Fishermen and ICT: towards creating knowledgeable fishermen in Malaysia

The significant relationship between ICT and community development in Malaysia cannot be denied. Groups such as farmers, students, teachers, rural administrators and entrepreneurs have benefited a lot from the advantages that ICT offers. Besides this fact, do the fishermen as one of the major groups in Malaysia have benefited from ICT? This is a qualitative study and which used the data gained through literature and document analyses. Based on the analysis it was found that ICT development in Malaysia is well managed and planned. This can be seen through the establishment of several initiatives such as Rural Internet Center, Rural Info Center, National Information Technology Agenda and National Broadband Initiatives. Further analysis has discovered that there are a lot of benefits that fishermen could obtained through ICT. However, to ensure the fishermen will gain the benefits of ICT, a number of problems and obstacles related to ICT usage must be overcome

Fishermen and ICT: Towards creating knowledgeable fishermen

Abstract: The significant relationship between ICT and community development in Malaysia cannot be denied. Groups such as farmers, students, teachers, rural administrators and entrepreneurs have benefited a lot from the advantages that ICT offers. Besides this fact, do the fishermen as one of the major groups in Malaysia have benefited from ICT? This is a qualitative study and which used the data gained through literature and document analyses. Based on the analysis it was found that ICT development in Malaysia is well managed and planned. This can be seen through the establishment of several initiatives such as Rural Internet Center, Rural Info Center, National Information Technology Agenda and National Broadband Initiatives. Further analysis has discovered that there are a lot of benefits that fishermen could obtained through ICT. However, to ensure the fishermen will gain the benefits of ICT, a number of problems and obstacles related to ICT usage must be overcome

Technology Adoption among Fishermen in Malaysia

Abstract: Technologies have been improved as a crucial tool in developing the agriculture industry. Fisheries, one of the agriculture branches have benefited a lot from the technologies invention. Advanced tools such as sonar, echo sounder and GPS for example have been proven to have impacts on the fisheries industry particularly on the fishermen socio-economic aspects. As the technologies adoption is crucial among the fishermen, it is important to understand the factors that determine their adoption of technologies and this study attempts to reveal a number of potential impingement factors. This is a qualitative study where the discussion is made based on literature and documents analyses. Data gained have revealed that factors such as level of education, finance, extension workers' roles, fishermen future expectation and prediction, behavioral factors and other demographic factors. It is recommended that relevant agencies to accentuate on these factors on their planning strategies and expectantly it can assist in enhancing technologies adoption among the fishermen

Readiness of young Malaysian fishermen to use global positioning system within the fishing operation

Global Positioning System or GPS is an advanced tool that has been widely used in a number of industries including fisheries industry. The main attempt of the present study has much to do with GPS as it aims to identify young Malaysian fishermen readiness to use GPS within their fishing operation. The study is quantitative in nature where a developed questionnaire was used to collect the required data. A total of 240 young fishermen aged between 15 to 40 years old from four fishing areas in Malaysia were selected as the respondents. Overall, it can be concluded that young Malaysian fishermen are ready to use GPS within their fishing operation. However, their readiness can be further improved if aspects such as financial affordability, number of agencies staff, availability of workshop repairing dysfunction GPS and access to GPS are considered by the related agencies

Gratification towards weather information via television: an analysis of the coastal communities in Malaysia

The main purpose of this study is to determine Malaysian coastal communities gratification towards weather information via television. The study was a quantitative study where a developed instrument was used as the main data collection tool. Through, multi-stage simple random sampling, a total of 210 coastal villagers from 3 coastal areas in Malaysia were selected as the respondents. The findings demonstrate that there was a gap between the weather information received and the weather information needed by the respondents, as well as a gap between the weather information received and the weather information believed. A number of discussions are highlighted in this study in the hope that they can assist the appropriate parties in generating the best strategy for information sharing and dissemination processes among the coastal communities

Characterization and Separation Performance of a Novel Polyethersulfone Membrane Blended with Acacia Gum

Novel polyethersulfone (PES) membranes blended with 0.1–3.0 wt. % of Acacia gum (AG) as a pore-former and antifouling agent were fabricated using phase inversion technique. The effect of AG on the pore-size, porosity, surface morphology, surface charge, hydrophilicity, and mechanical properties of PES/AG membranes was studied by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Raman spectroscopy, contact angle and zeta potential measurements. The antifouling -properties of PES/AG membranes were evaluated using Escherichia coli bacteria and bovine serum albumine (BSA). The use of AG as an additive to PES membranes was found to increase the surface charge, hydrophilicity (by 20%), porosity (by 77%) and permeate flux (by about 130%). Moreover, PES/AG membranes demonstrated higher antifouling and tensile stress (by 31%) when compared to pure PES membranes. It was shown that the prepared PES/AG membranes efficiently removed lead ions from aqueous solutions. Both the sieving mechanism of the membrane and chelation of lead with AG macromolecules incorporated in the membrane matrix contributed to lead removal. The obtained results indicated that AG can be used as a novel pore-former, hydrophilizing and antifouling agent, as well as an enhancer to the mechanical and rejection properties of the PES membranes

A review of combined advanced oxidation technologies for the removal of organic pollutants from water

Water pollution through natural and anthropogenic activities has become a global problem causing short-and long-term impact on human and ecosystems. Substantial quantity of individual or mixtures of organic pollutants enter the surface water via point and nonpoint sources and thus affect the quality of freshwater. These pollutants are known to be toxic and difficult to remove by mere biological treatment. To date, most researches on the removal of organic pollutants from wastewater were based on the exploitation of individual treatment process. This single-treatment technology has inherent challenges and shortcomings with respect to efficiency and economics. Thus, application of two advanced treatment technologies characterized with high efficiency with respect to removal of primary and disinfection by-products in wastewater is desirable. This review article focuses on the application of integrated technologies such as electrohydraulic discharge with heterogeneous photocatalysts or sonophotocatalysis to remove target pollutants. The information gathered from more than 100 published articles, mostly laboratories studies, shows that process integration effectively remove and degrade recalcitrant toxic contaminants in wastewater better than single-technology processing. This review recommends an improvement on this technology (integrated electrohydraulic discharge with heterogeneous photocatalysts) viz-a-vis cost reduction in order to make it accessible and available in the rural and semi-urban settlement. Further recommendation includes development of an economic model to establish the cost implications of the combined technology. Proper monitoring, enforcement of the existing environmental regulations, and upgrading of current wastewater treatment plants with additional treatment steps such as photocatalysis and ozonation will greatly assist in the removal of environmental toxicants

Negatively charged polyethersulfone hollow fiber nanofiltration membrane for the removal of bisphenol A from wastewater

Removal of endocrine disrupting compound (viz., bisphenolA, BPA) by laboratory-fabricated hollowfiberpolyethersulfone (PES) nanofiltration (NF) membranes have been investigated. The tailor made charged PES hollow fiber NF membranes have been developed by blending negativelycharged surface modifying macromolecule (cSMM). It is resulted more than 90% removal of BPA, mainly due to negativelycharged properties of the membrane and the negativelycharged solute under the influence of higher pH feed water matrix. The PES hollowfiber modified by blending cSMM is associated with sulfonic groups, confirmed by energy dispersive X-ray and Fourier transform infrared analysis. The blending of cSMM has successfully modified PES hollowfiber which is resulted twice better removal of BPA compared to the unmodified PES