ESTIMATION OF TOTAL ECONOMIC VALUE OF THE DELTAIC MANGROVE FOREST RESOURCES IN THE DISTRICT OF KUCHING

The aim of this study is to determine the total economic value (TEV) of the 52,318 ha of deltaic mangrove forest resources in the District of Kuching. The method used to collect the data is the face to face interviews of villagers living in the surrounding areas of the mangrove forests. The mangrove areas chosen in the study include those in the Mukim of Santubong, Matang, Lundu and Sematan. To estimate the total economic value, the means of use value (tangible benefits consisting of timber woods and non-timber mangrove products) and means of willingness to pay (intangible benefits consisting of the conservation and option values) communities in surrounding areas of the forests are calculated. A multiple linear regression analysis is carried out to determine the factors influencing the TEV of the mangrove forests

Computed tomographic characteristics of frontal sinus ossifying fibroma in a dog

A 10-year-old female spayed Kelpie cross was presented to The Austin Vet Specialists for further investigation of a mineralized, lobulated frontal sinus mass that had previously been detected radiographically. Computed tomography (CT) revealed a large, expansile, well-defined, heterogeneously mineral attenuating mass invading both frontal sinuses. The mass was surgically debulked via a frontal sinusotomy approach. Histopathology was consistent with ossifying fibroma. This is the first published report to describe frontal sinus ossifying fibroma in a dog, and the second to describe CT features of ossifying fibroma involving the cranium in a dog.Open access publishing facilitated by Charles Sturt University, as part of the Wiley - Charles Sturt University agreement via the Council of Australian University Librarians.https://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/vruhj2023Companion Animal Clinical StudiesSDG-03:Good heatlh and well-bein

Antimicrobial stewardship program in a Malaysian district hospital: first year experience

Backgrounds & Objective: Antimicrobial resistance is an alarming public health threat that requires urgent global solution. Implementation of antimicrobial stewardship program (ASP) is an essential practice element for healthcare institutions in gate-keeping judicious antimicrobial use. This study highlighted the development, first year experience, and result of the implementation of ASP utilizing persuasive and restrictive approaches in a Malaysian district hospital. Methods: An observational study was conducted between January 2015 to December 2015 on implementation of ASP among hospitalized inpatients age 12 years old and above. Results: Recommendations were provided for 60% of cases (110 patients) with the average acceptance rate of 83.33%. Majority of the interventions were to stop the antimicrobial therapy (30.3%), and the most common audited antimicrobials was Piperacillin/ Tazobactam (25.5%), followed by Meropenem (11.82%), Amoxicillin/Clavulanate and Vancomycin (8.18%) respectively. The concordance rate towards authorization policy was increased in 2015 (71.59% of cases) as compared before the implementation of ASP in 2014 (60.6% of cases). Restrictive enforcement under ASP had been shown to improve significantly adherence rate towards antimicrobials authorization policy (p-value: 0.004). Conclusion: ASP was successfully implemented in a district hospital. Future studies on its clinical outcomes are important to evaluate its effectiveness as well as focus on the improvement to the pre-existing strategies and measures

Role of deep eutectic solvents as pretreatment medium for biomass transformation

Traditionally, biomass utilization was realized through the concept of biorefineries and the purpose of using biomass was mostly energy-driven. Over the years, the concept of biomass valorization shifted its focus toward unleashing the maximum potential of biomass in downstream processing such as for the production of various energy carriers and value-added bioproducts or chemicals. The main stepping stone toward realizing biomass transformation can be attributed to the ubiquitous nature of biomass, from which most of the biopolymers exhibited high recalcitrance in common solvents due to the heterogeneous polyphenolic structure of the lignin and the highly ordered cellulose’s crystalline structure. The recalcitrance of biomass poses constraints in the biomass-to-biofuels conversion or other valueadded bioproducts which typically involves three major steps: pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation (Binod & Pandey, 2015). The pretreatment of biomass can be regarded as the most important step in biomass processing. In this sense, the goal of biomass pretreatment is to disintegrate the lignin barrier and make the celluloses, hemicelluloses, and other substrates accessible, as well as to enable the further processing and recovery of the valuable components embedded within the biomass

Role of deep eutectic solvents as pretreatment medium for biomass transformation

Traditionally, biomass utilization was realized through the concept of biorefineries and the purpose of using biomass was mostly energy-driven. Over the years, the concept of biomass valorization shifted its focus toward unleashing the maximum potential of biomass in downstream processing such as for the production of various energy carriers and value-added bioproducts or chemicals. The main stepping stone toward realizing biomass transformation can be attributed to the ubiquitous nature of biomass, from which most of the biopolymers exhibited high recalcitrance in common solvents due to the heterogeneous polyphenolic structure of the lignin and the highly ordered cellulose’s crystalline structure. The recalcitrance of biomass poses constraints in the biomass-to-biofuels conversion or other valueadded bioproducts which typically involves three major steps: pretreatment, hydrolysis, and fermentation (Binod & Pandey, 2015). The pretreatment of biomass can be regarded as the most important step in biomass processing. In this sense, the goal of biomass pretreatment is to disintegrate the lignin barrier and make the celluloses, hemicelluloses, and other substrates accessible, as well as to enable the further processing and recovery of the valuable components embedded within the biomass

Technologies for removing pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) from aqueous solutions: Recent advances, performances, challenges and recommendations for improvements

In recent years, the removal of pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) from aqueous solutions has been gaining a lot of attention from researchers throughout the world. This is particularly due to the concern about their potential hazards and toxicities, as they are classified as emerging contaminants. Thus, there is an increasing need to investigate removal technologies for PPCPs at a deeper and more holistic level. This review aims to provide the latest developments in removal technologies for PPCPs. It first succinctly describes the types, characteristics, and hazards of PPCPs on the environment and human health. It then comprehensively covers a wide range of technologies for removing PPCPs from aqueous solutions, comprising the adsorption process (using carbon-based adsorbents, plant biomasses, clay and clay minerals, silica-based adsorbents, zeolite-based adsorbents, polymers and resins, and hybrid adsorbents), advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) (photocatalysis, Fenton or photo-Fenton or electro-Fenton, ozonation, ultrasonication, electrochemical oxidation, persulfate oxidation), membrane separation processes (ultrafiltration, nanofiltration, reverse osmosis), biodegradation processes (bacteria, fungi, and algae), and hybrid treatment (adsorption-AOP, AOP-membrane, membrane-biodegradation, and others). According to the specific experimental conditions, the reported removal efficiencies for adsorption, AOPs, membrane processes, biodegradation processes and hybrid treatment were 40–100%, 40–100%, 3–100%, 14–100% and 5–100%, respectively. This review paper also highlights the challenges in this field of research, particularly incomplete removal of certain PPCPs, high costs of some treatment technologies and generally insufficient understanding on the removal kinetics and mechanisms of PPCPs. This review offers recommendations for future works to further advance the technical performances to eventually realize the wider application of these technologies at the industrial scale

Immobilized enzyme/microorganism complexes for degradation of microplastics: A review of recent advances, feasibility and future prospects

Environmental prevalence of microplastics has prompted the development of novel methods for their removal, one of which involves immobilization of microplastics-degrading enzymes. Various materials including nanomaterials have been studied for this purpose but there is currently a lack of review to present these studies in an organized manner to highlight the advances and feasibility. This article reviewed more than 100 peer-reviewed scholarly papers to elucidate the latest advances in the novel application of immobilized enzyme/microorganism complexes for microplastics degradation, its feasibility and future prospects. This review shows that metal nanoparticle-enzyme complexes improve biodegradation of microplastics in most studies through creating photogenerated radicals to facilitate polymer oxidation, accelerating growth of bacterial consortia for biodegradation, anchoring enzymes and improving their stability, and absorbing water for hydrolysis. In a study, the antimicrobial property of nanoparticles retarded the growth of microorganisms, hence biodegradation. Carbon particle-enzyme complexes enable enzymes to be immobilized on carbon-based support or matrix through covalent bonding, adsorption, entrapment, encapsulation, and a combination of the mechanisms, facilitated by formation of cross-links between enzymes. These complexes were shown to improve microplastics-degrading efficiency and recyclability of enzymes. Other emerging nanoparticles and/or enzymatic technologies are fusion of enzymes with hydrophobins, polymer binding module, peptide and novel nanoparticles. Nonetheless, the enzymes in the complexes present a limiting factor due to limited understanding of the degradation mechanisms. Besides, there is a lack of studies on the degradation of polypropylene and polyvinyl chloride. Genetic bioengineering and metagenomics could provide breakthrough in this area. This review highlights the optimism of using immobilized enzymes/microorganisms to increase the efficiency of microplastics degradation but optimization of enzymatic or microbial activities and synthesis of immobilized enzymes/microorganisms are crucial to overcome the barriers to their wide application

Synergistic effects of catalytic co-pyrolysis Chlorella vulgaris and polyethylene mixtures using artificial neuron network: Thermodynamic and empirical kinetic analyses

The catalytic pyrolysis of Chlorella vulgaris, high-density polyethylene (Pure HDPE) and, their binary mixtures were conducted to analyse the kinetic and thermodynamic performances from 10 to 100 K/min. The kinetic parameters were computed by substituting the experimental and ANN predicted data into these iso-conversional equations and plotting linear plots. Among all the iso-conversional models, Flynn-Wall-Ozawa (FWO) model gave the best prediction for kinetic parameters with the lowest deviation error (2.28–12.76%). The bifunctional HZSM-5/LS catalysts were found out to be the best catalysts among HZSM-5 zeolite, natural limestone (LS), and bifunctional HZSM-5/LS catalyst in co-pyrolysis of binary mixture of Chlorella vulgaris and HDPE, in which the Ea of the whole system was reduced from range 144.93–225.84 kJ/mol (without catalysts) to 75.37–76.90 kJ/mol. With the aid of artificial neuron network and genetic algorithm, an empirical model with a mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) of 51.59% was developed for tri-solid state degradation system. The developed empirical model is comparable to the thermogravimetry analysis (TGA) experimental values alongside the other empirical model proposed in literatur

Review of the current timber industry in Malaysia

The timber industry is currently growing rapidly in Malaysia, who is the second largest tropical timber production exporter in the world. The timber industry contributes to various sectors such as furniture and components, panel products, mouldings and joinery, and the construction especially for the roof trusses. Most of the Malaysian buildings are adopted the timber roof truss system because of its availability, economics, simple design and fast installation due to the prefabricated method. However, there are some challenges such as the impact from steel trusses, raw material supply, and technology and techniques. This review will provide the information that will be extremely useful to the timber roofing industry. 62% of the total land area of Malaysia is covered by tropical forest. The natural resources are used for farming, agricultural, mining, timber and urbanisation and infrastructure. The forest use is controlled by the government to achieve a definite and stable forest resource. The timber must be certified by the Malaysian Timber Certification Council to show that the timber products are from the sustainable managed forests or else a penalty will be imposed. The forest industry and timber industry are closely related. The Malaysian timber industry can be classified into three main sectors, i.e. sawmilling, wood chipping and veneer manufacturing. The sawmilling produces the sawn timber that is adopted for the timber roof truss system. The research aims to review the current timber industry in Malaysia, particularly in the construction technique of roof trusses. The objectives of this research are as follows: - investigate the classifications, properties, uses and market of Malaysian timber; - review the roofing industry in Malaysia; - document the standard and quality of timber required for the timber trusses; and - review the design method and the costing involved for the system

Case study of knowledge management at Singapore General Hospital.

Knowledge is the strategic asset of an organisation which provides the sustainable competitive advantage. The most valuable knowledge is the tacit knowledge that remains hidden, undocumented and untapped in the mind of individual employees. This project explains how a small department of Singapore General Hospital, the Vascular Laboratory can be used as a case study to demonstrate the kind of tacit knowledge involved and the difficulties associated with its characteristics. It will focus on the capture, storage, archive and sharing of knowledge.Master of Science (Information Studies