Bird's habitat suitability model in Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve using geographical information system.

Peninsular Malaysia's growing population and rapid economic development have resulted in pressure of forest area usage which consequently led to decrease in wildlife habitat. Recent urban development surrounding Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve (AHFR) in Selangor, for example, had threatened potential habitats of wildlife including birds. This study was undertaken with two objectives: (i) to develop bird's habitat suitability model using GIS for Ayer Hitam Forest Reserve and, (ii) to identify and map bird habitat location and distribution in the study area. In the study, available AHFR digital map was used in the modelling and analysis. The bird's distribution data was digitized into a GIS using PC-Arc View Version 3.3 software. Suitability model for classifying bird habitat was developed incorporating pre specified criteria. The four criteria used to classify bird's habitat suitability area were "distance from forest edge", "distance from road", "distance from river" and "site slope". These criteria were ranked and weighted prior to calculation by using Suitability Equation in the GIS software. The bird habitat suitability scales used in this study were "highly suitable", "moderately suitable" and "marginally suitable" areas. The suitability model implemented in GIS enables the mapping of suitable bird habitat in AHFR. From the analysis, it was found that the highly suitable area for bird's habitat was located at the centre of the AHFR, which lied from north to south. The highly suitable area was found to cover about 615.83 hectare (6158254 m2), and for moderately and marginally suitable areas, they were about 517.07 hectare (5170752 m2) and 59.98 hectare (599802 m2), respectively. A total of 36 birds were observed present in the highly suitable area, 19 in moderate suitable area and none in the marginally suitable area. The main bird species in the highly suitable area was Little Spiderhunter, Olive-winged Bulbul and Yellow vented Bulbul. Results showed that GIS can be used to identify suitable area for bird habitat in AHFR, hence, the approach can be used for wildlife management strategy in AHFR in the near future

Determining and mapping of vegetation using GIS and phytosociological approach in Mount Tahan, Malaysia.

The study on lowland tropical forest plants is complicated by the extreme species diversity, very complex plant mosaic and time constraints. These impediments however do not occur in mountain forest, where habitat diversity is clearly distinguished by small homogenous plants types. Plant association and composition study were presented in this work from two locations of Mount Tahan, Malaysia the relatively untrampled and the trampled site. In each site, plant species number, vegetation cover, plant height, and species cover and frequency in untrampled and trampled areas were counted or measured. The analysis included a field survey following the relevance method of Braun-Blanquet and mapping using a GIS. The study focused on altitudinal distribution of specific plants communities located between 1900 m and 2140 m altitude. The data from field survey were mapped and analyzed in GIS. The phytosociological classification revealed that untrampled areas in Botak and Puncak sites were high in species more diversified communities compared to the trampled areas. The results showed that Leptospermum flavescens was the dominant species most in both sites (Botak and Puncak), with 48%, specifically at the untrampled site. The abundance class and sociability value are also high for this species with score 4.5 out of 5, respectively. A total number of trees in the area probably play an important role in quantifying the species richness and diversity parameters. From the study it can be concluded that GIS technique useful in developing a tree mapping system and creating a geo-database for spatial analysis. Further studies are recommended to integrate more data into the system for better evaluation

Development of an automation and control design system for lowland tropical greenhouses

Vapour pressure deficit (VPD) analysis introduces an approach to develop a better basis for the control of the environment of lowland greenhouses in Malaysia. The study of vapour pressure deficit (VPD) is to show air moisture conditions for plant production while taking into account different temperature levels. The purpose of this project is to develop a real-time automatic temperature and relative humidity control system in the lowland tropical greenhouse using a PIC16f876A microcontroller. The controller will then be used to monitor the temperature, relative humidity and VPD in the planting of Chili Kulai (Titisan 15). The fertigation system was introduced to the greenhouse to fertilize and irrigate the plant as well as to provide moisture to the environment. A swamp cooler was used to bring down the temperature and increase moisture content in the greenhouse. Ventilators were installed to remove the heat in the greenhouse. The study was carried out in an experimental greenhouse located at the Institute of Advanced Technology, Universiti Putra Malaysia (UPM)

Capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin determination in chili pepper genotypes using ultra-fast liquid chromatography

Research was carried out to estimate the levels of capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin that may be found in some heat tolerant chili pepper genotypes and to determine the degree of pungency as well as percentage capsaicin content of each of the analyzed peppers. A sensitive, precise, and specific ultra fast liquid chromatographic (UFLC) system was used for the separation, identification and quantitation of the capsaicinoids and the extraction solvent was acetonitrile. The method validation parameters, including linearity, precision, accuracy and recovery, yielded good results. Thus, the limit of detection was 0.045 µg/kg and 0.151 µg/kg for capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin, respectively, whereas the limit of quantitation was 0.11 µg/kg and 0.368 µg/kg for capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin. The calibration graph was linear from 0.05 to 0.50 µg/g for UFLC analysis. The inter- and intra-day precisions (relative standard deviation) were <5.0% for capsaicin and <9.9% for dihydrocapsaicin while the average recoveries obtained were quantitative (89.4%–90.1% for capsaicin, 92.4%–95.2% for dihydrocapsaicin), indicating good accuracy of the UFLC method. AVPP0705, AVPP0506, AVPP0104, AVPP0002, C05573 and AVPP0805 showed the highest concentration of capsaicin (12,776, 5,828, 4,393, 4,760, 3,764 and 4,120 µg/kg) and the highest pungency level, whereas AVPP9703, AVPP0512, AVPP0307, AVPP0803 and AVPP0102 recorded no detection of capsaicin and hence were non-pungent. All chili peppers studied except AVPP9703, AVPP0512, AVPP0307, AVPP0803 and AVPP0102 could serve as potential sources of capsaicin. On the other hand, only genotypes AVPP0506, AVPP0104, AVPP0002, C05573 and AVPP0805 gave a % capsaicin content that falls within the pungency limit that could make them recommendable as potential sources of capsaicin for the pharmaceutical industry

Application of total productive maintenance to reduce non-stick on pad problem in IC packaging.

Focus improvement activity was employed to improve front-end assembly yield in integrated circuit packaging. The top three yield losses in parts per million (ppm) in front-end assembly were contributed by the following defects: non-stick on pad (NSOP) (2715 ppm), chip and crack (782 ppm) and missing wire (687 ppm). NSOP was due to floating die, bonded ball small in size, foreign matter on pad and glassifications. Floating die contributed 48% of the NSOP defect. Detailed explanation on how focus improvement activity used to reduce NSOP due to floating die is demonstrated. Upon identifying the root cause of die floating, which was due to no support and weakness in the vacuum system, actions were taken to eliminate and to control the identified causes. As a result NSOP due to floating die was reduced from 1300 ppm to 650 ppm, a reduction of 50% within one year

The use of Taguchi method in the design of plastic injection mould for reducing warpage

Plastic injection moulding is one of the most important polymer processing operations in the plastic industry today. However, lack of skill in mould making and injection moulding machine control will lead to defective plastic product. Warpage is one type of defect that usually appears in products with thickness less than 1 mm. This project is going to fabricate a mould that produced a thin plate with dimension 120 mm × 50 mm × 1 mm. The thin plate will be used for warpage testing. In mould fabrication, the mould base that purchase will be machined and assembled. After that, the mould is fixed on the injection moulding machine. The machine setting should be made to produce the product. Then, the product will be used for testing on the effective factors in warpage problem by applying the experimental design of Taguchi method. From the results, it shows that the most effective factor on the warpage is melt temperature. The filling time only slightly influenced on the warpage. The optimum parameters that can minimize the warpage defect are melt temperature (240 °C), filling time (0.5 s), packing pressure (90%) and packing time (0.6 s)

The effect of e-training towards employee Performance

A well trained and groomed employee will be able to gain some competitive advantages for the organization when the employee is fully equipped with needed skills and talents. Upgrading the skills of an employee is important as it can be use during the time of survival of organization towards any challenges that may arise. Work balance is when an employee able to work effectively and efficiently and in the same time able to deal with personal problems. Unfortunately, organization that does not think of the work balance of their own employees which will affecting the employee productivity and also the employee performance. Therefore, this study attempts to identify the level and effect of E-training on employee performance at Venture Technocom Sdn Bhd., Kami Electronics (M) Sdn. Bhd., Sharp Manufacturing Corporation (M) Sdn. Bhd., Escatec Mechatronics Sdn. Bhd., Johor. Quantitative research method is used to collect 80 data from the respondents among employees in human resources and general management department through online survey questionnaire. The results show that the variables were not significant to each other. The study recommended that E-Training to be implemented in Manufacturing sector for a positive impact on the employee performance by having variety of platform of E-Training

Flow instability of dope solution in hollow fiber spinning process for different flow channel length

The study demonstrated the effect of different flow channel length on the spinneret with respect to the ceramic hollow fiber membrane morphology. A smartly designed spinneret is utilized for the spinning process where the nozzle used can be change to different length via the use of adapters. Thus, allowing the effect of having different flow channel length to be investigated. Three spinneret adapters with different nozzle length were fabricated at 29 mm, 34 mm, and 39 mm. Ceramic hollow fiber membrane is produced using these configurations in the spinning process. Then, the micrographic cross sections of hollow fiber membranes is investigated using Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) where it shows finger like, dense layer and damage structure morphology. Out of the samples investigated, hollow fiber membrane spun using 39 mm nozzle length produce the best concentricity. CFD simulation is initiated to study the flow behavior inside the flow channel to correlate with that of the experimental result attained

Etching Time on Structural and Electrical Properties of Porous Silicon SERS Substrates for Non-Invasive Dengue-NS1 Detection

Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a sensitive and specific analytical technique which has been explored in many applications, including disease detection. However, SERS performance is highly dependent on type of SERS substrate. This work is aimed to develop a SERS substrate that is sensitive to an early dengue virus biomarker known as Dengue virus nonstructural 1 (DENV-NS1) protein from saliva of infected patients. The new SERS substrate will allow non-invasive and rapid detection method for Dengue as early as day one of infection. Early detection of infection within the first five days is crucial to monitoring patients to help in reducing the fatality rate. Here, the electrochemical etching technique is employed to fabricate porous silicon (pSi) with variation in structural features to serve as the SERS substrate base. Variation in surface structural and electrical properties of pSi with etching time is recorded. Structural surface properties of the samples are investigated using the Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM) and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). While, the electrical properties are observed through I-V, resistivity and conductivity curve. From FESEM images, micro size cross-shaped porous structures are observed to have formed. Top-view reveals micro-size cross-shaped structures, while triangle-shaped structures from the cross-sectional view. The size of the structure formed increases with the etching time. Based on the structural and electrical properties an etching time between 20 to 28 minutes is found optimal for producing more uniform surface structure