Evaluation of pharmaceutical cream production debottlenecking schemes

The main objective of this work is to model and debottleneck a pharmaceutical production of an anti-allergic cream. The base case process has a minimum cycle time of 29 hours which is equivalent to 66 batches/year. Four schemes were proposed for process debottlenecking due to the anticipated increase of the product demand of 150% in the market. By carrying out throughput analysis study, schemes that fulfil the debottlenecking objective were determined. Out of the four debottlenecking schemes, Scheme 4 was chosen, which proposed a new blending tank and intermediate tank, showed a production increase of over 150%

Extending TLS with mutual attestation for platform integrity assurance

Normally, secure communication between client-server applications is established using secure channel technologies such as Transport Layer Security (TLS). TLS is cryptographic protocol which ensures secure transmission of data and authenticity of communication at each endpoint platform. However, the protocol does not provide any trustworthiness assurance of the involved endpoint. This paper incorporates remote attestation in the TLS key exchange protocol to solve this issue.The proposed embedded attestation extension in TLS protocol will provide assurance of sender's platforms integrity to receiver, and vice versa.The CA responsibility in TLS is replaced using own Trusted Certificate Authority (TCA) in our protocol. The credibility of the proposed protocol is studied to secure against replay attack and collusion attack. The proof is performed using AVISPA with High Level Protocol Specification (HLPSL) through Dolev-Yao intruder model implementation of the proposed protocol

Optimization of extraction conditions of antioxidant activity from zingiber zerumbet oleoresin

The health promoting capacity of natural antioxidant from phytochemicals has increase attention from researchers and public. However, processing is affecting the activity and the bioavailability of bioactive compounds. Therefore, the optimization of extraction condition of antioxidant activity from Zingiber zerumbet oleoresin was investigated. A Box-Behnken design technique was employed to study the effect of different range parameters of soxhlet extraction. Analysis of variance and response surface methodology were applied to identify the optimal processing parameter. Independent variables were extraction time (8, 10 and 12), type of solvent used (hexane, acetone, ethanol) and blanching treatment (steam treated, boil treated, untreated). The response and variables were fitted well to each other by multiple regressions. All the independent parameters affected oleoresin yield and antioxidant activity significantly. The optimal processing parameter that fulfilled the requirement for yield of oleoresin and antioxidant activity were found to be 12 h extraction time, ethanol as the solvent used and untreated sample. While, the optimal yield of oleoresin was 13.05% w/w and antioxidant activity was 16.01% w/w

Process modelling of a PVC production plant

This paper presents the modelling of a Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) resins manufacturing process with batch process simulator, SuperPro Designer V6.0. The simulation model has been developed based on the operating condition of a local PVC manufacturing plant. As the polymerisation process is carried out in batch operation mode, efforts have been made to document the scheduling details of each unit operation and results are presented in the Gantt chart. Cycle time for a complete polymerisation process is determined to be 14.28 hours. The model also reveals that approximately 17 batches of polymerisation reaction can be processed per day, which tallies the real operation of the PVC manufacturing plant

Formulation and characterization of [6]-gingerol loaded nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC)

Nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) is the blend of solid lipid, liquid lipid and suitable surfactant for the purpose of encapsulated poorly water soluble drugs. [6]-gingerol is the main bioactive compound in Zingiber officinale, widely known as ginger in Malaysia. Zingiber officinale extract has been discovered to have anti-oxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-microbial effects to human body. The aim of this study is to develop NLC formulation for [6]-gingerol and to estimate the potential of NLC as a delivery system for these water insoluble drugs. In this work, the preparation of ginger oil loaded onto nanostructured lipid carrier (GO-NLC) was done by using ultrasonication method. The GO-NLCs were assessed by evaluating the morphology and its entrapment efficiency. The morphological study was performed by using Zetasizer Nano S and the entrapment efficiency analysis of NLC was performed using HPLC by detecting [6]-gingerol as active biomarker. The average particle size for GO-NLCs ranged from size 100 to 250 nm and the average encapsulation efficiency was 92.7± 3.03%.Based on analysis, it is proved that nanostructured lipid carriers has high potential to be nanocarriers for [6]-gingerol

Relationships between Malaysians Cultivars of Tongkat Ali (Eurycoma Longifolia Jack) Obtained through RAPD Analysis

Abstract: Random Amplified Polymorphic DNA (RAPD) analysis was done on Eurycoma Longifolia Jack (ELJ) cultivars originating from 7 different locations in Malaysia to determine whether the originality of ELJ cultivars can be preserved in an uncontrolled cultivation area. Out of 60 arbitrary 10-mer primers, a total of 320 DNA fragments were amplified with an average of 53.3 RAPD markers per primer. 71 (22%) of the 320 DNA-fragments was found to be monomorphic. The remaining 249 (78%) were polymorphic. The approximate size of the largest fragment produced was 3000 base pair (bp) and the easily recognizable fragment produced was 300 bp. Similarity index of RAPD banding patterns was used to investigate the relationships between ELJ cultivars. Mantel test showed that the correlation between Jaccard and Dice similarity matrices was high and significant (0.9907). The dendogram showed that ELJ cultivars can be clustered into three main clusters. Cluster 1 consisted of Sabah cultivars (East Malaysia), Cluster 2 consisted of Pahang and Terengganu cultivars (middle part of West Malaysia) while cluster 3 consisted of Kedah and Kelantan cultivars (east part of West Malaysia). The results of Principle Coordinates Analysis (PCA) were comparable to the Dendogram by UPGMA. The first two principle coordinates explained 53.62% of total variations and separated the 37 ELJ cultivars into three main clusters with a slight overlap between each other

Pola grammar technique for grammatical relation extraction in Malay language

A basic sentence in Malay language is either a combination of NP+NP, NP+VP, NP+PP, or NP+AP. The language is a structure phrase grammar. The Context Free Grammar was developed by Nik Safiah (1993). However, in order to derive a parse tree for a syntactic process, the CFG was found to be complicated due to many ambiguities for part of speech. This paper shall introduce a pola-grammar technique that does not require lexical process of retrieving the part of speech for each word. The techniques used are the automata and the finite states. During the process, sentences will be grouped into an adjunct, a subject, a post-subject, a conjunction and a predicate. The predicate consists of a verb, a conjunction, an object and an adverb. An adverb consists of a verb, a conjunction and an adverb. These components which are in sequence order are called pola. The subject, the object and the verb can be identified by making use of the pola in the sentence. This can be done by spliting the sentence into its pola. The information in the predicate will be processed to get the verb and object

Effectiveness of wetland interpretation in affecting school children's attitude towards scratching of trees

Scratching or carving on trees by visitors is a common depreciative behaviour in most recreational forest. Besides spoiling the tree's beauty, damaging its wood, causing infection, thwarting tree's growth or even causing its death, scratch marks on trees will potentially make visitors feel angry and uneasy. Wetlands Environmental Interpretation Program (WEIP) was designed by the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM) to tackle this problem. About 72 fifth graders of two approximately similar classes from a National Primary School in FRIM were participants of an experiment. The effects of WEIP on the children's attitude towards depreciative behaviour were investigated. A self-administered questionnaire was given in situ to both the intervention and control groups. The respondents' behaviours were monitored for depreciative behaviours. The results revealed that interpretive learning experiences positively affected the school children's attitude towards scratching on trees. The message conveyed through environmental interpretative learning experiences could help resource managers in curtailing depreciative behaviours by influencing human attitude on the negative acts on flora, fauna, human and the environment

A preliminary study on mosquito larvicidal efficacy of rotenone extracted from Malaysia Derris sp

Rotenone is a bio-active compound extracted from Derris elliptica (locally known as ‘Tuba’ plant). It has long been used as bio-pesticide, which is more environmental friendly than the commercially available pesticides and has the potential to be used in eliminating mosquito larvae. Therefore, the objective of this study is to determine the mosquito larvicidal activity (LC50) through the usage of liquid crude extract of Derris plant root. The rotenone liquid crude extract was extracted using normal soaking extraction (NSE) method. Two different solvent ratios were used to extract rotenone namely: (A) methyl chloride: methanol (1:1) and (B) methyl chloride: methanol (1:9). The extracts were concentrated using rotary evaporator at 40 °C with vacuum pressure of 800 mbar prior to the reverse-phase high performance liquid chromatography analysis (RP-HPLC) and biological activity (LC50) study. Next, the diluted extracts were subjected to the biological activity treatment for 6 hrs. The results showed that the concentrated liquid crude extracts of methyl chloride: methanol (1:1) which contained the highest rotenone content produced the lowest treatment concentration of 0.024 mg/ml to achieve 50% mortality within 3 hrs of treatment (p<0.05). The rapid mortality (as indicated by the LC50 value) of the mosquitoes’ larvae against rotenone extracted from Derris plant roots has proven that it has the potential to be used as larvicide to control vector-borne diseases especially from mosquitoes

Potential of canopy tourism in Malaysia

The canopy walkway, a structure for observing the upper part of forest canopy was first built in Malaysia in the early 1960s. Initially, the structure was built purely for research, but later opened to the public as an attraction in natural areas. This paper discusses the potential of canopy tourism in Malaysia, its evolution, as a tool in conservation and strategies for the sustainability of canopy tourism while serving as a recreational facility in our forests