Environmental Management Systems (EMS) Adoption in Sarawak (Malaysia): Implementation Motivations

Environmental management has been in the process of evolution since Industrial Revolutions of 18th and 19th centuries. And the more recent is the development of international environmental management standards and guidelines to facilitate global trade. These environmental management standards and guidelines are usually known as Environmental Management Systems (EMS). This research investigates the implementation motivations in relation to EMS adoption in Sarawak, Malaysia organizations. Empirical findings of a survey on the above in Sarawak organizations are presented. About 112 survey questionnaires invitations were forwarded to various organizations in Sarawak and a total of 47 responses were received. The results of this research show that among the Sarawak organizations, the top three implementation motivations or benefits from implementing EMS according to their importance by the Sarawak EMS user’s organizations are 1) Legal compliance as the top benefit of EMS implementation; 2) Improvement in operational environmental protection; and 3) Corporate image advantages.Environmental management has been in the process of evolution since Industrial Revolutions of 18th and 19th centuries. And the more recent is the development of international environmental management standards and guidelines to facilitate global trade. These environmental management standards and guidelines are usually known as Environmental Management Systems (EMS). This research investigates the implementation motivations in relation to EMS adoption in Sarawak, Malaysia organizations. Empirical findings of a survey on the above in Sarawak organizations are presented. About 112 survey questionnaires invitations were forwarded to various organizations in Sarawak and a total of 47 responses were received. The results of this research show that among the Sarawak organizations, the top three implementation motivations or benefits from implementing EMS according to their importance by the Sarawak EMS user’s organizations are 1) Legal compliance as the top benefit of EMS implementation; 2) Improvement in operational environmental protection; and 3) Corporate image advantages

Effect of Ceramic Dust as Partial Replacement of Cement on Lightweight Foamed Concrete

Disposal of waste into the landfill causes a severe impact on the environment. One of the waste products is ceramic waste. Ceramic waste has some excellent properties in its durability, hardness, and highly resistant to biological, chemical, and physical degradation forces. These excellent properties of the ceramic waste may make it suitable to be used in concrete. This study investigates the effect on the compressive strength of lightweight foamed concrete with different percentage of ceramic dust replacement level towards the cement and three different levels of water-cement ratio. 0%, 5%, 15%, and 25% of replacement level with 0.52, 0.56, and 0.60 water-cement ratios respectively for each replacement level was used as the parameter to investigate the fresh properties, and strength performance of lightweight foamed concrete. The stability and consistency of every mix are studied as well. From this study, it was observed that the incorporation of ceramic waste dust partially replaced the cement did not affect on the fresh properties of the foamed concrete. However, the compressive strength of foamed concrete affected by ceramic waste dust partially replaced the cement

Unraveling the nuclear and chloroplast genomes of an agar producing red macroalga, Gracilaria changii (Rhodophyta, Gracilariales)

Agar and agarose have wide applications in food and pharmaceutical industries. Knowledge on the genome of red seaweeds that produce them is still lacking. To fill the gap in genome analyses of these red algae, we have sequenced the nuclear and organellar genomes of an agarophyte, Gracilaria changii. The partial nuclear genome sequence of G. changii has a total length of 35.8 Mb with 10,912 predicted protein coding sequences. Only 39.4% predicted proteins were found to have significant matches to protein sequences in SwissProt. The chloroplast genome of G. changii is 183,855 bp with a total of 201 open reading frames (ORFs), 29 tRNAs and 3 rRNAs predicted. Five genes: ssrA, leuC and leuD CP76_p173 (orf139) and pbsA were absent in the chloroplast genome of G. changii. The genome information is valuable in accelerating functional studies of individual genes and resolving evolutionary relationship of red seaweeds

A Comparative Study of Deep Learning Model and Simple Prediction Charts in Construction Noise Prediction

Construction noise monitoring is crucial to assess the impacts of construction noise on the workers and surroundings. However, the existing noise prediction methods are time-consuming in which required laborious work for the computation of noise levels. This study aims to assess the accuracy and reliability of deep learning model (DL) that adopted stochastic modelling and artificial neural network (ANN) in construction noise prediction. The artificial neural network was trained with the output of stochastic modelling. The outcome of noise level prediction using simple prediction chart (SPC) and DL model was discussed and compared to 3 case studies. The case studies were conducted at construction sites located in Semenyih, Selangor, Malaysia. The results of DL model showed high accuracy of predicted noise levels along with an absolute difference of less than 2.3 dBA. Besides, the predicted noise levels are reliable as the R-squared value is higher than 0.992. On that account, DL model is proved to be reliable and accurate in noise level prediction and it has the potential to be utilized as a managerial tool to monitor construction noise more effectively

Dimensional Stability of Lightweight Foamed Concrete Containing Eggshell Powder and Calcium Stearate

In order to reduce eggshell (ES) waste and reduce utilization of pure cement, various researches were conducted to study effects of eggshell powder (ESP) on properties of concrete when it partially replaces ordinary Portland cement (OPC). Dimensional stability is one of the properties that related to cracking issue and soundness of concrete, and it is generally guided by movement of moisture. This study was conducted to study the sorptivity, initial surface absorption, and dimensional stability of lightweight foamed concrete (LFC) that containing eggshell powder and calcium stearate (CS), where, replacement level (RL) of eggshell powder ranged from 0% to 10% at interval of 2.5%, and additional of 1% calcium stearate as cement mass applied for the mixture containing 0% and 5% eggshell powder. The result shows that eggshell powder improves sorptivity, initial surface absorption, and dimensional stability of lightweight foamed concrete and the optimal replacement level is 5%. The result also shows that calcium stearate significantly improves these properties, regardless that incorporation of eggshell powder in the mixture containing calcium stearate might slightly deteriorate these properties. Besides, based on the results, improved sorptivity and initial surface absorption result in increased magnitude of shrinkage as the specimen has lower ability to absorb water for expansion throughout the testing period

Agar properties of Gracilaria species (Gracilariaceae, Rhodophyta) collected from different natural habitats in Malaysia

The yield and quality of agar from Gracilaria species collected from distinct natural habitats (mangrove swamp, rocky shore, sandy mudflat) along the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia were evaluated in this study. The agar content was found to be significantly higher in G. changii and G. edulis growing in the mangrove swamp, while the lowest agar content was recorded for G. changii and G. edulis collected from the sandy mudflat. Higher agar gel strength was obtained from the three Gracilaria species collected from the mangrove swamp compared to those that live in the sandy mudflat and rocky shore. The intraspecific variations found in gelling temperature were well correlated with the trend of changes in agar gel strength, except for G. changii collected from the sandy mudflat and rocky shore. The intraspecific and interspecific variations of agar melting temperature did not show a consistent trend for all Gracilaria species tested. The agars of Gracilaria spp. collected from the rocky shore showed a significantly higher gel syneresis while the lowest gel syneresis was recorded for the agars of samples collected from the mangrove swamp, except for the agars of G. salicornia from different habitats which showed no difference. In conclusion, the mangrove swamp is a natural habitat which produces Gracilaria with good agar properties, in terms of agar yield, gel strength and gel hysteresis, thus it can be considered as a potential site for seaweed farming and mariculture for the agar industry in Malaysia

WeeliciousCuisine quick response (QR)

This paper attempts to create a WeeliciousCuisine quick respond (QR) code content which including some guideline video to guide the users on how to use this product and also providing some recipe to teach them how to used and how to made a complete dishes.The target of audience ages are in seventeen to twenty five years old.Besides that, it also aim for the restaurants, shops and bars to provide them a better understanding of how the products have been use as to improve the services of the tourism industry as this application provides the useful information related to the products or ingredients that required by the foreigners, so the users can get the right ingredients in overseas for example, Malaysia.Research conducted by using the descriptive statistics and result shown more than 58% respondents are still not familiar with Quick respond code but more than a half respondents are interested to know more about Quick respond code and requested to improve their content on food and beverage.In conclusion, WeeliciousCuisine Quick Response (QR) is a system that helps user to have a quick look and learn how to cook in short time.The function of this system is to prevent users for choosing the wrong ingredients and also help them to save time and cost in the supermarket

Effect of fermented fruits on the growth performance, shedding of Enterobacteriaceae and Lactobacilli in post-weaning pigs

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of fermented fruits (FF) on the growth performance, Enterobacteriaceae and Lactobacillus counts in faeces of the post-weaning piglets. A total of twenty-four 4 weeks old LandracexLarge WhitexDuroc with initial body weight of 6 kg were used in this study. The piglets were housed individually in metabolic cage and randomly assigned to four groups with six piglets per group. The piglets were fed on basal diet without antibiotic (AF), basal diets with antibiotic (Ab), basal diet with 10% (w/w) fermented fruit (10% FF) and basal diet with 20% (w/w) fermented fruit (20% FF). Faecal samples were taken directly from the rectum of each piglet and cultured for Enterobacteriaceae and Lactobacillus counts. In the growth performance, the piglets of Ab and 10%FF had significantly higher (p0.05) were observed between AF, Ab and 10%FF. Studies showed that the use of fermented fruits (FF) could significantly (p<0.05) reduce Enterobacteriaceae population in piglets' faeces compared to the use of normal feed (AF) and antibiotic (Ab). However, the Lactobacillus population in the faeces was increased in those piglets fed with diets added with FF