The effect of virgin coconut oil loaded solid lipid particles (VCO-SLPs) on skin hydration and skin elasticity

Virgin Coconut Oil is usually extracted from well matured and fresh coconut through specialized processes without damaging its natural nutrition. In this work, formulation, characterization and efficacy of VCO-SLPs have been studied. VCO-SLPs were prepared using ultrasonification of molten stearic acid and virgin coconut oil in an aqueous solution and particles with the size of 0.608 μm have been obtained. 20% concentration of VCO-SLPs of 0.608 μm particle size was added into the base lotion. Sensory study and skin evaluation study was conducted to compare the difference between lotion containing VCO-SLPs and lotion without VCO-SLPs. Moisturizing lotion incorporated with VCO-SLPs was found to increase skin hydration and skin elasticity by 24.8% and 2.60% respectively from day 0 to day 28. This shows that solid lipid particles has the potential to be utilized as a carrier for improved dermal delivery of VCO

Evaluation of pharmaceutical cream production debottlenecking schemes

The main objective of this work is to model and debottleneck a pharmaceutical production of an anti-allergic cream. The base case process has a minimum cycle time of 29 hours which is equivalent to 66 batches/year. Four schemes were proposed for process debottlenecking due to the anticipated increase of the product demand of 150% in the market. By carrying out throughput analysis study, schemes that fulfil the debottlenecking objective were determined. Out of the four debottlenecking schemes, Scheme 4 was chosen, which proposed a new blending tank and intermediate tank, showed a production increase of over 150%

Extending TLS with mutual attestation for platform integrity assurance

Normally, secure communication between client-server applications is established using secure channel technologies such as Transport Layer Security (TLS). TLS is cryptographic protocol which ensures secure transmission of data and authenticity of communication at each endpoint platform. However, the protocol does not provide any trustworthiness assurance of the involved endpoint. This paper incorporates remote attestation in the TLS key exchange protocol to solve this issue.The proposed embedded attestation extension in TLS protocol will provide assurance of sender's platforms integrity to receiver, and vice versa.The CA responsibility in TLS is replaced using own Trusted Certificate Authority (TCA) in our protocol. The credibility of the proposed protocol is studied to secure against replay attack and collusion attack. The proof is performed using AVISPA with High Level Protocol Specification (HLPSL) through Dolev-Yao intruder model implementation of the proposed protocol

Process modelling of a PVC production plant

This paper presents the modelling of a Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) resins manufacturing process with batch process simulator, SuperPro Designer V6.0. The simulation model has been developed based on the operating condition of a local PVC manufacturing plant. As the polymerisation process is carried out in batch operation mode, efforts have been made to document the scheduling details of each unit operation and results are presented in the Gantt chart. Cycle time for a complete polymerisation process is determined to be 14.28 hours. The model also reveals that approximately 17 batches of polymerisation reaction can be processed per day, which tallies the real operation of the PVC manufacturing plant

Exploring hard and soft domestic ecotourists preferences towards selected eco-friendly attributes of ecolodges in Kinabalu Park, Sabah

The emergence of the term ecotourism in the 1980`s has brought forward numerous developments in ecotourism industry including the discovery of special niche segments, specifically the `ecotourists`, as well as specialist accommodation type, specifically the `ecolodges`. Although a number of studies have been published with regards to ecotourists` traits and ecolodges guideline, limited information is available on the domestic ecotourists` preferences towards the characteristics that ecolodges embody. Hence, this study is an attempt to address this deficiency by looking at the preferences of two contrasting ecotourist segments, namely, hard and soft domestic ecotourists in Kinabalu Park, a World Heritage Area in Sabah, Malaysia. A discriminant analysis was performed using 403 samples in Kinabalu Park, and it revealed two ecotourist segments with significant differences of preferences towards six constructs of ecolodges. It was also found that hard domestic ecotourists displayed significant differences in preferring eco-friendly attributes as compared to the soft domestic ecotourists on the variables measuring nature based attractions, services and comfort, location and type of accommodation. Soft domestic ecotourists tend to resemble the mass tourists as they placed importance towards services and comfort but disliked being in remote locations. The results of this study demonstrate that ecotourist segments deserve specific considerations by ecotourism managers to cater accommodation packages based on their specific preferences in order to ensure a quality ecotourism experience

A comparative study on yield of extract, chemical marker content and antioxidant activity of Zingiber zerumbet and Zingiber officinale

Zingiber officinale (ZO) and Zingiber zerumbet (ZZ) are widely found in Southeast Asia and commonly used in herbal medicine practice for treating various diseases. This study was aimed to evaluate the yield of extract, chemical marker content and antioxidant activity of these Zingeberaceae species. Essential oils and hydrosols were obtained using turbo-extraction-distillation (TED). The highest yield of essential oil was obtained by the ZZ sample, which was 0.35 ± 0.09%, while the ZO showed the lowest yield (0.17 ± 0.02%). In hydrosol extracts the highest yield was obtained by the water extract of ZZ (2.50 ± 0.78%), while the ethanol/water (30:70) extract of ZO showed the lowest yield (0.90 ± 0.15%). The analysis of chemical marker content of ZO and ZZ showed 6-gingerol and zerumbone as the major component, respectively. The DPPH method showed the highest antioxidant activity for ZO essential oil (129.4 ± 14.47%), followed by ZZ essential oil (78.88 ± 9.35%) and hydrosol extracts. Collectively, these findings suggest that both ZO and ZZ can be used as potential sources of natural antioxidant in foods and herbal medicines

Optimization of extraction conditions of antioxidant activity from zingiber zerumbet oleoresin

The health promoting capacity of natural antioxidant from phytochemicals has increase attention from researchers and public. However, processing is affecting the activity and the bioavailability of bioactive compounds. Therefore, the optimization of extraction condition of antioxidant activity from Zingiber zerumbet oleoresin was investigated. A Box-Behnken design technique was employed to study the effect of different range parameters of soxhlet extraction. Analysis of variance and response surface methodology were applied to identify the optimal processing parameter. Independent variables were extraction time (8, 10 and 12), type of solvent used (hexane, acetone, ethanol) and blanching treatment (steam treated, boil treated, untreated). The response and variables were fitted well to each other by multiple regressions. All the independent parameters affected oleoresin yield and antioxidant activity significantly. The optimal processing parameter that fulfilled the requirement for yield of oleoresin and antioxidant activity were found to be 12 h extraction time, ethanol as the solvent used and untreated sample. While, the optimal yield of oleoresin was 13.05% w/w and antioxidant activity was 16.01% w/w

Bioremediation of industrial dyes: black reactive 5 and methylene blue by white rot fungus

The aim of the presence research work is to discover the degree of dye decolourization by novel white rot fungi isolated from soil at three different sites; agriculture, virgin forest soil and composting in Johore. Initial experiment was performed with 29 white rot fungus isolates and 3 standard strains, namely Phanerochaete chrysosporium (DSM 6909), Bkerjandera adusta (DSM 4710) and Phlebia radiata (DSM 2111). Soil characteristics; pH, moisture, total viable count, total fungi as well as fungal cell morphology were performed during analysis. White rot fungi were isolated and cultivated on solid medium containing indicator compounds that enabled the detection of enzymes peroxidase as specific colour reactions using guaicol. Selected isolates then were performed in solid medium containing 0.2% dyes (Methylene blue and Reactive Black 5) and incubated up to 10 days at 30 °C before the decolourization rate was observed. The screening work resulted in isolation of 26 positive fungal strains. Liquid cultivations of positive strains confirmed that 24 out of 26 dye degrader were found in the screening. Methylene blue was found to be the most decolorized by white rot fungi with 68.52±3.88% compared to Reactive Black 5, 59.91±3.42 %, respectively. There was significance difference in decolorizing for both dyes responded by soil isolates from different locations. But, in comparison among standard strains, non-significance was observed. P. chrysosporium present the best degrader among the other standard strains for both dyes. Analysis of variance for different locations showed that isolates from virgin forest soil was found to be the most significance in decolourization of methylene blue while composting site for decolourization of Reactive Black 5 dye. This study also suggests that plate-test screening based on polymeric dye compound; guaiacol is an efficient way to screening novel white rot fungus. Further identification and ability to degrade various biological products such as lignin and halo-cellulose should be done as essential to find local and efficient white rot fungus to further develop these industrial applications

Pola grammar technique for grammatical relation extraction in Malay language

A basic sentence in Malay language is either a combination of NP+NP, NP+VP, NP+PP, or NP+AP. The language is a structure phrase grammar. The Context Free Grammar was developed by Nik Safiah (1993). However, in order to derive a parse tree for a syntactic process, the CFG was found to be complicated due to many ambiguities for part of speech. This paper shall introduce a pola-grammar technique that does not require lexical process of retrieving the part of speech for each word. The techniques used are the automata and the finite states. During the process, sentences will be grouped into an adjunct, a subject, a post-subject, a conjunction and a predicate. The predicate consists of a verb, a conjunction, an object and an adverb. An adverb consists of a verb, a conjunction and an adverb. These components which are in sequence order are called pola. The subject, the object and the verb can be identified by making use of the pola in the sentence. This can be done by spliting the sentence into its pola. The information in the predicate will be processed to get the verb and object

Attractiveness of Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM) Canopy Walkway as a nature-based tourism product

FRIM Canopy Walkway is one of the main attractions for visitors at the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM). Since its opening in 1992, the walkway has recorded visitations from all over the world thus bringing good revenues to FRIM's management. This study was conducted to assess visitors' perception towards the attractiveness of FRIM Canopy Walkway as a nature-based tourism product. Questionnaires were distributed to the visitors within a 4 months period whereby a total of 372 surveys were completed. The conceptual framework was constructed based on the Fishbein's Multi-attribute Model. The results indicated that the model provides beneficial means for the evaluation on multiple attributes as well as measurement on the attractiveness of FRIM canopy tourism product. From this approach, it was revealed that the most attractive factor of FRIM Canopy Walkway is the 'view from the walkway'. FRIM's management, particularly the Ecotourism and Urban Forestry Programme that is responsible in managing the walkway can use the findings to their advantage in deciding on the best marketing strategies and management practices required concerning the sustainability of FRIM Canopy Walkway as a nature-based tourism product