Ferromagnetic enhancement of microcrystalline cellulose via chemical reduction method

Iron oxide nanoparticles (NPs) have potential in biological, biomedical, and environmental applications because of their characteristics such as magnetic susceptibility, stability and biocompatibility. However, it also has limitation, such as aggregation of magnetic NP. As a result, coating materials should be used to modify the particles’ outer surface. In this paper, we focused on the synthesis of iron oxide by chemical reduction method and coating it with Fe(III) nitrate, polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) and hydrazine. In order to determine effective and economical usage conditions, the coating solution at two different concentrations were prepared. The effect of coating iron oxide with microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) was prepared at different concentrations of iron (III) nitrate on the nanomaterials with respect to morphological, thermal, magnetic susceptibility. A good morphology images of FeNp-MCC were proved by Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectra reveals the presence of carbon, oxygen and iron in the synthesized microparticles. TGA analysis showed iron material was successfully formed into the surface of MCC. Lastly, the magnetism results proved that cellulose is strongly interacting with magnetite nanoparticles

THERMAL STRESS ANALYSIS OF HEAVY TRUCK

While braking, most of the kinetic energy are converted into thermal energy and increase the disc temperature. This project consists of thermal stress analysis on heavy truck brake disc rotor for steady state and transient condition. The heat dissipated along the brake disc surface during the periodic braking via conduction, convection and radiation. In order to get the stable and accurate result of element size, time step selection is very important and all of these aspects are discussed in this paper. The findings of this research provide a useful design tool to improve the brake performance of disc brake system

A new piston referencing algorithm for qualitative assessment of free-piston engine generator performance

Free-piston engine generator (FPEG) provides a novel method for electrical power generation in hybrid electric vehicle applications. This paper presents a new piston positioning method for assessing the performance of a dual-piston type FPEG. Numerical simulations were conducted to obtain motion profiles necessary for the algorithm development. A flowchart for the algorithm was produced. The new piston referencing is named cyclic position which illustrates similar crank-angle-based referencing employed for conventional crank slider engine applications. The results demonstrated cyclic position as qualitative tool for FPEG performance assessment which can be used for data-acquisition user interface in experimental investigations

Land Cover Mapping Using High Spatial Resolution SPOT Data Over Penang Island Malaysia.

Satellite digital imagery has proved to be an effective tool for land cover changes studies. The objective of this study is to demonstrate the effectiveness of SPOT imageries in changes detection over Penang Island, Malaysia. An understanding of land use/land cover at local with high resolution is important to prepare the latest data and can be used in many purposes. The neural network classifier was performed to the satellite images and the results were compared with four standard supervised classification techniques, such as the maximum likelihood, minimum distance-to-mean and parallelepiped

An overview of moisture damage performance tests on asphalt mixtures

This paper presents a review of moisture damage performance tests on asphalt mixtures. The moisture damage remains to be a detriment to the durability of the Hot Mix Asphalt (HMA) pavement. Moisture damage can be defined in forms of adhesive failure between bitumen and aggregates and cohesive failure within bitumen. Aggregate mineralogy, bitumen characteristics and anti-stripping additive dominantly influence the performance of asphalt mixtures towards moisture damage alongside construction methods, climate and traffic loading. Various laboratory test methods have been developed to quantify the moisture damage performance of asphalt mixtures by resembles the action in the field, including qualitative test such as Boiling Water Test (ASTM D3625) and quantitative tests such as Modified Lottman Test (AASHTO T283). Both of these tests consist of two phases, which are conditioning and evaluation phase. This paper will review the effectiveness of the selected available tests based on various asphalt mixtures materials. Generally, this study indicates that asphalt mixtures consisted of limestone aggregates, modified bitumen and addition of anti-stripping additives will provide more resistant towards moisture damage

Mystalk Alert: A Response to Cyberstalking in Malaysia

YesThe Internet has become a vital part of our daily lives in the last two decades. However, as a double-edged sword, such reliance has increased the chance of being targeted by various cybercrimes, including cyberstalking. Furthermore, when the crime transcends into the real world, it can result in rape and even murder. Hence, the MYStalk Alert application aims at helping and facilitating the victims of stalking and victims of harassment generally to understand, cope, and document their experience on the crime for a compelling trail of evidence in the criminal justice process. This Application aims to remedy the circumstances by giving access to users to the features that make it easy to document the evidence and provides them with available information on the crime and the legal landscape of stalking in Malaysia. Furthermore, MYStalk Alert also focused on the user’s physical and psychological by providing self-assessment and tips for the wellbeing including mental health test under the feature of victims’ support. The Application is a first of its kind in Malaysia and aims to support victims of stalking in getting the justice they deserved. The preliminary findings revealed contradictory views on the effective response of the criminal justice system towards cyberstalking, which explains the under-reporting of such crime. Significantly, the findings illustrate that the current Malaysian legal framework on cyberstalking is deficient in protecting cyberstalking victims, which calls for an urgent need for a review in the Malaysian laws.This work was supported by research grant FRGS/1/2019/SSI10/UITM/02/2 by the Research Management Centre, UiTM Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia

Palm Fats as Animal Fat Analogues in Beef Burgers

Palm fat and red palm fat were used to replace beef fat in beef burgers. The vitamin E content was higher in palm fat burgers and red palm fat at 428 and 367 μg/g, respectively. Replacing beef fat with palm fat decreased cholesterol to 87 mg and 92 mg/100g (16-24%) in raw and cooked beef burgers, respectively. Red palm fat burgers had the highest carotene values, while beef fat burgers were the lowest. Substitution of animal fat with palm fat did not change the overall sensory acceptability of the beef burgers, showing the potential of palm fats as animal fat analogues

Bioconversion of empty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) into compost using Trichoderma virens

This study shows the performance of Trichoderma virens as an activator for conversion of empty fruit bunches (EFB) and palm oil mill effluent (POME) into compost. EFB and POME are two abundant wastes produced by oil palm industries which keep accumulating. Since there is no proper way to dispose these wastes, a potential way is to turn them into value-added product which is compost. However, normal composting will take about 4 to 6 months and additional pure fungi on compost can reduce the time to only 21 to 45 days. It also promotes plant growth and fight plant diseases. T. virens is one of the potential fungus activator and the enzyme production by this specific fungus has been studied. Biodegradation of EFB and POME supplemented with T. virens and organic N (chicken manure) gave significant changes as compared to EFB and POME alone. Application of T. virens resulted in higher xylanase and cellulase activities which lead to rapid degradation of cellulose and hemicelluloses. Compost with T. virens has higher xylanase activity on day 36 which is 4.43 �mol/(min.mg) as compared to the control which has 3.48 �mol/(min.mg). The cellulase activity is 13.214 FPU/mg and 11.314 FPU/mg for compost with T. virens and compost without bioinoculant on day 36, respectively. The N, P, K content of compost with T. virens increased significantly after maturation which is 1.304, 0.5034 and 0.645%, respectively. This result shows that T. virens played a great role by shortening the composting period of EFB and POME while producing nutrient-enriched compost

Effects of black rice husk ash on asphalt mixture under aging condition

The scarcities of natural resources and increment in the waste production rates have promoted efforts to investigate the potential incorporation of various by-products in roads construction and maintenance. Various types of waste materials have been investigated, assessed and evaluated for utilization and practiced in the industry. Reusing of waste materials such as black rice husk ash (BRHA) in asphaltic concrete (AC) was considered as one of the proper management of the waste, which ensure economic and environmental benefits. This study was investigated BRHA effects on the properties and performance of asphalt mixture under different aging condition. The BRHA was added in the AC14 mixture in a proportion of 0%, 2%, 4% and 6% by weight of bitumen. The optimum bitumen content was 5% and the bitumen used was 60/70 penetration grades. The asphalt mixture for each fraction was prepared in three different aging conditions i.e. un-aging (UA), short term aging (STA) and long term aging (LTA). The performance of the asphalt mixtures was evaluated by Marshall Stability and resilient modulus. The results indicate that asphalt mixtures consisting of BRHA have exhibited better performance in term of stability and resilient modulus when compared to the conventional asphalt mixtures. The short term and long term aging mixtures considerably produced higher performance than the un-aging mixtures. However, the LTA performed better than of the STA mixtures. Finally, the optimum additional percentage of BRHA was in the range of 4 - 6% since its produce excellent values in most circumstances

The molecular phylogenetic signature of Bali cattle revealed by maternal and paternal markers

Bali cattle is a domestic cattle breed that can be found in Malaysia. It is a domestic cattle that was purely derived from a domestication event in Banteng (Bos javanicus) around 3,500 BC in Indonesia. This research was conducted to portray the phylogenetic relationships of the Bali cattle with other cattle species in Malaysia based on maternal and paternal lineage. We analyzed the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) mitochondrial gene and SRY of Y chromosome obtained from five species of the Bos genus (B. javanicus, Bos gaurus, Bos indicus, Bos taurus, and Bos grunniens). The water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) was used as an outgroup. The phylogenetic relationships were observed by employing several algorithms: Neighbor-Joining (PAUP version 4.0), Maximum parsimony (PAUP version 4.0) and Bayesian inference (MrBayes 3.1). Results from the maternal data showed that the Bali cattle formed a monophyletic clade, and together with the B. gaurus clade formed a wild cattle clade. Results were supported by high bootstrap and posterior probability values together with genetic distance data. For the paternal lineage, the sequence variation is low (with parsimony informative characters: 2/660) resulting an unresolved Neighbor-Joining tree. However, Bali cattle and other domestic cattle appear in two monophyletic clades distinct from yak, gaur and selembu. This study expresses the potential of the COI gene in portraying the phylogenetic relationships between several Bos species which is important for conservation efforts especially in decision making since cattle is highly bred and hybrid breeds are often formed. Genetic conservation for this high quality beef cattle breed is important by maintaining its genetic characters to prevent extinction or even decreased the genetic quality