Field performance analysis of shoes used in the takraw games in Malaysia

Using proper footwear is crucial to avoid pain, deformations and injuries on foot. For athletes, a pair of good shoes is vital for comfort and may add to performance improvement. The main objective of this study is to study the performance of some commonly used shoes in the takraw games by using experimental tests and thermal measurements. The momentum and kinetic energies that were generated by the takraw shoes were also measured. The methods used in this study included free fall test, impact force analysis and surface thermal assessment. From the outcomes of the experiments, it was found that the prototype FA shoe was better in absorption of momentum and impact force than the other shoes and also with lower surface temperature after the trial game. These outcomes suggested that it was more suitable to be worn by the takraw players for better performance. All the information obtained from this study are particularly useful for improvement on the current design of takraw shoe

Thermal comfort evaluation of the enclosed transitional space in tropical buildings: Subjective response and computational fluid dynamics simulation

This study aims to identify the thermal environment of an enclosed transitional space in a tropical educational institution and occupants' perceptions on thermal comfort. The methods applied were field survey, which covered objective measurement and subjective assessment, as well as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)simulations. Comparisons were made between the empirical and predicted results. In this study, it was identified in the field assessment that most of the respondents were satisfied with the thermal environment in the enclosed lift lobby and preference was directed towards cooler environment. The predicted results showed fair agreement with the empirical results, with minor differences between the two results for the thermal and airflow conditions. Besides, a lower expectation factor in PMV index is required for thermal environment in transitional spaces. Analysis of thermal neutrality in this survey has demonstrated that the thermal conditions in the enclosed lift lobby were acceptable by 80% of the respondents. The methods applied in this study can be extended to other enclosed transitional spaces in the tropical buildings

Perception of thermal comfort in the enclosed transitional space of tropical buildings.

The enclosed lift lobby distinguishes itself as a unique form of region categorised under building transitional spaces. This paper reports on an evaluation of thermal comfort conditions in a prominent transitional space in buildings which is the enclosed lift lobby of an educational institution in Malaysia, using field survey which included objective measurement and subjective assessment. The temperature set-point of air conditioner was increased and maintained at 26°C to investigate the human thermal perceptions in the enclosed region. Comparison was made on the percentage of thermal sensation, preference, acceptability and general comfort votes obtained from field survey. The outcomes clearly indicated that the human thermal perception in the enclosed lift lobby would be directly proportional to the level of human occupancy, and any sudden temperature change could lead to thermal discomfort of occupants. The respondents generally preferred to have cooler environment, rather than warmer one. Also, comfortable temperature can be obtained even with higher air conditioner thermostat settings. These findings may serve as a guide for building operators in the tropics to control the energy consumption of cooling equipment attached to the enclosed transitional spaces

Residents’ Well-being of a Village in a Great City. Case Study: Kampong Bharu (New Village), Kuala Lumpur City.

Urbanisation, a human settlement is growing from a village to a megacity. However, there are few cases of villages, which had been lacking behind in the trend of urbanisation. For instance, Kampong Bharu (New Village) had been maintained as a village setting even though it is located within the boundary of Kuala Lumpur city. A study has been carryout to examine the residents’ well-being of the Kampong Bharu by using a questionnaire survey and statistical analysis. In general, the well-being of villages was within a moderate level. The social and economic developments were contributed to the psychological well-being of residents. Keywords: City; correlation; quality of life; satisfaction eISSN: 2398-4287 © 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5iSI2.2523

Urban Environment and Physical Activity of Petaling Jaya Residents

Physical activity and active lifestyle are imperative for good health. However, rapid urbanisation has prompted a significant decline in physical activity, particularly among those living in cities. Past studies have mainly focused on personal and social variables, built environment features, and green space features when examining how urban green spaces affect physical activity. Nevertheless, the statistical relationship between urban environment and physical activity remains unexplored, especially in the context of Malaysia. This study aims to address such gap by examining the relationship between urban environment and residents’ physical activity in Petaling Jaya, Selangor. Urban environment was evaluated based on four (4) indicators, namely green areas, sports facilities, facilities convenience, as well as the safety and distance to access the facilities. The data were obtained through observation and mapping the radius between the green areas and sports facilities to the neighbourhood area. Whereas, physical activity was evaluated based on the frequency and duration of two types of physical activity, namely vigorous activity and moderate activity. The data were obtained through a questionnaire survey, which were later analysed using frequency and cross-tabulation via the IBM SPSS Statistics software. The results showed that sections with more green areas and sports facilities as well as convenient environment tend to have active respondents. Meanwhile, sections with no green areas nor sports facilities still produced active respondents as they were willing to travel to nearby sections with green areas and sports facilities. The findings of this study hope to assist stakeholders, especially city planners, in improving urban environment for a healthier community

Thermal Environment Analysis of a Scientific Laboratory using Computational Fluid Dynamics

University staff and students typically spend most of their time indoors. This paper evaluates the thermal environment of an air-conditioned scientific laboratory in a tertiary educational institution in Malaysia using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD). This computational technique has been used in analysing the indoor environments and has been found to be useful in aiding facilities management. A pilot survey was conducted to collect the required information such as indoor parameters and boundary conditions for the setting up of a CFD model of the laboratory. The model was then simulated based on the data obtained from field observations. Results indicate that the laboratory users sitting at different rows and work desks would experience different thermal sensations. The mean air temperature was below the recommended comfort zone specified in the local energy standard, but the air velocities were generally within the acceptable range. Based on the calculated predicted mean vote (PMV) and predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) indices, most of the users would be thermally uncomfortable, and a warmer environment was preferred. Recommendations were made to regulate the inlet air temperature of the laboratory to improve thermal comfort of laboratory users and for energy saving purposes

High-Strength Nanotwinned Al Alloys with 9R Phase

Light-weight aluminum (Al) alloys have widespread applications. However, most Al alloys have inherently low mechanical strength. Nanotwins can induce high strength and ductility in metallic materials. Yet, introducing high-density growth twins into Al remains difficult due to its ultrahigh stacking-fault energy. In this study, it is shown that incorporating merely several atomic percent of Fe solutes into Al enables the formation of nanotwinned (nt) columnar grains with high-density 9R phase in Al(Fe) solid solutions. The nt Al–Fe alloy coatings reach a maximum hardness of ≈5.5 GPa, one of the strongest binary Al alloys ever created. In situ uniaxial compressions show that the nt Al–Fe alloys populated with 9R phase have flow stress exceeding 1.5 GPa, comparable to high-strength steels. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal that high strength and hardening ability of Al–Fe alloys arise mainly from the high-density 9R phase and nanoscale grain sizes

High-Strength Nanotwinned Al Alloys with 9R Phase

Light-weight aluminum (Al) alloys have widespread applications. However, most Al alloys have inherently low mechanical strength. Nanotwins can induce high strength and ductility in metallic materials. Yet, introducing high-density growth twins into Al remains difficult due to its ultrahigh stacking-fault energy. In this study, it is shown that incorporating merely several atomic percent of Fe solutes into Al enables the formation of nanotwinned (nt) columnar grains with high-density 9R phase in Al(Fe) solid solutions. The nt Al–Fe alloy coatings reach a maximum hardness of ≈5.5 GPa, one of the strongest binary Al alloys ever created. In situ uniaxial compressions show that the nt Al–Fe alloys populated with 9R phase have flow stress exceeding 1.5 GPa, comparable to high-strength steels. Molecular dynamics simulations reveal that high strength and hardening ability of Al–Fe alloys arise mainly from the high-density 9R phase and nanoscale grain sizes

31st Annual Meeting and Associated Programs of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC 2016) : part two

Background The immunological escape of tumors represents one of the main ob- stacles to the treatment of malignancies. The blockade of PD-1 or CTLA-4 receptors represented a milestone in the history of immunotherapy. However, immune checkpoint inhibitors seem to be effective in specific cohorts of patients. It has been proposed that their efficacy relies on the presence of an immunological response. Thus, we hypothesized that disruption of the PD-L1/PD-1 axis would synergize with our oncolytic vaccine platform PeptiCRAd. Methods We used murine B16OVA in vivo tumor models and flow cytometry analysis to investigate the immunological background. Results First, we found that high-burden B16OVA tumors were refractory to combination immunotherapy. However, with a more aggressive schedule, tumors with a lower burden were more susceptible to the combination of PeptiCRAd and PD-L1 blockade. The therapy signifi- cantly increased the median survival of mice (Fig. 7). Interestingly, the reduced growth of contralaterally injected B16F10 cells sug- gested the presence of a long lasting immunological memory also against non-targeted antigens. Concerning the functional state of tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs), we found that all the immune therapies would enhance the percentage of activated (PD-1pos TIM- 3neg) T lymphocytes and reduce the amount of exhausted (PD-1pos TIM-3pos) cells compared to placebo. As expected, we found that PeptiCRAd monotherapy could increase the number of antigen spe- cific CD8+ T cells compared to other treatments. However, only the combination with PD-L1 blockade could significantly increase the ra- tio between activated and exhausted pentamer positive cells (p= 0.0058), suggesting that by disrupting the PD-1/PD-L1 axis we could decrease the amount of dysfunctional antigen specific T cells. We ob- served that the anatomical location deeply influenced the state of CD4+ and CD8+ T lymphocytes. In fact, TIM-3 expression was in- creased by 2 fold on TILs compared to splenic and lymphoid T cells. In the CD8+ compartment, the expression of PD-1 on the surface seemed to be restricted to the tumor micro-environment, while CD4 + T cells had a high expression of PD-1 also in lymphoid organs. Interestingly, we found that the levels of PD-1 were significantly higher on CD8+ T cells than on CD4+ T cells into the tumor micro- environment (p < 0.0001). Conclusions In conclusion, we demonstrated that the efficacy of immune check- point inhibitors might be strongly enhanced by their combination with cancer vaccines. PeptiCRAd was able to increase the number of antigen-specific T cells and PD-L1 blockade prevented their exhaus- tion, resulting in long-lasting immunological memory and increased median survival

Indoor environmental quality and energy cost saving prediction model for radiantly cooled slab tropical buildings

The building sector is one of the major energy users. This has made efficient energy utilisation in buildings a necessity in conserving the fast-depleting resources and to achieve reduction in energy cost. Efficient use of energy consuming devices such as air-conditioning and artificial lighting systems in buildings is therefore essential for energy efficiency improvement. This research aims to evaluate the indoor environmental quality (IEQ) of a Malaysian building that was cooled via a combination of radiant and convective systems and to compare the energy performance of this apparatus to a conventionally designed all-air system. Field assessments which consisted of physical and subjective (questionnaire) assessments were conducted to measure the current IEQ levels as well as to identify the occupants’ perception on their immediate surroundings. The energy management system was used to gather energy consumption data of the building under study. The outcomes demonstrated that the measured IEQ parameters were within acceptable ranges except for the air velocity profile. From the subjective measurement, 83.3% of the occupants were satisfied with their thermal environment and 59.5% of the votes were placed within the three central categories of the thermal sensation scale. Besides, each environmental comfort factor exerted different level of impact towards the occupants’ work productivity. Natural daylight was found to be sufficient in providing a visually comfortable environment to occupants during peak working hours, while occupants were generally more tolerant towards the acoustical condition. The air quality was perceived as acceptable for 92% of the occupants, which was consistent with the measured air contaminants’ levels. The operative temperature was calculated by using the measured air temperature and mean radiant temperature and a neutral operative temperature of 25.4 °C was obtained. An adaptive coefficient of -1.1262 was subsequently calculated which showed the level of thermal adaptation among the occupants. Besides, it was found that the combined radiant-convective system was able to reduce the energy cost for air-conditioning of interior spaces by 42.5%. A simple payback period of 5.3 years was calculated by considering all the associated costs. The outcomes of this study also suggested that more energy savings without compromising human comfort can be obtained by raising the thermostat setting to 2 °C higher than the conventional setting and the use of natural daylight during working hours. Further studies on evaluating the IEQ conditions of other tropical buildings that are using radiant cooling systems and application of automatic window shades for daylight control were suggested