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

Integrasi Nilai Islami dan Budaya Aceh Berdasarkan Kurikulum Karakter

Indonesia covers a wide area that is usually called ‘dari Sabang sampai Merauke\u27 (from Sabang in westernmost point to Merauke to easternmost point) as mentioned in lyrics of a national folk song sang by students from elementary to high school. In its thousand islands live communities speaking various languages, living different cultures, characters and traditions that have become ethnical identities. The education and culture in a community are implemented from older to younger generations within a wide range of time and preserved well by the descendants. Indonesian characters are identical with oriental culture where people usually live in groups, mutual cooperation (‘gotong royong\u27), helpful and religious. Religion, education, culture, and tradition become basic norms is human society that have to be preserved and improved by individual, family, communities, and government to live peacefully. Aceh province, who has implemented Islamic law called sharia since a decade ago, have various art performances, languages, folk dance, traditional costume, and traditional foods that represent Aceh Islamic tradition that is harmonious with its slogan Mecca\u27s Veranda (Serambi Mekkah). The effort to implement character\u27s based curriculum in all schools in Aceh is a good chance to raise children to become adult that have moral ground and intelligent who understand technology and faith in facing globalization. By integrating religious and traditional values in education, we are expecting the students to have those good life skills in living social life in Islamic way

Constructivist Approach to Learning Activity: The Case of Junior Secondary Students’ Misconception on the Three States of Matter in Basic Science, Nigeria

The paper focuses on the misconceptions of students on the states of matter and suggests the need for scienceteachers to adopt the 7E model in order to reduce these misconceptions and promote students’ learning. The paperdevelops and proposes a learning activity based on a systematic review of scholarly articles, thesis, and curriculumthat investigated the subject matter. The 7E model consists of phases such as elicit, engage, explore, explain,elaborate, evaluate, and extend. The researchers prepared a specific lesson plan on identifying the properties andstructures of states of matter using the 7Es learning cycle specifying the teacher’s activities and the correspondingstudents’ activities. The 7E model is recommended for teaching states of matter based on studies that found theapproach to be effective in helping students eliminate scientific misconception and improve understanding

Crosstalk improvement of polymer in glass thermo-optical multimode interference switch

A new structural design of combined variable optical attenuator (VOA) and optical switch has been proposed in this paper. The design is based on the multimode interference (MMI) architecture and it has been demonstrated for crosstalk improvement of optical switch. The device operates by manipulating thermo-optic (TO) effect that naturally existed in all optical waveguide material. By applying a polymer on glass material platform, the optimized VOA with optical attenuation of 21.52 dB has been achieved with applied power of 36.4 mW. The simulation result shows that the VOA helps to achieve significant improvements of optical switch performance particularly in crosstalk reduction up to 89.66%

Electroless plating of moisture-curable polyurethane undercoating films

The compatibility of using moisture-curable polyurethane (MCPU) system as a thin undercoating layer with electroless plating process was evaluated. The characteristics of the MCPU before and after chemical etching treatment were analyzed using atomic force microscope (AFM), scanning electrode microscope (SEM), contact-angle measurements, and (Fourier-Transform Infrared) FTIR spectroscopy. We found that surface morphology and roughness of the MCPU is affected by curing period and etching times. A proper combination of curing period and etching times are critical for obtaining a fully metallized surface. All MCPU samples that were etched for 15 min show poor plating performance due to surface damage caused by mild etching treatment. A standard pull-off testing method (ASTM 4541) was used to evaluate the adhesion strength of nickel–MCPU. Only samples that were postcured for 4 days show influence of surface roughness on adhesion strength. On average, samples that were postcured for 7 days before electroless plating showed better adhesion of nickel–MCPU compared with samples that were postcured for 2 or 4 days. The results show that MCPU system can be used as a thin undercoating layer for electroless plating. It also offers smooth metal–polymer interface and therefore has the potential to be exploited for use in many electroless plating applications including in the decorative such as ornaments and display items and also in electronic industries

Sumber Alternatif Vanila.

Seringkali kita melihat ibu di rumah membuat kuih-muih menggunakan pelbagai jenis perisa dalam masakannya. Pelbagai perisa boleh dipilih di pasaran untuk melazatkan sajian. Salah satu perisa yang boleh dianggap popular ialah vanila

Elements of Community Capacity Building (CCB)for 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

Development of portable magnetic clampingfor lathe machine

Chuck is a device used to clamp any material that operates with the turning of the machine and it is connected to the headstock spindle of the lathe. However, the limitation is that the thickness of the workpiece must not be less than the area of clamping on the chuck. In this a new magnetic clamping for attaching and detaching the workpiece on the chuck and is able to clamp small and thin workpieces is developed. The chuck is made by using mild steel and has a few intercepts with brass. Magnetic mechanism is placed in the chuck. Several cutting processes were done with the convectional chuck and the magnetic clamping on a different thickness of workpiece. Next, all the workpieces were tested with several parameters on specimen and perform surface roughness testing to compare and finalize the effectiveness of the magnetic clamping. From the obtained result, the use of the magnetic clamping produces much better result of surface roughness on thin workpiece. Thus, using magnetic clamping as the clamping method for thin workpiece is much effective in turning machine

Analytical study of flexible stimulation waveforms in muscle fatigue reduction

This paper presents the analytical study of flexible stimulation waveforms in muscle fatigue reduction for functional electrical stimulator (FES)-assisted hemiplegic muscle activities. The major challenge of muscle contraction induced by FES is early muscle fatigue which greatly limits activities such as FES-assisted standing and walking. The fixed stimulation pattern applied on a same motor unit has resulted the motor unit to be overworked and fatigue easily. Therefore, in this work, the stimulus parameters, which include the pulse width duration and the frequency were varied to create a few flexible stimulation waveforms using MATLAB/Simulink. The pulse width duration was modulated from 100µs – 500µs to generate five types of flexible stimulation waveforms such as Rectangular, Trapezoidal, Ramp Up, Ramp Down and Triangular. Concurrently, a few ranges of stimulus frequency were also used, which include 20Hz, 30Hz and 50Hz. The generated flexible stimulation waveforms were applied onto a humanoid muscle model to investigate and analyse the muscle output response and early muscle fatigue reduction. From the conducted simulation results and analyses, it was observed that flexible stimulation waveforms such as Triangular, Ramp Up and Ramp Down could reduce early muscle fatigue phenomenon by having lower average of negative slope, in the range of 0.012 to 0.013 for the muscle fitness. In contrast, the Rectangular and Trapezoidal shapes were found to have higher negative slope of muscle fitness in the range of 0.028 to 0.031. The Ramp Down shape was found to have the lowest average of negative slope (0.012) while Rectangular was found to have the highest average of negative slope (0.031). Therefore, it can be concluded that flexible stimulation waveforms such Ramp Down, Ramp Up and Triangular shapes could reduce early muscle fatigue phenomenon with Ramp Down shape having the highest muscle fatigue reduction

The influences of melt-compounding parameters on the tensile properties of low filler loading of untreated-MWCNTs polypropylene (PP) nanocomposites.

This study is to investigate the effects of addition self synthesised multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), to the final properties of polypropylene (PP) matrix nanocomposites. The influences of melt blending parameters were evaluated, where the interrelationship between the temperatures of compounding and roller rotor speed of sh earing blade parameter, to the tensile properties of fabricated composites were studied. MWCNT was synthesised in the laboratory scale; by using the floating catalyst chemical vapour deposition(FC-CVD) method. Pre-compounding work is begun with de-agglomeration of MWCNT which carried out by combining the ultrasonication and mechanical stirrer means simultaneously. Carbon nanotubes produced was first verified by using SEM and TEM imaging microscopy t echniques. It was later integrated with the thermoplastic PP matrix, via melt blending process through internally mixing approach. Very low weight percentage of chemically untreated MWCNT (0, 0.25, 0.50, 0.75 & 1.00 wt. %) was added into PP and later was compression moulded to the thin sheet of composites film. Composites were prepared by varying the compounding temperature into three processing temperature namely 165, 175 & 185°C and also into three shearing speed of roller rotor blade, 40, 60 & 80 rpm respectively. Later, it was mechanically tested via tensile testing following the ASTM D-638 standard method. The interrelationship between each parameter of compounding to the mechanical tensile properties was tested. It was shown that, the additional of very low loading of untreated-MWCNT filler content, does give moderate effects on reinforcement to the tensile properties of composite. Different compounding parameter gives significant difference to the pattern of plot which was comparable between each other