Wind characteristics and outdoor thermal comfort assessment in east Malaysia

Rapid urbanisation and industrialisation have had an adverse and deep impact on the environment contributing to global warming and climate change. These thermal environmental problems can be even more challenging to people living in regions with warm and humid climatic conditions throughout the year, such as Malaysia. This paper analyses wind characteristics and outdoor thermal comfort index at the hottest temperatures based on data recorded hourly between 2012 and 2014 for two cities in East Malaysia, namely Kuching (Sarawak) and Kota Kinabalu (Sabah). Wind characteristics were analysed using only wind velocity and direction, while the level of outdoor thermal comfort was measured using Universal Thermal Climate Index (UTCI). The results showed that hourly average wind velocities for Kuching and Kota Kinabalu were 1.84 m/s and 2.15 m/s respectively while the highest average wind velocities was 10.1 m/s and 12.4 m/s respectively. No wind movement (i.e. 0 m/s) was recorded for both locations. The prevailing annual wind flow is generally from South-Southeast (150°) in Sarawak and from East-Southeast (110°) in Sabah. It was also found that both Kuching and Kota Kinabalu experienced strong and extreme heat stress conditions with UTCI levels of 44.8°C and 49.8°C respectively. Thus, it can be concluded that, East Malaysia faces strong and extreme heat stress conditions. This study is an original contribution on the subject of outdoor thermal environment in Malaysia, Further research to better understand outdoor thermal environmental problems is recommended

trans-Tetra­carbonyl­bis­[tris­(3-fluoro­phen­yl)phosphane]chromium(0)

In the title compound, [Cr(C18H12F3P)2(CO)4], the Cr atom is octa­hedrally coordinated by four carbonyl ligands and the two tertiary phosphanes, which are trans to each other. The three benzene rings in one phosphane ligand make dihedral angles of 53.50 (9), 75.51 (10) and 80.63 (10)° with each other, while in the other ligand these angles are 51.92 (10), 78.56 (11) and 86.80 (10)°. C—H⋯O and C—H⋯F inter­actions link the mol­ecules into a three-dimensional network. Each of the F atoms is disordered over two positions with refined occupancies of 0.944 (3):0.056 (3), 0.702 (4):0.298 (4), 0.829 (4):0.171 (4), 0.567 (4):0.433 (4), 0.545 (4):0.455 (4) and 0.920 (4):0.080 (4)

Optimization of capacity utilization using time-driven activity-based costing for library system

Library system encourages and offers a number of opportunities to access the resource of desired information. Nonetheless, there is a problem in the current practice in library system which do not explain the relation between supplied resources and practical capacity. To view it in the form of unused capacity, they should establish capacity cost rates (CCR). In efforts to support in reducing costs and divert the workforce for far more important activities, unused capacity analysis is ultimately critical in forecast planning. This work aims to develop a new costing system for optimization of capacity utilization in library system. Time driven activity-based costing (TDABC) was applied in UMP library. While TDABC can enhance costs control for a range of library processes, it only focuses on acquisition and cataloging processes in this work. The analysis of data is carried out through four steps which are process mapping, time equation, CCR and forecast analysis. In this work, the total unused capacity at the acquisition center, in both local and overseas are 2,700,32 and 7,199,83 minutes. While in cataloging center, the total unused capacity are -393.05 and 5,468.35 minutes in local and oversea material respectively

The implementation of modern geocentric datum: a review

A dynamic datum denotes a coordinate datum in real-time linked with the International Terrestrial Reference Frame (ITRF) in order to provide a dynamic ITRF-like datum to the users. The ITRF is dynamic and updating every few years as its stations' coordinates consider the motion of earth's tectonic plate and other deformations. This paper is an effort to review the implementation of dynamic geocentric datum techniques from a few countries. An overview of dynamic geocentric datum implements Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, Uzbekistan, Israel and Brunei will be summarized to support the future application. Thus, a review consists of a type of datum; datum parameters, reference frame and epoch will be discussed and outlined. This initiative is the significance for the advancement of the future datum development

The Impact of the Level of the Intestinal Short Chain Fatty Acids in Inflammatory Bowel Disease Patients Versus Healthy Subjects

The aim of this study was to determine the changes of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs) in faeces of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients compared to healthy subjects. SCFAs such as pyruvic, lactic, formic, acetic, propionic, isobutyric and butyric acids were analyzed by using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). This study showed that the level of acetic, 162.0 µmol/g wet faeces, butyric, 86.9 µmol/g wet faeces, and propionic acids, 65.6 µmol/g wet faeces, decreased remarkably in IBD faecal samples when compared with that of healthy individuals, 209.7, 176.0, and 93.3 µmol/g wet faeces respectively. On the contrary, lactic and pyruvic acids showed higher levels in faecal samples of IBD than in healthy subjects. In the context of butyric acid level, this study also found that the molar ratio of butyric acid was higher than propionic acid in both faecal samples. This might be due to the high intake of starch from rice among Malaysian population. It was concluded that the level of SCFAs differ remarkably between faecal samples in healthy subjects and that in IBD patients providing evidence that SCFAs more likely play an important role in the pathogenesis of IBD

NOTES ON MAPANIA LATIFOLIA UITTIEN (CYPERACEAE) FROM LONG BANGA, SARAWAK

Cyperaceae is one of the largest family in the Monocotyledon plant group consisting of 106 genera and approximately 5600 species throughout the world. Mapania is among the important understory genus in this family. To-date about 40 species of Mapania have been recorded for Sarawak that includes 13 newly described species. Mapania latifolia is one of four species with foliaceous involucral bract recorded in Southeast Asia and its distributed in Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. This species tends to show tremendous variations among the populations from different elevations and localities. This preliminary study is to investigate the variation of M. latifolia from Long Banga and to compare it with the collections from other places in the Heart of Borneo project areas

Application of MT method of Mahalanobis-Taguchi system in methadone flexi dispensing program

Patient under methadone flexi dispensing (MFlex) program are required to perform blood tests like lipid profile. To verify the patient does have a lipid disorder, a doctor analyses 3 parameters such as cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol. However, the present system lacks a robust ecology for categorization and optimization due to imprecise measuring methods and a lack of rationale for major elements that impact diagnostic accuracy. The goal is to implement the Mahalanobis-Taguchi system (MTS) into the MFlex programme. The data was acquired at the Bandar Pekan clinic and included 34 lipid profile measures. For classification and optimization, two categories of MTS techniques are being used, which are RT-Method and T-Method. As a result of the lipid profile analysis, the healthy Mahalanobis distance (MD) is 1.0000, whereas the unhealthy MD is 79.5876. Positive contributions are made by parameters 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 17, 18, 23, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31, 33, and 34. 15 unknown samples were diagnosed with varying degrees of positive and negative contribution to obtain a smaller MD. The best recommended way has been typed 5 from overall 6 modifications. Finally, the pharmacist acknowledged that MTS could tackle the issue of MFlex programme categorization

Reconstruction of Cortical and Cancellous Bone in Tibia with Osteogenesis Imperfecta

Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI) is the bone fragility disorder that leads to long bone bowing. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has become the tool of choice to assess behaviour structural within bones. Currently, the FEA performed on the tibia is based on the bone constructed without considering different components of the bone, where the bone was created as a single material. In an attempt to further investigate the bone with OI, the present study was conducted to investigate the mechanical stress distribution using finite element model of the OI affected tibia. The model was reconstructed from the CT images composed of cortical and cancellous bones obtained from Osirix database. The segmentation of the cortical and cancellous of the tibia was performed on 346 images using two different methods which are global thresholding and the selection of the binary object. The segmented images were used to develop a three-dimensional model of the tibia using VOXELCON software. The boundary conditions were set to the meshed model in preparation for the finite element analysis using the same software. Displacements ranging from 5 mm to 35 mm were assigned to a point in between the proximal and distal of the tibia model. In the coronal plane, the highest stress levels were recorded on the medial side of the cortical bone, whereas in the sagittal plane, the highest stress levels were recorded on the anterior side of the cortical bone when the model was subjected to 35 mm displacement. The cancellous bone, however, showed lower stress levels on both planes when subjected to similar displacement. With each increment of displacement, the model experienced more stress and caused the higher percentage volume of individual cortical and cancellous that exceed critical stress of 115 MPa. There were no significant differences in the percentage volume of voxels affected between the cortical and cancellous bones for both coronal and sagittal planes with the pvalue of 0.29 and 0.32 respectively (p > 0.05). There was no significant difference obtained for the percentage volume of voxels affected between the coronal and sagittal planes with the p-value is 0.13 (p > 0.05)

Malaysian sea water level pattern derived from 19 years tidal data

Long-term water level changes have generally been estimated using tidal data. Tide gauges are common tools used to determine the continuous time series of relative water level. This paper presents an effort to interpret the water level from tidal data over Malaysian seas. There are 21 tide gauge stations involved and taken from Permanent Service for Mean Sea Level (PSMSL) with monthly averaged data from 1993 to 2011. The monthly tidal data is then converted to tidal sea level anomaly. For sea level trend analysis, robust fit regression is employed. Next, the sea levels were analysed based on the pattern of seasonal variation and extreme meteorological effects such as El-Nino and La-Nina. In summary, the relative sea level trend in Malaysian seas is rising and varying from 2 to 6.5 mm/yr. This study offers valuable sea level information to be applied in wide range of climatology, related environmental issue such as flood and global warming in Malaysia

A comparative work on the magnetic field-dependent properties of plate-like and spherical iron particle-based magnetorheological grease

In this study, a new magnetorheological (MR) grease was made featuring plate-like carbonyl iron (CI) particles, and its magnetic field-dependent rheological properties were experimentally characterized. The plate-like CI particles were prepared through high-energy ball milling of spherical CI particles. Then, three different ratios of the CI particles in the MR grease, varying from 30 to 70 wt% were mixed by dispersing the plate-like CI particles into the grease medium with a mechanical stirrer. The magnetic field-dependent rheological properties of the plate-like CI particle-based MR grease were then investigated using a rheometer by changing the magnetic field intensity from 0 to 0.7 T at room temperature. The measurement was undertaken at two different modes, namely, a continuous shear mode and oscillation mode. It was shown that both the apparent viscosity and storage modulus of the MR grease were heavily dependent on the magnetic field intensity as well as the CI particle fraction. In addition, the differences in the yield stress and the MR effect between the proposed MR grease featuring the plate-like CI particles and the existing MR grease with the spherical CI particles were investigated and discussed in detail