Some Aspects of Intercropping Ratian (Calamus Manan Miq.) With Rubber (Hevea Brasiliensis Willd.) in Malaysia

Intercropping rattan with mature rubber trees is a new agroforestry system. This study was carried out in a 10-year old rattan plantation that had been intercropped with rubber when the rubber trees were 6-years old. This study focused on the aspects of soil conservation, growth of rattan and rubber, and economic viability. The study comprises of four experiments and economic analysis. The first experiment assessed the effects of rattan planting on some selected soil properties. The results showed no significant adverse effects but improvement in bulk density, moisture content, soil acidity (PH) and cation exchange capacity (CEC). In addition, there was a significant increase in total phosphorous (P), magnesium (Mg) and sodium (Na). The second experiment on foliar analysis revealed that there was no significant negative effect on foliar nutrients of rubber due to intercropping. Besides, the nutrient concentrations in rattan leaves were not significantly different from than that of rubber. The third experiment also demonstrated no significant effect on growth of rubber trees in terms of diameter breast height (dbh) and height of main trunk due to intercropping

An Alternative Electrode System for Monitoring Belousov-Zhabotinsky Chemical Oscillations

The capability of copper-platinum (Cu/Pt) electrode system as a BelousovZhabotinsky (BZ) chemical oscillation monitor was compared with that of the normally used SCE/Pt electrode system, by testing it on three BZ systems, which were obtained by varying the oscillator in the combination bromate, oscillator and malonic acid. The oscillators, used separately, were cerium(IV), manganese(II) and ferroin [iron (II)-1,10- phenanthroline complex].Cu/Pt electrode gave essentially identical values of oscillation characteristics (oscillation period, peak potential, induction period, peak width) except peak potentials. This indicated that the Cu/Pt electrode system would be more useful than the SCE/Pt electrode system (which had chloride leakage problem), in electrical applications of chemical oscillations, such as electrical switches, which would depend only on the on/off frequency

A Potential Model for Chemical Oscillations

Oscillation characteristics: induction period, oscillation period, peak potential, and total oscillation time of Belousov-Zhabotinsky systems, which consisted of bromate - oscillator [Ce4+ or Mn2+ or ferroin] - malonic acid were deter- mined using SCE/Pt and Cu/Pt electrodes. The solution potential requirements for appearance of chemical oscillations were determined by finding the concentra- tion limits of the reactants, bromate and malonic acid, and measuring the corres-ponding solution reduction potentials. A chemical oscillation model was proposed

Promoting Sustainable Water Infrastructure for Rural Areas of Myanmar

This poster is aimed at describing how sustainable water infrastructure is crucial for rural populations to get access to safe drinking water. In this study, market-based programming and water and energy correlations are considered to promote the utilization of locally available resources to construct water infrastructure. Moreover, the importance of policy and legislation has added to the need for a holistic view

Graph-based Household Matching for Linking Census Data

Historical censuses consist of individual facts about a community. It provides knowledge concerned with the nation’s population. These data apply the reconstruction features of a specific period to trace their ancestors and families changes over time. Linking census data is a difficult task as common names, data quality and household changes over time. During the decades, a household may split multiple households due to marriage or move to another household. This paper proposes a graph-based approach to link households, which takes the relationship between household members. Using individual record linking results, the proposed method builds household graphs, so that the matches are determined by attribute similarity and records relationship similarity. According to the experimental results, the proposed method reaches an F-score of 0.974on Ireland Census data, outperforming all alternative methods being compared

The Formulation of British Colonial Policy in Myanmar under Dyarchy

Myanmar was inserted in the British India as province after the occupation of Myanmar by the British who were well-experienced with colonial administration. Dyarchy was granted to Myanmar on the 2nd January 1923 according to “the Government of India Act and it was 4 years later than that of India. Dyarchy signifies a ruling of both administrative bodies. On one hand, the administrative system operated by the ministers appointed by the Governor-General and on the other hand, the ministers elected by Myanmar people. Yet, entire authoritative power was held by Viceroy and British officials. Thus the colonialism practiced by the British was just ruling by disintegration of political unity. The British government avoided using the strategy of cracking down the opposition of the Myanmar indigenous tribes as political tactics. According to the colonial policy of Divide and Rule, the ministers appointed by the central Government of India and Governor-General, took charge of important departments such as internal affairs, finance and foreign affairs. Myanmar ministers were assigned only in the unimportant departments like public works. As to the indigenous people’s affairs, hilly regions of Kachin, Kayah, Chin and Shan were acknowledged as backward regions and they were excluded in the administration. Dyarchy was just a way of procrastination not to offer “Home Rule” to Myanmar people. For that policy, the leading GCBA association which was the most active and patriotic campaign against the exploited British colonial administration split into two. Another tactic of the English was that the problem of separation and anti-separation. The problem of separation and anti-separation of Myanmar from India became a strongly controversy among the whole Myanmar people. As a consequence, the united Myanmar political organization disintegrated and the claim for “Home Rule” which was the people’s desire of that period had to fade away. The colonial policies practiced by the English during the administration of Dyarchy which gave great assistance to the long lasting colonial administration

Planning and Implementation of a Mega Geotechnical Engineering Project in Singapore

Implementation of mega geotechnical engineering projects requires a systematic approach and detailed planning. A mega land reclamation and ground improvement project which consists of various components of geotechnical engineering applications was planned and implemented in the Republic of Singapore from 1990 till 2005, a total period of one and a half decades. Due to the extensive ground improvement required to treat the underlying highly compressible soil, with the presence of highly variable ground profile and ground conditions due to the natural geological process, a detailed ground investigation was necessary. This was furthermore necessary due to the importance of various critical infrastructure planned for future usage in the land reclamation site. Extensive ground investigation was planned based on input from desk study and reconnaissance survey carried out using geophysical method under foreshore conditions. Progressive ground investigation included ground investigation carried out in foreshore area prior to land reclamation, on land prior to ground improvement, during and after ground improvement to assess the degree of improvement. The ground investigation involved large numbers of in-situ tests using numerous methods and collections and testing of undisturbed soil sample for further laboratory testing to drive necessary geotechnical parameters for design purpose or decision making for acceptance of ground improvement works. Due to the nature and speed of the project on-site geotechnical and geotextile laboratories were set up for characterization and quality control. In addition to the improvement of underlying soils, hydraulically filled granular soils were required to be densified by application of deep compaction methods to minimize future immediate settlement and to increase resistance to liquefaction. A large quantity of geotechnical instrumentation were installed and monitored for construction control as well as performance monitoring of ground improvement works. This paper describes the procedure and process of implementation of geotechnical works in the mega Changi East Land Reclamation and Ground Improvement project in Singapore

Authentications of Myanmar National Registration Card

The automatic identification system of Myanmar national registration card (NRC) holder is presented in this paper. The proposed system can be handled the identification by the extracted low quality face image and fingerprint image from Myanmar NRC. Both of the facial recognition and fingerprint recognition system are developed for Myanmar citizenship confirmation. Age invariant face recognition algorithm is performed based on combination of DiaPCA (Diagonal principal Component Analysis) and KNN (Kth nearest neighbor classifier) approaches. An algorithm of the fingerprint recognition is proposed for recognition of the poor quality fingerprint image with fabric background.  Several experiments have been done for confirming the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Towards a tourism development zone for ancient city of Mrauk-U and its environs

The ancient city of Mrauk-U is one of the most attractive tourist destinations in Myanmar. Among the ancient city of Myanmar, the ancient city of Mrauk-U still retains its richness in art and architecture of religious monuments. Now, the inventory list of ancient monuments shows that there are 157 ancient monuments around Mrauk-U. Majority of ancient monuments except a few were built of stone. Many stupas and temples were ruined by heavy rain or by bombing during the Second World War. Similarly many stupas and temples were destroyed by treasure hunters who are in search of antiquities and valuable jewellery. On the other hand, the ancient city lacks proper tourist facilities as well as communication and transportation facilities. The aim of the paper is to revive the historic atmosphere of the ancient city of Mrauk-U by preserving and restoring ancient monuments and establishment of efficient tourist facilities to attract more tourists. Then, creation of further tourism facilities which fit into the tourism products, handicraft development and physical control with the development of human settlements and activities are necessary. The main objective of the paper is to develop tourism in the historic city of Mrauk-U area is a controlled manner. If unplanned, the ancient city could lead to uncontrolled development which would quickly degrade the religious monuments, the natural resources and the cultural fabric of the ancient city. To safeguard the sound future development of tourism in the historic area of Mrauk-U, it is essential that the local residents be integrated into all programmes and that their social and economic welfare improve alongside increasing tourist activity