Food Safety Knowledge and Practice Among Community in Sg. Pelek, Sepang, Selangor Darul Ehsan

Food safety is a basic requirement of food quality. It is an increasingly important public health issue to prevent and control food borne illnesses. A cross-sectional study was designed to determine level of knowledge and practice on food safety, to determine the association between knowledge and practice, and also to identify the association between socio-demographic factors and practice score of the population studied. This study was conducted among adult population in Taman Bahagia, Sungai Pelek, Sepang, Selangor Darul Ehsan. Data were collected using an interviewed structured questionnaire. A stratified random sampling was performed to obtain houses, followed by simple random sampling to select sample in the house. A total of 115 data sets were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0. Analysis showed that 35% of respondents have poor level of knowledge on food safety, whereas 27% of the respondents have poor level of practices on food safety. Multiple linear regression revealed that there are a significant association between education level (p<0.001), Adj b=2.57 (95% CI: 1.15, 3.99) and gender (p=0.048), Adj b=1.15 (95% CI: 0.01, 2.29) with practice score on food safety. Therefore, health promotion and education on the importance of practicing food safety at home should be focused to prevent further unwanted health effects

Performance of an innovative multi-stage anaerobic reactor during start-up period

Start-up of an anaerobic reactor is a relatively delicate process and depends on various factors such as wastewater composition, available inoculum, operating conditions and reactor configuration. Accordingly, systematized operational procedures are important, mainly during the start-up of an anaerobic reactor. In this paper, the start-up performance of an innovative multi-stage anaerobic reactor using synthetic wastewater at various organic loading rates (OLRs) was investigated. In Phase 1 of the experimental study, the reactor was operated at hydraulic retention time (HRT) of 1 day with corresponding OLR of 1.07 kg COD.m-3.d-1. Thereafter, the reactor was operated at intermittent feeding (Phase 2), with HRT of 1.4 day and OLR of 0.82 to 2.45 kg COD.m-3.d-1. Results showed up to 71% COD reduction in the Phase 1 of the experimental study. However, in Phase 2, when the reactor was operated at intermittent feeding, the COD removal efficiency increased from 75 to 92%. It can be concluded that the multi-stage anaerobic reactor system performed better at intermittent feeding, indicating that the reactor required low loading rate and sufficient HRT for gradual acclimatization for reactor start-up. The reduction of the period necessary for the start-up and improved operational control are important factors to increase the efficiency the reactor system.Key words: Anaerobic reactor start-up, biomass, glucose wastewater, intermittent feeding, multi-stage anaerobic reactor

Navigating uncertainty and complexity: Higher education and the dilemma of employability

This paper reinforces growing social and economic demands for graduates who can navigate the uncertainty and complexity of rapidly transforming employment contexts. This aim is first addressed with an overview of the research on employability and the changing nature of work and employment. This is followed with a discussion of employability and career development within higher education. The article concludes by considering the implications for higher education institutions. Recommendations include the development of graduate employability measures that record multiple employments and the refinement of employability models. The authors challenge higher education institutions to place the development of self and career at the core of every program

TO INVESTIGATE THE CONSEQUENCES OF INTERNET ADDICTION DISORDER

ABSTRACT Around the world more than 80% of youth are spending a large amount of time on the internet. Therefore, it becomes essential for us to aware of its impact on adolescent behavior, their psychological well-being and development. In some respects, addictive use of the Internet resembles other so-called "process" addictions, in which a person is addicted to an activity or behavior (including gambling, shopping, or certain sexual behaviors) rather than a substance (mood-altering drugs, tobacco, food, etc.). This study investigated the continuation of Internet addiction and the extent of problems caused by such potential misuse

Industrial Heat Exchanger: Operation and Maintenance to Minimize Fouling and Corrosion

Heat exchanger is equipment used to transfer heat from one fluid to another. It has extensive domestic and industrial applications. Extensive technical literature is available on heat exchanger design, operation and maintenance, but it is widely scattered throughout the industrial bulletins, industrial design codes and standard, technical journals, etc. The purpose of this book chapter is to consolidate into basic background and concepts design of heat exchangers, operation, cleaning and green technology maintenance on heat exchanger closely related to the industrial practices

Double-stage features extraction for Malays vowel classification using multinomial logistic regression

Automatic speech recognition (ASR) has recorded enormous development in both research and implementation such as voice commands to control electronic appliances, video games, interface to voice dictation, assistive leaving for the elderly, and dialogue systems. Rapid development on ASR can be seen on the English language, while duplicating the ASR framework for Malay language is possible, but the work demands endlessly efforts. One of common tools that is able to classify Malay vowels is Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR). However, careless on estimating the parameters of MLR may lead to producing biased classifier which inappropriate for future classification. Besides, the used on huge number of features for classification sometimes hinder MLR to perform well. This paper outlines a new idea for estimating the unknown MLR parameters with less number of features using a double-stage features extraction based on MLR (DSFE-MLR). The proposed DSFE-MLR extracted 39-MFCC from speech waveform and constructed an MLR using training set. Next, the MLR output of class membership probabilities were further extracted through MLR and evaluated using test set. Empirical evidence on Malay sample of students shows that the DSFE-MLR recorded the highest accuracy compared to other classifiers. Besides, the method is able to recognize each of five Malay vowels correctly. In general, DSFE-MLR provides an increment of accuracy for Malay speech recognition