Supported TiO2 on Borosilicate Glass Plates for Efficient Photocatalytic Degradation of Fenamiphos

Supported titanium dioxide (TiO2) was investigated for the photodegradation of the insecticide fenamiphos in water. The photocatalyst was immobilised on borosilicate glass plates and the kinetics of degradation were studied in a stirred tank reactor under UV irradiation. Two types of TiO2, for example, Millennium PC500 (100% anatase) and Degussa P25 (80% anatase, 20% rutile), were used. Their activities have been based on the rates of insecticide disappearance. Experiments were investigated to evaluate the effect of pH and initial concentrations of fenamiphos as well as catalyst doses on the photocatalytic degradation of fenamiphos. Kinetic parameters were experimentally determined and an apparent first-order kinetic was observed. For photolysis process of fenamiphos, two photoproducts were identified and characterized using high performance liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (HPLC/MS). The plausible mechanism of photolysis involved is the oxidation of sulfonamide group. In presence of photocatalyst TiO2, photodegradation was observed. Under identical conditions, Degussa P25 shows higher photocatalytic activity in regard to PC500 Millennium and complete degradation was observed after 180 min

ROOFING ASSESSMENT FOR ROOFTOP RAINWATER HARVESTING ADOPTION USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS APPROACH

Rooftop rainwater harvesting refers to the collection and storage of water from rooftops whereby the quality of harvested rainwater depend on the types of roof and the environmental conditions. This system is capable to support the water supply in almost any place either as a sole source or by reducing stress on other sources through water savings. Remote sensing and GIS have been widely used in urban environmental analysis. Thus, this study aimed to develop the roofing layer in order to assess the potential area for rooftop rainwater harvesting adoption by integrating remote sensing and GIS approach. An urban area containing various urban roofing materials and characteristics was selected. High resolution satellite imagery acquired from WorldView-3 satellite systems with 0.3 m of spatial resolution was used in order to obtain spectral and spatial information of buildings and roofs. For quality assessment, the physical and chemical parameters of the rooftop harvested rainwater were performed according to the Standard Tests for Water and Wastewater. The potential area for rooftop rainwater harvesting adoption can be identified with the detail information of the rooftops and quality assessment in geospatial environment

Detection of covid-19 from chest x-ray and ct scan images using improved stacked sparse autoencoder

The novel Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) has spread rapidly and has become a pandemic around the world. So far, about 44 million cases have been registered, causing more than one million deaths worldwide. COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on every nation, particularly the economic sector. To identify the infected human being and prevent the virus from spreading further, easy, and precise screening is required. COVID-19 can be potentially detected by using Chest X-ray and computed tomography (CT) images, as these images contain essential information of lung infection. This radiology image is usually examined by the expert to detect the presence of COVID-19 symptom. In this study, the improved stacked sparse autoencoder is used to examine the radiology images. According to the result, the proposed deep learning model was able to achieve a classification accuracy of 96.6% and 83.0% for chest X-ray and chest CT-scan images, respectively

Local Authority planning provision for Event Management in Ireland: A Socio-Cultural Perspective

The increasing popularity of the event sector in Ireland has resulted in many community events being developed and marketed to international and domestic tourists alike. This growth has had an effect on host communities in a positive and negative manner. This paper assesses the current levels of Local Authority socio-cultural planning provision and guidelines for event management in Ireland. To achieve this, a content analysis approach was used to illustrate which Local Authorities in the Republic of Ireland employed socio-cultural tools and indicators for event management. Accordingly, analysis revealed a lack of Local Authority socio-cultural planning guidelines or policies for event management. However, this offers and opportunity to be improved by implementing and applying best practice indicators in socio-cultural policies and guidelines for event management in Ireland

The relationship between employee job satisfaction, perceived customer satisfaction, service quality, and profitability in luxury hotels in Kuala Lumpur

The research examined the relationship between employee job satisfaction, perceived customer satisfaction, service quality, and profitability in five hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. This research explored the relationship between employee job satisfaction, perceived customer satisfaction, service quality, and profitability in the luxury hotels in Kuala Lumpur. It is common knowledge that hoteliers are effectively looking for new approaches in orderto increase their service values through their service quality offerings. High rate service quality can only be attained through effective and efficient hotel operations that can surpass customers' expectations and finally increase firm profitability. There were around 150 respondents from the top and middle managers of the hotels in Kuala Lumpur. The period of the study was from January to December 2015. The data was analyzed using the SPSS statistical package. The research found that higher employee job satisfaction increases service quality and this increases hotels' profit. On the other hand, employee job satisfaction generates higher customer satisfaction and increases hotel profitability through future sales and customer positive goodwill. The paper ended with a discussion on implications and limitations of the research and some directions for future studies are suggested

Characterization of Keratin Microparticles from Feather Biomass with Potent Antioxidant and Anticancer Activities

In the present study chicken feathers were hydrolyzed by chemical treatment in alkaline conditions. The pH value of feather hydrolyzed solution was amended accordingly the iso-electric precipitation. Two types of keratin microparticles KM1, KM2 were synthesized under acidic conditions at 3.5 and 5.5 pH respectively. The synthesized keratin microparticles possessed uniform and round surface by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The thermal degradation of microparticles were examined by thermogravimetry (TGA). Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) revealed that the extracted keratin retained the most of protein backbone. The microparticles were screened for their in vitro anticancer activities by SRB bioassay towards HeLa, SK-OV-3 and A549 cancer cell lines. Futhermore, their cytotoxicity towards healthy cell lines was analyzed having Malin Darby canine kidney (MDCK) cell lines along with in vitro antioxidant activity using DPPH and ABTS methods KM1 and KM2 showed 200.31 ± 1.01 and 139.73 ± 0.94, 214.16 ± 0.29 and 153.92 ± 0.61, 328.92 ± 3.46 and 200.33 ± 2.48 μg/mL of IC50 levels against HeLa, SK-OV-3, and A549 cell lines, respectively. Moreover, KM1 and KM2 demonstrated significant antioxidant potency with IC50 levels 13.15 and 9.02 μg/mL as well as 8.96 and 5.60 μg/mL in DPPH and ABTS radical scavenging bioassay, respectively

Export market orientation strategy, external environment, and export performance of SMEs in Malaysia

Globalization phenomena have changed the trends of business performance all over the world. As a result, many researchers embarked upon different journeys to examine the aftermath of globalization. Many past studies examined the relationship between export market orientation (EMO) and export performance from different parts of the world. Nevertheless, the importance of export market orientation on the firm's export performance is still a hot debate amongst the researchers. The research examined the relationship between export market orientation, external environment, and export performance for manufacturing small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. The survey was done on 779 manufacturing companies listed with the Federation of Malaysian Manufacturers (FMM) involved in the exporting activity and fit the SME criteria. Data was further analyzed using Partial Least Square (PLS) techniques. The research found that EMO had a significant influence on the export performance. However, the research could not support that the external environment moderated the relationship between the EMO and export performance

Comparison study on oil palm fresh fruit bunch (FFB) maturity stages determination based on color recognition model and position of FFB in leaf spiral

Optimum quality of oil production can be obtained by managing the harvesting operation of oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) at the right stage of ripeness. High content of free fatty acid (over-ripe bunches) will increase the refinery cost. Therefore it is crucial to determine the harvesting date of FFB. This study explores the possibility of determine the maturity stage based on the location of FFB in the leaf spiral. Since matured oil palm produced two leaves per month, each leaf axil potentially produced inflorescences. Pollination of FFB will take place at leaf number 17 up to 20 and mature bunch will be at leaf number 30 to 33. Based on this information, a relationship of FFB position will be at spiral and maturity stages can be established. This paper presents the comparison analysis of color recognition model and position in leaf spiral in determining the maturity stages of FFB

A review on signal processing techniques for bearing diagnostics

Bearing is the most widely used component in many applications such as home appliances, industrial applications and military applications. Bearing works continuously in harsh environment especially for industrial use where the environment factor may affect the bearing conditions. Conditions of bearing require a proper monitoring to prevent sudden failure which will cause financial loss and threaten human life. Thus, a proper maintenance is introduced called Condition-based Maintenance (CBM). CBM is a maintenance strategy that provide a guideline to monitor the asset condition based on the information collected. In CBM, there are several important steps for monitoring the asset condition which one of them is signal processing. Signal Processing is important due to data acquire from the sensor is heavily masked by the background noise (machine sound and environment sound). Therefore, a robust signal processing technique is required to eliminate the noise and provide good features for decision making. This paper tends to review on the signal processing utilised for bearing fault diagnosis from the previous researcher