Intraspecific Resource Partitioning By Hampala Macrolepidota (Van Hasselt) In Lotic And Lentic Environment Of Kenyir Reservoir, Malaysia

A study of Intraspecific Resource Partitioning on a tropical sport fish 'Side bar barb' Hampala macrolepidota van Hasselt, was carried out in lotic and lentic habitat at Kenyir Reservoir, Terengganu, Malaysia. Physico-chemical regimes of Kenyir Reservoir were also studied to determine the species ecological requirements. The water quality data showed that Kenyir Reservoir is suitable for fish culture. The most vital ecological factors, temperature and dissolved oxygen levels, were within the acceptable range for fish until 10.0 m depth. Waterlevel and rain fall both showed significant (P<.05) effects on the availability of fish in both habitats. A significant difference (P<. 05) of fish abundance have been observed in different depths of both habitat. Medium and large size fishes were ubiquitous in the study area. In the lotic habitat, medium and larger size fishes mostly used pool and riffle zones as their macrohabitat, whereas smaller size fishes preferred the rapid zone. In the lentic habitat, medium and large size fishes were found mostly around the submerged trees of the littoral area. Significantly, higher proportion (P<. 05) of larger fish were available in the lotic than in the lentic habitat throughout the season. In lotic habitat cobble, boulder and bedrock were predominantly used as substrate by small, medium and large size fishes respectively, whereas sand and clay were predominantly used by medium and large size in lentic habitat. Openwater area had remarkably less density of fish and availability of all sizes in both littoral and open water showed significant difference (P<.0 5).Habitat overlap values responsible for diet variation and food partitioning that evolved according to both temporal and ontogenic trends indicated that different size classes reduce spatial overlap by occupying different habitats and among depths within habitat. Segregation of sexes (aws < aw ) indicated that overlap within a habitat may be reduced by spatial separation of sexes. Niche breadth (Bi < 2) indicated that all size of Hampala macrolepidota appeared to be extreme specialist feeders. Occurrence of food partitioning was not found extensively between size classes of Hampala macrolepidota in Kenyir Reservoir. Diet overlap aw quantifying the sharing of food resources between the different size classes and high dietary overlap (aw >.6 0) between them indicates biological significance

Evolution of human from primates - A review on religio-scientific discourse

The term evolution is the self-modification by any organism to adapt to the changes to their living environment. For many decades, arguments were put forth by scientists to refute the religious beliefs on divinely creation of creatures especially humans. Though, to some extent, the process of evolution is true due to interbreeding efficiency of living organisms, the single ancestral lineage from unicellular to complex multicellular organisms is still under debate among the researchers and also between scientists and theologists. Many arguments were placed by both the groups to prove/refute the existence and continuous process of evolution. However, concrete scientific evidence to prove the evolution of human from primates (immediate ancestral lineage) is still questionable. Numerous scientific articles and books attempted to address this issue put forth by scientific and religious communities. However, they failed to address the connection and turning point in arguments between scientific and religious communities. Hence, the present paper was aimed to review the view point of both pro-evolutionists and arguments given by the religio-scientific community to answer the misconception on primate-human evolution. It also addresses the purpose of human creation in line with the arguments from philosophers and theologist

Storage stability of fish oil from Langkawi Island, Malaysia

Fish oils extracted from 6 species of marine fin fish caught from Pulau Tuba area, near Langkawi Island, a famous tourism destination in Malaysia, were evaluated for their oxidative stability during storage at both -27 and 4°C. The five fish species were “kerisi” (threadfin breams,sScomberomorus commersoni), “kerapu” (groupers, Cynoglossus lingua), “kembong” (Indian mackerel, Psettodes crumei), “gelama kling” (drum-croaker-jewfish, Pristipomodes typus), and “tinggiri batang” (Spanish mackerels, Scolidon sorrakowah). Results showed that stability of oils stored at -27°C was better than that of oils stored at 4°C. Iodine value (IV) of oils decreased during storage, while other parameters, namely peroxide value (PV), anisidine value (AnV), acid value (AV) and thiobarbituric acid (TBA) value increased. However, the rate of quality deterioration of oil samples was relatively low, as shown by very little changes in fatty acid profiles of the oil, meaning that both storage temperatures might be used for storage purposes of fish oil

Islamic ethics of waste management towards sustainable environmental health

Islam is a religion that prescribes a way of life that goes beyond the rituals. It provides a holistic guide to human beings in almost every aspect of life in this world. However, the modernization and economic growth have taken the leads in the society governance and therefore tarnished some of the Muslim society’s perceptions on the holistic guidance of Islamic teachings. One of the consequences was readily displayed through attitudes and inefficient waste management practice of the majority of the Islamic country that lead to the environmental health problem. The paper discusses the existing waste management practice and positive roles of true Islamic understanding through the Qur’an and the Sunnah in terms of avoiding wasteful consumption and manners of cleanliness to resolve global environmental health problem caused by poor waste management

Macrobenthic community at nesting grounds of horseshoe crabs (Tachypleus gigas and Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda) at Pahang Coast, Malaysia

Macrobenthos consists of the organisms that live at the bottom of the water column and are visible to the naked eye (usually >0.5mm in size) 2.About 80% of the benthic organisms are Epifauna that are living on or are attached to the surface of rocky areas or firm sediments play an important role in ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling, pollutant metabolism, dispersion and burial, and in secondary production 3.Macro invertebrate species offers a spectrum of responses to environmental stresses and a broad range of responses to different pollutants 4.The food preferences of horseshoe crabs are well studied from the wild environment while the similar studies are still scanty along their nesting groun

Sewage monitoring system based on artificial intelligence

In order to avoid the problems of unstable water quality and high treatment cost caused by manual control of operators in wastewater treatment process, it is proposed to design and develop an intelligent wastewater monitoring system. According to the characteristics of numerous sewage treatment devices and unstable control indexes, the soft sensing technology of dissolved oxygen (DO) concentration is combined with computer automatic control technology to design intelligent monitoring scheme of sewage treatment process. The overall structure and function of the system are given, the control software, DO concentration soft measurement module and operation guidance are introduced, which lays a foundation for the concrete implementation of the system. The results show that the intelligent monitoring scheme and the aeration control method based on DO concentration soft measurement are applied to the sewage treatment field, and the hardware integration design and software configuration development are completed. The man-machine interface designed is intuitive and friendly, and the operation is convenient. After field installation and debugging, it is successfully operated in a sewage treatment plant, making the removal rate of effluent impurities reach the expected goal and achieve obvious economic benefits. Therefore, it is of great scientific significance and application value to strengthen the research and application of intelligent control of sewage treatment system in China

Time series data intelligent clustering algorithm for landslide displacement prediction

The traditional time series data clustering for landslide displacement prediction is based on Euclidean distance measure. The time series data is clustered by distance calculation of two vectors. The correlation between components is not considered. The multiple components with single feature will interfere with the clustering results, and the accuracy of clustering results is greatly reduced. To address this problem, an intelligent clustering algorithm for time series data in landslide displacement prediction based on nonlinear dynamic time bending is proposed in this paper. By reconstructing the phase space of the landslide displacement time series, the phase space transposed matrix is obtained as the time series reconstruction matrix. After embedding dimension processing, the time series of landslide displacement is predicted by SVM data mining model. Dynamic time warping calculation is based on the correlation of time series sequence and the components. The local optimal solution is obtained by recursive search, and the whole curve path is obtained. Clustering calculation of time series data set is carried out by using hierarchical clustering algorithm according to bending path. The intelligent clustering results of time series data in landslide displacement prediction is obtained. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better clustering effect and higher clustering accuracy

Macrobenthic diversity and community composition in the Pahang Estuary, Malaysia

The Pahang estuary is known to be one of the most productive natural ecosystems in Malaysia and provides food for a variety of organisms. Unfortunately, many species are increasingly threatened there because of declining conditions in natural aquatic ecosystems. Macrobenthic community composition has been extensively used to determine the quality of the aquatic environment for a long time. The Pahang estuary is undergoing poor conditions in water quality and riverbank vegetation because of sand dredging and other human activities. These activities prove the greatest threats to habitat loss, degradation of water quality, and declining indigenous fish population. Based on the above perspectives, a study was conducted on microbenthic and community along with benthic organisms in the Pahang estuary,Malaysia. The study was divided into three zones. Zone 1 was identified as low in diversity of the microbenthic community in Pahang estuary with the diversity index (H0) of 0.35; only polychaete worms and bivalves were identified from this area. Polychaete represented by Neries sp. bivalve class was represented by Yoldia sp. in this zone. For Zone 2, the number and types of benthic communities were low because of human disturbance, but they still exist because of detritus that acts as food and habitat provided by the mangrove. This area was identified as a lowest diversity index of macrobenthos (polychaete, bivalves, and gastropods) with the value of 0.31. The diversity index for Zone 3 was highest among all three zones, with the diversity index of 0.38 along with three classes of macrobenthos, which were polychaete, bivalves, and gastropods. Polychaete was represented by Neries sp., bivalves by Yoldia sp., and gastropods by Nassarius sp., respectively. The lower diversity of the macrobenthic community reveals the alarming conditions of the Kuala Pahang because of massive human disturbances along the Pahang estuary. Long-term monitoring for species diversity is necessary for the sustainable development of aquatic resources in this fascinating tropical estuary