the common infections among young children with high morbidity and mortality rates. In Southeast Asian, only few studies were reported published which evaluated meningitis clinically in the last two decades. Similarly, few studies in Malaysia evaluated meningitis among adolescents and children. Globally, more than one million cases with 135,000 deaths has been recorded yearly, and in Malaysia, severe neurological complications occurs in 9-25% of cases which affirms the most serious risk manifests from bacterial meningitis. Therefore, early detection and effective treatment are required before the irreversible damages occur. This paper reviews the current states and perspectives of diagnostic techniques on meningitis detection. Currently, there are three diagnostic techniques available for meningitis detection, such as blood cultures, spinal tap (lumbar puncture), and imaging techniques (CT scan, MRI, EIT, Ultrasonography, Nuclear imaging and X-ray). However, these techniques have limitations that may limit the chances of carrying out the early detection of the disease. The essence of this review is that meningitis requires an effective technique that is capable of carrying out the early detection of the disease by differentiating normal people and Meningitis infected patients so as to promote longevity worldwide. In this review magnetic induction tomography (MIT) technique is proposed to diagnose meningitis earlier as it is non-intrusive, non-invasive, contactless, and electrode-less imaging technique which does not expose the patients to a harmful radiation.

Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans is an acidophilic chemoautotrophic bacterium which capable to convert the toxic hydrogen sulphide in wastewater into non-toxic compounds. The Acidithiobacillus thiooxidans strain UniMAP-AIN01 was previously isolated from a local natural rubber latex processing mill. In this study, the A. thiooxidans strain UniMAP-AIN01 was subjected to its growth performance evaluation in the wastewater of natural rubber latex. The sulphur content in the wastewater was utilized as energy source and support their growth. It was discovered that the A. thiooxidans strain UniMAP-AIN01 has long doubling time of 2 days in thiosulphate medium, while log phase lasted until 6^th day of incubation. Regression analysis of the growth kinetic was established with the aid of POLYMATH software. The precision value obtained as follows; linear regression, R² of 0.9811, adjusted linear regression, Adj R² of 0.9764, root mean square deviation, RMSD of 0.0015, and variance of 1.992 × 10⁻⁵ indicate the data is highly correlated and error is insignificant. Assessment on hydrogen sulphide removal efficiency using locally isolated A. thiooxidans strain UniMAP-AIN01 revealed 90% of hydrogen sulphide removal was achieved within a week.

The grounding system plays an important role in the electrical system part as it gives protection during fault or lightning occur. The main purpose of the grounding system is to protect humans, electrical appliances and buildings from electrical shock due to lightning or another form of electricity that hazardous. Thus, to install an excellent electrical system and complete its circuit, a grounding system performance must be taken into account. But, in certain cases, due to the geological condition, the soil resistivity is not good enough. Therefore, enhancement filler material has been used to reduce grounding resistance. In this project, it is aimed to elaborate on the usage of Coconut Husk, Paddy Husk, and Bentonite as grounding filler materials to reduce the soil resistivity and improves the grounding system. The result showed that Bentonite showed better performance compared to Coconut Husk and Paddy Husk.

An earthing system or known as grounding system in an electrical installation where by the grounding system connects specific parts of that installation with the Earth's conductive surface for safety and functional purposes. It is the process of transferring the immediate discharge with the aid of the low resistance wire of the electrical energy directly to the earth. It is really an important role playing in electrical system part as grounding system give protection during fault or lightning occur. In addition, grounding system also give protection for human electrical appliance and building from electrical shocks due to electrical fault or lighting occur. In this research will shows that to identify the best location to install the grounding electrode. This method is used on 10 x 10 meters which is 121 point will be investigated. The result of 0.3m, 0.6m, and 0.9m were analyzed using MATLAB software to produce profiling and shows the perfect location to install the Grounding system electrode.

Tapioca starch-hydroxyapatite (HA) composites scaffold was fabricated using solvent casting and particulate leaching. The solvent casting involved the casting of polymer while particulate leaching involved the removal of porogen agent. The percentage of tapioca starch used were 50%, 60%, 70%, 80% and 90%, with the percentages of hydroxyapatite (HA) were set as 50%, 40%, 30%, 20% and 10% respectively. Here, sodium chloride was used as a porogen agent. SEM analysis was conducted to determine the micro structural of the scaffold surface. Based on the results, the pore size of composite scaffold is between ranges of 198 µm to 786 µm. For the dielectric study, the dielectric constants (D') and dielectric loss factor (D") over frequency range from 12.4 GHz to 18.0 GHz were obtained by transmission line method. Based on the result, both dielectric constant (s') and dielectric loss factor (s") was declined with the increment of the frequency.

Every material has its own dielectric properties and it is also the same for water. In this research, dielectric properties measurement on water will be done to examine the water quality of drinking water whether it is safe to drink or not. Water quality in Malaysia, as well as access to water in general, is a major problem. The primary pollutants present in the water are oils, rubbish, suspended solids, sewage and toxic substances. These are consequences of untreated or only partially treated sewage caused by human activities. Thus, water quality in Malaysia is currently of some concern. The normal drinking water pH range mentioned in World Health Organization (WHO) and National Drinking Water Quality Standards (NDWQS) guidelines is between 6.5 and 8.5. The water may contain some residue even though the pH is in the range of 6 to 7.5 so it does not prove that the water is safe enough for drinking purpose. Thereby, the analysis about the water quality using the specific measuring instruments need to carry out to prove that the water in neutral pH may not be safe to drink as the pH does not prove the content of the water as clearly as dielectric properties. High Temperature Coaxial Probe as the dielectric properties measurement sensor will be used to provide better information compare to pH. The measurement parameters that had been used to determine the water quality is the dielectric constant. The results obtained from both pH and dielectric properties measurement values are been analyzed and compared and it shows that pH value for clean and contaminated water is at almost similar values while dielectric properties results show different for both clean and contaminated water.

To achieve an excellent grounding system, an alternative solution was developed by using enhancement material to modify the soil surrounding the rod. These materials can effectively reduce soil resistivity and grounding resistance for a better grounding system. To achieve this goal, the fundamental part must be taken into account. In this study, the main objective is to analyze different concrete orientations as enhancement material in the grounding system. A 3-D orientation of concrete has been designed using Finite Element Method (FEM) software to analyze the performance of the electric field in the grounding system with different orientation of concrete. Every orientation of concrete had been clarified into four different cases which are full concrete, half concrete, three-quarter concrete, and a quarter concrete. From the result, full concrete is the best orientation of concrete design to be employed at the grounding site as it has a low electric field compared to the other concrete orientation.

Aluminosilicates/alkaline solution (FA/AA) ratio has a great influence on the morphology and mechanical properties of geopolymer fabricated via pressing method. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effect of FA/AA ratio on the performance of pressed geopolymer. The geopolymer mixtures were prepared at FA/AA ratio of 4.5-7.0 and compacted with uniaxial hydraulic press. The resultant specimens were cured at room temperature (30°C) for 7 and 28 days. The physical properties of the specimens were measured by porosity and water absorption analysis. The microstructure and strength of pressed geopolymers were determined. The results revealed that the pressed geopolymer with FA/AA ratio of 5.5 had the lowest porosity and water absorption. Furthermore, SEM micrographs proved that FA/AA ratio of 5.5 yielded the formation of well-compacted structure. Maximum compressive strength of 78.54 MPa was achieved.

The persistent infection by high risk HPV is a necessary but not sufficient cause of this cancer which develops over a long period through precursor lesions which can be detected by electrochemical impedance sensor. The HPV driven molecular mechanisms underlying the development of cervical lesions have provided a number of potential biomarkers for both diagnostic and prognostic use in the clinical management of women with HPV related cervical disease and these biomarkers can also be used to increase the positive predictive value of current methods. The most influential methods for the detection and identification of HPV using gold nanoparticle (GNP) included electrochemical impedance sensor will visit their sensitivity, selectivity and characteristic detection on synthetic target which are complement of the DNA, non-complement of the DNA and mismatch of the DNA. In difference concentration of synthetic target, which stage can get the exactly value to determine the HPV in strain 16 was evaluated in this research studies.

This research was developed to focus on the study of the voltammetric DNA biosensor for the detection of HPV strain 18. In this research, electrical DNA biosensor was expected to detect HPV strain 18 more efficiently by using electrical characterization. In this project, device inspection was conducted to make sure the functional of the gold interdigitated electrode (IDE) by using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). 3-Aminopropyl Triethoxysilane (APTES) solution was used for the process of surface modification to form the amine group on the surface of the device to facilitate the attachment of the DNA probe. In this project, synthetic DNA sample and DNA from the saliva of several Biosystems Engineering students were used as the target DNA. The current-voltage (I-V) electrical characterization was conducted to detect the presence of HPV strain 18 in both DNA samples. As the results, perfect alignment between the electrodes on the IDE was detected under SEM. Surface modification of the biosensor successfully conducted which is the covalent bond between APTES and DNA probe increase the electrical. Synthetic DNA shows the presence of HPV strain 18 while there was no HPV strain 18 detected in the DNA from saliva samples.

The aim of this work was to develop a novel, simple, inexpensive, sensitive an electrochemical DNA biosensor based on interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) integrated gold nanoparticle modified electrode by electro less deposition for HPV 18. The biosensor was designed with a 30 mer E6 region of HPV 18 DNA modified probe. The E6 region has been used for their clinical importance properties and suitable as recognition biomarker region. Three different target types were tested which complementary target, non-complementary target and mismatch target. All target were analyzed for detection of HPV 18 in early stages by using Dielectric Analyzer (DA), Alpha-A High-performance Frequency Analyzer, Novocontrol Technologies, Handsagen, Germany associated with the software package Windeta. Complementary target gives a positive result in HPV detection, while non-complementary and mismatch target give negative results. IDE device with 5 nm gap sizes has demonstrated a high performance towards the detection of HPV18 ssDNA target by modified with 30 nm gold nanoparticle. The electrochemical biosensor showed better performance compared to agarose gel electrophoresis assay. This technology can be used as a new and attractive sensor development for detection of virus infection in human bodies.

A novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) became the seventh member in the family of Coronavirus that infect human. 2019-nCoV became the most severe virus compare to another family of coronavirus. Human airway ephitelial cells have been used to identify and isolate the virus before proceed to reverse trancriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). Detailed biological knowledge is crucial for the development of effective countermeasures, diagnostic tests, vaccines and antiviral drugs against the 2019-nCoV. Conserved coding sequences within the spike glycoprotein region of open reading frame in the coronavirus genome was used as the basis to design oligonucleotide probe to detect the virus. Analyses on different strain of coronavirus sequences were done to check the percentage of similarity and consensus region that cause different strain of viruses. The biomarker needed an acceptable length between 22 and 31 mers. The choice of S gene region was identified and can be used as a biomarker probe for biosensor development. It has implications for coronavirus detection techniques in clinical and biosensor diagnostic system.

In this study, we investigated the effect of acid/alkaline-treated carbonized wood fiber (CWF) in polyethylene oxide (PEO)/Chitosan (70/30) blend film prepared by solution casting. We investigated the electrical conductivity, crystallinity percentage, crystal orientation, tensile properties, and morphology of the blend films filled with 25 wt% of untreated and acid/alkaline-treated CWF. From the results, the film filled with acid-treated CWF displayed the highest electrical conductivity when compared to the films filled with untreated and alkali-treated CWF. The x-ray diffraction (XRD) diffractograms reveal that the film filled with acid-treated CWF has the lowest crystallinity than the films filled untreated and alkaline-treated CWF. The reduction in d-spacing for the films filled treated CWF suggested improved crystal orientation for the promotion of electron transfer. The tensile properties were not affected much by the incorporation of CWF regardless of untreated or treated filler. The films with treated CWF showed slightly lower tensile strength and modulus but slightly higher elongation at break. The tensile results agree with reduced crystallinity for the blend films with both acid and alkaline treated CWF. The surface morphology of the films investigated by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) also displayed better dispersion of the conducting CWF inside the PEO/Chitosan matrix for the blends with treated CWF. The improved dispersion is due to less blockage with the presence of more amorphous regions. The presence of a broad network bridge smoothens the transfer of electrons and increases electrical conductivity.

Rice biomass is one of the most staple agricultural by-products in Malaysia. In this study, mixed rice biomass (MRB) which combines rice husk and straw in certain ratio was used to produce the fermentable sugars. White-rot fungal strain, P.chrysosporium was used in biological pretreatment for 7 days (30°C). The pretreatment was proceeded by hydrothermal autohydrolysis for further removal of hemicellulose. The reducing sugar of soluble solid mixed rice biomass after autohydrolysis process was determined (0.225g sugar/g MRB). The characteristic of raw and insoluble solid pretreated MRB was observed by Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and the functional groups changes were determined by Fourier Transformed Infrared (FTIR). The parameters of enzymatic saccharification were optimized using Central Composite Design for Response Surface Methodology by setting the concentration of commercial cellulase enzyme used, Celluclast 1.5L from 5 FPU/g to 15 FPU/g and incubation times from 24 to 72 hours. It was discovered that fermentable sugars production was increased from 0.098g sugar/g MRB (0.125 g/L) to 0.248g sugar/g MRB (0.319g/L) at optimized condition 82 hours incubation time and 10 FPU/g enzyme concentrations. Hence, the total reducing sugar produced was calculated as 0.473g sugar/g MRB and saccharification was determined as 66.31%.

Cellulase is an enzyme commonly used to break down cellulose to beta-glucose. The demand of cellulase has been arisen due to its extensive range of applications in the industries such as detergents, foods and biofuel production. In present study, cellulase from Trichoderma reesei was immobilized on a functionalized multiwall carbon nanotube (MWCNTs) by physical adsorption method. Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) was used to confirm the successful functionalization of MWCNTs and immobilization of cellulase. In this approach, effects of pH and temperature for both free and immobilized cellulase were evaluated. Practically, the immobilized cellulase showed an improvement in pH and thermal stability compared to free cellulase at optimum condition of 50°C and pH 5 with 12% and 8% of increments respectively. For reusability study on CMC analysis, the bionanoconjugate retained 60% of its initial activity even after 3rd cycle of analysis. This feature is beneficial to the industrial applications because of its potential to be easily separated from the end product at the end of the reaction, reuse for several times and helps in development of multiple enzyme reaction systems.

The potential of natural coagulants is highly sought nowadays as the use of commercial coagulants, aluminum sulfate (alum) affect the environment negatively. An alternative coagulant is needed. In this study, the effectiveness of natural coagulant, the tamarind seed extract is being evaluated as a coagulant to measure the highest percentage removal of turbidity and chemical oxygen demand (COD) in the surface water. The surface water sample taken from the Sungai Perlis located in Kangar, Perlis. The sample were analysed using Jar Test Experimental works with rapid mixing speed of 120 rpm in 1 minutes, slow mixing speed of 30 rpm in 20 minutes and settling time of 1 hour. The tamarind seed is being extracted using distilled water and 1 M of sodium chloride (NaCI). Seed extract from distilled water effectively removes 99.2% of turbidity and 77.2% of COD with optimum coagulant dosage of 30 mg/L and optimal pH 5.0. While, the seed extracts from 1 M of NaCI can remove 99.4% of turbidity and 73.8% of COD with the optimum coagulant dosage of 30 mg/L and optimal pH 3.0. Hence, this study demonstrates the potentials of the seed extract of tamarind seeds using distilled water in treating the surface water.

Effects of cycling time on the performance of granular sludge in sequencing batch reactors (SBR) were evaluated. Two reactors, reactor 1 (R1) and reactor 2 (R2) was introduced to industrial wastewater with varying chemical oxygen demand (COD) loadings from as low as 0.01 to 0.28 kgCOD/m3/d. However granules in R1 utilizes cycling time of 24 hours whilst R2 utilizes cycling time of 4 hours. The overall performance for both reactors were excellent, where COD removal efficiency was kept at about 78 % to 98 % removal. Although higher COD removal was observed for both reactors, granulation did not occur in R1 when applying cycling time of 24 hours. In contrast to R2, decrement of cycling time to 4 hours promotes the growth of dense and structured sludge granules.

Industrial wastewater sludge containing latex collected from rubber industry wastewater treatment plant has classified the waste as scheduled waste due to high concentration of selected heavy metals within it. Laboratory scale of special treatment via solidification/stabilization (S/S) technique has been performed to the waste by using ordinary Portland cement. The objective of this research is to evaluate the chemical properties of the raw waste using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and physical properties related to unconfined compressive strength (UCS) performance of stabilised/solidified (s/s) cube specimens. Other factors took into consideration include the curing condition using air and water immersion curing technique, waste addition percentage, specimen age and density. The fresh mix prepared were cast in plastic moulds internal dimension of 50 mm3 producing cubical shape specimens and cured approximately 24 to 48 hours. The prepared specimen batches are A1 (90% OPC + 10% waste), A2 (70% OPC + 30% waste), A3 (50% OPC + 50% waste). Chemical analyses using XRF indicates that raw sludge contains approximately several heavy metals such as Aluminium (30%), Phosphorus, P (17.5%) and Zinc, Zn (11.7%). UCS testing were conducted on 7 and 28 days of specimen age. Positive average compressive strength results of 7 day air cured specimens reach 5.25 MPa, 5.28 MPa, and 2.16 MPa for A1, A2 and A3. Next, 28 days air cured specimens results are 9.59 MPa, 8.01 MPa, and 1.46 MPa for A1, A2, and A3 respectively. As for water immersion, the compressive strengths are 8.19 MPa, 4.93 MPa, and 1.90 MPa for 7 days, and 7.75 MPa, 10.10 MPa, and 2.11 MPa for 28 days at respective A1, A2 and A3 sequence. Based on the UCS performance, the tested specimens surpassed the minimum requirement for secured landfill disposal which is at 1 MPa.

This study aims to investigate the dielectric response of the porous hydroxyapatite/starch composites by varying the starch proportion in determining the feasibility of the microwave sample characterization technique in bone tissue engineering. The porous hydroxyapatite/starch composites were fabricated by using natural starch (gelatinization and retrogradation) through the solvent casting and particulate leaching technique. The dielectric constant (ε') and loss factor (ε'') of the complex permittivity of the porous hydroxyapatite/starch composites were measured in the Ku band frequency of 12.4-18.0 GHz. ε' and ε'' of the porous composites increase with frequency. The highly porous composite that due to higher starch proportion exhibit higher ε' and ε'', resulting in the significant dielectric responses.

In trimming of ultra-high strength steel (UHSS) sheet, the high strength of the sheet usually results in large fracture and low burnish surfaces on the sheared-edge. For metal stamping industries, large fracture surfaces are unwanted, as it not only deteriorates sheared-edge quality but also leads to delayed-crack. In this study, crack detection by using acid immersion on the sheared-edge of ultra-high strength steel sheet caused by the trimming process was investigated. The ultra-high strength steel sheet of JSC780YN, JSC980YN, and JSC1180YN having different strengths were trimmed and immersed in 35% hydrochloric acid under a controlled time interval. The steel sheet with higher strength was found to produce larger fracture surface after trimming, i.e. more than 50% of the entire sheared-edge is fracture surface. Besides, the larger fracture surface of the steel sheet results in higher crack exposure and higher crack propagation, which in the long run, it can cause failure to the part manufactured using UHSS.

The TiO₂-geopolymer paste had been prepared by dry-mixing of the fly ash with various concentration (wt%) of TiO₂ nanoparticles (2.5%, 5.0%, 10.0% and 15.0%). Those powder mixtures were then mixed with the alkali activator with the ratio of 2.5 and were cured at room temperature for 28 and 640 days. The phase and chemical bonding analysis revealed that the incorporation of TiO₂ nanoparticles did not create any additional phase or functional group, but only physical interaction might have occurred in between the TiO₂ and geopolymer matrix. However, the physical properties were depending on the TiO₂ nanoparticles content where setting time of the geopolymer can be shortened by the addition of certain amount of TiO₂ nanoparticles (up to 5.0 wt%). The water absorption also increased as a function of TiO₂ content, due to the formation of the micro cracks as a result from the agglomeration of TiO₂ nanoparticles. The compressive strength reaches its maximum value, 85.9 MPa with 5.0 wt% of TiO₂ nanoparticles. Beyond 5wt%, the strength decreased almost half of the maximum value, where agglomeration becomes a main factor. While for 640 days of ageing, sample with 15.0 wt% shows triple increment from 30.6 MPa to 95.3 MPa.

The aim of the research study to design high sensitive biosensor for medical applications. IDE pattern was designed using AutoCAD software with 5 µm ginger gap. The fabrication process was done using a conventional photolithography process and standard CMOS process. The fabricated electrode was physically characterized using a low power microscope (LPM) and a high power microscope (HPM). The electrically validated through I-V measurements and chemically tested with different pH buffer solutions. Al IDE was well fabricated with 0.1 µm tolerance between the design mask and fabricated IDEs. Electrical measurements confirmed that IDE was well fabricated without any shortage and results of similar IDE samples were confirmed that the repeatability of the device. The extremely small current variations in nano ampere range were quantitatively detected using an extra small volume of 2 µl for different pH buffer solutions. It is confirmed that IDEs are sensitive in both alkali and hydroxyl ions medium.

There are limited number of electrical based two type electrode electronic readers for biosensors are commercial available because of the noise issues and amplification at nano to pico ampere current range. This research is mainly focused on designing an active low pass filter circuit of electronic reader for biosensors. The entire circuits are comprised of a voltage converter circuit, active low pass filter circuit, voltage amplifier, microcontroller and display unit. The circuit capture, filter and amplify nano and pico ampere current convert it to detectable voltage range as an output signal to the processing circuit. NodeMCU was act as the process and control circuit to read the output voltage from the amplifier circuit. The signal generator will act as a replacement for the biosensor input current and oscilloscope will display the input and output signal. The Design Spark PCB software was used to design the voltage amplifier circuit. Arduino software was used to create a programming code to upload in NodeMCU microcontroller.

The agriculture sector plays an important role in economic development in providing rural employment, uplifting rural incomes and ensuring national food security. Harumanis mango has been predominantly produced in the Perlis state of Malaysia, and it is the seasonal once-a-year. However, plant diseases became a serious issue that significantly affects both the quality and quantity of Harumanis mango production. The primary problem with Harumanis mango has experienced by farmers is a disease and the farmers are failed to complete the process of post-harvest for Harumanis mango. Further, in the case of Harumanis mango disease, the symptoms are often detected at the later stage, which makes it difficult to take any further action. Usually, the diseases are controlled by fungicides and the use of synthetic chemicals to eliminate the postharvest diseases and deterioration has their limit due to carcinogenicity, teratogenicity, environmental pollution, effects on food and other side-effects on humans. Up to date, the control of Harumanis mango disease is still challenging, although several studies have been conducted to eradicate and prevent its outbreak in the field. This overview is about Harumanis mango and the prospect in preventing a serious outbreak with Harumanis mango production using interdigitated electrodes (IDE) nano-biosensor.

Abundant resources of rice straw and carbon-neutral have a lot of potentials to be converted into various value-added product and become more green due to less utilization of chemical usage. Graphene is one of value-added had been converted from rice straw and was successfully synthesized by using activating rice straw ash (RSA) using potassium hydroxide (KOH) at 700 oC with 1:2.5 impregnation ratio. scanning electron microscopy (SEM), field emission scanning electron microscopy (FESEM), EDX Analysis with a field emission transmission electron Microscope (FETEM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The current results can be the model for comparing the synthesize graphene from other plant sources.

This paper is aimed to review and study the interfacial reaction between SnAgCu (SAC) lead-free solder alloys and common copper substrates. Among the lead-free solders, a ternary solder alloys, SnAgCu (SAC) based solder, is leading the lead-free solders as it has excellent thermal and electrical properties. The interfacial between solder alloy and substrate comprise an important characteristic in the reliability performance of a solder alloy. As the current industry has driven to miniaturization, high integration and multifunctionality, the reliability and durability of solder joints are gained attention for its long-term performance of electronic products. Therefore, in this short review, the interfacial reaction between SAC solder alloys and copper substrate will be focused. Besides, the effects of the addition of microalloying elements into SAC solder alloys will be discussed.

The handheld electronic products currently turning to high density, high performances, and multifunctionality, which sets higher demands on the solder joints reliability in electronic packaging. Because of environmental conscious towards Pb-containing solders, Pb-free solder get attracted wide attention in the electronic industry. Challenges of the Pb-free solders in the microelectronics device are the microstructural evolution influence the mechanical behavior of the solder reliability. This paper analyses a short overview on the progress of the study on the relationship between structure and property, and possible concerns regarding reliability of Pb-free solders joints. Furthermore, the measures to enhance the solder joint reliability are evaluated which contribute to a further theoretical foundation for the research on the solder joints reliability of electronic devices in service life.

An important issue in synthesis of ion imprinted polymers (IIP) is optimization of the main parameters that involved during polymerization process as those parameters can influence the performance of IIP. In this study, IIP was synthesized by precipitation polymerization using allylthiourea (ATU) as monomer, nitrate as template ion, ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA) as crosslinker, 2,2'-azobisisobutyronitrile (AIBN) as initiator with 365 nm ultraviolet (UV) light and mixture of acetonitrile and dimethylsulfoxide (DMSO) as porogenic solvent. The influences of various polymerization parameters in the synthesis of IIPs were investigated. The parameters studied included: ratio of monomer-template, amount of crosslinker and amount of porogenic solvent. These parameters were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM) coupled with central composite design CCD). Results showed that IIP with an optimum adsorption capacity of 156.233 mg/g of nitrate ion NO₃⁻) can be obtained under the following polymerization conditions: 3.90 mmol of ATU, 18.67 mmol of EGDMA and 38.30 mL of porogenic solvent. The nitrate imprinted polymer and non-imprinted polymer were characterized by Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The SEM micrograph showed microparticles ranging from 14.05 - 16.17 µm in diameter and the surface was rough and porous. The sorption of IIP followed Langmuir adsorption isotherm model. In this study, the binding capacity indicated that nitrate imprinted polymer recognized NO₃⁻ in aqueous solution more effectively compared to non-imprinted polymer and this polymer particles potrayed better adsorption as compared other adsorbent

Natural enhancement material often uses to improve performance of the soil resistivity in grounding system. Due to the different soil condition, focus for effective grounding go to the soil itself. Soil resistivity, moisture content and surrounding environment contribute to the impedance of the grounding. The usage of material to enhance the grounding can be considering important to maintain the grounding system performance. There are several techniques used to treat the soil using chemical substance known as grounding enhancement material. This technique produces low resistivity to the grounding electrode however the soil become contaminated. This paper will discuss about the performance of coconut husk ashes and bentonite as natural enhancement material and method being used to evaluate the results.

Nowadays, nanotechnology has become a vast expanding application which can be used all across the science field such as chemistry, biology, physic, material science and engineering. In this paper, a poly-Si nanowire biosensor was fabricated by using the conventional photolithography technique. In addition, this technique is used to define the initial poly-Si with the dimension of 1 μm. After the conventional photolithography process, the photoresist undergone the development using resist developer and etched with reactive ion etching (RIE). Meanwhile, for the electrical part, it was observable that there was an increase in current when the nanowire has been hybridized with Dengue DNA type-2 (DENV-2) ranging from 10 fM - 10 μM. The morphology of the poly-Si nanowire was characterized by optical microscopy whilst electrically characterized by measuring the two-terminal current-voltage (I-V) characteristic.

According to recent studies, millions of people are suffering from Arsenic (As) toxicity contamination. Arsenic is one of the most toxic and carcinogenic chemical elements and its contamination in paddy field has become a chronic problem. In the agricultural sector, arsenic-contaminated water irrigation has a higher level of arsenic contamination on the top soil, which can affect the quality of crop production such as rice plants. Rice plant requires a considerable amount of water to complete its lifecycle. In Asean countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand, Arsenic intake from rice is significantly higher, as rice plants have a special ability to take up arsenic from the soil and water used for irrigation. The transfer of arsenic from soil to plant systems is a serious issue that leads to considerable human exposure. Nanotechnology application plays vital role for any field work and research. In this research, the implementation of nanotechnology approach such as silica nanoparticles are able to remove the Arsenic heavy metal contamination. This paper focused on arsenic heavy metal removal using silica nanoparticles analaysed using spectrophotometric method.

Nowadays, the usage of RTV Silicone Rubber as Insulator coatings are increased due to its advantages to avoid pollution flashover of contaminated insulator. Besides, the coatings can reduce the maintenance cost and scheduled routine. This paper had introduced the advantage of RTV Silicone Rubber coatings on insulator, such as good adhesion, nominal thickness range and good hydrophobicity. There are three method of coatings application, such as brushing, spraying and dipping. Suitable method is used to specific insulator application. Meanwhile, this paper also explained about installation of coated insulator in the field.

Abstract.Rice bran is quite a novel subject in the food and pharmaceutical research area. It is the by-product of the rice milling process that is rich in proteins and many other nutrients. However, rice bran is commonly used to feed cattle, also as fertilizer and fuel but not as a source of nutrients for humans. Thus, this study proposes another protein source and explore its production methods for food and supplement industry. This research focuses to produce rice bran protein powder and protein concentration using spray drying technique. Since rice bran protein is used in food consumption, the extraction of protein from rice bran was done using physical extraction method which water as the medium of extraction. The relationship between the spray drying parameter; inlet temperature (130 – 200˚C), feed flowrate (10 – 40%) and air flowrate (225 – 625L/Hr) were investigated based on the OFAT method, As conclusion, spray drying process of rice bran protein powder has the capability to maintain the nutritional value present in the rice bran. Rice bran protein powder could be an alternative source of hypoallergenic plant-based protein supplement to humans in the future with further research.

The demand on Kapok fibre-based products has currently shown an increase particularly those from small business traders in comparison to massive market sellers due to lower cost offered. However, the small business traders commonly use manual technique to separate the Kapok fibre from its seed before continuing to the next stages, thus, leading to labour-intensive work, longer processing time, and low output. The aim of the study was to design and develop a Kapok fibre seeds separator to efficiently perform the work. A number of idea generation and concept development phases were undertaken. The finalised concept was the transformed into a three-dimensional (3-D) model using a computer-aided design (CAD) software. A computational 3-D finite element analysis (FEA) was conducted to evaluate the structural performance under simulated loadings. Also, the product prototype was built and its usability has been tested. The outcomes of 3-D FEA showed that the highest mechanical stress recorded within the structure was favourable with low tendency towards failure. Whilst, the results of usability testing demonstrated that the proposed product reported an increase of 52.8% in the amount of separated seeds. Thus, the new design of Kapok fibre seeds separator is found to be superior in solving the problems issued by the manual processing technique.

Biodiesel promising as an alternative to the diesel. The transesterification reaction process involved the reaction of triglyceride with alcohol in the presence of catalyst. In the research, the Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) method was used to simulate the transesterification reaction process. The inlet pressure range from 0.0001 Pa to 0.01 Pa, temperature of 25°C, 50°C, 75°C and the molar ratio at 6:1, 9:1 were used to investigate their effect of toward the biodiesel conversion. Finding shows that high conversion of biodiesel occurred at low inlet pressure of 0.001 Pa with temperature of 50°C and the ethanol to oil molar ratio at 9:1.

The strength of the centrifugal pump is crucial to ensure the safe pump operating when endure to unintended pumping condition. The presence of the solid particles and sudden increase of pressure may lead to the damage on the casing of a centrifugal pump and it becomes critical when the thickness of the casing is thin. This study aims to investigate the effects of the thickness on the mechanical aspects such as stress, strain and displacement in the casing design by using finite element (FE) analysis. The structure of the pump casing with various thicknesses is analyzed via FE-based software. The correlation of the wall thickness with the mechanical aspects is studied. The critical region with high stress was spotted in the simulation. The simulation results revealed the wall thickness demonstrated a polynomial correlation to the displacement and strain. The stress of the casing showed the linear correlation with the thickness. The critical region was noticed at the intersection region of the pump casing. The mechanical aspects of the pump casing were improved with the increment of the wall thickness in the pump casing design.

Abstract.Improper mold design or processing parameter setting could make a bad impact on the appearance of molded part. It becomes more challenging if the ratio of the part size compared with its wall thickness is greater. Process parameters such as mold and melt temperature, injection temperature including the cavity layout directly affect product quality and cost. It is a complex and difficult task to improve these multi parameters. The objective of this research is to determine optimum settings for processing parameters for a thin walled product by using Response Surface Methodology. Melting temperature, mold temperature, injection pressure and cavity layout are selected as processing parameters and Polyurethane material is selected for this research. Volumetric shrinkage and warpage are selected as the main quality criteria to be controlled respected with the product design specifications. As the result, optimum process parameter settings were mold temperature of 29.89°C, melting temperature of 220°C, and 181.30MPa injection pressure with 'H' branching cavity layout. With small differences error value between solution and simulation, 0.31% for volumetric shrinkage and 0.126% for warpage, the result was acceptable.

Fluidization is characterized as an activity that transforms fine solids into a liquid-state via contact with either a gas or a liquid. Currently, Swirling Fluidized Bed (SFB) is one of the new system that contribute on flow mixing to the beds due to the gas source which impart on the solid particles. Further the fluidized beds system are used mostly in the chemical process industry, mineral processing, processes energy and etc. Based on the current fluidized bed system there are still lacking in reducing high pressure drop and keep the energy consumption at high efficient condition. Due to this tips, the conceptual design of a multi-stages SFB was proposed to improve fluidization quality and minimize elutriation at the same time without requiring any extra facilities. By using the simulation method (Ansys Fluent) the behavior of velocity component via selected configuration of fix blades number (30) and through to variant of blade horizontal inclination angle (10°, 12° & 15°) the multi-stage SFB will be investigate. Aims of this study is to identify the air flow behavior at first and second stage blade distributor. Therefore, effect with less blades number in producing on high uniformity velocity would be acquired. The present study has found that by using blade inclination angle of 10° the high velocity magnitude (more than 60 m/s) at two different level of stage distributor can be reached. Moreover, it clearly be seen at blade inclination angle, 15° the velocity uniformity was sustain at certain width and less superficial velocity value occurred compared to other configurations.

The reinforced concrete beam with lightning protection cable used in this research to determine the stress intensity and crack pattern of the beam. In this research, commercially available software developed by ANSYS used to model the nonlinear behaviour of reinforced concrete beams. The beam will model by using the ANSYS parametric design language (APDL). The beam structure was modelling in 3D geometry with the reinforcement steel bar and lightning cable embedded in the reinforced concrete beam structure. The material uses to develop the beam are Grade 30 concrete and high yield steel for main reinforcement. The material for lightning cable used was galvanized steel iron, which is highly resistance to corrosion and oxidation. The beam model in simply supported with pinned support at two end of beam and three-point load is applied. From the result beam added with lightning cable at bottom can sustain a higher stress intensity compare to the beam without additional lightning cable and beams without lightning cable have developed largest crack compared to the beam with lightning cable.

This study considers the applications of natural fiber composites in affordable housing projects located in Malaysia with the goal of addressing issues of the thermal comfort. Roof thermal insulation is one of the effective methods that can save cooling energy in places with an equatorial climate especially in Malaysia. The use of recycled products or industrial waste materials is now a potential trend in the industry. Therefore, natural fiber was chosen as a material for the ceiling board in this study. During the day, heat can enter the room from the roof so that insulation material is needed to reduce heat flux by maintaining the temperature of the building. The problems faced by consumers are cost increases due to the use of large amounts of electricity. Besides, asbestos use becoming less frequent because the government has banned its use as a ceiling, side panels, roofing material, asbestos cement-pipes, many types of fireproof and insulation material. The objectives of this study was to determine the mechanical and physical properties of coconut fiber with fire retardant paint as a thermal comfort for ceiling board. The next objective is to study the percentage difference in sodium hydroxide and sodium chloride during the treatment of coconut fiber. The data result is that the fiber is ideal as an insulating material for the house ceiling board because it has a low temperature quality of 0.225W. The water absorption value was as high as 11.20% which is slightly lower than previous studies. Finally, the density test has a value of 74.23 kg / m3 where the fibers are lighter than the other fibers even after immersion with different sodium hydroxide and sodium chloride. In addition, this study achieved a house ceiling that could help reduce the heat entering the house by 0.225W which used only a thickness of 10mm. The use of these fibers does not need the thickness between 20 mm or 40 mm. Therefore, it successfully lowered home electricity consumption in hot weather. It was found that the difference in temperature drop between 0 % and 3 % was 0.4W.

One-part geopolymer utilized dry activator(s) which undergo geopolymerization by "just add water" mechanism. There are wide varieties of dry binders to develop one-part geopolymer. This work presents an investigation of fresh and hardened properties of fly ash-based one-part geopolymer activated by mixture of anhydrous sodium metasilicate (Na₂SiO₃) with sodium carbonate (Na₂CO₃). The ratios of alkali activator-to-fly ash (AA/FA) were set as 0.15, 0.20 and 0.25. The substitution of Na₂CO₃ was set as Na₂SiO₃/Na₂CO₃ ratio of 1. Setting time of fresh one-part geopolymer was examined through Vicat needle apparatus. Porosity, compressive strength and microstructural properties of developed specimens were also analyzed after 28 days of curing. The result showed that the partial substitution of Na₂CO₃ resulted in a shorter setting time and lower porosity. Besides that, the one-part geopolymer activated by the mix of Na₂SiO₃ and Na₂CO₃ achieved 78.23 MPa at AA/FA ratio of 0.20. The findings suggest that Na₂CO₃ is a potential alkali activator for one-part geopolymer.

This study aims to determine the effect of the amylose/amylopectin contents of starch on the porosity and dielectric properties of porous hydroxyapatite/starch composites. The porous hydroxyapatite/starch composites were prepared by utilizing the starches (rice, corn and potato starch) via gelatinization and retrogradation process. The complex permittivity of the porous hydroxyapatite/starch composites were evaluated in the frequency range of 12.4-18.0 GHz. The porous composites were exhibited the higher average porosity by using the starch with higher amylopectin content. The highly porous hydroxyapatite/starch composites with higher amylopectin content show the significant fluctuation peaks (at 13.8 and 16.6 GHz) and the higher imaginary part of the complex permittivity (ε'') at higher frequency in the dielectric spectrum, respectively. The real (ε') and imaginary part (ε'') of the complex permittivity of the porous composites could be enhanced by increasing the average porosity and the amylopectin contents.

The study theoretically accounts for the impact of Magnetohydrodynamics on streaming blood through an artery having multiple stenosis regions using the non-Newtonian Cross-rheological model. It is regarded that the streaming blood is unsteady and pulsative. The use of appropriate conditions is predicated on the assumption that the flow is laminar and axisymmetric which makes the problem two-dimensional. The geometry of stenosis was immobilized into a rectangular grid using the radial coordinate transformation. The finite difference scheme was employed for the numerical simulations. Specifically, magnetic field (Hartmann number), Reynolds number and severity of stenosis were varied over the entire arterial length. The results obtained predicted that increase in the Hartmann number and stenosis severity reduces the magnitude of the flow velocity, flow rate but the reverse is the case when the Reynolds number is increased. However, the wall shear stress and the resistance to flow are aided by increasing the Hartman number and the stenosis severity but reduces with increase in the Reynolds number. Hence, it is germane to apply the appropriate magnetic field in treatments otherwise, such patient may be vulnerable.

A Non-Newtonian model is used to examine the effect of tapering on the flow of blood along a stenosed artery which is caused by the pulsating nature the heart. The constitutive equation of the Cross model is used to capture the rheology of the streaming blood which accounts for the shear thinning behaviour of blood. The flow is considered to be laminar, incompressible, and axisymmetric. The finite- difference scheme was adopted to solve the non-linear equations describing the fluid motion in an unsteady two-dimensional case. The computation is presented in terms of the axial and radial velocities, volumetric flow rate, resistance to flow and the wall shear stress. The result from the numerical simulation clearly indicates that vessel tapering has considerable effect on the flow pattern of blood: as the tapering angle increases the flow rate and the axial velocity increases proportionately while the radial velocity, wall shear stress decreases and resistance to flow.

Ultra high performance concrete (UHPC) refers to cement based materials exhibiting high compressive strength, tensile strength and excellent durability. This paper reviews the raw materials and curing methods currently applied in UHPC manufacturing process. Raw materials, preparation techniques and curing methods have significant influence on properties of UHPC. The use of very high cement content, high strength cement and silica fume may improve the strength and compactness but increase the production cost. The use of high temperature curing leads to denser microstructure and better performance than room temperature curing and water curing do, but obviously limits its application of UHPC. Thus, preparation of UHPC using widely and locally available raw materials such as ordinary Portland cement CEM Type 1 42.5N and common technology such as room temperature curing are trends in production of UHPC.

The acoustic emission (AE) technique is one of the unconventional methods of partial discharges (PDs) detection. It plays a most important role in oil-filled power transformers diagnostics because it enables the detection and online monitoring of PDs as well compared to the conventional method for PDs detection which are not suitable for on-site measurement due to electrical disturbance. In this paper, the acoustic based on piezoelectric sensor by different material is modelled in order to be able to obtain PDs signal occurred in power transformers. Modelling of a piezoelectric sensor with different material which is PZT-5H, ZnO, and AlN is approached in order to investigate the performance of resonant frequency, electric potential, and the performance in processing in order to match the range of AE detection. Piezoelectric materials have become very useful in processing devices because of their electrical-mechanical mutuality. Study was performed on frequency target of PDs should be higher and in the range of 10 kHz -300 kHz in order to prevent the power transformer from failure or breakdown and it has been found out by proven from analytical and simulation result by using the Finite Element Method (FEM). Based on this information, acoustic sensor is analyses with different types of cantilever beam and piezoelectric material and different length dimension of the beam in order to analyses the performance between them. Based on the result, the piezoelectric material that be chosen in this project is ZnO due to its high piezoelectric coupling and environmental friendly is used in order to support green technology compared to others material discussed which is harmful even though produced high performance. This detection method gave some improvement in monitoring system PD activities in the transformer's tank.

This paper presents an analysis of acoustic emission (AE) detection technique for partial discharge (PD) on power transformer using piezoelectric sensor. The AE PD detection technique using piezoelectric material is one of the popular method due to its low cost and compact size. A matching resonant frequency of AE sensor with PD signal which in range 10 kHz to 300 kHz is an important factor for this technique. An AE sensor that have a resonant frequency match with PD signal able to give an optimal performances. Therefore, a simulation on different dimensions of lead zirconate titanate (PZT) AE sensor using finite element method (FEM) is conducted in order to determine the performances in terms of resonant frequency, total displacement and generated voltage. The length of AE sensor is varied from 2 mm to 30 mm in order to reveal the influence of length dimension against generated voltage. Based on the obtained results, that 2 mm length of AE sensor able to generate voltage of 3.01 x10⁻⁵ mV at resonant frequency of 113.58 kHz which can be proposed toward PD detection on the power transformer.

Reducing lamination thickness of steel sheets can reduce the overall loss especially in core loss and copper loss. These research paper shows the impact of lamination thickness on the voltage induced of power loss for the Non-Oriented Electrical Steel Sheet. This study was conducted by using Epstein test which is an outflow of flux investigated throughout the measurement of power loss at corner and limb likewise for each thickness. This data shows and is presented based on different frequency such as 45 Hz, 50 Hz and 55 Hz. It indicates that 0.50 mm lamination thickness has a lot of losses instead of 0.35 mm.

This research focus on introducing an non invansive and highly sensitive interdigitated electrodes (IDEs) biosensor to measure the glucose level in human body by using saliva as sample. The IDE was fabricated using simple convention photolitography process and surface functionalization by using MWCNT. The result of the IDE undergoes physical characterization by using HPM,SEM and AFM, beside physical characterization electrical characterization was carried out. Difference concentration of reference glucose sample (10mM-1uM) was tested before using real biomolecule sample(saliva). Blood sample measurement was taken by using blood glucose meter and saliva was using IDEs. The result was taken and been compared. The blood and saliva sample was taken from a voluntary person every two hours starting from 10 am until 10 pm.

Aerated concrete is a type of concrete that contains pore in its matrix structure. This pores could provide spaces for water absorption which makes aerated concrete more durable toward freeze-thaw cycle. Many methods have been studied in forming an aerated concrete and using soap nut as aerating agent is more sustainable than other chemically formulated agent. Forming of pore inside concrete not only improve freeze-thaw cycle durability but also as places to store healing agent in concrete. This is important in developing a self-healing concrete especially a microbial induced healing. This paper aims to study the effect of using soap nut in high strength concrete. Four types of high strength concrete samples were prepared which are Control sample, AE2 with 2% of aerated soap nut, AE4 with 4% of aerated soap nut and AE6 with 6% of aerated soap nut. Total of 3nos. of 100mm cubes and 3nos. of 50mm cubes from each type of samples were prepared. Cubes samples of 100mm dimension were tested for water absorption and compressive strength while cube samples of 50mm dimension were split and analysed for pore distribution. The results showed that increase in addition of soap nut in concrete mixture resulted in decrease of compressive strength but minimal effect on its water absorption rate. Pore formation and dispersion were optimum in concrete with 4% and 6% inclusion of soap nut. In conclusion, 4% of aerated soap nut in high strength concrete present the optimum characteristic in producing well-dispersed pores of high strength aerated concrete.

The production of palm oil, though, results in the generation of huge quantities of polluted wastewater normally referred as palm oil mill effluent (POME). It gives adverse impacts to the environment, particularly if it is not properly treated. POME are known to have various types of liquids, residual oil and suspended solid as it has very high strength waste in its untreated form. Although conventional biological processes are normally efficient for the degradation of pollutants occurring in wastewater, most of these compounds are not effectively removed. As a result, further treatment is needed to meet more stringent discharge standards of Department of Environment (DOE), Malaysia. This research focused on treatment of POME by using electro-oxidation process (EO). It was done to identify the performance of EO process for colour, chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), and Ammoniacal-nitrogen NH₃-N) removal as well as the relative effects of different operational parameters such as pH, type of electrodes and contact time. The pH was varied between 3 and 11, using Ferum (Fe) and Aluminium (Al) electrode, and contact time from 0 to 120 min. The most suitable pH, contact time and type of electrode were pH 3, 120 min and Aluminium electrode, respectively. Therefore, EO process at specified level can be used as an efficient and effective post-treatment technology to meet the standard regulatory requirements.

The aim of this work was to study the effectiveness of pretreatment methods by developing a comparative study of diluted acetic acid and hydrothermal pretreatment on reducing sugar production and inhibitors formation (Furfural) from the mixed rice biomass. Diluted acetic acid and hydrothermal pretreatment were carried out over a range of temperature (150 – 190 ºC) within 30 minutes to observe the reducing sugar production and inhibitor formation (Furfural). Seamen Model was used to obtain the rate of reaction in depolymerisation of lignocellulosic biomass. This experiment data were fitted the first-order kinetic model to obtain the reaction rate constant of production and degradation of sugar. In addition, Arrhenius equation was used to determine the activation energy of the reaction. From the result, it showed that the diluted acetic acid pretreatment had higher rate on reducing sugar production and inhibitor formation than the hydrothermal pretreatment. The activation energy for the formation sugar in hydrothermal pretreatment is found 29.1 kJ/mol which is higher than acetic acid pretreatment (23.9 kJ/mol).

In this study, co-gasification of palm kernel shell (PKS) and Mukah Balingian (MB) coal was carried out in a fixed bed reactor. The effect of sample pretreatment of both samples were explored via co-gasification towards product yields and tar composition. Results indicated that, pretreated blending samples produced higher gas yield with lower tar and char yield than the untreated blending samples. This was due to low moisture and oxygenated components of the pretreated samples prior to co-gasification. The tar composition of the pretreated blending samples showed increasing in the aromatic and aliphatic alkane, whereas, noticeable decreasing of phenol and carbonyl. Thus, pretreated of PKS and MB coal have prominence influence on the distribution of product yields and tar composition through co-gasification.

Piper crocatum is traditionally used as a treatment against diabetes mellitus, minor wounds and inflammation. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of harvesting time on the antioxidant and antidiabetic activity of P. crocatum harvested at 2, 4, 6 and 8 months and identification of the compounds responsible for antidiabetic activity. The antioxidant activity of the extracts is evaluated by DPPH scavenging activity, total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) tests while the antidiabetic activity is evaluated by alpha amylase and alpha glucosidase inhibition assays. The results show that extracts obtained from harvesting time at 8 months have the highest antioxidant activity with the DPPH scavenging activity, TPC and TFC being 74.90 ± 0.27%, 492.92 ± 1.40 mg GAE/g and 79.58 ± 1.17 mg QE/g respectively and the highest antidiabetic activity with the alpha amylase and alpha glucosidase inhibition activity being 87.05±0.64% and 88.70±0.42% respectively. Principal component analysis (PCA) was also carried out and it is found that principle component 1 and 2 are associated with the harvesting time (81.7%) and extract concentration (12.4%) respectively. Five compounds are identified to be responsible for antidiabetic activity: caffeic acid, p-coumaric acid, cyanidin-3-O-glucoside, tannin and gallic acid.

Design is the first step in any manufacturing process where the most crucial decisions are made which affect the product's ultimate cost. The researchers used DFMA method in this study to redesign and improve a joystick in order to achieve the goal to decrease the number of parts, handling and insertion time, and improve the design efficiency for a joystick. The main emphasis in this research has been on the design stage of a product development, with a view to accomplishing an optimal design approach for current product.DFMA principles have been used to develop new design ideas and the final design will be evaluate and compared to the current design. In result, the assembly time for redesign then increased by 21 % with a decrease in the assembly time from 294.2s to 232.44s and an improvement in design efficiency by 26.5 % from 20.4 % to 25.8 %.

This paper describes about the implementation of redesign the component of grass cutting machine by using the application of Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) methodology. The scope based on the existing grass cutting machine and the appropriate of DFMA methodology. The data was analysed by using Boothroyd-Dewhurst Design for Manufacture and Assembly method to verify the design efficiency, handling ratio and fitting ratio to achieve. The new proposed design of grass cutting machine drawn using CATIA V5 software based As a result, the assembly time for redesign showed an improvement of 18.68% where the assembly time was reduced from 568.84 s to 462.59 s and design efficiency was increased 8.33% from 24.40% to 34.70%. The total part, handling ratio fitting ratio and cost of existing design is reduced. Eventually, the improvement of redesign grass cutting machine the best design with optimal value is accomplished.

A study was performed to produce a pneumatic air engine using two linear actuators and then the linear motion was converted to a rotating motion using a crank shaft. This study aims to increase the use of linear actuators in pneumatic air engines as well as to apply pressurized air as an efficient and convenient transportation mechanism in line with the development of technologies developed through products available in the market. Two units of linear actuator such as pneumatic cylinders with two units of 5/2 way directional control valve with double solenoid actuation are used to control the cylinder movement. The cylinder will rotate the crank shaft when receiving a signal from the solenoid valve with 5 bar air pressure. In conclusion, the system can travel up to 153 meters for a 24-liter air-pressure with 5 bar pressure when the test is run for a charging cycle by the compressor motor. If the compressor motor able to charge the compressor continuously, the movement distance can be increased.

Traditionally, pollution measurements are performed using expensive equipment at fixed locations or dedicated mobile equipment laboratories. The automatic air quality monitoring system using Arduino can save cost and easy to access. The project that we have undertaken has helped us gain a better perspective on various aspects related to our course of study as well as practical knowledge of electronic equipment and communication. Moreover, the project of air quality monitoring system has achieved to monitor and prevent the effect of high temperature and dusty air to the child and human just like the objective of the project needed. The project can detect the temperature and dust density and besides that it will send alert to the user when detecting the air quality is unhealthy. Furthermore, a project is design and develop air quality monitoring system using Arduino Mega which is to enhance safety affect such that even the minor eye irritation can make the user to lose his concentration and lead to serious accidents. Where the dust sensor and temperature able to detect hazy day that triggers buzzer to alert user to decrease the outdoor activities. Air quality is monitor for whole day at Ulu Pauh Putra by using this device and the data is recorded and make into a graph. The average dust density is 78.22ug/m3 and the range of dust density levels are about 68.07ug/m3 to 84.87ug/m3. By comparing the result to API reading show that air quality is moderate pollution that does not pose any bad effect on health. The testing of project was done for whole day is to verify the accuracy of the data. Moreover, it can help to avoid errors occur in the project. Focusing on the device produced, it detects high temperature and sense the dusty air immediately. Once the sensitivity is high, the buzzer module will active to alert user.

The purpose of this study is to use water cooler and water heater to improve the convenience of the user so that they can use the water cooler and mobile water heater properly and comfortably. This study focuses on how refrigeration and water heaters use thermoelectric pads as a cooling and heating medium. Peltier works when the voltage is flowing from the power bank. The temperature difference on the surface of the processor allows the heat to occur at a fast rate. Arduino uno is used as a voltage regulator and temperature sensor to improve product performance. concept designs are designed, created and evaluated. The final prototype will include some markers that will be used as temperature readings by cooling and heating. Based on the results shown, the prototype can achieve the desired result with optimized energy consumption. When the temperature supplier produces a good temperature, the amount of water temperature will rise and the heat in the water will reach thermal equilibrium until the cold and hot temperatures reach a better minimum. Therefore, the temperatures in the cold and hot areas are more efficient in achieving thermal equilibrium in rising water.