Food Safety Knowledge and Practice Among Community in Sg. Pelek, Sepang, Selangor Darul Ehsan

Food safety is a basic requirement of food quality. It is an increasingly important public health issue to prevent and control food borne illnesses. A cross-sectional study was designed to determine level of knowledge and practice on food safety, to determine the association between knowledge and practice, and also to identify the association between socio-demographic factors and practice score of the population studied. This study was conducted among adult population in Taman Bahagia, Sungai Pelek, Sepang, Selangor Darul Ehsan. Data were collected using an interviewed structured questionnaire. A stratified random sampling was performed to obtain houses, followed by simple random sampling to select sample in the house. A total of 115 data sets were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. Analysis showed that 35% of respondents have poor level of knowledge on food safety, whereas 27% of the respondents have poor level of practices on food safety. Multiple linear regression revealed that there are a significant association between education level (p<0.001), Adj b=2.57 (95% CI: 1.15, 3.99) and gender (p=0.048), Adj b=1.15 (95% CI: 0.01, 2.29) with practice score on food safety. Therefore, health promotion and education on the importance of practicing food safety at home should be focused to prevent further unwanted health effects

Modeling of Single Bay Precast Residential House Using Ruaumoko 2D Program

Precast residential houses are normally constructed in Malaysia using precast shear-key wall panel and precast wall panel are designed using BS8110 where there is no provision for earthquake. However, the safety of this house under moderate and strong earthquake is still questionable. Consequently, the full-scale of residential house are designed, constructed, tested and analyzed under in-plane lateral cyclic loading. Hysteresis loops are plotted based on the experimental work and compared with modeling of hysteresis loops using HYSTERES in RUAUMOKO 2D program. Modified Takeda hysteresis model is chosen to behave a similar pattern with experimental work. This program will display the earthquake excitations, spectral displacements, pseudo spectral acceleration, and deformation shape of the structure. It can be concluded that this building is suffering severe cracks and damage under moderate and severe earthquake

Perencanaan Program Hidrolika pada Sumur Eksplorasi F di Lapangan M

Salah satu tantangan dalam pemboran deepwater biaya sewa rig yang sangat tinggi,sehingga kegiatan pemboran diperlukan secepat mungkin untuk menghemat biaya. Sumureksplorasi F merupakan sumur yang terletak di Lapangan M dengan target kedalaman 14,030 ftpada struktur Ngimbang Karbonat. Dari studi G&G dan berdasarkan sumur offset dapat diketahuibahwa lapisan yang akan ditembus adalah Lidah Shale hingga kedalaman 4,650 ft, kemudianPaciran hingga kedalaman 5,660 ft, lalu Cepu Shale hingga kedalaman 10,030 ft, dan yangterakhir adalah Ngimbang Karbonat hingga kedalaman 14,030 ft. Terlihat bahwa ada banyakkemungkinan masalah terkait hole cleaning dikarenakan lapisan shale yang panjang danditambah dengan masalah mud window yang tipis. Untuk mengatasi masalah hole cleaning danmud window yang tipis, pada trayek 26” dilakukan pemompaan 2200 GPM dengan konsentrasicutting yang dijaga sebesar 10% dan ROP yang mampu dicapai adalah 291 fph. Kemudian padatrayek 17-½” dilakukan pemompaan 1600 GPM dengan konsentrasi cutting yang dijaga sebesar3% dan ROP yang mampu dicapai adalah 170 fph. Lalu pada trayek 14-¾” dilakukan pemompaan1300 GPM dengan konsentrasi cutting yang dijaga sebesar 3% dan ROP yang dapat dicapaisebesar 208 fph. Selanjutnya adalah pada trayek 12-¼” dilakukan pemompaan 1200 GPM dengankonsentrasi cutting yang dijaga sebesar 3% dan ROP yang mampu dicapai sebesar 306 fph. Lalupada trayek 10-7/8” dilakukan pemompaan sebesar 832 GPM dengan konsentrasi cutting yangdijaga sebesar 3% dan ROP yang dapat dicapai sebesar 285 fph. Dan trayek yang tera khiradalah 8-½” dimana dilakukan pemompaan sebesar 768GPM dimana dijaga agar konsentrasicutting sebesar 3% dengan ROP yang mampu dicapai adalah 433 fph. Penentuan lajupemompaan pada masing-masing trayek dilakukan berdasarkan beberapa parameter yangmenjadi acuan laju pemompaan maksimum diantaranya adalah flow regime di annulus, ECD danspesifikasi peralatan bawah permukaan khususnya BHA

Differentiation of frog fats from vegetable and marine oils by Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and chemometric analysis

The agro-based production and consumption of frogs coupled with world-wide trading have been increased in the recent years giving rise to the risk of frog fat adulteration in expensive vegetable and marine oils. For the first time, we profiled here frog fats using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) Spectroscopy coupled with multivariate principal component analysis (PCA). The comparison of the FTIR spectral absorbance intensities demonstrated linkage of frog fats to other edible fats and oils. Three commercially available marine oils and three vegetables oils were studied with frog fats and clear pattern of clusters with distinctive identifiable features were obtained through PCA modeling. PCA analysis identified 2922.21 cm-1, 2852.88 cm-1, 1745.45 cm-1, 1158.29 cm-1 and 721.51 cm-1 FTIR-frequencies as the most discriminating variables influencing the group separation into different clusters. This fundamental study has clear implications in the identification of frog fat from its marine and vegetable counterparts for the potential detection of frog fat adulteration in various fat and oils

Automatic region selection method to enhance image-based steganography

Image-based steganography is an essential procedure with several practical applications related to information security, user authentication, copyright protection, etc. However, most existing image-based steganographic techniques assume that the pixels that hide the data can be chosen freely, such as random pixel selection, without considering the contents of the input image. So, the “region of interest” such as human faces in the input image might have defected after data hiding even at a low inserting rate, and this will degrade the visual quality especially for the images containing several human faces. With this view, we proposed a novel approach that combines human skin-color detection along with the LSB approach which can choose the embedding regions. The idea behind that is based on the fact that the Human Vision System HVS tends to focus its attention on selectively certain structures of the visual scene instead of the whole image. Practically, human skin-color is good evidence of the existence of human targets in images. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt that employs skin detection in application to steganography which consider the contents of input image and consequently can choose the embedding regions. Moreover, an enhanced RSA algorithm and Elliptic Curve Equation are used to provide a double level of security. In addition, the system embeds noise bits into the resulting stego-image to make the attacker’s task more confusing. Two datasets are used for testing and evaluation. The experimental results show that the proposed approach achieves a significant security improvement with high image quality

A Comparative Study on Different Baits Used to Attract House Fly in Malaysia

House flies are commonly found at homes and businesses in Malaysia. Many kinds of baits are used to attract and trap these flies either by mechanical or chemical means. But all these baits are not capable of attracting flies equally. The main goal of this study is to find out the best bait that can attract house fly effectively. Two baits made in abroad and four baits made in Malaysia were selected for conducting this study because these baits are commonly used in Malaysia. Experiments were carried out by using six selected baits in food industry, fish market and poultry farm in the east coast of Malaysia. Data were collected from the field experiments continuously for six days and analysed to determine the best bait that trap the house flies very effectively. Data analysis results show that the Chinese Electronic Fly Catcher bait is the best one for trapping house flies effectively compared to other baits. Further investigation is still underway to find the volatile compound used for this Chinese Electronic Fly Catcher bait, which will help to generate new bait with the same effect