Review on current issue of clonal banana (Musa sp.) for yield improvement / Noor Maisarah Mohd Noor

Banana (Musa sp.) is one of the largest herbaceous flowering plant and become the fourth most important food crop in the world. The world production of banana was about 99 million tonnes annually which is mostly produced by tropical countries (FAO, 2003). The growth and yield of banana production are declining due to the abiotic and biotic stress. Thus plant tissue culture technology is used to overcome the problem. A review study was done by analyzing previous researchers‟ findings on the most proximate technique for tissue culture of banana. From the review paper, it can be concluded that the culture medium used is Murashige & Skoog (MS) medium with different concentrations of plant growth regulators and supplement. The rates of successful for tissue culture are mostly affected by the optimum value of supplement and plant growth regulator

Computer-Aided Inspection Approach Using 3D Digitizer

An inspection is, most generally, an organized examination or formal evaluation exercise. It involves the measurements, tests, and gauges applied to certain characteristics in regard to an object or activity. This project related to inspection using 3D scanning device, digitizer. Renishaw Cyclone 3D laser digitizer was used to perform a computer-aided inspection on test piece with dome shaped contour with 50mm diameter. Results obtained indicate that the dimensions captured by digitizer deviate range by 0.02 to 0.03mm with an average of 0.026mm. In order to establish more definitive result, further research need to be done to cover various dimensions so as statistical analysis could be done to establish the deviation. Recommendation was given for further improvement

Preliminary study of bandicoot rat population in paddy field, Kedah

Kedah known as the National Granary (Jelapang Padi Negara) as it is the largest rice cultivation and producing state in Malaysia. In terms of rat pest, the rice field rat (Rattus argentiventer) is commonly present in the state and elsewhere. As recent as from five years ago, the greater bandicoot rat (Bandicota indica) is more prominent as attested by local farmers. The greater bandicoot rat (Bandicota indica) is an extant population of rat introduced in northern peninsular Malaysia from Central Asia.They were found to bevicious and resulted in serious pest damage in multi-agriculture lands such as paddy field, wheat fields, and even vegetable farms. However, there is a lack of information and research them in Malaysia. Therefore, a removal sampling technique was used and evaluated according to its assumptions for estimating the absolute densities of greater bandicoot rat (Bandicota indica) in paddy fields in Kedah. The study was conducted during the land preparation stage of the rice field during the dry season. Removal sampling is a method of absolute density estimation based on the decline in successive catch numbers as individuals are abstracted from a population. A linear regression method was used to calculate the density estimate using the removal sampling data

The acceptability of four dimension (4D) virtual construction in Malaysia

The problem of delay in construction industry is a global phenomenon and the construction industry in Malaysia is no exception. In the current day context, despite significant benefits in terms of time and cost savings gained through the systematic use of 4D technologies on construction projects, Malaysia construction industry has yet to embrace this 4D CAD technology. The objective of the study find out the acceptability of 4D planning tool as a to tool to mitigate delays during project control among construction practitioners focusing on the construction phase of project life cycle. Surveys and semi-structured interviews were accomplished on 169 respondents comprising of the clients, local authorities or regulatory bodies, contractors and consultants. The responses obtained indicates that 96.3% acknowledges the application of this new 4D technology as a useful tool with good potential to mitigate delays in relation to visualization, analysis and communication. Based on the outcome of the study, it is recommended that financial and technical support be made available before its actual implementation can be realized. Keywords Malaysian construction industry, 4D, visualization, communication, mitigate dela

Acceptability of Malaysian construction practitioners in adopting 4D

The problem of delay in construction industry is a global phenomenon and the construction industry in Malaysia is no exception. In the current day context, despite significant benefits in terms of time and cost savings gained through the systematic use of 4D technologies on construction projects, Malaysia construction industry has yet to embrace this 4D CAD technology. The aim is to explore the acceptability of 4D as a planning and control tool during construction phase of project life cycle. Surveys and semi-structured interviews were carried out on 169 respondents comprising of the clients, local authorities or regulatory bodies, contractors and consultants. The responses obtained indicate that 96.3% acknowledges the application of this new 4D technology as a useful tool with good potential to mitigate delays especially in relation to visualization, analysis and communication during construction. Based on the outcome of the study, it is recommended that financial and technical support be made available before its actual implementation can be realized. Keywords: Malaysian construction industry, 4D, visualization, communication, mitigate dela

Customer profiling using classification approach for bank telemarketing

Telemarketing is a type of direct marketing where a salesperson contacts the customers to sell products or services over the phone. The database of prospective customers comes from direct marketing database. It is important for the company to predict the set of customers with highest probability to accept the sales or offer based on their personal characteristics or behaviour during shopping. Recently, companies have started to resort to data mining approaches for customer profiling. This project focuses on helping banks to increase the accuracy of their customer profiling through classification as well as identifying a group of customers who have a high probability to subscribe to a long-term deposit. In the experiments, three classification algorithms are used, which are Naïve Bayes, Random Forest, and Decision Tree. The experiments measured accuracy percentage, precision and recall rates and showed that classification is useful for predicting customer profiles and increasing telemarketing sales

KINESICS IN ORAL PRESENTATION: EXPLORING SPEAKING ANXIETY THROUGH NARRATIVE ENQUIRY

Teachers and educators are responsible in promoting effective teaching and learning to ensure intellectual development of the students. For that reason, being able to communicate well is essential for the students’ academic and employability purpose. Hence, it is important for every learner to be equipped with good speaking skill. However, it is common for ESL speakers to experience speaking anxiety which hinders them to communicate well. This study, therefore, explores speaking anxiety that occurs during oral presentation through kinesics. Kinesics provides meaningful information to the listener/audience, in which messages are conveyed through the speakers’ gesture, body movement and facial expression. It was found that speaking anxiety was shown by the speaker through kinesics during an oral presentation. Videos of speakers’ presentation were recorded and narrated to obtain the findings. Results of this study provide useful implication towards ESL teaching and learning

Computer-Aided Inspection Approach Using 3D Digitizer

An inspection is, most generally, an organized examination or formal evaluation exercise. It involves the measurements, tests, and gauges applied to certain characteristics in regard to an object or activity. This project related to inspection using 3D scanning device, digitizer. Renishaw Cyclone 3D laser digitizer was used to perform a computer-aided inspection on test piece with dome shaped contour with 50mm diameter. Results obtained indicate that the dimensions captured by digitizer deviate range by 0.02 to 0.03mm with an average of 0.026mm. In order to establish more definitive result, further research need to be done to cover various dimensions so as statistical analysis could be done to establish the deviation. Recommendation was given for further improvement

Diversity of the insects in the diet of edible nest swiftlets in oil palm plantations

The Edible Nest Swiftlet (Aerodramus fuciphagus) is a small bird from the family Apodidae which is commonly found in the South-East Asian region which characteristically roost and nest in cave or cavern-like situation. Swiftlet farming in specially designed building has recently developed due to high consumer demand for the edible bird nest. The farms are not the natural habitat of the swiflets and there are greater chance that this will affect in one way or the other way of their dietary habit and composition. The focus of this study was to investigate the diversity of insects found in the diet of A. fuciphagus in their habitats in oil palm-growing areas in Malaysia. This was achieved by investigating the relationship between insect composition in oil palm and insect prey composition in the feeding bolus of A. fuciphagus. The most common insects order found in the sampled fields of the three states in the study was Diptera (26.53%) and followed closely by Hymenoptera (21.26%). The difference between the sample sites as far as insects order composition is not significantly different (t test = 3.759 and 2.9). We failed to accept the H0 that the diversity of insect in the fields and diet of the swiftlets in all locations was the same

Comparison of antioxidant properties of tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea), cherry tomato (Solanumly copersicum var. cerasiform) and tomato (Lyopersicon esulentum)

The emerging studies suggest antioxidant may represent an important role in defence against certain diseases outlined the necessity of determining their contents in tamarillo (Cyphomandra betacea), cherry tomato (Solanum lycopersicum var. cerasiforme), and tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum). This study aims to determine the antioxidant capacity, total phenolic content and total flavonoid content in tamarillo, yellow cherry tomato, red cherry tomato, and tomato in 70% ethanol and water extracts. The ethanol extract showed the highest scavenging activity, ferric reducing activity, phenolic and flavonoid contents, whereas, the water extract showed higher value for antioxidant activity in ß-Carotene bleaching assay. Tamarillo showed the highest antioxidant activity (22.92 ± 3.60%, 28.89 ± 3.85%), scavenging activity (44.25 ± 0.82 μg/ml, 47.38 ± 1.11 μg/ml), ferric reducing activity (12.17 ± 0.53 μM Fe (II)/g, 3.72 ± 0.20 μM Fe (II)/g), phenolic content (7.63 ± 0.37 mg GAE/g edible portion, 1.83 ± 0.50 mg GAE/g edible portion) and flavonoid content (6.44 ± 0.16 mg CE/g edible portion, 2.22 ± 0.31 mg CE/g edible portion) in ethanol and water extracts respectively. For ethanol extracts a positive correlations existed (0.66 ≤ r ≥ 0.97) between ferric reducing activity, antioxidant activity, phenolic content and flavonoid content. While, in water extract correlation test revealed a positive correlations between antioxidant activity, ferric reducing activity and phenolic content (0.645 ≤ r ≥ 0.706) and between antioxidant activity and flavonoid content (r = 0.820). In conclusion, tamarillo exhibits the highest antioxidant capacity, phenolic content and also flavonoid content