Overview of Health Impacts Due to Haze Pollution in Johor, Malaysia

Haze pollution is one of the major environmental issues caused by aerosols, having brought about a history of heavy smog pollution events like the London smog in 1952 and the Los Angeles smog in the 1960s. However, in Malaysia, haze events are attributed to forest and peat fires in Kalimantan and Southern Sumatra, Indonesia. The burned biomass basically contains concentrated particulate matters that are hazardous to health among susceptible population groups. Based on the extensive literature review conducted, the small number of available local studies on the health effects of air pollution in Malaysia conducted so far focused on air pollution sciences. In this paper, a comprehensive overview of studies done on the impacts of haze on health conditions among populations in Malaysia is presented. The result shows that the number of upper respiratory tract infection cases was directly proportional to the particulate matter concentration and Air Pollution Index value in Johor in the years 2014 and 2015. Particulate matteris the major contributor in the formation of heavy hazes and is more likely to initiate detrimental health effects compared to other inhalable particles due to their size, large area, and strong activity, making them more likely to carry harmful substances causing a higher number of infected patients with upper respiratory tract infections

Growth, photosynthesis and biomass allocation of different kenaf (Hibiscus cannabinus L.,) accessions grown on sandy soil.

Growth, photosynthesis, and biomass allocation of kenaf accessions were investigated. Forty kenaf accessions from tropical and subtropical regions of the world were grown on marginal sandy soil in a field at Kelantan to determine differences in their growth, photosynthesis and biomass allocation. The experiment was arranged using three replicates in a randomized complete block design. Basal diameter, plant height, leaf number, leaf area and photosynthesis were measured, these being the determinants of growth and biomass production. Plant roots, stems and leaves were separated and biomass content determined at harvest. Accession 35 had the highest value for basal diameter (17.44 mm), plant height (251.73 cm), leaf quantity (81.55), leaf area (1455.62 cm2 plant-1) and photosynthesis (16.92 µmol m-2s-1), followed by accession 28. A positive relationship was noticed between plant height, leaf area, photosynthesis, biomass production, root mass and leaf area. Total biomass for the different kenaf accessions ranged from 26.26 to 93.06 g plant-1 (-1 needs to be superscripted). Stems accounted for the greatest proportion of dry mass (67.05%), followed by roots(21.15%). Dry mass accumulation in the stem was highest in accession 35, followed by accession 28. Using cluster analysis, the accessions were divided into two major groups, in which accessions 35 and 28 from the first group had the highest values of all measured parameters. The results of the study will aid in the selection of better accessions for growers to produce kenaf that is best suited to marginal sandy soil

Preliminary Study of CST in Malaysia based on Field Optical Efficiency

Solar is one of the many sources of renewable energy, and Concentrating Solar Tower (CST) is one of the most potential technologies in extracting solar energy. Thermal efficiency of CST is high and suitable to be implemented in a tropical climate country such as Malaysia which is located between at 10 to 70 North latitude and 1000 to 1200 east longitude. Further, Malaysia's direct normal irradiation (DNI) in tropical climate is almost constant throughout a year with the irradiation around 1500 to 2000 kWh/m2. Therefore the aim of this paper is to mathematically calculate the CST field layout in Malaysia in term of thermal efficiency based on cosine efficiency, atmosphere efficiency and mirror efficiency. The preliminary result from this paper shows Malaysia is a suitable location to develop CST with average of atmospheric transmittance efficiency and cosine efficiency of 94% and 63% respectively and the overall optical field efficiency is 52%. In addition, the atmospheric transmittance and cosine efficiency has high value but the efficiency gradually decreases whenever the distance increases. Nevertheless further investigation in term of solar irradiation and raining pattern in Malaysia is needed

Crop water requirement at different growing stages of pineapple production in BRIS soil

The BRIS (Beach Ridges Interspersed with Swales) soils are the sandy marine deposits at the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The area is less suitable for usual field crops. Pineapple (Ananas comosus) may be introduced in the area for commercial cultivation. An experiment was conducted in the glass house condition of UPM. Pineapple plants were nurtured in the lysimeters, filled with BRIS soil, to assess the water requirements at different growth stages. Highest requirement of irrigation water was found 2.43 mm/day in initial stage (1). Subsequent development stage (2), mid-stage (3) and ripening stage (4) required smaller amount of irrigation water (approximately 1.55 mm/day). The daily average evapotranspiration (ETc) was 0.83 mm/day in Stage 1, followed by 0.73 mm/day in Stage 2. The lowest ETc was found 0.65 mm/day in Stage 3. The estimated crop coefficient (K ) was found maximum 0.51 in initial stage. The Kc values showed a continuous decreasing trend up harvesting time. The second highest Kc value was 0.37 in development stage followed by 0.33 in mid-stage and minimum 0.30 during ripening stage

In Silico Screening and Designing Synthesis of Cinchona Alkaloids Derivatives as Potential Anticancer

P-glycoprotein (P-gp) resistance in cancer cells decreases intracellular accumulation of various anticancer drugs. This multidrug resistance (MDR) protein can be modulated by a number of non-cytotoxic drugs. We have screened 30 chincona alkaloids derivatives as a potent P-gp inhibitor agent in silico. Hereby, we report the highest potential inhibitions of P-gp is Cinchonidine isobutanoate through molecular docking approach. with affinity energy -8.6 kcal/mol and inhibition constant, Ki is 4.89 x 10-7 M. Cinchonidine isobutanoate is also known has molecular weight below 500, Log P value 3.5, which is indicated violation free of Lipinski`s rule of five. Thus, Cinchonidine isobutanoate is the most potent compound as anticancer compare to other Cinchona alkaloids. Ultimately, we design Cinchonidine isobutanoate for further lead synthesis by using DBSA, act as a combined Brønsted acid-surfactant-catalyst (BASC) to obtain high concentration of organic product by forming micellar aggregates which is very powerful catalytic application in water environment

Pengaruh Peningkatan Lipofilisitas Pada Senyawa Analog Uk-3a Dalam Menghambat Pertumbuhan Sel Kanker P-388

Antibiotic UK-3A contains a 9-membered dilactone ring. It had been isolated as a minor component from the mycelium of 5trepyomyces sp. 51701.The antibiotic was hypothesized to be potential to inhibit the growth of leukemia cancer cell line of P388 and KB with ICso 38 and 20 Dg/mL, respectively. To understand the effect of lipophilicity increase of the analogues on their anticancer activities based on QSAR parameter (Log P) and binding energy to BcL-xL protein. To produce analogues of UK-3A, 3hydroxypicolinyl serine methyl ester (A) was synthesized from 3-hydroxypicolinic acid and L-serine methyl ester. The product was then esterified by pentanoic (1), hexanoic (2), heptanoic (3), and octanoic (4). The final products were confirmed with IHand 13C FT-NMR and FTIR spectra, and also MS spectra. Then they were tested against P388 Murine Leukemia cells. The result of bioassay showed lipophilicity increase of3hydroxypicolinyl serine methyl octhyl ester (PSMOE) correlated positively with their anticancer activity increase, withICso 15.4mg/mL against P388 cell lines

Classification of Cornel Arcus using Texture Features with Bayesian Regulation Back Propagation

The corneal arcus (CA) is an eye problem frequently faced by some group of people. The CA signs indicate the presence of abnormal lipid in blood and can cause  several problems such as  blood pressure, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia. This paper presents a comparison of classification of the abnormal eye using a neural network. In order to extract the image features,  the gray level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM)was used. This matrix measures the texture of the image, where the statistical calculation can be used to present the image features. The Bayesian Regulation (BR) algorithm has been proposed, in which this classifier classifies the obtained results better than previous works by other researchers. In this experiment, two classes data-set of the eye image, normal and abnormal images CA are used. The results from this BR classifier demonstrate a sensitivity of 96.1 % and a specificity of 98.6 %. The overall accuracy of this proposed system is 97.6 %. Although this classifier does not obtain 100 % accuracy, however its result is  proven to be able to classify the CA images successfully

Comparison of Soot Particle Movement based on Crank Angle

In a diesel engine, soot was produced due to incomplete fuel combustion in a combustion chamber. Some of this soot sticks to the cylinder wall and interferes with lubricant oil. This soot causes the lubricant oil to contaminate and this increases its viscosity. Contamination of lubricant oil is one of the major causes of engine wear. Therefore, the focus of this study is on soot movement in diesel engine that is the initial step to avoid contamination of lubricant oil. This work uses the data of the formation of soot particles from Kiva-3 v obtained from previous investigation and then simulated it by a Matlab routine. Kiva-3 v produced velocity vectors of the soot, fuel, temperature, pressure and others. Matlab routine uses trilinear interpolation and fourth order Runge Kutta method in order to calculate soot movement in a combustion chamber. In addition, the influence of drag force is considered in the calculation to achieve a higher accuracy. The objective of this study is to compare soot particle movement between 8° ATDC and 18° ATDC. Results show that 8° ATDC has a high risk to contaminate lubrication oil in certain location compare to 18° ATDC