Phytochemicals and antioxidant properties of different parts of Camellia sinensis leaves from Sabah Tea Plantation in Sabah, Malaysia

This study was conducted to determine the total phenolic (TPC) and total flavonoid content (TFC) as well as the antioxidant activity of 50% ethanolic extracts from different parts of Camellia sinensis (shoot, young and matured leaves). Comparison was also made between black (fermented) and green (unfermented) tea. For green tea, the results showed that the shoot contained significantly higher total phenolic content, followed by the young and matured leaves (p<0.05). The same trend was also observed for antioxidant activity as assessed using FRAP (ferric reducing/antioxidant power), DPPH (2,2-diphenyl 1-picrylhydrazyl) free radical scavenging assay and ABTS (2,2’-azinobis(3-ethylbenzthiazoline)-6-sulphonic) radical scavenging assays. As for black tea, the highest total phenolic and total flavonoid content were observed in the shoot, followed by the young and old leaves. The same trend of antioxidant activity with green tea was also observed in black tea extracts. In addition, black tea compost showed comparable high total phenolic and flavonoid content as well as antioxidant activities as assessed using different antioxidant assays. High antioxidant activity of tea leaves grown in Sabah might be contributed by phenolic phytochemicals that presence in the extract

Settlement reduction of dredged marine soils (DMS) admixed with cement & waste granular materials (WGM): 1-D compressibility study

Dredged marine soils (DMS) are considered as geo-waste and commonly disposed far into the sea. Environmental impacts raised from dredging such as turbidity and disturbance of marine ecosystem had increased the social demand to reuse DMS in engineering application. Typically, DMS have low shear strength and low bearing capacity. Hence, the DMS could be strengthened up by soil solidification. In present study, waste granular materials (WGM) such as coal bottom ash (BA) and palm oil clinker (POC) were utilized as additional binder to cement. The DMS were solidified with 3 series of admixtures; namely cement and/or WGM. The factor that influenced the compressibility of the soil sample such as percentages of admixtures were considered. Proportioned samples of 10, 15 and 20 % of cement, and/or 50 and 150 % of WGM of dry weight of DMS were subjected to one-dimensional oedometer test. The test samples were cured for 7 days in room temperature. Results show that cement- and WGM-admixed DMS have reduced the soil’s compressibility considerably than the untreated sample. As expected, the cemented soil had significantly reduced the settlement better than WGM-admixed soil. Hence, homogeneous samples of 15C50BA and 10C100POC produced almost similar reduction of compressibility as sample 20C. Therefore, reusing WGM as partial replacement of cement in DMS could provide beneficial reuse of these materials

A Comparative Study of LQR and Integral Sliding Mode Control Strategies for Position Tracking Control of Robotic Manipulators

This paper provides a systematic comparative study of position tracking control of nonlinear robotic manipulators. The main contribution of this study is a comprehensive numerical simulation assessing position tracking performances and energy consumption of integral sliding mode control (ISMC), a linear-quadratic regulator with integral action (LQRT), and optimal integral sliding mode control (OISMC) under three conditions; namely, Case I) without the coupling effect, Case II) with the coupling effect on Link 1 only, and Case III) with the coupling effect on Link 2 only. The viability of the concept is evaluated based on three performance criteria, i.e., the step-response characteristics, position tracking error, and energy consumption of the aforementioned controllers. Based upon the simulation study, it has been found that OISMC offers performances almost similar to ISMC with more than 90% improvement of tracking performance under several cases compared to LQRT; however, energy consumption is successfully reduced by 3.6% in comparison to ISMC. Energy consumption of OISMC can be further reduced by applying optimization algorithms in tuning the weighting matrices. This paper can be considered significant as a robotic system with high tracking accuracy and low energy consumption is highly demanded to be implemented in smart factories, especially for autonomous systems

The feasibility of 12-year compulsory education policy in Malaysia from the perspective of B40 parents

Compulsory education in Malaysia is limited to primary education within 6 years compared to the international level (8 to 12 years). There is concern that because other levels of education are still optional, enrolment will fall. It is suggested to prolong compulsory education to a total of 12 years to ensure that students obtain preschool and secondary education. As a result, a survey of 278 B40 parents or socioeconomic parents with household income less than RM4850 in urban and rural primary schools was conducted to determine the level of understanding, readiness, and acceptance of the feasibility of implementing the 12-year compulsory education policy. A valid and reliable questionnaire instrument was administered online and subsequently analyzed using SPSS Version 26. The study’s results revealed that the level of understanding (M=3.564, SD=0.462), readiness (M=3.529, SD=0.491), and their acceptance (M=3.568, SD=0.495) were very high and there were no significant differences for each dimension based on location. In principle, this indicates that B40 parents support the intention to expand our country’s policy on compulsory education. Policymakers could employ this finding to modify the current compulsory education policy in the future

Knowledge, attitude, and practice regarding cholera among non-academic staff of International Islamic University Malaysia Kuantan Medical Campus

Background: Cholera is a water and food-borne infectious disease caused by Vibrio cholerae. Cholera usually causes fatality in the case of severe infections. Furthermore, cholera outbreaks are still recurring over time, especially in many developing countries. Cholera outbreak may be due to lack of basic knowledge, awareness and preventive attitude among public. The objectives of this study are to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) regarding cholera among non-academic staff of IIUM Kuantan community, to find the related factors of KAP regarding cholera and to find the association between KAP regarding cholera. Methods: This was a questionnaire-based cross-sectional study. This study used convenience sampling. The sample size for this study is 100 and was analyzed by using SPSS software using various tests. Those tests were independent t-test, Mann-Whitney test, Kruskal Wallis test and correlation test. There are six independent variables affecting knowledge, attitude and practice regarding cholera which are genders, marital statuses, and categories of occupation, different faculties, age-groups and level of education. Results: Categories of occupations showed no significant difference between administrative and clinical staff knowledge (p=0.360) and practice (p=0.437) level. Respondent’s attitude however showed significant difference (p=0.034) between clerk and clinical staff. As for other sociodemographic variables, the results showed no significant difference for knowledge, attitude and practice level. The results showed low positive correlation between knowledge and practice regarding cholera (r=0.338), between attitude and practice regarding cholera (r=0.331) and between knowledge and attitude (r=0.233). Conclusions: KAP practice scores were at an acceptable level

Distribution of tetrodotoxin among tissues of pufferfish from Sabah and Sarawak waters

Puffer fish, mainly from Tetraodontidae family known to possess a neurotoxin or tetrodotoxin (TTX) which can cause a puffer fish poisoning and adverse effect to human health. In current study, the tetrodotoxin (TTX) concentration in different tissues (liver, skin, muscle) of 14 species of puffer fish from Sabah and Sarawak waters were analysed and determined by application of liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS). Overall, extracted toxin for all specimens were shown to be toxic with result more than 0.2 μg/g as calculated based on TTX standard curve. Among the tissues, liver were found to be highest in TTX concentration (91.0 μg/g), followed by muscle (51.1 μg/g) and skin (6.87 μg/g). Moreover, TTX concentrations among puffer fish species were significantly differences (p<0.05) with Arothron immaculatus (275 μg/g) showed highest mean value, while the lowest value was detected in Lagocephalus lunaris (4.92 μg/g). From this finding, LC-MS/MS application could be a potential tools to determine the TTX and advisedly used as a procedure in screening of seafood for monitoring program. Furthermore, baseline data of TTX levels in selected puffer fish from the study could be important information and used as guideline in order to mitigate puffer fish poisoning cases especially in East Malaysia waters

A simulation model of reinforced concrete beam containing expanded polystyrene beads (EPS) and palm oil fueled ash (POFA) using finite element method

In this study, Expanded Polystyrene bead (EPS) and Palm Oil Fuelled Ash (POFA) will be used to replace several percents of cement and aggregate in reinforced concrete beam construction. EPS can produce lightweight concrete, and the use of POFA can produce high strength concrete and can also reduce waste disposal. The reinforced concrete beams were analysed using computer software called ABAQUS. The main reason Abaqus software is used as analytics software for this project is that the software is designed specifically for analyzing advanced structural and heat transfer. It is designed for both linear and nonlinear pressure analyses for both tiny and huge structures. This software can also be used to analyze the proposed reinforced concrete beam failure pattern of EPS and POFA. The percentage of EPS and POFA were 40% to 60% in concrete as replacement material. The information obtained from Abaqus is then used to verify the experimental results. The data also contains the appropriate percentage of EPS and POFA in the reinforced concrete beam where performance in terms of bending, pressure, and failure pattern is at maximum. The result shows decrease performance of RC beam containing 40-60% EPS and POFA

Effects of cooking temperature in repetitive cooking-chilling cycles on resistant starch content and quality characteristics of fish crackers

This work describes the effects of different cooking temperatures in repetitive cooking-chilling (RCC) process on resistant starch (RS) content in fish crackers prepared in a ratio of 1:1 fish to sago starch formulation. In this work, three sets of four RCC cycles were performed on fish crackers, in which each set was cooked at fixed temperatures of 100, 115 and 121°C, respectively. The chilling temperature was fixed at 4°C in all cases. Subjecting the fish crackers to a higher cooking temperature for up to 4 cycles of RCC can increase the RS content. However, quality degradation was observed in the characteristics of the fish crackers. During the first RCC cycle, cooking at a higher temperature had caused the crackers to crack and burst. Besides, defragmentation to the shape of the fish cracker gels was also observed during the first RCC cycle, coupled with softer texture and high moisture content. When the products were subjected to frying, their linear expansion decreased, the texture became harder and the colour turned darker. This work demonstrated that the application of higher cooking temperature up to 4 RCC cycles was able to enhance the RS content in the fish crackers, but it was less able to attain the product’s perfect shape. On the contrary, fish crackers that were exposed to lower cooking temperatures contained lower RS but with less shape damage

The impact of health care expenditure and infectious diseases on labour productivity performance in Africa: do institutions matter?

This study was rooted from the findings that for many years infectious diseases remain the major cause of death around the globe especially in Africa. Economic theory also predicts among others that HIV/AIDS reduces labour supply and productivity, and the GDP of Africa declines by 2-4% annually. In addition, institution is one of the reasons for slower growth in Africa. The study, therefore, examined the impact of health care expenditure per capita and infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis (TB) on labour productivity performance in Africa using System GMM Estimation methods for 50 panels of African countries from 2002-2011. The results show that health-care expenditure per capita is positive but insignificant to labour productivity performance in the region. The results also confirm the negative impact of infectious diseases on labour productivity performance in the region. Government effectiveness and control of corruption are positive and significant to the improvement of health care expenditure in Africa. In addition, the study also revealed that political instability and conflict also contribute positively to the spread of infectious diseases in the region. Thus, it is recommended that African governments and health-related development partners increase the financial amount allocated to the health sector. At the same time, more efforts are needed to curb and control the spread of infectious diseases through strengthened institutions to improve health-care expenditure in the region

Incorporation of mobile learning approaches in staff training / Ros A. Yahaya, Nor H. Mohamed and Mohd Khalid Abas.

Mobile devices in training offer a new horizon to help participants to get started with mobile learning in the venture to experience the learning process. Various research emphasize the opportunities and benefits of using mobile learning and simultaneously highlight the obstacles that organizations faced when designing and implementing training by mobile learning. The aim of this paper is to highlight the difficulty in getting more participation and full engagement from the generation Y staff. The traditional approach neglects to consider the different learning approaches of the Gen Y type of learners, their generational attributes and their values at the workplace. Future study should incorporate the use of other platforms such as Whatsapp™ or Instagram ™ among Gen Y