Improvement of Rice Straw Hydrolysate Preparation for Bioethanol Production Using Saccharomyces Cerevisiae ATCC 24860

Production of biological ethanol (bioethanol) from biomass waste residues through biotechnological approach (cellulosic bioethanol) is important nowadays as it is a mitigation process towards fossil fuel depletion, energy crisis and greenhouse gasses pollution. It is an environmental friendly process which also facilitates carbon sequestration and provides a carbon neutral fuel for transportation and other applications. It is also an alternative way to utilize biomass waste from agroindustries such as oil palm empty fruit bunches (OPEFB) and rice straw. In this study, cellulosic bioethanol was produced from rice straw through a three-stage system which are pretreatment of the rice straw, enzyme production and cellulosic bioethanol fermentation. The first stage is pretreatment, where improvements on existing pretreatment technologies were studied, without chemical treatment. Wet disc milling machine was used with the addition of water to the rice straw prior the milling process involving rotating grinding stones. By incorporating thermal treatment (121°C) to the wet discmilled product, there are improvements in free glucose released prior to enzymatic hydrolysis and reduction in lignocellulosic particle size. It was found that by wet disc milling and thermal treatment, 0.046 g glucose was released per g rice straw as compared to 0.024 g glucose per g rice straw respectively. While for NaOH pretreatment, no glucose release can be detected after pretreatment since the rice straw must be rinsed to remove the chemical. The second stage involves cellulase production and enzymatic hydrolysis of rice straw. By incorporating 50 mL of palm oil mill effluent (POME) as nutrient in 1 liter Mandel’s medium, cellulase production from rice straw by Aspergillus sp. at 30°C after 5 days produced remarkable activity, which is 6.3 FPU/g rice straw used. This crude cellulase when used on pretreated rice straw in 50 mL bottle with magnetic stirrer bar at pH 4.8 and temperature of 50°C gave higher glucose compared to nonthermal treated rice straw, with increment from 0.245 g glucose/g rice straw to 0.380 g glucose/g rice straw. The third stage involves ethanol fermentation by yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae ATCC 24860. The pH of the hydrolyzed rice straw was adjusted to 6.0 prior to the yeast inoculation. Incubation was carried out in 50 mL stirrer bottle at 37°C. Theoretically, one mole of glucose (180.16 g) will be converted into two moles of ethanol (92.14 g). In this study, 0.10 g ethanol/g rice straw obtained, which counted for 62.61% of bioethanol produced

Virtual Business Card Android Mobile Application (vCard)

Business card is one of the simple ways to market an individual not only during business occasion but in any formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. In the business perspective, in order to appeal and stand out from the competitors, business card will reflect and give the first good impression of the person, company and their services by highlighting the info embedded inside the business card. It can be seen as one of the effective marketing strategy as well as improve the legitimacy of the company itself. With the vast development of mobile industry and mobile application, virtual business cards are starting to appear and they bring a lot of advantages over a traditional business card. Hence, this project aims to develop a mobile application Android based that can generate a virtual business for any individuals that use business card in any formal and informal introduction and other occasions. The purposes of this project are to increase the mobility of business card by convert it into a mobile application and in the same time reduce the usage of printed paper. Apart from that, to expand the capabilities of this new virtual business card, it will be integrated with Global Positioning System (GPS) and sync with the social network application inside the mobile device. This project will be using Rapid Application Development (RAD) methodology because of the flexibility in term of time and process of development which is very suitable to develop an application in a limited of time

Relationship between job stress and organisational commitment among public servants in Pontian, Johor

This study was conducted to determine the relationship between job stress and organisational commitment among public servant in Pontian, Johor. 262 public servants were chosen as respondents of this study through random sampling technique. Job Stress Scale (Crank, Regoli, Hewiit & Carlberson, 1995) and Organisational Commitment Scale (Meyer and Allen, 1997) were used to measure job stress and organisational commitment respectively. Result revealed that there were significant negative relationships between job stress and organisational commitment (affective r=-.272, p=.000), continuance (r=-.160, p=.01), normative (r= -.231, p=.000). The findings gave an implication that worker with low job stress will have a high organisational commitment. Therefore, employer and organisation should strive to take appropriate steps in reducing job stress and providing adequate and good facilities at work place, thus ensuring that worker has a high level of organisational commitment. High organisational commitment will contribute to worker’s high productivity that will not only benefit the worker himself but also the employer and organisation

Synthesis and Formation of T11223 and T1223 High-Tc Superconductors

The preparation methods of Tl2Ba2Ca2Cu30,o (T1l223) and Tlo.5Pbo.5Sr1.6Ca.4Cu30g (TI2223) superconductors using a variety of starting compositions and sintering temperatures are discussed. Single-phased Tl2223 with T, between 106 to 109 K can be prepared using T12Ba2C~Cu3010 and Tl1.6Ba2C~4Cu3010as starting compositions in a non-closed system by heating around 20 min at 910°C in flowing 02' Samples with Tl1223 major phase (- 70%) can be prepared from Tlo.5Pbo.5SrI.6C~.4Cu30gcomposition with the sample wrapped in gold foil and sintered in flowing oxygen at 940°C for 3 hours

Community reporting system: road violation

In the era of internet and wireless, an online community reporting system that is easy to use and hustle free is much needed to allow the user to place a misconduct report to the relevant authority. The available system is inefficient and time-consuming since mostly are using web-based which makes the user unwilling to make a report to the authority. The objective of this project is to design a system using android application that is cost-effective and easy to use. The scope of this project is on the road violation reporting system. The outcome of the system will provide a user with an easy reporting system and also the authority can manage the report easily. The development of the system is expected to enhance the reporting system and betterment for the community as well as the authority as a whole

Curling Behavior of Circular Metal Tubes

An energy absorber device is a device that is capable to convert one form of energy to the plastic deformation or another form of energy. Plastic deformation energy can be converted into several modes of deformation including axial crushing, inversion, splitting, lateral indentation and lateral flattening. The objective of this paper was to investigate the axial splitting and curling behavior of aluminium circular metal tubes which was compressed axially under static loading. An experimental investigation was carried out by using three types of dies with different semi-angles, which was 450, 600 and 750. To ease the splitting process, the tube was introduced with 4 and 6 slits with the length of 5 mm at the leading edge of the tube. The slit prevented the tubes from buckling and established the split and curl mode during the compression process. The result showed that for a specimen with 4 initial saw cuts, the number of slits remained except for semi angle die of 600 where it branched into 6 splits. Meanwhile for a specimen with 6 initial saw cuts, the effect of semi angle die was insignificant where the number of slits remained the same after compression. The mean load was found proportional to the semi angle die. In conclusion, the axial splitting and curling of aluminium circular metal tubes has high potential as an energy absorber. Keywords: axial loading, curling, deformation, semi-angles, slit

Real-Time High Jump Wearable Device with ESP8266 for High-Performance and Low-Injury

In the world of sports, the injury is unavoidable, however, the performance is the first priority. The percentage of the athletes to get injured is very high due to the fallibility of athlete jumping themselves. Therefore, this study presents the design and implementation of high-performance and low-injury real-time high jump wearable device by using ESP8266 microcontroller. The proposed wearable device is built because of there is no device to monitor this sport during training. There are three (3) parts have been integrated to build this wearable device – input, process and output. The input consists of global positioning system (GPS) sensor that attached to the waist and force sensing resistor (FSR) sensor was placed at the bottom of the ankle as a wireless input for data captured. These data were then being processed by ESP8266 microcontroller hardware device with an embedded wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) module on the same chip that has been programmed and results obtained were displayed via the mobile app. Graphical user interface (GUI) of the wearable device has been designed using C language code using OpenHAB software and data from the wearable device were also available in log formats. The outcomes obtained have shown encouraging results since all data can be visualised and monitored in real-time, history of the training can be retrieved and the benchmark data acts as a guide to the other athlete to improve the performance

Evaluating students readiness, expectancy, acceptance and effectiveness of augmented reality based construction technology education

Augmented reality (AR) has the potential to enhance the teaching and learning experience in construction technology which involves the learning of construction processes and understanding the construction elements. Augmented reality also provides the ability to change and improve the nature of education. This is due to the possibility of overlaying media onto the real world for content consumption using smartphones and tablets devices, which enables students to access information anywhere and anytime. However, before implementing a new approach to teaching, the state of whether the students are ready to use AR have to be identified. This also goes toward what the students expect when using AR in learning, how do they accept using AR and effectiveness of using AR in learning. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to (1) Identify the readiness of students on using AR in teaching; (2) Identifying what do the students expect when using AR in learning construction technology; (3) Identifying the student’s acceptance of AR in learning; (4) The effectiveness of AR in construction technology learning. A quantitative method of analysis has been implemented measuring the mean score of objective 1-3 based on the student’s responses to the questionnaire. On the other hand, the second phase of the study which is to determine whether using AR is effective in learning was done by comparing pre-test and post-test results. Results from the study show assuring indicators that students accept the usage of AR in construction technology education, the application also fulfils their expectations on what AR could aid in the learning process and for student’s acceptance, the result shows that students accepted the usage of AR as a learning tool. Meanwhile, the results regarding AR effectiveness on construction technology displayed noticeable improvements regarding student’s pre-test and post-test results with 68% of students display improvements in their scores