The Effect of a Distance from Water Treatment Plant on Residual Chlorine

Disinfection with chlorine is very popular in water and wastewater treatment because of its low cost, ability to form a residual, and its effectiveness at low concentrations. Chlorinated drinking water's chief benefit is the protection of public health through the control of waterborne diseases. It plays a paramount role in controlling pathogens in water that cause human illness, as evidenced by the virtual absence of waterborne diseases such as typhoid and cholera in developed countries. But, there are many factors that can affect the chlorine in the water such as distance. From the Chick’s Law, the concentration of the chlorine residual in water will decrease when the distance increased. By collecting samples and data’s from water treatment plant (Alzarqe Kufa) and its networks by determining the sampling points and the distance from water treatment plant, compare the data’s or levels of chlorine from the network with the levels of chlorine at plant, and check if the residual chlorine in the water supply are following the standard by Iraqi Water Association. From the results, we can improve the quality of the water supply to user to protect the public health through the control of waterborne diseases

A noninvasive molecular approach: exploiting species-locus-specific PCR primers in defeating numts and DNA cross-contamination of cercopithecidae

The lack of a standardized, noninvasive molecular approach to studying genetic aspects of primates has made it hard for primatologists to decode the evolutionary history of these species. Researchers must optimize their own techniques to fully exploit the available samples. Lack of species-locus-specific primers also contributes to difficulties in using noninvasive genetic samples. Thus, the objectives of this study were to develop a standardized technique to collecting samples noninvasively, propose newly designed species-locus-specific primers, and optimize conditions for polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for Macaca fascicularis, M. nemestrina, Trachypithecus cristatus, and T. obscurus. Nine new species-locus-specific primers for three different loci of mitochondrial DNA, namely D-loop, cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI), and cytochrome b, were successfully designed. These primers proved to be efficient in amplifying larger datasets (up to ~1,000 bp) of the targeted species in the optimized PCR conditions. The species-locus-specific primers are able to anneal to host DNA alone in highly contaminated feces of highlighted species. They can also offer alternatives measures in avoiding contamination related to nuclear insertion of mitochondrial pseudogenes (numts)

Urban outdoor thermal comfort of the hot-humid region

The study on outdoor comfort is becoming popular due to the fact that the thermoregulatory model is seen as inadequate in explaining outdoor thermal comfort conditions. Hot-humid region can be said as experiencing a critical environmental condition because of its constantly high temperature and humidity throughout the year. Thus, this study focus on the assessment of thermal comfort of outdoor urban spaces in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (3° 9’N and 101° 44’E). Survey on human response towards outdoor thermal comfort in hot-humid climate of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia was carried out during day time between 0900h to 1800h along with measurement of environmental parameters such as air temperature (°C), wind velocity (m/s), radiant temperature (°C), relative humidity (%) and solar radiation (lux). A total of 123 samples were involved in this study which took place within four sites around Kuala Lumpur. Survey results were then correlated with the environmental parameters to further develop the comfort zone for hot-humid outdoor environment specifically for Kuala Lumpur and, generally, for hot-humid regions

Face detection in profile views using fast discrete curvelet transform (FDCT) and support vector machine (SVM)

Human face detection is an indispensable component in face processing applications, including automatic face recognition, security surveillance, facial expression recognition, and the like. This paper presents a profile face detection algorithm based on curvelet features, as curvelet transform offers good directional representation and can capture edge information in human face from different angles. First, a simple skin color segmentation scheme based on HSV (Hue - Saturation - Value) and YCgCr (luminance - green chrominance - red chrominance) color models is used to extract skin blocks. The segmentation scheme utilizes only the S and CgCr components, and is therefore luminance independent. Features extracted from three frequency bands from curvelet decomposition are used to detect face in each block. A support vector machine (SVM) classifier is trained for the classification task. In the performance test, the results showed that the proposed algorithm can detect profile faces in color images with good detection rate and low misdetection rate

Effect of heat and thermosonication on kinetics of peroxidase inactivation and vitamin C degradation in seedless guava (Psidium guajava L.)

This study aims to evaluate the effect of heat and the simultaneous application of heat (80-95°C) and ultrasonic waves (thermosonication) on the inactivation kinetic of peroxidase and vitamin C degradation in seedless guava. Ultrasonic wave’s amplitudes except 25 and 100% had significant (P<0.05) effect on peroxidase inactivation rate. The thermal and thermosonication inactivation of peroxidase was described well by first-order kinetics (R2>0.98). In the heat blanching process, the peroxidase inactivation rate constant increased from 1.1×10-2 to 4.6×10-2 s-1. However, the inactivation rate of peroxidase was increased by 1.5–3 times in the temperature range 80–95ºC, with the 50 and 75% ultrasonic wave amplitudes, respectively. Decreases in vitamin C contents due to blanching treatments were found. Blanching processes at high temperature and short time resulted in higher vitamin C retention. It was found that thermosonication treatment inactivates seedless guava peroxidase at less severe blanching conditions and consequently retains vitamin C content at higher levels. The present findings will help to design the blanching conditions in order to reduce the severity of conventional thermal treatments and, therefore, improving the quality of the thermally treated product

Efek-anti Piretik Beberapa Tanaman Obat

Brotowali (Tinospora tuberculata Beaumae), Meniran (Phyllanthus niruri L.). Bengle (Zingiber cas-sumunar Roxb.) and Tapak limau (Elephantopus scaber L.) are four plants that have been known to have antipyretic property. To confirm the antipyretic property, materials obtained from The Balai Pene­litian Tanaman Obat Tawangmangu, Surakarta (Central Java) were tested on fever induced rats. The fever depressing effect of 750 mg symplicium/100 g body weight on ratsdid not differ significantly that of 30 mg sodium salicylate/100g body weight. No dosage-response relationship was seen in the four symplicia, and thterefore it is not advisable to recommend the use of those symplicia as antipyretis

Preliminary study on diversity and abundance of Ichneumonids and Braconids (Insecta: Hymenoptera) at the Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve

A preliminary study on diversity and abundance of ichneumonids and braconids (Insecta: Hymenoptera) oj Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve (AHFR) oj Universiti Putra Malaysia was conducted Jrom 4 - 11 April 2000. Results showed that AHFR houses a variety of ichneumonid and braconid species. Generally, the ichneumonids were nearly twice as abundant and diverse than braconids. However, both insect groups were significantly more diverse in the middle than in the Forest fringes. Two more additions of ichneumonid subFamilies (Adelognathinae and Orthopelmatinae) for Malaysia were discovered from this Forest

Damage spreading in 2-dimensional isotropic and anisotropic Bak-Sneppen models

We implement the damage spreading technique on 2-dimensional isotropic and anisotropic Bak-Sneppen models. Our extensive numerical simulations show that there exists a power-law sensitivity to the initial conditions at the statistically stationary state (self-organized critical state). Corresponding growth exponent $\alpha$ for the Hamming distance and the dynamical exponent $z$ are calculated. These values allow us to observe a clear data collapse of the finite size scaling for both versions of the Bak-Sneppen model. Moreover, it is shown that the growth exponent of the distance in the isotropic and anisotropic Bak-Sneppen models is strongly affected by the choice of the transient time.Comment: revised version, 9 pages, 5 eps figures, use of svjour.st