Attraction Sound in the Swiftlets House

This research about the analysis of attraction sound for swiftlets to enter the swiftlets house. There are important thing for industry to attract swiftlets enter and build their nests in man-made house. Swiftlet house usually house fitted bird-call recording from original sound in the cave to attract attention bird go inside house to be doing nest. Therefore, this study analyze sound features that has attracted attention bird. Ten samples of swiftlets sound were analyzed by using Fast Fourier Transform in Matlab software to identify sound characteristic that attract swiftlets. Specific sound characteristic for swiftlets attraction on frequency and magnitude of original sound and noise have been identified

Application of Speech Recognition for Swiftlet Vocalizations

This research is about speech recognition technique are used for swiftlet vocalization application. Swiftlet vocalization need a system for recognize because there are many types of swiftlet sounds use in industry only can inspection by human expert. This research use speech recognition by using Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient (MFCC) for feature extraction and Distance Time Warping (DTW) for classification to calculate accuracy and efficiency combination both techniques

Resolution of Complex Sesquiterpene Hydrocarbons in Aquilaria malaccensis Volatile Oils Using Gas Chromatography Technique

Agarwood or gaharu is resin-impregnated wood of the tree genus Aquilaria (Thymelaeaceae). In Malaysia, the main agarwood producer is Aquilaria malaccensis and oil extracted from this species is highly priced. One of the challenges in commercializing agarwood is the lack of universal standard to classify the aromatic oils. Our present knowledge places the main aromatic compounds of agarwood oil in the sesquiterpene hydrocarbon region. In this work, we extracted agarwood oil using hydrodistillation method in the laboratory and compared with a commercial-scale extraction in the factory. We analyzed the sesquiterpene hydrocarbon region using several highly sophisticated detection systems. Using GC-FID, 12 sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were identified, while another eight were determined using GC-MS. Five compounds were identified in both analytical techniques: aromadendrene, α-bulnesene, α-guaiene, γ-gurjunene, and β-maaliene. Advanced analysis using GC × GC/TOFMS detected 24 sesquiterpene hydrocarbons in both laboratory and pilot scale agarwood oils. Many of the sesquiterpene hydrocarbons identified provide the woody aroma to the agarwood oil. Specifically, α-gurjunene and α-guaiene contribute to the woody balsamic aroma, while α-copaene contributes to the spicy-wood aroma. In total, 33 sesquiterpene hydrocarbons were identified from A. malaccensis in the present study, with high certainty. Results from this study can be used toward establishing a universal standard for agarwood oil from the genus Aquilaria in the global market, which is presently lacking

Analysis of gc-fid and gc-ms microwave-assisted hydrodistillation extraction (mahd) of agarwood chips

Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of Gas Chromatography – Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID) and Gas Chromatography – Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) microwave-assisted hydrodistillation extraction (MAHD) of agarwood chips. The work involves of agarwood chips sample preparation starting from drying to soaking process, extraction method using MAHD and compound analysis using GC-FID and GC-MS for compounds identification. During the extraction time, four hours were varied; 2-hours, 3-hours, 4-hours The result showed that the agarwood chips in this study, extracted by MAHD are made up of three major groups; oxygenated sesquiterpenes, monoterpene hydrocarbons, and sesquiterpene hydrocarbons. Not limited to that, the study also adds to the understanding of the variation of the chemical compounds in agarwood especially those contributed to the fragrance of its oil as well as together with different hours of extraction time where n-hexadecanoic acid appeared as the compound to have the high peak of relative peak area (%) at all (5, 4, 3 and 2) time of extractions

Observation on SPME different headspace fiber coupled with GC-MS in extracting high quality agarwood chipwood

Agarwood is well known as one of the expensive woods in the world. It has a unique scent which brings it to have wide usages especially in perfumery ingredient, as incense, in traditional medical preparation, and as symbol of wealth. Due to that, this paper presents the analysis on chemical profiles of agarwood chipwood, as a part of agarwood grading system. The work involved of Solid Phase Microextraction (SPME) coupled with Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS) GC-MS in extracting high quality. Three headspace fibers; PDMS-DVB, CAR-PDMS and DVB-CAR-PDMS were used during the extraction to identify the compounds with the sampling time of 60 minutes. The result showed that high quality agarwood chipwood is made up of terpene group which are monoterpene hydrocarbon, sesquiterpene hydrocarbon and oxygenated sesquiterpene. The relative peak areas (%) for compounds are tabulated and plotted. The finding in this study confirmed that the difference in compounds extracted and their relative peak area (%) are due to different fiber's polarity and absorbent, Thus, it is significant and benefit especially in agarwood oil quality grading and its related area

Isolation and cloning of sesquiterpene synthases (amgs3 and amgs4) and chalcone synthase (amchs) from aquilaria malaccensis responsible for agarwood formation

Sesquiterpene and phenylethyl chromone, two types of agarwood marker compounds, have been extensively studied. However, genetic studies of agarwood (Aquilaria malaccensis) are still scarce. This study describes the isolation and cloning of sesquiterpene synthase genes (AmGS3 and AmGS4), and chalcone synthase gene (AmCHS) identified from A. malaccensis transcriptome data mining. The sizes of AmGS3, AmGS4, and AmCHS were 1162, 1466, and 1623 bp in length. The open reading frames (ORFs) of AmGS3, AmGS4, and AmCHS detected were 948, 1047, and 1185 bp, with a polypeptide length of 348, 315, and 394 amino acids. The full-length sequences of AmGS3, AmGS4, and AmCHS were successfully isolated from the infected stem of A. malaccensis, amplified via polymerase chain reaction (PCR), cloned into the pGEM-T Easy Vector, and transformed into prepared Escherichia coli DH5a competent cells. The sequencing result and BLASTn analysis revealed that the ORFs of AmGS3 and AmGS4 are highly homologous to putative delta-guaiene synthase from Aquilaria sinensis, with a similarity of 98.1% and 98.08% respectively, while the ORF of AmCHS is highly homologous to chalcone synthase from A. sinensis with a similarity of 99.24%. These results demonstrated the successful isolation of sesquiterpene synthase and chalcone synthase genes that may play important roles in forming agarwood sesquiterpene and phenylethyl chromone in A. malaccensis

Agarwood Market Report

Agarwood is known as the most expensive wood in the world with its high value of culture and religion, as well as its wide usage in medicine, and fragrance and cosmetics. Currently, agarwood products specifically agarwood oil or oud can only be obtained from three sources, from the dwindling supply of the natural forests, sustainable plantation, and adulteration. The top ten export destinations are United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Laos, Japan, China, Taiwan, Oman, and Hong Kong. The global agarwood market is currently estimated at a minimum of USD $6 billion dollars (Selina Akter, Md Tavir Islam, Mohd Zulkefeli, 2013), and can reach to 12 billion of market value (Capital, 2016a; Chetpattananondh, 2012). The fragrance market in the Middle East and North Africa as among the biggest market is predicted to increase to a value of 6 billion USD in 2018 (25.9$US10, 000 - 14,000 on the market (Colombogazette, 2016; Institute, 2007). The main leaders for cultivated agarwood are Ajmal India, Treedom Thailand, and Asia Plantation Capital. These companies require a time consuming planning and rigorous effort through professional management and long-term planning over a 7-year period. Synthetic agarwood producers are Firmenich and Givaudan. The volume sold per year is 4,870 litres in 2012 which is mainly used for perfume and cosmetics (Euromoniter, 2016). One company that is closely competing with Evolva is Efflorus, a company from Canada. They claim to launch their ‘bio-oud’ in the market by 2017 (Synbiowatch, 2016). There is likely a competition for biosynthesized agarwood after considering several important factors. Biosynthetic production of agarwood is the only sustainable way to keep agarwood alive. Agarwood has a long history in Malaysia along with more than 18 countries of trading worth millions of US dollars every year (MTIB, 2017). Nonetheless, there are a number of factors that inhibits the growth of this industry where in fact, Malaysia is one of the main producers of agarwood in the world. Thus, this study explores the position of Malaysia in the global agarwood industry while identifying the issues pertaining the industry. This study also suggests a few recommendations to ensure a sustainability agarwood industry in Malaysia

Effect of CuO antibacterial coating on cotton, polyester, and blend wool fabrics

In the present work, the copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) were successfully synthesized via the sol-gel method to coat on cotton, polyester, and blend wool fabrics. The solution was deposited onto the fabrics by a dip-dry process. The sol-gel synthesis process was confirmed to be successful through the presence of the complex nature of pomegranate rind extract (PRE) in CuO NPs solution as determined by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and the existence of copper in all coated fabrics by and dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX) analysis. All the coated fabrics show antibacterial properties towards all three species of gram-positive bacteria, namely Brevibacterium linens, Cutibacterium acnes, and Staphylococcus epidermidis. The maximum inhibition zone was observed at 7 mm on coated blend wool fabric towards B. linens. The CuO-coated fabrics have established good antibacterial properties and could be used in medical textiles and everyday clothing to prevent bacterial infection

k-nearest neighbor modelling of agarwood oil samples available in capital of Malaysia market

Agarwood oil is consumed during traditional ceremonies and even in medicinal purposes due to its effective therapeutic characteristic. As a part of ongoing research on agarwood oil, this paper presented a k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) modelling of agarwood oil samples available in the capital of Malaysia market. The work involved agarwood oil samples from three sources which are lab, local manufacturer and market. The inputs are the chemical compounds and the output is the oil's resources. The input-output was divided into training and testing dataset with the ratio of 80% to 20%, respectively, before they were fed to the k-NN for model development as well as model validation. During the model development, the k-value was varied from 1 to 5, and their accuracy was observed. The result showed that the k=1 and k=2 shared the similar accuracy for training and testing datasets, which are 98.63% and 100.00%, respectively. This study revealed the capabilities of the k-NN model in classifying the agarwood oil samples to the three sources: lab, local manufacturer and market. It was a significant study and contributed to further work especially those related to agarwood oil research area