Key Challenges and Strategies Towards Sustainable Infrastructure Development in Malaysia

The world is fixated on climate change because of its damage to the environment and the ripple effect it can have on people's health and the economy. This study aims to delve into research focusing on sustainable infrastructure development in Malaysia, as well as the main obstacles and approaches to taking on such a task. This study used a mixed-methods system, which allowed for the collection a large amount of data and made it easy to compare results from different settings. The study found that more people are aware of sustainable impact assessment in infrastructure projects and familiar with resilient, sustainable development than sustainable performance evaluation. The studies also showed that the main problems in implementing sustainability include minimising adverse hazards, financial and budget investment issues, as well as inadequate governance and management. The proposed measures are broken down into monetary, institutional, and organisational themes. Possible steps toward a more sustainable infrastructure involve increasing green investment and financing, fostering green policies and environmental regulations, promoting green technologies and materials, and growing capacity through improved awareness and training. The findings of this study provide construction stakeholders with insight into an analysis of existing methodologies and strategies for integrating sustainable infrastructure development. Resolving obstacles and refining implementation tactics facilitated the effectiveness of the transformation towards a more sustainable infrastructure

Key Challenges and Strategies Towards Sustainable Infrastructure Development in Malaysia

The world is fixated on climate change because of its damage to the environment and the ripple effect it can have on people's health and the economy. This study aims to delve into research focusing on sustainable infrastructure development in Malaysia, as well as the main obstacles and approaches to taking on such a task. This study used a mixed-methods system, which allowed for the collection a large amount of data and made it easy to compare results from different settings. The study found that more people are aware of sustainable impact assessment in infrastructure projects and familiar with resilient, sustainable development than sustainable performance evaluation. The studies also showed that the main problems in implementing sustainability include minimising adverse hazards, financial and budget investment issues, as well as inadequate governance and management. The proposed measures are broken down into monetary, institutional, and organisational themes. Possible steps toward a more sustainable infrastructure involve increasing green investment and financing, fostering green policies and environmental regulations, promoting green technologies and materials, and growing capacity through improved awareness and training. The findings of this study provide construction stakeholders with insight into an analysis of existing methodologies and strategies for integrating sustainable infrastructure development. Resolving obstacles and refining implementation tactics facilitated the effectiveness of the transformation towards a more sustainable infrastructure

Synthesis and characterization of wollastonite glass-ceramics from eggshell and waste glass

Abundance of waste products disposed by communities has huge environmental impacts which lead to serious problems. Some waste products such as eggshells (ES) and soda lime silica (SLS) glass waste can be used as CaO and SiO2 resources to bring on new potentially CaSiO3, wollastonite glass ceramics (WGC) materials. Three samples labelled as S1, S2 and S3 with different compositions, each with of ES (15, 20, 25 weight%) and SLS glass (85, 80, 75 weight%) respectively, were prepared via solid state reaction method. All the samples were sintered at 800°C, 900°C and 1000°C. The elemental analysis of the raw materials and the WGC samples has been determined using the X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) system where the experimental results show that the samples were mainly contained of CaO and SiO2. The density of the WGC samples increase linearly with the sintering temperatures. The XRD results reveal that the optimum crystalline phase of the WGC samples was at around 900°C

Analysis of Lightning-induced Transient in 2.4 GHz Wireless Communication System

This paper analyzes the effects of transient from lightning channel to wireless communication system operating in microwave band at 2.4 GHz. Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurement method has been used to capture 3 lightning flashes (naked eyes method) with 7 spikes recorded at r distance from the lightning channel base with fixed d Transmitter- Receiver (T-R) separation at 1 meter. The transient effects have been evaluated in terms of Electric Field Strength, Signal-to- Interference-Noise Ratio (SINR), Bit Error Rate (BER) and Packet Error Rate (PER). During the first lightning flash event, more than 50% of total transmitted packets were corrupted for at least 3 seconds duration. The same happens during the second and third lightning flash events with more than 40% and 15% packets corrupted for durations of 3 and 2 seconds respectively. Interestingly the most suffered traffic types are video and speech signal transmission while data transmission is not affected at all

Characterization and optical properties of erbium oxide doped ZnO-SLS glass for potential optical and optoelectronic materials

Erbium doped ZnO–SLS (soda lime silica) glass system have been prepared by the conventional melt quenching technique. The physical, structural and optical properties are explained by analysing the data obtained from Energy Dispersive X-ray Fluorescence (EDXRF), density (ρ), molar volume (V m), X-ray diffraction (XRD), fourier transform infra-red (FTIR) and UV-visible (UV-Vis) results. The measured physical parameters like density and molar volume are found to vary linearly and exponentially with increasing Er2O3 content, respectively. X-ray powder diffractrogram show broad peaks which conforms glassy nature of the sample. FTIR spectroscopy reveals the presence of SiO4, ZnO4 and Er–O vibration groups in the glass samples. The optical absorption spectra were measured in the wavelength range from 300 to 800 nm and the optical band gaps were determined. The optical absorption spectra of Er3+ ions in these glasses show three bands and are assigned to the transitions level. It was found that the optical band gap decreases from 3.083 to 3.037 eV with an increase in Er2O3 concentration

Pearson correlation coefficient of the student perception and challenges towards open and distance learning during COVID-19 / Wan Noor Hayatie Wan Abdul Aziz ...[et al.]

COVID-19 pandemic has a huge change in worldwide education. Previous face to face method of learning have been change to open and distance learning. This study investigated students’ perceptions and challenge of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) during COVID-19 in Institution of Higher Learning (IHL). Data were collected from 141 online students of IHL using Google Form. The independent sample t-test used to compare the mean of student perception and students challenges among socio-demographic. Meanwhile the Pearson correlation coefficient is also used to identify the relationship between the overall score of student perception and student challenges. As a result, the research revealed that there are significant moderate negative associations between students’ perception and students challenge

A Systematic Review on Antimicrobial Pharmacokinetic Differences between Asian and Non-Asian Adult Populations

While the relevance of inter-ethnic differences to the pharmacokinetic variabilities of an- timicrobials has been reported in studies recruiting healthy subjects, differences in antimicrobial pharmacokinetics between Asian and non-Asian patients with severe pathologic conditions require further investigation. For the purpose of describing the potential differences in antimicrobial phar- macokinetics between Asian and non-Asian populations, a systematic review was performed using six journal databases and six theses/dissertation databases (PROSPERO record CRD42018090054). The pharmacokinetic data of healthy volunteers and non-critically ill and critically ill patients were reviewed. Thirty studies on meropenem, imipenem, doripenem, linezolid, and vancomycin were included in the final descriptive summaries. In studies recruiting hospitalised patients, inconsistent differences in the volume of distribution (Vd) and drug clearance (CL) of the studied antimicrobials between Asian and non-Asian patients were observed. Additionally, factors other than ethnicity, such as demographic (e.g., age) or clinical (e.g., sepsis) factors, were suggested to better charac- terise these pharmacokinetic differences. Inconsistent differences in pharmacokinetic parameters between Asian and non-Asian subjects/patients may suggest that ethnicity is not an important pre- dictor to characterise interindividual pharmacokinetic differences between meropenem, imipenem, doripenem, linezolid, and vancomycin. Therefore, the dosing regimens of these antimicrobials should be adjusted according to patients’ demographic or clinical characteristics that can better describe pharmacokinetic differences

Ibn Fadlan's role in the Islamisation of Bulghar society

Islam is the oldest established religion among Bulghar entity, the residents along the riverbanks of the Volga-Kama triangle. This valley was famous as the first Islamic country erected in the Eastern European region. The presence of Islam in the region has raised the name of the ruler of Volga Bulgaria and was reinforced by relationship with Baghdad. The Islamisation of the Bulghar society is relevant to the role played by Ahmad ibn Fadlan, the ambassador of the Abbasid government based in Baghdad. Therefore, this article aims to examine the role played by Ibn Fadlan in the Islamization of the Bulghar society. For this study, a qualitative method using historical descriptive approach was employed, which involved compilation and evaluation of the facts of the Risalah Ibn Fadlān. Data for this study were obtained through library research. The data analyses were conducted through texts and document analyses, as well as comparison method. This study finds that Ibn Fadlan plays an important role in the islamisation of the Bulghar society, not just as an ambassador of Abbasid government but as a teacher, preacher and counselor to the Bulghar king and the whole nation

Removal of As(III) and As(V) from water using green, silica-based ceramic hollow fibre membranes via direct contact membrane distillation

Arsenite [As(III)] and arsenate [As(V)] removal by direct contact membrane distillation (DCMD) using novel hydrophobic green, silica-based ceramic hollow fibre membranes derived from agricultural rice husk was investigated in this work. The green ceramic hollow fibre membranes were prepared from amorphous (ASHFM) and crystalline (CSHFM) silica-based rice husk ash and modified to be hydrophobic via immersion fluoroalkylsilane (FAS) grafting of 1H,1H,2H,2H-perfluorodecyltriethoxysilane. Superhydrophobic contact angle values up to 157° and 161° were obtained for ASHFM and CSHFM, respectively. Remarkably, the membrane surface morphology mimicked a look-alike lotus-leaf structure with decrement in pore size after grafting via the silane agent for both membranes. The effect of arsenic pH (3–11), arsenic concentration (1–1000 ppm) and feed temperature (50–80 °C) were studied and it was found that feed temperature had a significant effect on the permeate flux. The hydrophobic CSHFM, with a flux of 50.4 kg m−2 h−1 for As(III) and 51.3 kg m−2 h−1 for As(V), was found to be the best of the tested membranes. In fact, this membrane can reject arsenic to the maximum contaminant level (MCL) limit of 10 ppb under any conditions, and no swelling mechanism of the membranes was observed after testing for 4 hours

Ibn Fadlan’s Role in the Islamisation of Bulghar society

Islam is the oldest established religion among Bulghar entity, the residents along the riverbanks of the Volga-Kama triangle. This valley was famous as the first Islamic country erected in the Eastern European region. The presence of Islam in the region has raised the name of the ruler of Volga Bulgaria and was reinforced by relationship with Baghdad. The Islamisation of the Bulghar society is relevant to the role played by Ahmad ibn Fadlan, the ambassador of the Abbasid government based in Baghdad. Therefore, this article aims to examine the role played by Ibn Fadlan in the Islamization of the Bulghar society. For this study, a qualitative method using historical descriptive approach was employed, which involved compilation and evaluation of the facts of the Risalah Ibn Fadlān. Data for this study were obtained through library research. The data analyses were conducted through texts and document analyses, as well as comparison method. This study finds that Ibn Fadlan plays an important role in the islamisation of the Bulghar society, not just as an ambassador of Abbasid government but as a teacher, preacher and counselor to the Bulghar king and the whole nation