Biodiversity conservation strategy in Malaysia: from an Islamic perspective

The rapid decline of world’s biodiversity and increasing need of natural resources to accommodate the growing population suggest that the current western philosophy of conservation biology is not achieving its mission and objective as expected in Southeast Asia. The existing religious tools and channels for conservation should be seriously considered. There is a high potential in achieving high standards of conservation biology if management of natural resources adheres to the fundamental principles of Islam in Malaysia. However religious approaches are mainly limited to Islamic norms and treated independently in many parts of Southeast Asia, including Malaysia. Therefore there is an urgent need to synergize Islamic concepts in conservation biology with the existing governance system. It is believed if Islamic concepts are genuinely practised and amalgamated into the existing implementation and governance structure in conservation biology, the future for biodiversity in this region will be bright

Human Capital Spillovers, Productivity and Growth in the Manufacturing Sector of Pakistan

Manufacturing is an important sector of Pakistan’s economy. The main focus of this paper is to analyse the major factors of value-added growth and productivity in the manufacturing sector by using Translog Production Technology over the period 1971-72 to 2004-05. The empirical findings show that the contribution of productivity and human capital is around one- third of the total value-added growth in manufacturing sector which is less than the contribution attributed to these factors in developed and many other developing countries. Conventional factors like capital and labour are still the mainstay in the value-added growth of Pakistan’s manufacturing sector.Human Capital Spillovers, Total Factor Productivity, Absolute and Relative Shares

Adaptive thresholding in dynamic scene analysis for extraction of fine line

This paper presents an adaptive threshold method whereby a fine thin line of one-pixel width lines could be detected in a gray level images. The proposed method uses the percentage difference between the mean of the pixels within a window and the center pixel. The minimum threshold value however is heuristically set to 32. If the percentage difference is greater than 40% then the threshold value will be set to the difference value. This method has been applied in detecting moving objects with fine lines and the results showed that the method was able to pickup straight thin edges that belong to the moving objec

Simulation of brittle damage for fracture process of endodontically treated tooth

The mechanics of brittle damage in porcelain of an endodontically treated maxilla incisor tooth was simulated using finite element method (FEM). For this purpose a very complex composite structure of endodontically treated tooth is simulated under transverse loading. Three dimensional (3D) model of human maxilla incisor tooth root was developed based on Computed Tomography (CT) scan images. Crown, core cement, resin core, dental post, post cement and dentin were created using SolidWorks software, and then the model was imported into ABAQUS-6.9EF software for nonlinear behavior analysis. This study utilizes finite element method to simulate onset and propagation of crack in ceramic layer (porcelain) by the cause of both tension and compression loading related to complexity of the geometry of tooth implant. The simulation has been done using brittle damaged model available in ABAQUS/Explicit in quasi-static load condition. The load-displacement response of whole structure is measured from the top of porcelain by controlling displacement on a rigid rod. Crack initiated at the top of porcelain bellow the location of the rod caused by tension damage at equivalent load of 590 N. Damage in porcelain accounts for up to 63% reduction of whole structure stiffness from the undamaged state. The failure process in porcelain layer can be described by an exponential rate of fracture energy dissipation. This study demonstrated that the proposed finite element model and analysis procedure can be use to predict the nonlinear behavior of tooth implant

Comparing the Economic Impact of an Export Shock in Two Modeling Frameworks

Because of more restrictive assumptions on regional input-output (IO) models compared to computable general equilibrium (CGE) models, the literature agrees IO results are intuitively consistent with long run equilibrium but otherwise overestimated. We compare the results of IO and CGE models from an exogenous export shock under various labor market constraints and capital closures. Consistent with the literature, we find the IO model's results do not match those of the CGE models. But contrary to conventional wisdom, the positive secondary impacts are larger with the CGE models than with the IO model. Furthermore, we find the closest match between direct effects is when the CGE model has short run restrictions. Our finding means that the common view of CGE model results being both lower in estimate and more accurate in the short run than IO models does not universally hold. Thus researchers’ choice of models and interpretation of results need to be more nuanced and cautious than previously thought.input-output, computable general equilibrium, economic impacts, exports

Signal quality measures for unsupervised blood pressure measurement

Accurate systolic and diastolic pressure estimation, using automated blood pressure measurement, is difficult to achieve when the transduced signals are contaminated with noise or interference, such as movement artifact. This study presents an algorithm for automated signal quality assessment in blood pressure measurement by determining the feasibility of accurately detecting systolic and diastolic pressures when corrupted with various levels of movement artifact. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared to a manually annotated reference scoring (RS). Based on visual representations and audible playback of Korotkoff sounds, the creation of the RS involved two experts identifying sections of the recorded sounds and annotating sections of noise contamination. The experts determined the systolic and diastolic pressure in 100 recorded Korotkoff sound recordings, using a simultaneous electrocardiograph as a reference signal. The recorded Korotkoff sounds were acquired from 25 healthy subjects (16 men and 9 women) with a total of four measurements per subject. Two of these measurements contained purposely induced noise artifact caused by subject movement. Morphological changes in the cuff pressure signal and the width of the Korotkoff pulse were extracted features which were believed to be correlated with the noise presence in the recorded Korotkoff sounds. Verification of reliable Korotkoff pulses was also performed using extracted features from the oscillometric waveform as recorded from the inflatable cuff. The time between an identified noise section and a verified Korotkoff pulse was the key feature used to determine the validity of possible systolic and diastolic pressures in noise contaminated Korotkoff sounds. The performance of the algorithm was assessed based on the ability to: verify if a signal was contaminated with any noise; the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of this noise classification, and the systolic and diastolic pressure differences between the result obtained from the algorithm and the RS. 90% of the actual noise contaminated signals were correctly identified, and a sample-wise accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 97.0%, 80.61% and 98.16%, respectively, were obtained from 100 pooled signals. The mean systolic and diastolic differences were 0.37 ± 3.31 and 3.10 ± 5.46 mmHg, respectively, when the artifact detection algorithm was utilized, with the algorithm correctly determined if the signal was clean enough to attempt an estimation of systolic or diastolic pressures in 93% of blood pressure measurements

Intra Uterine Contraceptive Device (I.U.C.D.) Advantages , Side Effects and Complications

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Raman G and D band in strongly photoexcited carbon nanotubes

We observe clear differences in the spectral shift of the Raman D and G bands when heating double wall carbon nanotubes through intense photon irradiation and by varying the temperature in a thermostat. These spectral differences are attributed to modifications of the defect induced double-resonance Raman process, and are consistent with Stokes–anti-Stokes anomalies observed for single and double wall carbon nanotubes, not present in graphite. We find that the Raman intensity for double wall carbon nanotubes increases superlinearly in the red spectral region and sublinearly in the UV spectral region

Zinc plating from alkaline non-cyanide bath

“Alkaline non-cyanide zinc plating baths are preferred when trying to avoid the toxicity of cyanide baths or corrosivity of acid baths. Without additives, alkaline zincate baths produce powdery non-adherent deposits which have no use in commercial plating. Additives must be added at optimum concentrations to produce adherent, bright and uniform zinc deposits. In this study electrochemical tests were used to determine effects of additives on cathodic polarization, throwing power and morphology of deposits. Current density distribution in a unique bath of 37.5 g L-1 Zn and 210 g L-1 NaOH was modelled using COMSOL and validated two plating cells with different geometries”--Abstract, page iv