Classification of Acid Sulfate Soils of Peninsular Malaysia

Acid sulfate soils form an important group of soils in Peninsular MaLaysia, particularly on the West Coast. These soils developed over marine, estuarine and brackish water deposits can be divided into two groups - the potential acid sulfate soils and the true acid sulfate soils using the definitions established in Soil Taxonomy. The classification of these soils in accordance to the Malaysian system is discussed. The Malaysian system though based on the concepts of Soil Taxonomy has been modified to suit local conditions. Two sequences of acid sulfate soils have been recognized in Peninsular Malaysia. A key to the identification of these acid sulfate soils is also presented in the paper

Adaptive spatial mode of space-time and spacefrequency OFDM system over fading channels

In this paper we present a 2 transmit 1 receive (1 Tx : 1 Rx) adaptive spatial mode (ASM) of space-time (ST) and space-frequency (SF) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). At low signal to noise ratio (SNR) we employ ST-OFDM and switch to SF-OFDM at a certain SNR threshold. We determine this threshold from the intersection of individual performance curves. Results show a gain of 9 dB (at a bit error rate of 10-3) is achieved by employing adaptive spatial mode compared to a fixed ST-OFDM, almost 6 dB to fixed SF-OFDM, 4 dB to Coded ST-OFDM and 2 dB to a fixed coded SF-OFDM, at a delay spread of 700 ns

Evaluasi Desain Antarmuka Dengan Pendekatan Kemudahan Penggunaan (Studi Kasus Mobile App Sport Galaxy Center)

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengevaluasi desain antar muka pada mobile app sport galaxy center menggunakan pendekatan interpretasi faktor manusia dan ergonomi, sehingga diharapkan dapat meningkatkan kemudahan dan kegunaan (userfulness) pada sistem tersebut. Metode evaluasi yang digunakan adalah evaluasi heuristic, dimana secara umum desain antar muka (interface), kemudahan penggunaan (USAbility) dari mobile app sport galaxy center cukup baik berdasarkan kedua metode tersebut, tetapi ada beberapa hal yang perlu diperbaiki terutama dalam karakteristik kemudahan penggunaan

A Pilot Study on the Sustainability of the Engineers' Technical Knowledge Repository (KR) Establishment: a Malaysian Case

. Knowledge is an important resource in this current economic condition where organizations are competing in creating more innovation in order to maintain their business in the marketplace. Thus, it is important for an establishment to continue their capitalizing their knowledge asset as knowledge is vital to gain competitive advantage in this current epoch. With regards to that, an organization needs to plan and design the most appropriate approach which enable the organizational knowledge asset to be captured, stored and utilized its valuable benefits. Establishing a knowledge repository (KR) is one of the approaches organizations adapt in maintaining organizational knowledge asset and promoting knowledge reuse. The focal point of this research is on the sustainability of knowledge repository establishment in sharing, transferring, storing the technical knowledge of the key personnel from the Malaysian public sector. The study adopted the qualitative research approach as its aim is to look into the sustainability of KR in an in-depth manner which concerned with the societal facet of that particular system. Therefore, the paper discusses the outcomes from the pilot study on which elements that sustain the significant impact in contributing to the process of knowledge repository sustainability in an organization

Engineering Technology Program In Malaysia: A Market Survey

In line with industrial development which is growing rapidly in Malaysia, the country is in great needs of competent technical workforce able to apply the latest concept of technology, improve equipment and system utilization, optimizing operation and maintenance of equipments. Therefore, an engineering technology program will be introduced in Malaysia education system at higher level. In developing the electrical engineering technology program and designing a curriculum structure in Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka (UTeM), a market survey has been conducted to gather opinion from industries on the relevant subjects, duration of training required and also the career opportunity. The market research survey was conducted by the Committee of Development for Engineering Technology, UTeM in 2011. A total of 110 questionnaires were distributed to local and foreign companies throughoutMalaysia. The scope of the market survey covered the common understanding of the concept of Engineering Technologist,requirements from industry perspective, the relevant focus areas as well as perceptions towards the program. The findings shows that there is a demand for degree programs in Electrical Engineering Technolog

Effects of copper overload on hepatic lipid peroxidation and antioxidant defense in rats

The influence of copper (Cu) overload on hepatic lipid peroxidation and antioxidation defense capacity was studied by overloading rats with copper sulphate orally (500 mg Cu/kg bw) 5 d/w for 8 w. Malondialdehyde (MDA), Cu-Zn superoxide dismutase (SOD), and Se-glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) were measured in serum and liver homogenate at 2, 4 and 8 w of dosing. Liver Cu concentration and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) activity were also determined. As Cu loading progressed, there were multiparameter changes with significant ALT elevation, increased MDA concentrations in serum and liver homogenate, and dramatic declines of SOD and GSH-Px activities in erythrocytes and whole blood respectively, along with marked elevation of hepatic Cu in the Cu-dosed group. Excessive Cu accumulation in the liver depressed SOD and GSH-Px activities and resulted in high MDA in serum and liver homogenate due to the lipid peroxidation induced by the Cu overload

Clarification of factors that affect the flux performance of hollow fiber membranes during ultrafiltration using design of experiments

In this paper, the separation of humic substances from oily wastewater was investigated using Hollow Fiber membranes. Consideration was given to the increse of membrane permeability or flux of the Ultrafiltration process. Specifically, several factors which were temperature, pressure, time, pH and surface area of membrane, were studied. The Design of Experiments (DOE) methodology was used to investigate the effect of the factors. From the analysis of variance (ANOVA), it was determined that the pH and temperature of feed solution, time of separation process and transmembrane pressure are significant. The results of this study help to increase the permeability of membranes, thus contributing to a more sustainable filtration system

Modeling of preparation conditions of PES ultrafiltration hollow fiber membranes using statistical regression techniques

Mathematical modeling of the spinning process is crucial for a better understanding of the process variables and process functionality in membrane development. Due to the broad use and key importance of mathematical models in chemical process engineering, experimental design is becoming essential for the rapid development and validation of these empirical models. This work used the design of experiment methodology and aimed to predict the performance of ultrafiltration systems for water treatment by considering the statistical regression technique as an important approach for modeling flux. The utilization of regression modeling was also explored to show the principle elements for predicting flux in the spinning process. In order to investigate how proficient the statistical regression technique is at approximating the predicted value for flux, a real spinning experiment was conducted in this study. In this experiment, 30 samples of data were collected based on a half fractional factorial experiment with design resolution V, as well as 4 replications of center points and 10 axial points. The spinning factors that were investigated are the dope extrusion rate, air gap length, coagulation bath temperature, bore fluid ratio, and post-treatment time for predicting the corresponding flux. The regression model obtained shows that there is a correlation between the experimental data and predicted values. The results of the proposed model can be used to give a good prediction of the spinning process during membrane fabrication

Swelling kinetic behavior of biochar-graft superabsorbent polymer composites

Superabsorbent polymers (SAPs) are crosslinked three dimensional structures that poses high swelling capacity in aqueous medium. Its application in agriculture beneficial as it is able to retain moisture in soil. SAPs incorporated with bio-char have been prepared via solution polymerization of polyacrylic acid with co-monomer of polyacrylamide in the presence of bio-char using methylenebisacryalmide (MBA) as a crosslinking agent and ammonium persulfate (APS) as an initiator. In this research, the swelling kinetic behavior of SAP with biochar was studied on the effect of biochar percentage loading from 0-0.8wt. SEM imaging of sap icorporated biochar shows a porous structure which influences water absorbency. The maximum of water absorbency capacity reached an optimum value of 129.89 g/g at 0.4 % before decreasing with increasing bio-char loading. Mathematical model of kinetic diffusivity also revealed that the SAP-biochar incorporated follows a second order kinetic. The presence of bio-char could enhance physical properties by increasing the water-holding capacity, enhancing its water absorbency ability. Application of SAP incorporated biochar not only able to retain water, it could also help to fertilize agriculture

Location Management Cost Reduction Using Adaptive Velocity-movement Based Scheme

Wireless personal communication networks (PCNs) consist of a fixed wireless network and a large number of mobile terminals. These terminals are free to travel within the PC coverage area without service interruption. Each terminal periodically reports its location to the network by a process called location update (or registration). When a call arrives for a particular mobile terminal, the network will determine the exact location of the destination terminal by a process called terminal paging. One major problem that arises in this scenario is the cost associated with paging and registration. Several papers in the literature attempt to reduce the cost by devising new schemes for paging and registration. One of the many interesting schemes was presented by Wan and Lin (1998) that considers a dynamic paging scheme based on the semi-real time velocity information of an individual mobile user, which allows a more accurate prediction of the user location when a call arrives. In this paper, we modified the scheme presented by Wan and Lin by creating an adaptive velocity timer that changes according to the speed of the mobile and applies the same analysis to the movement-based scheme. The investigation shows that the proposed approach of Wan and Lin has better results than what was reported therein and our new approach helps reduce the total cost drastically compared to the original scheme. Results also show that the movement threshold and the adaptive velocity time unit, when they are adaptive, provide significant savings of cost under different cell sizes and velocities in high and low mobility systems