Estabilidad oxidativa y composición del aceite de semillas de comino negro, irradiadas con microondas, en condiciones de oxidación acelerada

The present work evaluated the impact of microwave pre-treatment on the storage stability, fatty acids and triacylglycerol contents in black cumin seed oil (BCO) during storage at 62 ºC. During storage, the oxidative indicator values (free acidity, peroxide value, p-anisidine value, TOTOX, specific extinctions and thiobarbituric acid) for the oils increased faster in untreated oil samples than in the microwaved samples. The degradation rate of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) and triacylglycerol species (LLL and OLL) during storage were higher in untreated samples compared to treated ones, indicating that oxidation proceeded more slowly in the treated samples. During storage, the generation of hydroperoxides, their degradation and the formation of secondary oxidation products as investigated by FTIR, were lower in the treated oils. In conclusion, microwave pre-treatment prior to oil extraction reduced the oxidative degradation of oil samples, thereby increasing the storage stability of BCO.En el presente trabajo se evaluó el impacto del pretratamiento de las semillas de comino negro con microondas sobre la estabilidad durante el almacenamiento, los ácidos grasos y las especies de triacilgliceroles del aceite de las semillas de comino negro (BCO) durante el almacenamiento a 62 ºC. Durante el almacenamiento de los aceites, los indicadores oxidativos (acidez libre, peróxidos, p-anisidina, TOTOX, extinciones específicas y ácido tiobarbitúrico) aumentaron más rápidamente en los aceites de semillas sin tratar que en los de las muestras tratadas con microondas. La degradación durante el almacenamiento de los ácidos grasos poliinsaturados (PUFA) y las especies de triacilgliceroles (LLL y OLL) fue mayor en las muestras no tratadas en comparación con las tratadas, lo que indica que la oxidación avanzó más lentamente en las muestras tratadas. Durante el almacenamiento, la generación de hidroperóxidos, su degradación y la formación de productos de oxidación secundarios investigados por FTIR, fueron menores en los aceites tratados. En conclusión, el pretratamiento con microondas de las semillas antes de la extracción del aceite redujo la degradación oxidativa de los aceites, lo que aumentó la estabilidad de almacenamiento de BCO

Structural performance evaluation of a precast PSC curved girder bridge constructed using multi-tasking formwork

Recently, advanced transit systems are being constructed to reduce traffic congestions in metropolitan areas. For these projects, curved bridges with various curvatures are required. Many curved bridges in the past were constructed using aesthetically unpleasant straight beams with curved slabs or expensive curved steel box girders with curved slabs. Therefore, many recent studies have been performed to develop less expensive and very safe precast prestressed concrete (PSC) curved girder. One method of reducing the construction cost of a PSC curved girder is to use a reusable formwork that can easily be adjusted to change the curvature and length of a girder. A reusable and curvature/dimension adjustable formwork called Multi-tasking formwork is developed for constructing efficient precast PSC curved girders. With the Multi-tasking formwork, two 40 m precast PSC box girders with different curvatures were constructed to build a two-girder curved bridge for a static flexural test to evaluate its safety and serviceability performance. The static flexural test results showed that the initial cracking load was 1400 kN, exceeding the design cracking load of 450 kN. Also, the code allowed deflection of 50 mm occurred at a load of 1800 kN, verifying the safety and serviceability of the precast PSC curved bridge constructed using the multi-tasking formwork

Prioritization of identified environmental loss factor subject to offshore structure failures based on public perception

Oil spill disturbs an entire ecosystem for a quite long period of time, environment impacted by this event but less attention was drawn due to lack on documentations. This paper presents a study of the past accident related to the offshore oil and gas accident that contribute to environmental loss. It intend to assess the environmental loss quantitatively. Referring to nine cases of the worst offshore accident related to structure failure in the previous years (1969-2011), the cause of failure that contribute to oil spill and environmental loss in the previous cases was identified and categorized based on the environmental loss characteristics. Finally, data collected from the past accident is used to design the questionnaire survey in order to obtain the public perception and analysis is done by using average index of non-parametric test and analytic hierarchy process for prioritization the factor of environmental loss factor. The result shows that water pollution, air pollution, marine animal and fisherman denoted as A1, A2, B1 and C1, respectively, are very important are the most affected factor. Identifying the loss of environmental loss factor is a crucial contribution to the enhancement of the calculation of COF as well as risk assessment

Assessing acceptance of service staff towards employee with disabilty in hotel industry / Nurul’ Aishah@N Zakaria...[et al.]

An issue of employment of disability people in a hotel industry is a prolong issue that discussing on discrimination towards the disability people in the world of employment. This study focuses on the acceptance of service staff toward employee with disability using economic model and social model (Sajid, 2009). The sample for this study was the service staff of hotel in Seberang Perai, Penang that hired disability people. The service staffs consist of male and female aged from 18 to 60 years old from four departments which are food and beverages, front office, housekeeping and kitchen. Questionnaire has been distributed to 86 respondents using Likert scale. The findings of this study identified the service staff accept the people with disability by giving more job opportunity and equal treat among employees (economic model) and able to communicate, work as a team, give cooperation and sharing information each other (social model). However, the service staffs are neither agreeing nor disagree in suggesting the different working area for the disability employee. The results can be used by the Hotel employers in understanding the acceptance of non-disable employees towards disable employees and the relationship between them for better working environment

Cytotoxic carbazole alkaloids from Murraya koenigii (Rutaceae)

Crude extracts and isolated compounds from leaves, stem bark and roots of Murraya koenigii including (1) mahanimbine, (2) girinimbine, (3) murrayacine, (4) murrayanine, (5) murrayafoline A. and (6) 3-methylcarbazole were screened for cytotoxic activity against HL-60 cancer cell lines (human T-promyelocytic leukemia), MCF-7 cancer cell lines (human breast cancer), HT-29 cancer cell lines (human colon cancer) and HeLa cancer cell lines (human cervical carcinoma cancer). The cytotoxic potential of the isolated compounds was determined by using MTT (3-[4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl]-2-5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide) method. Most of the tested samples showed strong activity against four cancer cell lines with IC50 value less than 30 μg/ml

Assessing safety level of UTM campus based on safe city concepts

Safety is an important aspect in today's living, in urban city, residential area, and also in campus area. Several initiatives were introduced to increase the safety level, and to prevent crime from happening in the campus area, known as Safe City Concept. These initiatives included the Safe City Index, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), behavioural model, safe city urban area, safe city of smart city, and resident safety assessment. Some of this initiative focus on urban city area, or residential, besides only focus on crime prevention and not focus on the assessment of safety level for campus area. This study aims to assess the safety level for campus area, with case study of UTM Campus. To assess the safety level, a set 4 indicators, which is crime, environment, public health and emergency response, with 9 sub-indicators was identified in this study. These indicators and sub-indicators used to determine the safety level of campus area based on the Safe City Concept. The analysis used is spatial analysis on the indicator, and using weighted criteria matrix to evaluate safety level for each building in UTM campus. The results show that most the buildings in UTM are in good and high safety level, with 65% of buildings score more than 70%. For buildings was detected with highest score of 95% of safety level, while 3 buildings score lowest percentage of 53.7%.These results indicated that UTM campus area is a safe area, based on the Safe City Concept. These results can help authorities to use these indicators of Safe City Concept to assess the education campus area safety level

Effect of calcination temperature on structure of mesoporous borosilicate bioglass

Recently, most researchers have been focusing on the development of the mesoporous bioactive glasses for medical application. These materials are capable for bone tissue (soft and hard) regeneration and the delivery of bio-responsive active therapeutic molecules such as drug, proteins, nucleic acids, and peptides. However, the structure properties of the mesoporous bioactive glass are easily been controlled with a small change of calcination temperature during the sample preparation. In this perception, a series of mesoporous borosilicate bioactive glasses (MBBGs) with the composition of 10B2O -70SiO2 -15CaO- 5P2O5 were prepared using the combination of sol-gel and evaporation induced self-assembly (EISA) and characterised. The calcination temperature of the bioactive glass preparation was controlled with varied temperature of 400 C, 500 C, 600 C and 700 C. The amorphous nature of the prepared samples were confirmed using XRD pattern. The EDX and FTIR spectra shows a small amount of carbon trapping inside the sample is increases with the increased of calcination temperature. All MBBGs samples show a ratio of Si-O-NBO and Si-O-Si (sym) bigger than 1. It is established that the structure of the mesoporous borosilicate bioactive glass can be tailored by controlling the calcination temperature

The impact of severity of antenatal anaemia on maternal and perinatal outcome in Hospital Serdang, Central Malaysia

Introduction: Anaemia in pregnancy is one of the most common public health issues in developing countries, affecting approximately 60% of pregnant woman worldwide. Severity of antenatal anaemia had been robustly linked with complications in maternal and perinatal outcome. Objective: This study aimed to analyze the relationship of antenatal anaemia with maternal and perinatal outcome among parturient delivering in Hospital Serdang. Materials and method: This retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in a tertiary public hospital in Serdang, Selangor. 473 anaemic mothers were recruited from the electronic medical database by clinical notes and cross-referencing to the datasets of relevant test. All subjects received antenatal oral iron supplementation. Results: Multiparous mother contributed to majority of the anemia cases in pregnancy (60.5%). Out of 473anaemic mother suffering from Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA), 61.3% (n=290) mothers had mild anaemia, 38.5%(n=182), and 0.2% (n=1) mothers had moderate and severe anaemia respectively. A significant association was demonstrated between severity of anaemia with post-partum haemorrhage and small for gestational age. On contrary, severity of maternal anaemia was non-significantly associated with placenta abnormalities, pre-eclampsia and sepsis. Conclusion: Anaemia amongst pregnant women especially multipara imposed a spectrum of health problems to both, mother and child. Prevention is not insurmountable; hence active intervention by all level of health care provider is imperative in order to decrease poor maternal and perinatal outcome

Effect of defect geometries upon burst capacity of composite repaired pipe

Oil and gas pipelines have been used all around the world and becoming more crucial in our daily life. These pipelines are subjected to corrosion and one of the most effective ways for repairing them is using composite wrap. Nevertheless, there are still issues and challenges to be overcome for a more effective design of composite repaired pipelines, which could be further investigated. Defect geometries (depth, width and length) on pipelines can affect the burst pressure that can be sustained by the pipelines. Yet, current standards and practices only account for defect depth in determining minimum thickness of composite wrap required in repairing defective pipelines without considering defect width and length. Thus, the aim of this study is to analyze the effect of defect length and width of composite repaired pipe upon its burst capacity using finite element analysis. A finite element model was created and validated followed by parametric study on the effect of combination defect length and width. For parametric study, a total of seven composite repaired pipe models were created and analyzed. Results showed that as the defect dimension of combinations defect geometries increases, the burst pressure of the composite repaired pipe decreases. The burst pressure between the smallest and largest defect is 31.09% which shows a significant difference. In conclusion, defect geometries are proven greatly affect the burst pressure of the composite repaired pipe and the findings can be used for future studies, in particular to refine the design of the composite pipeline repair practice

The effect of microwave roasting over the thermooxidative degradation of Perah seed oil during heating

The impact of microwave roasting on the thermooxidative degradation of perah seed oil (PSO) was evaluated during heating at a frying temperature (170℃). The roasting resulted significantly lower increment of the values of oxidative indices such as free acidity, peroxide value, p-anisidine, total oxidation (TOTOX), specific extinctions and thiobarbituric acid in oils during heating. The colour L* (lightness. Value dropped gradually as the heating time increased up to 12 h, whereas a*(redness. and b* (yellowness). Tended to increase. The viscosity and total polar compound in roasted PSO was lower as compared to that in unroasted one at each heating times. The tocol retention was also high in roasted samples throughout the heating period. The relative contents of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs. were decreased to 94.42% and saturated fatty acids (SFAs. were increased to 110.20% in unroasted sample, after 12 h of heating. On the other hand, in 3 min roasted samples, the relative contents of PUFAs were decreased to 98.08% and of SFAs were increased to 103.41% after 12 h of heating. Outcome from analyses showed that microwave roasting reduced the oxidative deteriorations of PSO during heating