Structural conformation of Bacillus stearothermophilus F1 protease and effect of modification on its thermostability

The extracellular F1 serine protease, produced by a thermophilic Bacillus stearothermophilus F1, has been isolated and characterized as one of a serine protease. F1 protease was stable in the pH range of 8.0 to 10.0, with an optimum activity at pH 9.0. The enzyme was stable for 24h at 70°C (Rahman et al., 1994)

Analysing of a shunt compensator installation

Nowadays, electricity has become an important part of human lives. Electricity is needed to light up houses, buildings and even transports. Electricity comes from generators which produce power that are useful for loads. But, not all power that flow from generators is useful for a power system. Although reactive power is needed on power system, a high amount of it will cause problems such as the reduction of active power generated and poor voltage regulation. The reactive power consumption by loads must be compensated and this could be done by installing shunt compensator on the electrical network. An approach has been done to study about the performance of the system with and without compensator installed. This research presents a comprehensive study on the shunt compensation method. There were three methods used in finishing this research which are collecting data from electricity utility, literature review writing, and simulation using PowerWorld Simulator. The simulated network is evaluated in terms of its performance with and without compensator installed

Preliminary investigation on taxonomic status of sympatric Tylonycteris species in Malaysia

Tylonycteris or flat-headed bat is known for its taxonomic complex within this genus. This study attempts to investigate the complexity within Tylonycteris using morphometric approach. The result from 34 morphological characters of hierarchical tree constructed two major groups splitting each respective Tylonycteris species into Malaysia Peninsular and Borneo populations. It is suggested to revise the species name according to type specimen, as proposed by recent previous study. Conservation and taxonomic status of Tylonycteris requires immediate reassessment due to the cryptic nature of these species

Accidents preventive practice for high-rise construction

The demand of high-rise projects continues to grow due to the reducing of usable land area in Klang Valley, Malaysia.The rapidly development of high-rise projects has leaded to the rise of fatalities and accidents.An accident that happened in a construction site can cause serious physical injury.The accidents such as people falling from height and struck by falling object were the most frequent accidents happened in Malaysian construction industry.The continuous growth of high-rise buildings indicates that there is a need of an effective safety and health management. Hence, this research aims to identify the causes of accidents and the ways to prevent accidents that occur at high-rise building construction site.Qualitative method was employed in this research. Interview surveying with safety officers who are involved in highrise building project in Kuala Lumpur were conducted in this research. Accidents were caused by man-made factors, environment factors or machinery factors.The accidents prevention methods were provide sufficient Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), have a good housekeeping, execute safety inspection, provide safety training and execute accidents investigation.In the meanwhile, interviewees have suggested the new prevention methods that were develop a proper site layout planning and de-merit and merit system among subcontractors, suppliers and even employees regarding safety at workplace matters.This research helps in explaining the causes of accidents and identifying area where prevention action should be implemented, so that workers and top management will increase awareness in preventing site accidents

The Effect Of Short Circuit Fault On One Winding To Other Windings In FRA

Monitoring and diagnosis of power transformer in power systems have been examined and debated significantly in last few decades. Recently, more researchers have expressed their interest in these issues as the utilities and network operators operating under a rising cost-effecting pressure. Especially, in studying to monitor winding faults which is found to be the most common fault within transformers. This paper addresses the issue of the effect of inter-windings short circuit fault in a Dyn11 connected transformer. The specific aim is to study the effect of fault at winding of other phases to the response of measured phase. Frequency Response Analysis (FRA) which is discovered to be a powerful and sensitive method to examine and evaluate the condition, including the mechanical reliability of the transformer windings is use

VULNERABILITY MAPPING AND ANALYSIS: AN IMPLEMENTATION IN GEOHAZARD AREAS IN SABAH

Vulnerability identifies the element-at-risk as well as the evaluation of their relationships with the hazard. The relationships relate the landslide potential damages over a specific element-at-risk. Vulnerability can be defined as the degree of loss to a given element-at-risk or set of elements at risk resulting from the occurrence of a natural phenomenon of a given magnitude and expressed on a scale from 0 (no damage) to 1 (total damage). In this study, the landslide vulnerability mapping and analysis were made on two element-at-risks namely buildings and roads. Based on field observations, building and road construction materials have been classified into 22 and 5 construction materials respectively. The field visits were made on specific areas based on candidate buildings and roads as chosen during the landslide exposure analysis and mapping. The vulnerability values for these element-at-risks were expressed using expert opinion. Four experts have been interviewed with separate sessions. The experts were also supplied with local information on the landslides occurrences and photos of element-at-risk in Kundasang and Kota Kinabalu. The vulnerability matrices were combined based on the weighted average approach, in which higher weight was assigned to panel with local expert (landslides and damage assessment), wide experience in landslide vulnerability analysis, hazard and risk mapping. Finally, the vulnerability maps were produced for Kundasang and Kota Kinabalu with spatial resolution of 25 cm. These maps were used for the next step i.e. landslide risk mapping and analysis

GEOSPATIAL APPROACH FOR LANDSLIDE ACTIVITY ASSESSMENT AND MAPPING BASED ON VEGETATION ANOMALIES

Remote sensing has been widely used for landslide inventory mapping and monitoring. Landslide activity is one of the important parameters for landslide inventory and it can be strongly related to vegetation anomalies. Previous studies have shown that remotely sensed data can be used to obtain detailed vegetation characteristics at various scales and condition. However, only few studies of utilizing vegetation characteristics anomalies as a bio-indicator for landslide activity in tropical area. This study introduces a method that utilizes vegetation anomalies extracted using remote sensing data as a bio-indicator for landslide activity analysis and mapping. A high-density airborne LiDAR, aerial photo and satellite imagery were captured over the landslide prone area along Mesilau River in Kundasang, Sabah. Remote sensing data used in characterizing vegetation into several classes of height, density, types and structure in a tectonically active region along with vegetation indices. About 13 vegetation anomalies were derived from remotely sensed data. There were about 14 scenarios were modeled by focusing in 2 landslide depth, 3 main landslide types with 3 landslide activities by using statistical approach. All scenarios show that more than 65% of the landslides are captured within 70% of the probability model indicating high model efficiency. The predictive model rate curve also shows that more than 45% of the independent landslides can be predicted within 30% of the probability model. This study provides a better understanding of remote sensing data in extracting and characterizing vegetation anomalies induced by hillslope geomorphology processes in a tectonically active region in Malaysia

IFSS, TG, FT-IR spectra of impregnated sugar palm (Arenga pinnata) fibres and mechanical properties of their composites.

This study aimed to investigate the effect of resin impregnation on the interfacial shear strength (IFSS), thermogravimetric (TG) and fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) of sugar palm (Arenga pinnata) fibres. In addition, the effect of resin impregnation on the mechanical properties of sugar palm fibre reinforced unsaturated polyester (UP) composites was also studied. The fibres were impregnated with UP via vacuum resin impregnation process at a pressure of 600 mmHg for 5 min. Composites of 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50 % fibre loadings were fabricated and tested for tensile and flexural properties. It was observed that the impregnation process caused the fibres to be enclosed by UP resin and this gave a strong influence to the increase of its interfacial bonding by the increase of its IFSS from single fibre pull-out test. It was also observed with TG and FT-IR spectra that the impregnated fibre had lower moisture uptake than the control and there was no significant increase in thermal stability of the impregnated fibre. The sequence of fibre decomposition started from the evaporation of moisture, hemicelluloses, cellulose, lignin and finally ash content and the presence of these components were proven by FT-IR spectra. For the composite specimens, due to the high interfacial bonding of the impregnated fibre and the matrix, the impregnated composites showed consistently higher tensile strength, tensile modulus, elongation at break, flexural strength, flexural modulus and toughness than the control samples. It was also observed that 30 % fibre loading gave optimum properties