Pembangunan usahawan tani melalui inisiatif Tanggungjawab Sosial Korporat (CSR): Satu kajian kes

Pembangunan usahawan Tani adalah merupakan salah satu usaha yang boleh dibangunkan oleh syarikat korporat melalui inisiatif Tanggungjawab Sosial Korporat (CSR) bagi tujuan untuk meningkatkan kualiti hidup komuniti. Kertas ini akan membincangkan sumbangan yang telah dilakukan oleh sebuah syarikat korporat multinasional di Malaysia melalui pelaksanaan projek CSR perladangan cili kontrak terhadap kewujudan usahawan tani di Pasir Puteh Kelantan. Seramai 45 petani yang terlibat dengan program CSR syarikat telah ditemu bual bagi mengenal pasti sejauh mana sumbangan CSR telah membangunkan komuniti tani yang terlibat. Kajian yang menggunakan pendekatan kontruktivisme ini telah menggunakan analisa tematik terhadap data temu bual kajian. Tema-tema kajian mendapati melalui program CSR, petani berpeluang untuk memiliki, mengelola dan mengurus ladang serta menanggung risiko pengeluaran tani mereka. Tema-tema ini menunjukkan wujudnya usahawan tani di kalangan komuniti yang terlibat dengan projek CSR yang dilaksanakan tersebut. Selain dari itu sumbangan dari pihak syarikat dan juga pihak kerajaan melalui Pertubuhan Peladang Kawasan (PPK) juga membantu menyediakan persekitaran yang kondusif bagi pembangunan usahawan tani ini

Effects of gamma irradiation on egg hatchability, pupation, and adult emergence of the immature stages of the oriental fruit fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (hendel) (diptera: tephritidae) from Malaysia

Studies on the effect of irradiation on egg hatchability, pupation and adult emergence of the immature stages of the Oriental Fruit Fly, Bactrocera dorsalis (Hendel) was conducted in Malaysian Nuclear Agency, Dengkil, Selangor, Malaysia using a Co-60 source. Eggs, 1st instars to 3rd instars larvae and pupae stages were treated separately with dosages 50Gy to 400Gy to determine the most tolerance stage and the optimum dose for provide quarantine security. Each treatment involves a minimum of 100 individuals for each dose with four replications. The hatch from eggs to 1st instar larvae, pupation from eggs and all of three instars larvae to pupae, and eclosion from pupae to adult, were used as criteria to determine the effect of irradiation. Egg hatch was completely inhibited by 100Gy for early egg and 300Gy for late eggs. Dose of 200Gy and 250Gy were able to prevent completely pupation when treated from egg stage and 1st instar larvae, respectively. Unfortunately, those dosages did not affect pupation when applied to 2nd and 3rd instars, but it did prevent any from emerging as adults. Adult emergence was 100% prevented when eggs and all larvae were treated at 100Gy as compared to pupae was not completely prevented even by 400Gy. Among the four immature stages of B. dorsalis, the 3rd instar larvae (inside fruits) and pupae (outside fruits) were found to be the most tolerance stage and the early eggs are the most susceptible stage to irradiation. Our results suggest that minimum dose 100 to 150Gy is sufficient to provide a high level of quarantine security against this important pest and the dose might allow for irradiation be accepted as a quarantine treatment for most tropical fruits from Malaysia

An intelligent mobile disaster alert system

Malaysia has experienced various disasters either natural or manmade disaster. One of the critical phases in Disaster Management System life cycle is response phase. In this phase, connectivity analysis such as a navigation service to help emergency rescue (ER) units reach at disaster area on time is necessary. Nowadays, commercial navigation system seems not appropriate to be used by ER units as they have different preferences. In addition, location information that is vital was not fully utilized in disaster management, especially in doing multi-task analysis. Thus, the real potential of GIS technology in managing spatial data including real-time (moving objects) data of ER units may influence the quality of the service. However, the services should be supported by a good data model. In order to eliminate inappropriate information, incomplete data, and overloaded information from Database Management System (DBMS) sent to the user, this paper will present the framework of integrated routing application for emergency response units embedded with context-aware

POTENTIAL EFFECTS OF DUKU (LANSIUM DOMESTICUM CORR) AND LANGSAT (LANSIUM DOMESTICUM JACK) EXTRACTS ON THE GROWTH OF BIFIDOBACTERIA SPP.

Objective: Lansium domesticum Corr. is a fruit tree species belongs to the family Meliaceae. There are numerous forms of the species and grouped into two main types: Duku and Langsat. The objective of this study is to screen the ability of adding extracts of freeze-dried duku and langsat to stimulate the growth and stability of selected Bifidobacteria spp in skimmed milk.Methods: Samples were prepared by adding either 5% or 12% of oligosaccharides from duku, langsat, inulin, galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) and fructo-oligosaccharides (FOS) to 5% and 12% (w/v) reconstituted nonfat dry milk (NDM), respectively. The specific growth rates (µ) for each sample were calculated. All experiments were replicated ten times.Results: The mean doubling time (Td) for Bifidobacterium longum, was lowest in the presence of freeze-dried duku and langsat compared to GOS, FOS and inulin. Retention of the viability of five Bifidobacterium species was greatest in the presence of freeze-dried duku and langsat followed by GOS, FOS and inulin. The highest percentage of acetic and lactic acids were produced by B. longum, B. infantis and B. adolescentis with freeze-dried duku and langsat. The pattern of results was similar to the commercial product, oligosaccharides (inulin, GOS and FOS). Conclusion: Therefore, this study provides promising results on promoting growth and probiotic activity of natural oligosaccharides compound from freeze-dried duku and langsat

The effects of gas flow rate and annealing on the morphological properties of zinc oxide nanostructures thin film using chemical vapour deposition process

Zinc Oxide nanostructures thin films have been deposited on glass substrates by using chemical vapour deposition technique at 1000°C assisted by gas blocker. Glass substrates was sputtered by ~5nm of gold to form a catalyst layer on top of glass. Different gas flow rates of 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.40 L/min were used in the deposition. After the deposition, the layer was annealed at temperatures of 500°C for 1 hours under atmospheric pressure. The surface morphologies of ZnO thin film were investigated field emission scanning electron microscope (FESEM). X-ray diffraction (XRD) results confirm the presence of ZnO layer with high peak of (002) crystal orientation and shows improvement after annealing. The mechanism of ZnO nanostructures formation will be discussed in this paper

Refinement of the ISO 9126 model for evaluating software product quality in e-Book

Despite the widespread use of e-Book in education, there is yet a standard framework for evaluating the quality of software products in e-Book.Research efforts mainly focus on technological breakthroughs and limited to attention has been given to the evaluation of software product quality.As such, this paper aims to propose a refinement of the ISO 9126 model for evaluating software product quality in e-Book.Popular Software Quality Models are reviewed including McCall, Boehm, FURPS, Dromey and ISO 9126.Refinements to ISO 9126 resulted in the identification of five quality characteristics (Functionality, Reliability, Usability, Efficiency,Portability) and 16 sub -characteristics (Suitability, Accurateness, Security, Interoperability, Maturity, Fault Tolerance, Recoverability, Understandability, Learnability, Operability, Attractiveness, Time Behavior, Adaptability, Installability, Coexistence, Replaceability).There are two contributions of this work: a Software Quality Model for e-Book; and the identification of quality metrics to support the evaluation of software product. The refined model provides a formal method for evaluating software product quality in e- Book and the quality metrics serves as a foundation for the development of survey instruments and computer support system. It is hoped that this work would spark interest for the development of better e- Book applications