Cross-species microsatellite amplification of river terrapin (Batagur affinis)

Batagur affinis (river terrapin or “tuntung”) is one of the world’s most critically endangered species. It is distributed across Sumatera, Malaysia, Thailand and Cambodia. Its population number is declining in the wild because of habitat destructions and it economic value (i.e. exotic delicacies for eggs and meat). Hence, many reintroduction efforts had been done. Yet, the wild populations are not improving. One of the possible reasons behind this failure is possibly due to low genetic diversity in this species. Thus, population genetics study should be conducted. In this preliminary population genetics study, a total of 33 microsatellite primers from other freshwater terrapin (i.e. B. trivittata and Podocnemis unifilis) were screened and optimised for 30 samples of river terrapin from Kemaman, Terengganu using touchdown protocol and followed by gradient protocol. Among those 33 primers, 23 primers were able to cross-amplify with B. affinis and optimised for annealing temperature (51 – 70°C). Those 23 primers will be used for future population genetics study using samples from both Bota Kanan, Perak and Kemaman, Terengganu

Analysis of the Company's Cash Flow Statement Kopinian Café

Café is a very popular place for young people today, so many entrepreneurs open up opportunities in this business, but seeing a promising market, entrepreneurs still find it difficult to manage their financial reports. Financial reports are important for a company to know the financial condition of the business being run, and the preparation of non-detailed financial statements will also have a big impact on the company, which causes difficulties in developing a business and including investment capital. With the existence of financial reports on. This writing aims to help the company "Kopinian" Café improve company performance by identifying the company's current financial condition. The cash flow statement method is sourced from the income statement and balance sheet report. This statement of cash flows is prepared with three business activities: cash flows from operating activities, investing activities, and financing activities. Kopinian Café has good management performance, shown by companies that can ideally pay current debts, pay liabilities, and manage inventory turnover

Exact analysis of unsteady convective diffusion in herschel-bulkley fluid flow-application to catheterised stenosed artery

One of the major causes of cardiovascular disease is atherosclerosis or stenosis. This study is designed to improve the current body of knowledge regarding the condition by inserting a long thin tube called a catheter to widen the narrow part in the artery. The study reviewed the effects of catheter radius, yield stress, and power law index on the velocity distribution, and transport coefficients of solute. A mathematical model is deployed to investigate the dispersion of solute in the flow of a Herschel-Bulkley (H-B) fluid in an annulus, whereas the dispersion process is studied using the generalised dispersion model (GDM) by solving the convective diffusion equation. Resultantly, the velocity reduces following an increase in the yield stress, catheter size, and power law index. Meanwhile, the dispersion coefficient exhibits a same behaviour as the aforementioned parameters ascend considerably. The dispersion coefficient alterations occurred rapidly for small values of time and became significantly constant following an increase in the time values. Conclusively, this study can be useful in dispersion of a drug to the affected artery where an abnormal plaque was formed

Herschel-Bulkley model of blood flow through a stenosed artery with the effect of chemical reaction on solute dispersion

A non-Newtonian mathematical model of blood flow described as the Hershel- Bulkley fluid model in a stenosed artery is studied together with the effect of its chemical reaction. The expressions of the shear stress, velocity, mean velocity, and relative velocity in the plug and non-plug flow field were evaluated. The convective-diffusion equation was solved using the Taylor-Aris technique subjected to the relevant boundary condition in determining the concentration as well as the relative and effective axial diffusivity of the solute. The efficiency of the dispersion process was affected by the presence of chemical reactions and stenosis in blood flow. The normalised velocity decreased as the power-law index and yield stress increased. The height and length of the stenosis, as well as the power-law index, increased with an increase in the parameters of the chemical reaction rate. In contrast, the relative axial diffusivity and effective axial diffusivity showed a reverse behaviour. The existence of stenosis restricted the blood flow and drug dispersion. In short, this study improved the understanding of the physiological processes involved in the dispersion of drugs and nutrients in the circulatory system. Furthermore, it proved that the dispersion of a solute in the blood flow happened at a low shear rate through narrow arteries

Mathematical modeling of unsteady solute dispersion in bingham fluid model of blood flow through an overlapping stenosed artery

An artery narrowing referred to as atherosclerosis or stenosis causes a reduction in the diameter of the artery. When blood flow through an artery consists of stenosis, the issue of solute dispersion is more challenging to solve. A mathematical model is developed to examine the unsteady solute dispersion in an overlapping stenosed artery portraying blood as Bingham fluid model. The governing of the momentum equation and the constitutive equation is solved analytically. The generalized dispersion model is imposed to solve the convective-diffusion equation and to describe the entire dispersion process. The dispersion function at steady-state decreases at the center of an artery as the stenosis height increase. A reverse behavior is shown at an unsteady-state. As the plug core radius, time and stenosis height increase, the dispersion function decreases at the center of an artery. There is a high amount of red blood cells at the center of the artery but no influences near the wall. Hence, this model is useful in transporting the drug or nutrients to the targeted stenosed region in the treatment of diseases and in understanding many physiological processes

Be-Ce Education Games: An Interactive Game-Based Learning for Construction Economics Courses in Built Environment

The chasm between modern science and the mundane reality of contemporary education requires a creative rethinking if inequalities and disparities are to be addressed meaningfully. To this end, game-based learning is often touted as having the uncanny ability in providing learners with a fun and interactive learning experience in which learning objectives are tenaciously respected, cultural similarities boldly embraced, and individual differences joyfully celebrated. Hence, by recognizing the palpable gap, it is vital to investigate the efficacy of game-based learning for two Construction Economics courses in Built Environment. The main objective of this project is to measure the impact of game-based learning on the students’ performance in higher education. Hence, to achieve this objective,questions and rubrics were designed and prepared by following the course learning units. This project also required the participants to engage in a snake and ladder board game, to construct a creative model using Lego bricks, and finally to make a video presentation in a fun and interactive approach. Besides, outdoor activities were conducted with the intention to enhance the students’ experience through a distinctive learning environment. Online tools, such as the ever-popular Padlet application, was deployed to garner students' feedbacks and reflections on this project. The data were subsequently analyzed to evaluate the students’ level of understanding as well as to identify difficulties faced by students while learning the subject matter. Findings revealed that the majority of students understand the topics from their reflections and feedback. Consequently, results indicated that all students achieve the required Course Learning Outcome (CLOs) in the final examination. Notably, the CLOs achievement and students’ feedback provided substantial evidence to suggest that game-based learning provides a fun and playful learning experience, which ultimately enhances the students' performance in higher education

The measurement of the safety performance towards passenger satisfaction in rail transport

The purpose of this study to knows passenger satisfaction level from the safety performance of the rail transport in Northern Peninsular Malaysia.The objectives of this study to examine the relationship between safety performance and passenger satisfaction in railway transport. Passenger satisfaction is an important aspect that is often given attention by the service provider. Safety performance becomes a major variable that influence passenger satisfaction.The underpinning theory in this study is American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) to measure the level of passenger satisfaction.The main instrument that used in this study is questionnaire.The research was conducted based on questionnaire that involved 400 respondents by finalized the 390 respondent as our main data in measuring the result finding.The sample size of this study is the passenger of rail transport in Northern area where from KTM Arau, Perlis, KTM Alor Setar, Kedah, Butterworth, Pulau Pinang and end at KTM Ipoh, Perak.The researcher use Reliability Analysis and Pearson Correlation to analyse the data from questionnaire distributed to respondents by using statistical package for Social Science (SPSS) version 20.0.The result indicates positive and significant relationship between safety performance and passenger satisfaction in rail transport.Thus, passenger will satisfy towards the higher of safety performance

Mathematical analysis of unsteady solute dispersion with chemical reaction through a stenosed artery

One major kind of arterial disease in blood flow that attracted many researchers is arterial stenosis. Arterial stenosis occurs when a lumen of artery is narrowed by the accumulation of fats, cholesterols and lipids plaques at the inner layer of the wall of an artery. To treat this arterial disease, the drug (solute) is injected into the blood vessels. Injection of the drug into the blood vessel cause the occurrence of chemical reaction between the drug and blood proteins and it affects the effectiveness of the solute transportation in blood flow. Hence, this study examines the unsteady dispersion of solute with the influence of chemical reaction and stenosis height through a very narrow artery with a cosine-curved stenosis. The blood is treating as Herschel-Bulkley (H-B) fluid. The momentum and constitutive equations are solved analytically to gain velocity of H-B blood flow. The convective-diffusion equation is solved by applying the generalized dispersion model to gain the dispersion function of solute. The influence of chemical reaction, power-law index, plug flow radius and stenosis height on the solute dispersion process is investigated. The results are validated with the previous solution without the effect of chemical reaction and stenosis. The results showed a good conformity between the two solutions. An increase in the chemical reaction coefficient, stenosis height, power-law index and plug flow radius reduces the dispersion function. It is observed that the solute dispersion in blood flow is affected by chemical reaction and stenosis height. H-B fluid is an appropriate fluid to investigate the blood velocity and transportation of the drug in blood flow to the targeted stenosed region through a very narrow artery for the treatment of arterial diseases. The results of the present study can potentially be used to predict the changes of blood flow behavior and dispersion process in blood flow

TRANSFORMATION VARIABLES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW

The higher education sector faced increasingly tense to transform due to the digitization that reshapes the world in the 21st century to strengthen and improve the teaching and learning environment. The present critical success factors driven by global-profit-making reform institutions are affected by both external and internal issues. This systematic article review expounds on the instrumental transformation variables that influence higher education institutions globally. The exploration of these variables is not a new phenomenon in this research field and has long gained numerous scholars' attention. However, most of these past inquiries overlooked the effects of cultural and contextual components, where the higher education landscape perspectives are often underrepresented. Hence, this study aims to fill this gap by critically reviewing a considerable amount of past studies on the changes in Asian educational institutions. The Systematic Review approach was adopted for data analysis, accessing main journal databases and search engines through Elsevier, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Web of Science, Scopus, Emerald and EBSCO. The search efforts resulted in a corpus of 33 articles were reviewed. As a result of the thematic analyses, eight main themes were formulated namely, Globalization, Income Generation and Financial Implication, Institutional Policies, Knowledge Management, Learning Innovation, Governance in Institutional Restructuring, Synergy, and Leadership as dominant variables for the higher education sector. Several recommendations were also presented for the reference of relevant parties and future scholars.   Article visualizations

The potential of bioflocculant-producing bacteria as inoculum for biofloc based systems

Aim: Biological flocculants has been widely used around the world to replace the usage of synthetic flocculants for wastewater treatment.Anew green technology using biological flocculant known as biofloc system was developed which offers zero water exchanged, low feed conversion ratio (FCR) and high nutritional profile. This study was conducted to determine the most potential bioflocculant-producing bacteria isolated from biofloc sampleinPacific Whiteleg shrimp,P. vannameiculture pond. Methodology: Biofloc sample was collected using Imhoff cone and bacteria was isolated. The most abundant bacteria isolated throughout P. vannamei culture period was selected for screening of bioflocculant-producing bacteria usingYPG medium and flocculation activity using floc-jar test. Results: Screening of bioflocculant-producing bacteria showed that B. infantis, N. aquimarinus, B. cereus, H. venusta, Pseudoalteromonas sp., and B. safensis were characterized as highly mucoid and ropy colony morpologies. The highest flocculation activity with 93% was showed by B. infantis followed by N. aquimarinus (91%), B. cereus (87%), H. venusta (79%), Pseudoalteromonas (78%), while the lowest flocculation activity was showed byB. safensiswith 69%. Interpretation: As bacteria grew, extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) produced were involved in flocculation process. Each bacteria produced different EPS composition which differed their ability in flocculation process. Therefore, bacteria with high flocculation activity are potentially used as inoculum to increase flocculation processinbiofloc production