Spinach (spinacia oleracea l.) as a co-substrate for the production of tempeh / Azizul Hakim Ahmad

Spinach has been used as a co-subtrate to soybeans to determine its ability in the production of tempeh by using the expected Rhizopus Oligosporous strain. R. Oligosporous was identified microscopically and common characteristics of the strain was well observed. The strain was cultured on SDA culture for 48 hours at 35°C. After the cultured is well grown, mycelia fully covered the petri dishes, spore suspension was made. The spore suspension act as a tempeh starter to produce the tempeh. After mixing the subtrates with the spore suspension, soybeans took 48 hours at 35°C to fully ferment and produce tempeh while mix subtrate took 24 hours at 37°C to fully ferment. All the tempeh produce has been observed by examining the color, surface coverage of mold mycelia, compactness, sliceability, and texture. Nutrition analysis showed the soybeans tempeh has higher protein, ash, and fats content while mix tempeh has higher moisture and carbohydrates. Thus, spinach can be used as a co- subtrate in the production of high nutrition tempeh due to its higher carbohydrates content

Malaysian Sand for Proppant

With the rise in hydraulic fracturing applications over the past decade, the market availability of proppants plays a more significant role in the global oilfield economy. As a result, the demand for commercially manufactured proppants is increasing, fueling the construction of new production facilities around the world. Currently, there are only a few numbers of well-known suppliers of manufactured proppants that dominate the business globally. This project aims to study the properties and characteristics of Malaysia local sand for possible use as proppant specifically local sand resourced from Sarawak area. Quality silica sand from certain areas of the Sarawak state was identified in order to collect the sample. This project includes the study on the recent development of proppant characteristics of local sand as compared to the commercial sand as the Ottawa and Brady sand. It is mostly known characteristic of proppant is its conductivity. Generally, the properties of the proppant which affect its conductivity are mainly roundness, size distribution, resistance to crush under the influence of closure stress, grain-size distribution and proppant density. These properties will be tested in the laboratory in compliance with the International Standard Organization (ISO 13503-2 and ISO 13505-5) for commercial proppant. The results obtained from the analyses will be compared to the existing sand based proppant in the market

Cultural Heritage Tourism in Malaysia: Issues and Challenges

Malaysia is experiencing an incredible pace of tourism development and heritage tourism is one of the tourism branches that have long contributed to appeal the tourist destination and acts as important marketing tool to attract tourist especially with special interests in heritage and arts. Cultural heritage tourism has emerged as a potential form of alternative tourism among both international tourists as well as Malaysian domestic travelers. The difference of ethnics present in Malaysia brought different local knowledge discipline ranging from its architecture, handicrafts, traditional attire, music and dance, which reflects a colorful heritage and an amalgamated culture. There are arise of conflict in management of cultural heritage tourism in Malaysia face by tourism managers, stakeholders, governments, cultural heritage managers and local community itself. In order to maintain, conserve and preserve the resources and assets of cultural heritage in Malaysia, a system or management need to be develop that take into consideration on every issues and challenge, so that the decision making process is reliable to optimize the value of cultural heritage tourism industry in Malaysia. The purpose of this paper is to give an overview and discuss the status, issues and challenge of cultural heritage tourism in Malaysia

Evaluation of Scale-Up And Environmental Factors On Microbial Fuel Cell

Considering the recent world situation of the  electricity for mankind and also energy requirements have been increasing exponentially worldwide. People is facing on their energy challenge and most countries in the world are on their way searching for new renewable energy resources technologies which consider for environment protection. An estimated 1.3 billon people – 17.3% of the global population – did not have access to electricity services for their daily lives, especially at night. Various studies on alternative renewable energy generation are becoming more and more priority, because humanity's increasing concern for electricity needs and climate change is happening. One potential way to continue to be explored as a solution to solve this problem is the over-reliance on electricity based on fossil fuels. Then the microbial fuel cell (MFC) is an opportunity challenge that is very interesting for further development. There are still many open opportunities to find out the effect of increasing volume and environmental factors on MFC operations. The results showed that the maximum value for mixed samples was 12720 ± 114.31 mV / m2, 9830 ± 81.79 mV / m2 and 1650 ± 65.32 mV / m2 for mixed samples of persimmon and soil waste, leaf molds and rice bran respectively -one; the electromotive force of the sample mixture of persimmon and soil waste is around 22 ± 0.01 V / m2. In addition, the power density correlates with an increase in the MFC scale which reaches 2109.9 mW / m2, 2319.88 mW / m2, 4384.06 mW / m2 and 10317.19 mW / m2 for 100 cm2, 150 cm2, 300 respectively. cm2 and 500 cm2 respectively. And the voltage generator works well even on a number of environmental factors (especially pH and humidity). In summary, this study shows and agrees that voltage generation can be maintained to increase during reactor increases and MFC by using organic waste (especially using persimmon fruit waste) can be operated under any environmental conditions

Sindrom bangunan sakit: punca - punca dan kesannya kepada penghuni bangunan / Azizul Hisham Ahmad

Di dalam disertasi ini, penulis cuba untuk memaparkan dan membincangkan mengenai satu permasalahan baru iaitu Sindrom Bangunan Sakit yang mana telah mempengaruhi mutu kehidupan dan kesihatan penghuni sesebuah bangunan. Punca-punca dan kesannya kepada penghuni bangunan akan cuba dikupas disamping mencari kaedah untuk mengelakkan dan mengatasi masalah sindrom ini

Urban Sprawl Mapping For Beach Tourism Suitability Using GIS-AHP Model In Kuantan District

Urban sprawl has expanded as a result of urbanization's rapid growth, posing serious environmental and socioeconomic problems, particularly in areas with great natural resources, like coastal regions. With the help of a Geographic Information System (GIS) and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) model, this study seeks to solve the problem of urban sprawl and its effects on beach tourism appropriateness in the Kuantan District. The study makes use of GIS-based spatial analysis methods, land use/land cover maps, and remotely sensed data to accomplish this goal. The initial step entails using historical land cover data to identify and track the dynamics of urban spread in the Kuantan District. The amount and rate of urban expansion over time will be calculated using the urban sprawl index. The suitability elements for beach tourism will then be determined after a thorough literature review and professional consultation. Accessibility to beaches, environmental quality, infrastructure, and cultural relevance are a few examples of these variables. Weighing each aspect according to its importance will be done using the AHP model, a multi-criteria decision-making technique, to provide a thorough appropriateness index for beach tourism. To pinpoint regions where beach tourist potential has been compromised by urban sprawl, the GIS-AHP model will integrate the urban sprawl index with the beach tourism suitability index. The study will identify locations that are more vulnerable to the effects of urban growth and assess how suitable each zone in the Kuantan District is for beach tourism by superimposing these datasets. The research's conclusions will help urban planners, decision-makers, and tourist industry participants make wise choices about land use planning, urban development, and sustainable tourism management. To lessen the negative effects of urban growth on beach tourism, the study will help identify places that need specialized conservation and intervention techniques

Autonomous tawaf crowd simulation

Crowd simulation is an exciting research area that has a wide range of applications in multiple fields such as: serious games, crowd management, facilities design, entertainment, research and development. One of the most famous approaches to simulate a large density crowd is by applying the social force model. This model can be successfully used to simulate agents’ movement in real-world scenarios realistically. Nevertheless, this is very simple and not suitable to simulate a complex pedestrian flow movement. Hence, this research proposes a new novel model for simulating the pilgrims’ movements circumambulating the Kaabah (Tawaf). These rituals are complex yet unique, due to its capacity, density, and various demographics backgrounds of the agents (pilgrims). It is also consist a certain set of rules and regulations that must be followed by the agents. Due to these rules, the Tawaf can introduce irregularities in the motion flow around the Kaabah. In order to make the simulations as close as possible to real world scenarios, each agent will be assigned with different attributes such as; age, gender and intention outlook. The three parameter mentioned above, are the main problem that need to be solved in this research in order to simulate a better crowd simulation than previous studies. The findings of this research will contribute greatly for Hajj management in term of controlling and optimizing the flow of pilgrims during Tawaf especially in the Hajj season. It is also have high contribution in Hajj training especially in developing a virtual Hajj training system. The virtual Hajj system can be used to teach and prepare the pilgrims before going to Mecca and perform the actual Hajj

Malaysian Sand for Proppant

With the rise in hydraulic fracturing applications over the past decade, the market availability of proppants plays a more significant role in the global oilfield economy. As a result, the demand for commercially manufactured proppants is increasing, fueling the construction of new production facilities around the world. Currently, there are only a few numbers of well-known suppliers of manufactured proppants that dominate the business globally. This project aims to study the properties and characteristics of Malaysia local sand for possible use as proppant specifically local sand resourced from Sarawak area. Quality silica sand from certain areas of the Sarawak state was identified in order to collect the sample. This project includes the study on the recent development of proppant characteristics of local sand as compared to the commercial sand as the Ottawa and Brady sand. It is mostly known characteristic of proppant is its conductivity. Generally, the properties of the proppant which affect its conductivity are mainly roundness, size distribution, resistance to crush under the influence of closure stress, grain-size distribution and proppant density. These properties will be tested in the laboratory in compliance with the International Standard Organization (ISO 13503-2 and ISO 13505-5) for commercial proppant. The results obtained from the analyses will be compared to the existing sand based proppant in the market

An Exploratory Study of Integrating Booster Seat Design on Rear Seat Vehicle in Static Test

Child Restraint System (CRS) is a safety seat created especially for child or small adult. The function of CRS is to protect or avoid child from any injury or death during vehicle crashes. This study presents a broad, comprehensive research effort that brings together industry and academic skill and uses numerous methodologies with countermeasures as the focus of applied research. The objectives of this study are to design mechanism for an integrated child seat booster for the rear seat and analyze the strength of the booster seat mechanism when loads applied on it. In order to get the seating reference point, 3D scanning process has been performed using car seat model from a toy car. A design of the booster seat mechanism is chosen for the reference based on the previous study. SolidWorks has been used in the designing and simulation of the static test process for the booster seat mechanism. The simulation has been performed to determine stress, strain and displacement of the integrated seat booster mechanism by applying different loads in static condition. The result from the simulation showed that when load D (37.08kg) was applied on the mechanism, it has the highest stress, strain and displacement which is 7689000N/m2, 2.22×10-5 and 1.74×10-2mm respectively. This is due to the fact that the more the force applied on the mechanism, the greater the stress, strain and displacement reacted on the booster seat mechanism. The success of this project will able the researcher and consumer to improve the safety of the child occupant in the CRS during the event of crash

Preliminary study of selected heavy metal contamination in surface sediment of Merambong shoal seagrass bed

Surface area of Merambong Shoal Seagrass Bed (MSSB) is an important area for aquatic organisms as well as human communities for fishing activity. Present study was conducted to evaluate the current status of selected heavy metals contamination in surface sediments collected from the MSSB. Samples of surface sediments were collected from multiple locations along MSSB. The heavy metal concentrations of the present study were compared with previously conducted studies in similar location, as well as other location in Malaysia. Geofractionation of heavy metals were also determined. Based on the obtained mean concentration of each metal, a few indices were used to demonstrate the present level of contamination in the surface sediment of MSSB. The findings of this research are important for monitoring heavy metals pollution and conservation management