A review on the legal rights of indigenous people in Peninsular Malaysia: A comparative study with Australia and New Zealand / Zarith Zahirah Mohd Zakaria … [et al.]

This research study consists of all chapters on our research background, status and rights of Orang Asli in Malaysia, New Zealand, and Australia. The purpose of this study is to analyse every law that enshrined the provisions regarding aboriginal peoples in Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia. Then, we compare the law in Malaysia with the law in New Zealand and Australia. Moreover, this study is important as to ensure that all Orang Asli's rights in Peninsular Malaysia would be protected under the law. This research also highlights the importance of the revolution and reformation in shaping the actions of the Malaysian government

Strength, water absorption and thermal comfort of mortar bricks containing crushed ceramic waste

This present study investigated the crushed ceramic waste utilisation as sand replacement in solid mortar bricks. The percentage of crushed ceramic waste used were 0% (CW0), 10% (CW10), 20% (CW20) and 30% (CW30) from the total weight of sand. The dimension prescribed of mortar bricks are 215 mm x 102.5 mm x 65 mm as followed accordance to MS 2281:2010 and BS EN 771-1:2011+A1:2015. Four (4) tests were conducted on mortar bricks namely crushing strength, water absorption, compressive strength of masonry units and thermal comfort. The incorporation of ceramic waste in all designated mortar bricks showed the increment of crushing strength between 23% and 46% at 28 days of curing and decrement water absorption between 34% and 44% was recorded corresponding to control mortar bricks. The prism test of masonry units consists of mortar bricks containing ceramic waste indicated the high increment of compressive strength at about 200% as compared to mortar brick without ceramic waste. The thermal comfort test of ceramic mortar bricks were also showed the good insulation with low interior temperature. Therefore, the ceramic waste can be utilised as a material replacement to fine aggregate in mortar brick productions due to significant outcomes performed

Flexural Behaviour of Reinforced Concrete Beams with Openings Strengthened by Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) Wrap

This paper presents an experimental study of reinforced concrete beams with circular and square openings at the flexure zone. Selected beams were strengthened using Textile Reinforced Concrete (TRC) wraps. A total of six beam specimens measuring 250 mm (height) x 200 m (width) x 1700 mm (length) were cast using high strength concrete with a compressive strength of 64 N/mm2. The beams tested consisted of a solid control beam, unstrengthened concrete beams with openings and strengthened concrete beams with openings. The effect of circular and square openings on the flexure zone of concrete beams was investigated. All the beams were simply supported and tested up to failure under four-point loading. From the test results, it was found that the presence of openings at the flexure zone significantly reduces the strength and stiffness of the beams. The use of TRC wrap around the beam openings increases the ultimate capacity and stiffness of the beams. In addition, it also reduces excessive vertical cracks and deflection in beams considerably compared to unstrengthened concrete beams with openings

Flexural behaviour of plain concrete prism strengthened by textile fine grained mortar

This paper presents a flexural strength study of concrete incorporated with textile fine grained mortar (TFGM) as a strengthening laminate. TFGM is a combination of fine grained mortar (FGM) with alkali resistant glass fabric (AR glass). Fine grained sand with 600 m maximum size was used in FGM and fly ash (FA) or rice husk ash (RHA) has been used as a partial substitute for ordinary Portland cement (OPC). The potential of TFGM as strengthening laminate was tested under monolithic load with three point flexure loading. The TFGM were laid in layers of two, four, six, and eight. Results shown a promising flexure enhancement of up to three times of unstrengthened concrete when eight layers of both RHA and FA were laid. Load bearing capacity and ductility of the samples increased about 200% and 61%, respectively, compared to control samples as well. The outcome shows a highly potential use of agro-waste as cement replacement to produce load bearing structural component

The potential of lake in generating the urban community development, case study : Putrajaya Lake, Federal of Putrajaya / Wan Noor Anira Hj Wan Ali @ Yaacob ... [et al.]

Lake is not only the recreational area for people but also promote physical and economic development. Lake in urban environments is an important sources to remote and protects our natural environments. Lake also gives benefit to create positive social, culture and physical development in urban community. In Canada, the Ontario Lake is an axial development of their commercial, residential, tourism and also as recreational areas. However, in Malaysia lake development is still diffident and less comprehensive as a community centre in socio- culture environment. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to interconnect the design implementation and the potential of Putrajaya Lake with the Putrajaya community and the land use (commercial, residential, recreational and administration) areas. The research methodology is based on site inventory, site analysis and also using primary and secondary data. The findings were used in helping Putrajaya Lake expand its sense of ownership among their community as well as in constructing Putrajaya Lake as an enormous destination of water recreation. Furthermore, Putrajaya Lake is known to have an acceptable urban setting condition with higher quality water level to cater its multi-functional uses such as for boating, fishing, recreational and water sport. This will help Putrajaya to achieve its inspiration of “City in a Garden”

Solar energy : dilemma and the way forward / Norhafizah Yusop ... [et al.]

Renewable energy plays important roles in supplying energy to the world since it able to reduce the demand of fossil fuels. Natural processes and minerals such as sunlight, wind, tide and geothermal heat describes renewable energy. Nowadays, the world is shifting to renewable energy sources due to several factors such as rising prices of oil and gas and scarcity. Theoretically, solar energy is the energy from the sun. Too expensive for mainstream market was the main factors that make solar technologies occupied on uncomfortable position. As time change, global warming and climate change began to emerge. Essentially, solar power can offer a greener, cheaper path to development.Furthermore, meeting rising energy demand with cost-effective new generation capacity is a critical challenge facing most developing countries. Review of literatures shows that it is a clear signal that something needs to be done about renewable energy to put the world on a better path to avoiding the impacts of climate change.Thus, Just in Time (JIT), one procurement mechanism and support schemes for clean energy such as solar energy seems to lead the charge. This research involved a literature search on the challenges of the solar energy and the way forward based on the frequency of the factors identified by past researchers. As a result, more effort is necessary to boost and further stimulate action towards a better understanding on the positive and negative effects of solar energy, which will result in greener, cheaper and better path of the current and future development

Physico-mechanical properties of polymer concrete containing micro-filler of palm oil fuel ash

Objective of this study is to present a research conducted on ground (fine) and unground (coarse) POFA in polymer concrete (PC) followed by determination on the physico-mechanical properties of PC. Physical properties of micro-fillers and mechanical properties of produced PCs were characterized. Calcium carbonate and silica sand were also used as micro-fillers for comparison purpose. The samples were subjected to compression and flexural. Morphology images of the particles were captured under morphology test to support the findings. Results showed that fine POFA micro-filler has a highly promising potential in becoming PC filler compared to coarse micro-filler. Additionally, its produced PC had comparable strength to PC with calcium carbonate. From the strength development and sustainability stand point, fine POFA has demonstrated its capability to produce quality and sustainable P

Finite Element Simulation of GFRP Reinforced Concrete Beam Externally Strengthened With CFRP Plates

The construction technology now has become more and more advanced allowing the development of new technologies or material to replace the previous one and also solved some of the troubles confronted by construction experts. The Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) composite is an alternative to replace the current usage of steel as it is rust proof and stronger in terms of stiffness compared to steel. Furthermore, GFRP bars have a high strength-to-weight ratio, making them attractive as reinforcement for concrete structures. However, the tensile behavior of GFRP bars is characterized by a linear elastic stress–strain relationship up to failure and, therefore, concrete elements reinforced with GFRP reinforcement exhibit brittle failure without warning. Design codes encourage over-reinforced GFRP design since it is more progressive and leads to a less catastrophic failure with a higher degree of deformability. Moreover, because of GFRP low modulus of elasticity, GFRP reinforced concrete members exhibit larger deflections and wider cracks width than steel reinforced concrete. This aims of this paper is to developed 2D Finite Element (FE) models that can accurately simulate the respond on an improvement in the deflection of GFRP reinforced concrete beam externally strengthened with CFRP plates on the tension part of beam. The prediction of flexural response according to RCCSA software was also discussed. It was observed that the predicted FE results are given similar result with the experimental measured test data. Base on this good agreement, a parametric study was the performed using the validation FE model to investigate the effect of flexural reinforcement ratio and arrangement of the beams strengthened with different regions of CFRP plates

The role of big data analytics in digital health for COVID-19 prevention and control in Asia

Big data analytics (BDA) in digital health is critical for gaining the knowledge needed to make decisions, with Asia at the forefront of utilising this technology for the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This review aims to study how BDA was incorporated into digital health in managing the COVID-19 pandemic in six selected Asian countries, discuss its advantages and barriers and recommend measures to improve its adoption. A narrative review was conducted. Online databases were searched to identify all relevant literature on the roles of BDA in digital health for COVID-19 preventive and control measures. The findings showed that these countries had used BDA for contact tracing, quarantine compliance, outbreak prediction, supply rationing, movement control, information update, and symptom monitoring. Compared to conventional approaches, BDA in digital health plays a more efficient role in preventing and controlling COVID-19. It may inspire other countries to adopt this technology in managing the pandemic

Effect of CFRP plate length on flexural behavior of GFRP reinforced concrete beam strengthening

This research investigates the effect of CFRP plate length on flexural behaviour of GFRP strengthened reinforced concrete beam. CFRP plate was placed on the bottom of the beam to act as tension reinforcement. Ten beams were tested, largely divided into over designed and under designed reinforced beams. Each group had one steel reinforced concrete beam, one GFRP reinforced concrete beam and three GFRP reinforced concrete beam with different length of CFRP plate at the bottom of beam. Tested parameters included flexural strength, stress–strain relationship and deflection. Results indicated that all strengthened beams had improved structural performance where the maximum flexural strength increased by 102% and maximum deflection reduced by 35%. The CFRP plate can significantly improve the load-bearing capacity of strengthened GFRP concrete beams