Used cooking oil as a source for biodiesel blend

With the depleted world petroleum reserves and increase demand for oil as a fuel, it has become imperative to investigate the possibility of using non-fossil fuel as an alternative fuel for diesel engine. Therefore, this paper describes the experimental investigation on possibility of producing biodiesel from used cooking oil and their properties, characteristics and performance as a blended biodiesel for diesel engine at constant speed. Properties analysis of biodiesel from used cooking oil in accordance to the ASTM D6751 specification showed that it fulfilled the requirements of a biodiesel fuel specification. Comparison also conducted between the ordinary diesel as a standard fuel and several set of blended biodiesel range from I% to 5% volume of biodiesel. The properties of blended biodiesel were not much different to the properties of conventional diesel fuel except the density and specific gravity. The density of diesel is 0.8358 gm/cc and the biodiesel is 0.8723 gm/cc. For blended biodiesel, it's slightly increased from 0.8363 gm/cc for I% to 0.8385 gm/cc for 5%. The results from Detroit Deisel Engine performance test showed that the blending fuel sample produced almost the same performance characteristics as compared to conventional diesel. As a result, blended biodiesel with used cooking oil is suitable to be used up to 5% as a fuel for diesel engine at constant speed and gives the same engine performances as conventional diesel fue

MRI brain classification using support vector machine

The field of medical imaging gains its importance with increase in the need of automated and efficient diagnosis in a short period of time. Other than that, medical image retrieval system is to provide a tool for radiologists to retrieve the images similar to query image in content. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is an imaging technique that has played an important role in neuroscience research for studying brain images. Classification is an important part in retrieval system in order to distinguish between normal patients and those who have the possibility of having abnormalities or tumor. In this paper, we have obtained the feature related to MRI images using discrete wavelet transformation. An advanced kernel based techniques such as Support Vector Machine (SVM) for the classification of volume of MRI data as normal and abnormal will be deployed

Determination of effective diffusion coefficient of immobilized Baker's yeast invertase in various concentration of PVA-alginate matrix

Baker's yeast invertase is immobilized in PVA-alginate matrix using an improved method. PVA beads were prepared by adding calcium alginate to improve its stability, mechanical and chemical properties. Boric acid was used as the cross-linking agent and additional chemicals consisting of 10% boric acid and sodium sulphate solution was used as a treatment solution to harden the PVA-alginate beads. The determination of the effective diffusion of PVA-alginate matrix the vital step in optimizing the preparation of immobilized and water-soluble biocatalyst. In this study the two-level full factorial design was used to investigate the effect of PVA and boric acid concentrations and diffusions coefficient. Diffusion coefficient (De) is one of the factors that significantly affect the mass transport within the immobilization matrix. De value varies for each concentration of PVA and boric acid. The result concluded that both factors significantly affect the De. A maximum De value of 5.0141 x 10(-5) cm2s-1 was obtained at boric acid and PVA concentraion of 7w/v and 10.5 w/v respectively

Feasibility study on utilization of palm fibre waste into fired clay brick

Malaysia is the second largest of palm oil producer after Indonesia, which contribute to 50 % of palm oil production. With this demand, the increasing of palm oil plantation over the years has led to the large production of agricultural waste, for example palm fibre waste. This study investigates different percentages of palm fibre (0 %, 1 %, 5 % and 10 %) to be incorporated into fired clay brick. Manufactured bricks were fired at 1 °C/min heating rate up to 1050 °C. The effects of manufacture bricks on the physical and mechanical properties of manufactured brick were also determined. All brick samples were tested due to the physical and mechanical properties which include dry density, firing shrinkage, initial rate of suction (IRS), water absorption, porosity and compressive strength. Findings show that increasing palm fibre waste affected the properties of brick, which decreased their density, besides increased firing shrinkage, IRS, water absorption, porosity and compressive strength. However, all the manufactured brick still followed the requirement

Subcritical and supercritical fluid extraction a critical review of its analytical usefulness

Subcritical R134a is suggested as a low-pressure alternative to supercritical CO2 in the supercritical fluid extraction technology in particular of palm oil application. Therefore, a measurement of solubility of palm oil in subcritical Rl34a will be carried out at temperatures of 40, 60, 70 and 80°C and pressures up to 300 bar. The solubility of carotene are also will be measured using UV Spectrophotometer. Results obtained from this study will be compared with the previous work and for the first time, simulation for the SFE process of palm oil will be performed using Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and it will be implemented in comparisons as well when the operating conditions of the previous findings are different from this study. It is expected that the solubility of the palm oil in subcritical Rl34a is much higher than SC-C02, and it is expected that R134a could be a viable alternative solvent to supercritical carbon dioxide as R134a could be perform well at a lower pressure used whereas can achieved a higher solubility compared to SC-C0

A bridgeless Cuk PFC converter

A bridgeless Power Factor Correction (PFC) circuit based on Cuk converter is proposed in this paper. The operation during each sub-interval modes of the converter operated in Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) is discussed. The smallsignal and large signal models are presented using Current Injected Equivalent Circuit Approach (CIECA). PLECS/Simulink is used to verify the capability of the proposed converter to regulate the output voltage while the input current regulation is inherent. This converter is capable to operate in universal input voltage condition

Sticker systems over monoids

Molecular computing has gained many interests among researchers since Head introduced the first theoretical model for DNA based computation using the splicing operation in 1987. Another model for DNA computing was proposed by using the sticker operation which Adlemanused in his successful experiment for the computation of Hamiltonian paths in a graph: a double stranded DNA sequence is composed by prolonging to the left and to the right a sequence of (single or double) symbols by using given single stranded strings or even more complex dominoes with sticky ends, gluing these ends together with the sticky ends of the current sequence according to a complementarity relation. According to this sticker operation, a language generative mechanism, called a sticker system, can be defined: a set of (incomplete) double-stranded sequences (axioms) and a set of pairs of single or double-stranded complementary sequences are given. The initial sequences are prolonged to the left and to the right by using sequences from the latter set, respectively. The iterations of these prolongations produce “computations” of possibly arbitrary length. These processes stop when a complete double stranded sequence is obtained. Sticker systems will generate only regular languages without restrictions. Additional restrictions can be imposed on the matching pairs of strands to obtain more powerful languages. Several types of sticker systems are shown to have the same power as regular grammars; one type is found to represent all linear languages whereas another one is proved to be able to represent any recursively enumerable language. The main aim of this research is to introduce and study sticker systems over monoids in which with each sticker operation, an element of a monoid is associated and a complete double stranded sequence is considered to be valid if the computation of the associated elements of the monoid produces the neutral element. Moreover, the sticker system over monoids is defined in this study

Integrating vocational training in culinary arts and Islamic studies at juvenile rehabilitation centres: Malaysian experience

The Juvenile Rehabilitation Centres (JRC) in Malaysia aims to provide shelter, counselling and skills training to juveniles specifically for those who wish to transform themselves from the regrettable misdeeds they have committed. At JRCs, an integrated Culinary Vocational Training and Islamic education forms part of their training curriculum. The skills acquired should enable trainees to secure jobs upon completion of training. However, there are some training institutions that lack systematic training structures resulting in trainees becoming less skilful in both vocational and Islamic education. The objective of this research is to identify the effectiveness of an integrated Culinary and Islamic Education curriculum implemented at JRCs in Malaysia. This is a descriptive survey and data was obtained using questionnaire and interview. Respondents comprised 92 trainees, four managers, four culinary trainers and four Islamic education teachers, all from four different JRCs. The findings show that the trainees are happy with their trainings that brought about positive effects for them. Some suggestions have been made to provide improvements in the implementation of the course among them the inclusion of prayers in the Islamic education syllabus

Future Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) development

Ecotourism is an alternative form of tourism and is usually confused with natural and cultural tourism.CBET is fast becoming a popular biodiversity conservation tool that develops and benefits the local community. Based on the context of conservation theory and practice, Community-Based Ecotourism (CBET) is a form of community-based natural resource management. However, a sustainable CBET development through Community Capacity Building (CCB)programs is not something that it easily achievable. Local community’s capacity varies from one culture to another. It takes a high level of community participation, in order for it to come to a level where the community members themselves are motivated to participate and contribute to the development of the program. This fully qualitative research involved 15 respondents from the community of Kg. Selai, Bekok in Johor, Malaysia. The result show there are five factors that sustained the ecotourism development based for Orang Asli Community in Kg. Selai, namely, existing CBET development, past CBET development, local community participation in planning stage of tourism, local participation in implementation stage of tourism and participation in nature conservation