Removal of bisphenol A from aqueous media using a highly selective adsorbent of hybridization cyclodextrin with magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer

In this study, a unique magnetic molecularly imprinted polymer (MMIP) adsorbent towards bisphenol A (BPA) as a template molecule was developed by bulk polymerization using β-cyclodextrin (β-CD) as a co-monomer with methacrylic acid (MAA) to form MMIP MAA–βCD as a new adsorbent. β-CD was hybridized with MAA to obtain water-compactible imprinting sites for the effective removal of BPA from aqueous samples. Benzoyl peroxide and trimethylolpropane trimethacrylate were used as the initiator and cross-linker, respectively. The adsorbents were characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electronic microscopy, transmission electron microscopy, vibrating sample magnetometer, Brunauer–Emmett–Teller and X-ray diffraction. 1H nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy was used to characterize the MAA–βCD and BPA–MAA–βCD complex. Several parameters influencing the adsorption efficiency of BPA such as adsorbent dosage, pH of sample solution, contact time, initial concentrations and temperature as well as selectivity and reusability study have been evaluated. MMIP MAA–βC

Isolation and characterization of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAS) producing bacteria from brackish stream

Polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHAs) are biopolymers which have similar characteristics with petrochemical plastics but a step better due to its biodegradable property. A total of 23 strains were isolated from two different brackish sources. In order to detect the PHAs granules, the PHAs producing bacteria were first screened with Sudan Black B staining. Twenty strains were observed with lipid granules and were subjected to further confirmation with Nile blue staining. From the Nile blue staining, only 10 strains have the ability in producing PHAs and 2 were identified as strong PHAs producers. This study focuses on the 2 strains named S1 and L1. Further identification procedure was carried out and found that strain S1 and L1 belongs to Pseudomonas sp. L1 strain was found to be promising for PHAs production since it accumulated PHAs for about 88.3%. The PHAs produced by this strain was analyzed using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR) and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) analysis and was identified as poly-3-hydroxybutyrate (P-3HB)

Implementation of Two Way Free Space Quantum Key Distribution

We report an implementation over free space medium of a two way four states quantum key distribution (QKD) protocol namely the LM05. The fully automated setup demonstrated a secure key generation rate of 3.54 kbits per second and quantum bit error rate (QBER) of 3.34% at mean photon number ({\mu}) = 0.15. The maximum tolerable channel loss for secure key generation considering Photon Number Splitting (PNS) attack, was 5.68 [dB]. The result successfully demonstrated the feasibility of a two way QKD protocol implementation over free space medium.Comment: To appear in the April 2012 issue of Optical Engineering (Vol. 51, No. 04

User friendly system for the visually impaired in learning Al-Quran

This study presents a method to enable the visually impaired Muslim to learn and read the Al-Quran using Braille Display with software help. The system reads the database which contains all verses of Al-Quran and user will need to select the verse and ayah to read. Besides that, this system can be used in a class to teach visually impaired students to learn Al-Quran. Every word or character typed by the instructor in the main Braille Panel will be transmitted to the sub Braille Panel that is connected to the main Braille Panel. The selected verse of Al-Quran and ayah will also generate an index before being transmitted to the Braille Panel. The index will be transmitted to the Braille Display for people to touch and read the display. A user friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) will be used to fulfill the ergonomics for the visually impaired user's physical capabilities. Several approaches are used to design and implement the interface for the visually impaired like speech or sound output and Braille display. The Braille codes can be displayed using the Braille panel. The design interface and structure of the system for the visually impaired users in learning Al-Quran is presented

Sawah Baru Landscape Identification for Agroedutourism Agriculture 4.0, A Community-Based Development Project

IPB University has adequate agricultural land facilities and infrastructure for education and research activities. It has the potential to be developed into an agricultural area 4.0 for agrotourism activities, one of which is in the landscape of the Babakan Education Garden or Farm Teaching Sawah Baru located in Babakan Village, Dramaga District, Bogor Regency. This study aims to identify the character of the Sawah Baru landscape for the development of community-based agricultural agrotourism 4.0. The analysis used in this study used direct observation of the field and the literature study method. The identification of several aspects in the field is carried out using drones to obtain aerial photos, which are then processed using software to produce orthophotos and continue to digitize the boundaries of the research location using spatial analyst tools. The stages of identifying new rice field landscapes for the development of community-based agricultural agrotourism 4.0 include several stages, namely the preparation and inventory stages. The results of the identification of several aspects consisting of landscape sustainability, potential tourist attraction and tourism-supporting potential show that in terms of landscape sustainability, the criteria of each existing aspect are excellent and suitable to be developed into tourist destinations. Regarding potential tourist destinations, the study area presents aspects that have the potential to attract visitors. Finally, regarding tourism-supporting potential, Sawah Baru has tourism-supporting aspects that are quite adequate to meet the needs of tourism activities. However, there is still a need to create additional facilities and utilities that can support user activity on the site. Keywords: agriculture 4.0, agroedutourism, community-based, Sawah Baru DOI: 10.7176/CER/15-1-06 Publication date: May 28th 202

A review on environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding markers for wildlife monitoring research

Environmental DNA or eDNA utilizes traceable genetic materials in the environment for monitoring the presence of organisms in a given area and it is now gaining popularity as an alternative for traditional monitoring methods. Thus, the selection of genetic markers is crucial for identification of species in wildlife monitoring. This paper aims to review several DNA markers which are appropriate and reliable for detection of organisms from the environmental samples. We performed systematic literature search from SCOPUS database to review all molecular markers of eDNA. This study focuses on the importance of markers selection which can be utilized by next-generation sequencing (NGS) for biodiversity monitoring. Cytochrome C oxidase Subunit I (COI) are noted as the most widely used marker in metabarcoding research for detection of targeted species

ANALISIS SPASIAL FUNGSI EKOLOGI RUANG TERBUKA HIJAU DI KOTA CIBINONG

Green open space has a function to reduce the level of carbondioxide in the air. Carbondioxide levels are generally increased due to an increase in motor vehicle exhaust gas emissions and land use changes, such as changes in open land into industrial, or agricultural land turned into housing, etc.Cibinong City in this decade had increased levels of carbondioxide caused by the developmnet of a growing city. Research purposes are (1) analyze changes of green open space and its impact on the ability to absorb carbondioxide, (2) analyze the amount of carbondioxide produced by motor vehicle exhaust gas emissions for each road segment and provide direction spatially green open space. In this decade (from 2000 to 2010), Changes of unbuilt land to built land increased from 2.268,88 Ha (35,78 %) to3.558,22 Ha (56,12 %), however, absorption of the green open spaces of the carbondioxide increases. Whereas, Carbondioxide emission strength on larger road on the Raya Bogor (City Center) 498 gr/detik which has the function of arterial roads with the task of helping regional movement. The most amount of carbondioxide emissions generated by personal vehicles, motorcycles, and ligth public trasportation, while trucks and buses do not contribute. When the carbondioxide emission strength map is overlayed with the land use map then we have the conclusion that the roads that have a high volume of vehicle movement will have a high carbondioxide levels, but not mean low air quality because it depends on the existence of protective trees as green belt. Keywords: green open spaces, carbondioxide emission levels, landuse change

Copper-based 3D printer filament as passive Q-switcher

Using a copper-based saturable absorber (SA) and chitin as a biocompatible host polymer, this research effectively demonstrated the production of passive Q-switched in an erbium-doped fibre laser (EDFL). A Q-switched lasing was generated with a 100 kHz repetition rate and a pulse width of 4.60 µs. High pulse energy of 17.19 nJ was generated, with a respective instantaneous peak power of 3.51 mW

Trace determination of cadmium content in Malaysian herbs using graphene–ionic liquid-modified screen-printed carbon electrodes

A simple and effective method of square-wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV) with screen-printed carbon electrodes (SPCEs) was used to determine the cadmium concentration in Malaysian herb samples. The optimization process involved the selection of an optimized pH, an acetate buffer as a supporting electrolyte, the deposition potential, deposition time and the surface modification process on an SPCE surface. The optimum conditions were a pH of 4.5, a deposition potential of −1.4&thinsp;V and a deposition time of 120&thinsp;s. The SPCE surface was modified with the fabrication of the graphene–ionic liquid composite as the sensing layer. Four herb samples were tested, where herbs A, D, M and C contained 0.0035, 0.0237, 0.0267 and 0.0251&thinsp;ppm of cadmium, respectively. The sensitivity of the proposed sensor was compared with an inductively coupled plasma–optical emission spectroscopy (ICP–OES). The relative standard deviation (RSD) between the sensor and the ICP–OES indicated that the sensor was sensitive, as RSD was below 20&thinsp;% with range of 7.93&thinsp;% to 18.28&thinsp;%.</p

The Study Of Dynamic Response Using ARX Model In Extraction Process

This work presents a model using system identification approach namely as ARX to represent the dynamic response for essential oil extraction process. A fresh set of data under feed in disturbance was collected using MATLAB Simulink. The 3000 samples of data was collected by using PRBS as an input and temperature in oC as an output. The collected data was separated into two groups; training data and estimation data by using interlacing technique. The model estimation was done by using linear regression method. The robustness of the model was evaluated by using best fit (R2), OSA, root mean square error (RMSE), correlation analysis and residual analysis (histogram). Based on validation results, the ARX model was successfully capturing the dynamic response of extraction process by provide the high best fit, low RMSE error and normally distributed by producing small mean and variance