Feasibility study on utilization of palm fibre waste into fired clay brick

Malaysia is the second largest of palm oil producer after Indonesia, which contribute to 50 % of palm oil production. With this demand, the increasing of palm oil plantation over the years has led to the large production of agricultural waste, for example palm fibre waste. This study investigates different percentages of palm fibre (0 %, 1 %, 5 % and 10 %) to be incorporated into fired clay brick. Manufactured bricks were fired at 1 °C/min heating rate up to 1050 °C. The effects of manufacture bricks on the physical and mechanical properties of manufactured brick were also determined. All brick samples were tested due to the physical and mechanical properties which include dry density, firing shrinkage, initial rate of suction (IRS), water absorption, porosity and compressive strength. Findings show that increasing palm fibre waste affected the properties of brick, which decreased their density, besides increased firing shrinkage, IRS, water absorption, porosity and compressive strength. However, all the manufactured brick still followed the requirement

A study of potential Load Bearing Masonry (LBM) system in Malaysia construction industry

To overcome the problems in increasing of material prices, land prices, shortage of skilled workers, equipping low cost housing demands and maintained the cost of the constructing at an affordable price, there is a need to find the alternative solution for constructing method.The use of the load bearing masonry system (LBM) has been identified as a sustainable and an effective alternative method for the construction industry.The system offers several advantages in term of cost and speed of the construction, durability, strength, environmentally friendly practices and aesthetic qualities.Despite these advantages, unfortunately, this system has not been widely used in Malaysia compared to reinforced concrete (RC) frame construction. Therefore, this paper aims to discuss the advantages and potential of the system implementation to Malaysia construction industry in the future

Electronically steerable antenna for WLAN application

In wireless communication systems, interference becomes a major problem in limiting the quality of the transmitted and received signals. A common problem in wireless communications is to eliminate the interference signal that is mixed with the original signal. Thus, adaptive beamforming is proposed to eliminate the interference signal. This paper presents an adaptive antenna using a slotted patch antenna for WLANs operated at 2.4 GHz. A reactively steerable antenna concept has been applied. A downhill simplex algorithm is used to maximize the cost function. The radiation pattern of the antenna is controlled by the reactance value connected to each port. From numerical simulation, null is performed for the incoming interference

Bayesian Analysis of Extended Cox Model with Time-Varying Covariates Using Bootstrap Prior

A new Bayesian estimation procedure for extended cox model with time varying covariate was presented. The prior was determined using bootstrapping technique within the framework of parametric empirical Bayes. The efficiency of the proposed method was observed using Monte Carlo simulation of extended Cox model with time varying covariates under varying scenarios. Validity of the proposed method was also ascertained using real life data set of Stanford heart transplant. Comparison of the proposed method with its competitor established appreciable supremacy of the method

Improvement on rooting quality of Jatropha curcas using indole butyric acid (IBA).

The effects of indole-3-butyric acid (IBA) concentrations and three types of cutting (softwood,semi hardwood and hardwood) on root performance of Jatropha curcas L. cuttings were investigated. Two experiments were conducted where in experiment 1, conducted on July 2007, the hardwood cutting gave the highest mean value for root dry weight (0.2g), number of roots (22) with percentage of rooted cuttings (56%) compared to the one using softwood cutting. 10, 000 mg/L IBA gave the highest mean value for root length (13.6cm), number of roots (28), percentage of rooted cuttings (74%) with root dry weight (0.5g). In experiment 2, conducted on January 2008, the hardwood cutting once again gave the highest mean value for root length (12.1cm) and root dry weight (0.4g). The greatest root number (59) was obtained at 20, 000 mg/L. There was no significant effect on percentage of rooted cuttings, root dry weight, root length and rootball diameter. The histological studies showed that adventitious roots were originated directly from the endodermis. The root primordial started to develop on day 8 and emerged through the epidermis after day 11

Design of a contactless body temperature measurement system using arduino

The recent advances in electronics and microelectronics devices allow the development of newly low-cost monitoring tools used by peoples for health preventive purposes. Sensors used in medical equipments convert various forms of human body vital signs into electrical signals. Therefore, the healthcare monitoring systems considering non-invasive and wearable sensors with integrated communication mediums allow an efficient solution to live a comfortable home life. This paper presents the remote monitoring of human body temperature (HBT) wirelessly by means of Arduino controller with different sensors and open source internet connection. The proposed monitoring system uses an internet network via wireless fieldity (wifi) connection to be linked with online portal on smart phone or computer. The proposed system is comprised of an Arduino controller, LM-35 (S1), MLX-90614 (S2) temperature sensors and ESP-wifi shield module. The obtained result has shown that real time temperature monitoring data can be transferred to authentic observer by utilizing internet of things (IoT) applications. The findings from this research indicates that the difference of average temperature in between Sensor S1 and S2 is about 15 0C

Development of Emulation Network Analyzer Tool for Computer Network Planning

This paper describes the development of Emulation Network Analyzer (ENA) for heterogeneous services in campus environment. The purpose of this paper is to inform this ENA able to plan and predict network performance. For this purpose, our ENA development is differ from others system such as application and hardware network analyzer. This study focuses on the design of emulation network analyzer, user interface design, characteristics, model description, implementation and evaluation. This ENA can provide a useful network architectural solutions and optimization of network resources during preparation, proposal and planning phases. Finally, ENA tool is a good emulation analyzer that can be used in small to medium size networks for campus environment purposes with minimum cost

Classification of metamorphic virus using n-grams signatures

Metamorphic virus has a capability to change, translate, and rewrite its own code once infected the system to bypass detection. The computer system then can be seriously damage by this undetected metamorphic virus. Due to this, it is very vital to design a metamorphic virus classification model that can detect this virus. This paper focused on detection of metamorphic virus using Term Frequency Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) technique. This research was conducted using Second Generation virus dataset. The first step is the classification model to cluster the metamorphic virus using TF-IDF technique. Then, the virus cluster is evaluated using Naïve Bayes algorithm in terms of accuracy using performance metric. The types of virus classes and features are extracted from bi-gram assembly language. The result shows that the proposed model was able to classify metamorphic virus using TF-IDF with optimal number of virus class with average accuracy of 94.2%

User friendly system for the visually impaired in learning Al-Quran

This study presents a method to enable the visually impaired Muslim to learn and read the Al-Quran using Braille Display with software help. The system reads the database which contains all verses of Al-Quran and user will need to select the verse and ayah to read. Besides that, this system can be used in a class to teach visually impaired students to learn Al-Quran. Every word or character typed by the instructor in the main Braille Panel will be transmitted to the sub Braille Panel that is connected to the main Braille Panel. The selected verse of Al-Quran and ayah will also generate an index before being transmitted to the Braille Panel. The index will be transmitted to the Braille Display for people to touch and read the display. A user friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) will be used to fulfill the ergonomics for the visually impaired user's physical capabilities. Several approaches are used to design and implement the interface for the visually impaired like speech or sound output and Braille display. The Braille codes can be displayed using the Braille panel. The design interface and structure of the system for the visually impaired users in learning Al-Quran is presented

Computer aided learning knowledge among medical students in the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Universiti Putra Malaysia

Computer proficiency has become necessary in many areas of medicine, administration, clinical practices, research, as well as education. The need for greater competence in information and communication technologies (ICT) by doctors and medical students is increasingly recognised. Objectives: This study was undertaken to determine the knowledge, attitude and practices on ICT in the medical students of a local university. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted among medical students (Years 1-5) from December 2005 to May 2006 in Universiti Putra Malaysia. A self-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Descriptive statistics were used to obtain frequencies for all variables studied. Results: There were 343 respondents aged 18-29 years old. The results showed 82.2% of the respondents (82.2%) were comfortable using computers after entering medical school and 89.2% believed that ICT and computers skills are important for doctors. About 81.3% of the respondents were aware of the role of ICT and computers in learning medicine, 90.4% had used presentation packages, and 83.4% used word processing and search engines as software tools. Conclusion: The findings of this study show that medical students are knowledgeable and do have skills in information technology (IT) and computers. They are also aware of the role of information technology (IT) and computers in medicin