Water catchment area and management method

Due to critical and obvious effect of the wastewater comes from the industry, agriculture and industrial activity nearby the dam has led to environmental issues in Sembrong dam, Kluang Johor which caused negative impacts to the biological, chemical and physical properties of water river environments. The dam itself contained a large number of algae which caused the blocking of sunlight, could not enter directly to the water surface and it threatening to the aquatic life. The dam also traps sediments, which are crucial for maintaining physical progressions and habitats of the dam. The chapter introduce “G.E.T” formula as management method to overcome the pollution problems. The implementation of “G.E.T” formula is basically to improve the urban environmental condition as key for urban policy and environmental management. Sustainable management and utilisation of resources is a guidance in pursuing the development of agricultural and forestry activity at dam area

The effect of elevation on diversity and abundance of class insecta at Gunung Datuk, Negeri Sembilan

Insect are among the most diverse and ecologically important organisms on the earth, but their diversity and abundance are rarely quantified. The study was set out at Gunung Datuk, Negeri Sembilan with the objective to determine the diversity and abundance of insects and to identify the differences in their distribution of different elevations of Gunung Datuk forest by using the Malaise traps. Overall, a total of 15 orders of insects comprising 1678 individuals were successfully identified. Low and high elevations recorded with both 1027 and 651 individuals collected respectively which belong to 14 orders each. Even though both elevations recorded the same number of orders, but not all orders present at low elevation were present at high elevation. High existence of flowering trees and near to stream water at low elevation make them to have more abundant insect rather than at high elevation. Diptera was found to be the most abundant order at Gunung Datuk forest with the total percentage of 51.97 followed by Hymenoptera (11.17%) and Lepidoptera (9.91%). The least number of individuals collected was Ephmeroptera with only one individual collected respectively. The Shannon Wiener Diversity Index (H’) showed that low elevation had the highest diversity with the value of H’=1.29. Meanwhile, the T-test results showed that both elevations did not differ significantly with P > 0.05. Cluster analysis revealed there were no specific patterns of abundant for insects’ order along the elavational and latitudinal gradient

Diversity and distribution of class insecta from selected area of Tuba Island reserve forest

Insects are ubiquitous and inhabit all types of ecosystems that include island ecosystems. A study on the diversity and distribution of Class Insecta was conducted at a selected forest area in Pulau Tuba using malaise traps. No insect study has been conducted at Pulau Tuba before. Three study sites namely forest fringe, middle forest, and inner forest were chosen. A total of 5883 specimens belonging to seven orders and 106 morphospecies of insects were collected. The orders identified were Blattodea, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Isoptera, and Lepidoptera. Diptera samples were the most found while Blattodea recorded the lowest number recorded. Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index (H’) showed that the inner forest had the highest diversity value with H’ = 0.53, followed by the forest fringe with H’ = 0.44, and the middle forest with H’ = 0.22. The Evenness Index (E’) and Margalef Richness Index (R’) also showed the highest value comes from the inner forest with E’ = 0.28 and R’ = 0.81 respectively. Kruskal-Wallis test showed that there was a significant difference in insect distribution across three study sites where P< 0.05. Overall, this study suggested that the diversity of Class Insecta at Pulau Tuba was low in the three locations confirming the low species richness of insects in the island forest ecosystem

Diversity and distribution of class insecta from selected area of Tuba Island reserve forest

Insects are ubiquitous and inhabit all types of ecosystems that include island ecosystems. A study on the diversity and distribution of Class Insecta was conducted at a selected forest area in Pulau Tuba using malaise traps. No insect study has been conducted at Pulau Tuba before. Three study sites namely forest fringe, middle forest, and inner forest were chosen. A total of 5883 specimens belonging to seven orders and 106 morphospecies of insects were collected. The orders identified were Blattodea, Coleoptera, Diptera, Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, Isoptera, and Lepidoptera. Diptera samples were the most found while Blattodea recorded the lowest number recorded. Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index (H’) showed that the inner forest had the highest diversity value with H’ = 0.53, followed by the forest fringe with H’ = 0.44, and the middle forest with H’ = 0.22. The Evenness Index (E’) and Margalef Richness Index (R’) also showed the highest value comes from the inner forest with E’ = 0.28 and R’ = 0.81 respectively. Kruskal-Wallis test showed that there was a significant difference in insect distribution across three study sites where P< 0.05. Overall, this study suggested that the diversity of Class Insecta at Pulau Tuba was low in the three locations confirming the low species richness of insects in the island forest ecosystem

Artificial neural network modelling of steady state chemical engineering systems

This paper presents the development artificial neural network (ANN) models for three steady state chemical engineering systems, which are 1) a crude oil distillation column for use in real time optimisation, 2) physical properties of palm oil components, and 3) pore size determination for membrane characterization. Although studies on ANN applications in chemical engineering in the literature are more concentrated on utilising dynamic models, there has been an increasing trend for diverse application of ANN to model steady state systems. For the crude oil distillation column standard radial basis function (RBF) gave sufficiently accurate predictions. For the physical properties of palm oil components, a multi layer perceptron (MLP) network model was able to give a much better prediction of the density of trilaurin than a thermodynamic correlation that is based on group contribution method. For pore size determination of an asymmetric membrane, stacked network gave slightly better prediction than the more commonly used single MLP network. On the whole, this study shows that there is high potential for various applications of ANN models in chemical engineering

Process modelling of combined degumming and bleaching in palm oil refining using artificial neural network

Combined degumming and bleaching is the first stage of processing in a modern physical refining plant. In the current practice, the amount of phosphoric acid (degumming agent) and bleaching earth (bleaching agent) added during this process is usually fixed within a certain range. There is no system that can estimate the right amount of chemicals to be added in accordance with the quality of crude palm oil (CPO) used. The use of an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for an improved operating procedure was explored in this process. A feed forward neural network was designed using a back-propagation training algorithm. The optimum network for the response factor of phosphoric acid and bleaching earth dosages prediction were selected from topologies with the smallest validation error. Comparisons of ANN predicted results with industrial practice were made. It is proven in this study that ANN can be effectively used to determine the phosphoric acid and bleaching earth dosages for the combined degumming and bleaching process. In fact, ANN gives much more precise required dosages depending on the quality of the CPO used as feedstock. Therefore, the combined degumming and bleaching process can be further optimised with savings in cost and time through the use of ANN

Assemblage patterns of hymenoptera at different elevations of Gunung Datuk, Rembau / Noor Nasuha Abd Aziz … [et al.]

A study on abundance and diversity of Hymenoptera was conducted in Gunung Datuk, Rembau. Samplings were conducted from November 2014 to February 2015 using six Malaise traps. Three traps were placed at Site 1 at 700m height for high elevation and the remaining traps were placed at Site 2 at 200m height for low elevation. A total number of 221 Hymenopteran were collected which consist of nine families namely Ichneumonidae, Formicidae, Braconidae, Bethylidae, Evaniidae, Tiphiidae, Vespidae, Pompilidae and Apidae. In this study, 93 individuals were obtained from Site 1, comprising nine families and 43 morphospecies while 127 individuals were obtained from Site 2 with nine families and 45 morphospecies. Formicidae was the most dominant family collected from both sites with a total of 104 individuals while the least family recorded was Apidae with only one individual. Shannon’s Weiner Diversity Index (H’) showed Site 1 had the higher diversity value with H’ = 3.17 compared to Site 2 with value H’ = 3.12. For Evenness Index, Site 1 had higher value compared to Site 2 with E’ = 0.84 and E’ = 0.82 respectively. Moreover, for Margalef Richness Index, Site 1 recorded R’ = 9.24 while site two recorded R’ = 9.08 which concluded that Site 1 had higher species richness compared to Site 2. Paired t-test showed that both sites had no significant difference with p>0.05. Overall study showed that the diversity and abundance of Hymenoptera in Gunung Datuk were low since the value of H’ is less than 3.5

Potential of Hollow Glass Microsphere as Cement Replacement for Lightweight Foam Concrete on Thermal Insulation Performance

Global warming can be defined as a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth’s atmosphere. A lot of research work has been carried out to reduce that heat inside the residence such as the used of low density products which can reduce the self-weight, foundation size and construction costs. Foamed concrete it possesses high flow ability, low self-weight, minimal consumption of aggregate, controlled low strength and excellent thermal insulation properties. This study investigate the characteristics of lightweight foamed concrete where Portland cement (OPC) was replaced by hollow glass microsphere (HGMs) at 0%, 3%, 6%, 9% by weight. The density of wet concrete is 1000 kg/m3 were tested with a ratio of 0.55 for all water binder mixture. Lightweight foamed concrete hollow glass microsphere (HGMs) produced were cured by air curing and water curing in tank for 7, 14 and 28 days. A total of 52 concrete cubes of size 100mm × 100mm × 100mm and 215mm × 102.5mm × 65mm were produced. Furthermore, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) were carried out to study the chemical composition and physical properties of crystalline materials in hollow glass microspheres. The experiments involved in this study are compression strength, water absorption test, density and thermal insulation test. The results show that the compressive strength of foamed concrete has reached the highest in 3% of hollow glass microsphere with less water absorption and less of thermal insulation. As a conclusion, the quantity of hollow glass microsphere plays an important role in determining the strength and water absorption and also thermal insulation in foamed concrete and 3% hollow glass microspheres as a replacement for Portland cement (OPC) showed an optimum value in this study as it presents a significant effect than other percentage

Potential of hollow glass microsphere as cement replacement for lightweight foam concrete on thermal insulation performance

Global warming can be defined as a gradual increase in the overall temperature of the earth's atmosphere. A lot of research work has been carried out to reduce the heat inside the residence such as the used of low density products which can reduce the self weight, foundation size and construction costs. Foamed concrete it possesses high flow ability, low self-weight, minimal consumption of aggregate, controlled low strength and excellent thermal insulation properties. This study investigate the characteristics of lightweight foamed concrete where Portland cement (OPC) was replaced by hollow glass microsphere (HGMs) at 0%, 3%, 6%, 9% by weight. The density of wet concrete is 1000 kg/m3 were tested with a ratio of 0.55 for all water binder mixture. Lightweight foamed concrete hollow glass microsphere (HGMs) produced were cured by air curing and water curing in tank for 7, 14 and 28 days. A total of 52 concrete cubes of size 100mm x 100mm x 100mm and 215mm x102.5mm x 65mm were produced. Furthermore, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) and X-ray fluorescence (XRF) were carried out to study the chemical composition and physical properties of crystalline materials in hollow glass microspheres. The experiments involved in this study are compression strength, water absorption test, density and thermal insulation test. The results show that the compressive strength of foamed concrete has reached the highest in 3% of hollow glass microsphere with less water absorption and less of thermal insulation. As a conclusion, the quantity of hollow glass microsphere plays an important role in determining the strength and water absorption and also thermal insulation in foamed concrete and 3% hollow glass microspheres as a replacement for Portland cement (OPC) showed an optimum value in this study as it presents a significant effect than other percentage

Morphological variations of epiphytic Ficus deltoidea (Moraceae) and its agaonid pollinators, Blastophaga spp.

The interaction between fig trees (Ficus) and their fig wasp pollinators (Agaonidae) is usually described as obligate mutualism. Ficus deltoidea (Moraceae) is distributed across southern Southeast Asia. Currently, F. deltoidea is regarded as only one species with 13 recognised varieties, and seven of them are native to Peninsular Malaysia. In this study, the morphological variation and relationship between epiphytic F. deltoidea var. angustifolia, var. deltoidea, and var. trengganuensis and their pollinating fig wasp in selected oil palm plantations from January 2017 to September 2017 were investigated. The ostiole diameter, gall width, and thickness of fig wall as well as fig wasp morphology were measured using image analyser. The female fig wasp associated with var. trengganuensis recorded the biggest value for wing length, mandible length, hind tibia length, and overall body length, whereas fig wasp associated with var. deltoidea recorded the highest value for head length, wing width, and ovipositor length. Fig wasp associated with var. angustifolia recorded the smallest value for all morphological parameters measured. Similarly, the male fig wasp associated with var. trengganuensis recorded the biggest value for mandible length, hind tibia length, and overall body length. There was a significant relationship between mandible size of male fig wasps and fig wall thickness (F=15.92, P<0.05), female fig wasp head width and ostiole diameter (F=9.02, P<0.05), and the male and female fig wasp with gall size (male: F=164.34, P<0.05; female: F=47.39, P<0.05) across the varieties. The results from this research explain that the morphological adaptations towards the structure of the figs occurred in the fig wasp’s evolution. The mutualism between the fig and fig wasp is also extremely specific across varieties in which even the same species of fig tree can have different pollinating fig wasps associated with different varieties