3D numerical modelling of shallow tunnel in weathered granite incorporating multi-stage excavation and pre-support

Generally tunnelling in urban ground condition is not always favourable due to the tunnels’ susceptibility to major displacement especially when excavated in the soft soil and/or weak weathered rock formation. Apart from conventional support systems, pre-support measure like forepoling umbrella arch is frequently used to reinforce the ground. Modern computational tools allows the inclusion of multi-stage excavations and pre-support which was not possible in two dimensional (2D) plane strain. This paper demonstrates the three dimensional (3D) finite element analysis of Pahang-Selangor raw water transfer tunnel, as a reference case, where multi-stage excavation and pre-support are incorporated as intrinsic part of the model. The New Austrian Tunnelling Method (NATM)-3 segments which encountered Grade III weathered granite, having shallow overburden cover, was selected for numerical analysis using RS3 software. Comparison between simulated and observed data has shown good agreement during verification

Hand motion pattern recognition analysis of forearm muscle using MMG signals

Surface Mechanomyography (MMG) is the recording of mechanical activity of muscle tissue. MMG measures the mechanical signal (vibration of muscle) that generated from the muscles during contraction or relaxation action. It is widely used in various fields such as medical diagnosis, rehabilitation purpose and engineering applications. The main purpose of this research is to identify the hand gesture movement via VMG sensor (TSD250A) and classify them using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). There are four channels MMG signal placed into adjacent muscles which PL-FCU and ED-ECU. The features used to feed the classifier to determine accuracy are mean absolute value, standard deviation, variance and root mean square. Most of subjects gave similar range of MMG signal of extraction values because of the adjacent muscle. The average accuracy of LDA is approximately 87.50% for the eight subjects. The finding of the result shows, MMG signal of adjacent muscle can affect the classification accuracy of the classifier

Integration of SPT (N-value), mackintosh probe (M-value) and resistivity values for soft soil assessment

2-D resistivity method has been used in association with Mackintosh probe and Standard Penetration Test (SPT) to investigate the ground properties at Universiti Sains Malaysia, Pulau Pinang. The purpose of this study was to determine the resistivity value of the subsurface material together with N-value and M-value of the particular location. The study also aimed to evaluate whether there is any correlation could be made by the parameters measured. Borehole record revealed that two types of soil exist up to 13 m; loose sand and stiff sandy silt. The loose sand recorded N-value of 8 and M-value of 170 having resistivity value of 790 Ohm.m. On the other hand, stiff sandy silt recorded N-value of 9-11, M-value of 135-170 and showing resistivity value of 415-785 Ohm.m. The results showed no clear relation between those geotechnical strength parameters with the resistivity imaging result. It is due to non-existence of distinctive differences in the electrical conductivity of the mentioned ground material when they are in the low strength bracket. However, the resistivity result suggested the presence of higher resistance material that is dry loose sand. The resistivity result was able to detect the water saturated zone near the ground surface, which showed low N-value and M-value

Effect of Serving Time on Microbiological Quality of Food Served (Chicken Dish and Rice) During Wedding Banquet

Ayam masak merah (chicken in tomato sauce) and nasi minyak (flavoured ghee rice) are among the common dish served in Malay wedding banquet. The microbiological quality of these dishes becomes a concern when there was a food poisoning that caused four deaths after attending the wedding banquet. Therefore, the aim of this work is to investigate the microbiological quality of ayam masak merah and nasi minyak during the serving time (0, 1, 2, 3 and 4 hours) at the wedding banquet. The microbiological analysis were; total plate count (TPC), total coliform, Escherichia coli , Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Salmonella spp., and Listeria spp. The results showed that ayam masak merah has the highest count for TPC, total coliform, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, but low count in Listeria spp. and Salmonella spp. was not detected. Highest TPC was observed at the first hour of serving time, 7.33 log CFU/g, while for total coliforms and Staphylococcus aureus was at the 4 hours of serving time, 7.44 log CFU/g and 7.27 log CFU/g respectively

Analysis And Classification Of Multiple Hand Gestures Using MMG Signals

This research aimed to find out whether the MMG signal is useful in recognition of multiple hand gesture.The following hand gestures are Hand closing, wrist flexion, wrist extension,opening,pointing.MMG is reflects the intrinsic mechanical activity of muscle from the lateral oscillations of fibers during contraction.However, external mechanical noise sources such as movement artifact are known to cause considerable interference to MMG compromising the classification accuracy.First aim to develop various feature extraction algorithms software that can identify multiple hand gesture using MMG signal. The main purpose of this work is to identify the hand gestures that are predefined using the artificial neural network,which is particularly useful for classification purpose.The MMG patterns are extracted from the signals for each movement,the features extracted from the signals are given to the neural network for training and classification since it is the good technique for classifying the bio signals.The features like mean absolute value,root mean square,variance,standard deviation and root mean square are chosen to train the neural network

Hand Motion Pattern Recognition Analysis Of Forearm Muscle Using MMG Signals

Surface Mechanomyography (MMG) is the recording of mechanical activity of muscle tissue. MMG measures the mechanical signal (vibration of muscle) that generated from the muscles during contraction or relaxation action. It is widely used in various fields such as medical diagnosis, rehabilitation purpose and engineering applications. The main purpose of this research is to identify the hand gesture movement via VMG sensor (TSD250A) and classify them using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). There are four channels MMG signal placed into adjacent muscles which PL-FCU and ED-ECU. The features used to feed the classifier to determine accuracy are mean absolute value, standard deviation, variance and root mean square. Most of subjects gave similar range of MMG signal of extraction values because of the adjacent muscle. The average accuracy of LDA is approximately 87.50% for the eight subjects. The finding of the result shows, MMG signal of adjacent muscle can affect the classification accuracy of the classifie

VULNERABILITY MAPPING AND ANALYSIS: AN IMPLEMENTATION IN GEOHAZARD AREAS IN SABAH

Vulnerability identifies the element-at-risk as well as the evaluation of their relationships with the hazard. The relationships relate the landslide potential damages over a specific element-at-risk. Vulnerability can be defined as the degree of loss to a given element-at-risk or set of elements at risk resulting from the occurrence of a natural phenomenon of a given magnitude and expressed on a scale from 0 (no damage) to 1 (total damage). In this study, the landslide vulnerability mapping and analysis were made on two element-at-risks namely buildings and roads. Based on field observations, building and road construction materials have been classified into 22 and 5 construction materials respectively. The field visits were made on specific areas based on candidate buildings and roads as chosen during the landslide exposure analysis and mapping. The vulnerability values for these element-at-risks were expressed using expert opinion. Four experts have been interviewed with separate sessions. The experts were also supplied with local information on the landslides occurrences and photos of element-at-risk in Kundasang and Kota Kinabalu. The vulnerability matrices were combined based on the weighted average approach, in which higher weight was assigned to panel with local expert (landslides and damage assessment), wide experience in landslide vulnerability analysis, hazard and risk mapping. Finally, the vulnerability maps were produced for Kundasang and Kota Kinabalu with spatial resolution of 25 cm. These maps were used for the next step i.e. landslide risk mapping and analysis

Cloud-To-Ground Lightning Flashes Under The Influence Of Pollution In Malaysia And Some Countries

The effect of air pollution produced from world war, industrial activities and transportation clearly can change the earth ecology system such as the atmospheric conditions. Base on few studies reported from by researcher in USA, Brazil, Spain and South Korea researcher have proven that the pollution effect can enhance the activity of lightning. Those information above motivate Advanced Multidisciplinary System Technology researcher in UTeM to report the cloud-to-ground lightning flashes in Malaysia the influence of pollution. Particulate Matter (PM10) and Sulfur Dioxide (SO2) concentration were used as gross indicator of Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) and examined in relation to the urban increase in CG lightning activity. PM10 concentration recorded in Subang, Ipoh and Bayan Lepas were 51, 50 and 49μgm/m³ respectively. Meanwhile, SO2 concentration recorded were 8, 7.9, 7.7μgm/m³. The three urban areas have average number of CG lightning flashes of 200, 197 and 184. An analysis related number of CG flashes against pollutants show positive correlation in Malaysia with reading of 0.94. This indicates PM10 and SO2 concentration have high influential factor in enhancement of CG lightning activity in Malaysia

Physicochemical and sensory analysis of surimi sausage incorporated with rolled oat powder subjected to frying

In the present work, the effects of rolled oat powder (ROP) incorporated into surimi sausage on the physicochemical and sensory attributes of sausage were investigated. The incorporation of ROP into surimi sausage significantly increased moisture content, protein content, and water holding capacity, but decreased shrinkage and cooking loss. The incorporation of ROP was also able to significantly decrease fat absorption during frying. However, increased amount of ROP caused a significant decrease in texture especially after frying. Although a decrease in texture was recorded, the sensory analysis score did not display any significant difference on the colour, hardness, and overall acceptability of the surimi sausage. The development of surimi sausage incorporated with ROP could be an approach to utilize fish as a commodity, and produce a healthier and more nutritious sausage even after frying

Antioxidant Activity of the Phenolic Leaf Extracts from Monechma ciliatum in Stabilization of Corn Oil

The total phenolic content and the antioxidan potential of methanolic extract (ME), ethyl acetate extract (EAE), and hexane extract (HE) from Monechma ciliatum leaves (MCL) were evaluated. The Folin-Ciocalteu, b-carotene bleaching, the 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical scavenging and the accelerated oxidation methods were used for evaluation. Both the extraction yield and the antioxidant activity (AOA) were strongly dependent on the solvent. Among the extracts, ME exhibited highest total phenolic compounds (TPC) and IC50 values for DPPH, followed by EAE and HE, respectively. Peroxide value (PV), anisidine value (AV) conjugated dienes (CD), and thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were taken as the parameters for evaluation of stabilization efficacy of MCL extracts and results revealed MCL to be a potent antioxidant for the stabilization of corn oil. As a general trend, increased AOA was observed for increased extract concentration. The predominant phenolic compounds identified by HPLC-DAD in MCL extracts were p-coumaric acid, vanillin and ferulic acid