The prediction of wake wash in the towing tank

The wash or ship-generated waves from high speed craft has become a common subject in research and development of marine transportation. Since some time now the wake wash of high speed craft has become a problem in particular on inland or confined waterways. This wake wash has an impact on safety and environment such as bank/shoreline erosion, risk to people on shore and small boats in harbors and changes in the local ecology. This paper describes the results of model test of a high speed patrol, together with theoretical prediction of wake wash

Serological prevalence of leptospiral infection in wild rats at the National Service Training Centres in Kelantan and Terengganu

One hundred and sixty eight rats were trapped from the National Service Training Centres (NSTC) in Kelantan and Terengganu from October 2008 to May 2009. Microscopic agglutination test (MAT) was performed to detect the presence of agglutinating antibodies to Leptospira among the rats caught. All the MAT positive rats were identified as Rattus tiomanicus. In Kelantan, 17.3% (14/81) of the rats had leptospiral antibodies to serovars Icterohaemorrhagiae (12.3%), Canicola (2.5%), Ballum (1.2%), and Pyrogenes (1.2%). In Terengganu, 18.4% (16/87) of the rats had antibodies to serovars Icterohaemorrhagiae (15%), Canicola (1.1%), Pyrogenes (1.1%) and Hebdomadis (1.1%). This study indicated that Leptospira serovars were prevalent in the rat population in the study areas and could be a source of infection to humans. Therefore, control of the rat population in all NSTC is critical to prevent outbreaks of leptospirosis amongst the NSTC trainees

Kapasitas Antioksidan Suplemen pada Berbagai Berat Ekstrak Bubuk Pod Husk Kakao

The purpose of this study was to determine the best ratio of powdered cocoa pod husk for bio-capsule production and to determine damage of polyphenol powder and antioxidant after encapsulation ofcocoa pod husk. In this study, absolute ethanol solvent as a polar solvent was used to extract polyphenol compounds. A Completely Randommized design with treatments of four different wieghts of cacao pod husk were used i.e. 20g, 25g, 30g and 35 g. The highest capacity of antioxidant and supplement was shown by the 20 g cocoa pod husk treatment containing 11803.56 mg ascorbat, 83.15 g total phenol ase gallat. This results indicate that the total phenol of the cacao pod husk decrease by 77.40% along with lowering antioxidant capacity by 18.66%. Decreased level of the total phenol and antioxidant capacity is due to damage occuring during concenrating and drying proceses of the supplement materials

Working and corporate performance: case of Malaysia.

Working capital always being disregard in financial decision making since it involve investment and financing in short term period. However, it is an important component in firm financial management decision. An optimal working capital management is expected to contribute positively to the creation of firm value. To reach optimal working capital management firm manager should control the trade off between profitability and liquidity accurately. The intention of this study is to examine the relationship between working capital management and firm profitability. Cash conversion cycle is used as measure of working capital management. This study is used panel data of 1628 firm-year for the period of 1996-2006 that consist of six different economic sectors which are listed in Bursa Malaysia. The coefficient results of Pooled OLS regression analysis provide a strong negative significant relationship between cash conversion cycle and firm profitability. This reveals that reducing cash conversion period results to profitability increase. Thus, in purpose to create shareholder value, firm manager should concern on shorten of cash conversion cycle till optimal level is achieved

Dual time point imaging of FDG PET/CT in a tuberculous spondylodiscitis

Dual Time Point Imaging (DTPI) technique is a specialised protocol adopted in 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging. This technique is claimed to be useful in differentiating malignant and infective lesions. The authors adopted this technique in a patient diagnosed with tuberculous spondylodiscitis and psoas abscess which demonstrated higher Maximum Standardized Uptake Value (SUVmax) during initial scans as compared with those obtained on delayed scans. The SUVmax changes between the two time points are believed to be a valuable finding for chronic granulomatous infective lesions such as tuberculosis

Single channel magnetic induction spectroscopy technique for fetal acidosis detection

Current fetal acidosis diagnosis needs an invasive measurement which required a doctor to puncture fetal scalp to acquire blood pH. This method introduced risk to the fetal which fetal scalp may bruise and infected. This paper discusses a noninvasive method employing a single channel magnetic induction spectroscopy technique as an alternative method to diagnose acidosis in fetal without puncturing the fetal scalp. The studies are based on numerical simulation models to investigate the most feasible sensor coil that is sensitive and effective to be implemented in hardware setup as the shape of coil influences directly the sensing performance of the magnetic induction spectroscopy system. The study has found that the circular coil is more sensitive than linear coil. The system tested with different pH samples to mimic the blood pH value. The result is very promising with good correlation approaching 1 has been achieved. Therefore, magnetic induction spectroscopy technique has good opportunity to be applied as an alternative method to detect acidosis in the fetal with circular coil is performed as the best sensing coils for MIS hardware

A Comprehensive Study of Using 2D Barcode for Multi Robot Labelling and Communication

Multi robot is an emerging field in robotic research with surprisingly various open problems. Reports have been published stating the advantages of multi robot over conventional single robot, including reducing task completion time. One of the open problem as concentrated in this study is their communication. This study focuses on using a 2D QR barcode for robot labelling suitable for vision-based multi robot communication. The aim is to prove that QR barcode could be decoded in various distances as well as in different angles. Image sampling is done in controlled environment. A two-way ANOVA without repetition is used to analyze the image data in terms of successful QR decoding. ANOVA with significant level of critical α 0.05 is used and has justified that smallest variance at different distances and angular pose will give the best position in order to decode the respective QR barcode. Hence multi robot communication by means of labelling a QR label onto them has the possibilities for further research

Miniaturize size of dual band branch-line coupler by implementing reduced series arm of coupler with stub loaded

An extremely reduced size branch-line coupler operating at dual frequencies of WLAN band 2.45 GHz and 5.8 GHz is presented which is 58% smaller compared to the conventional design. The technique presented introduces the combination method in which the length of series lines is half than the length of shunt branch lines and the loading of stub tapped to the center of the series branch line that forms the couplers arms. Furthermore, the coupler accurately divides the input signal by two parts with the same power and 90° phase difference. Also, the reflection coefficient and the isolation are as good as conventional one. The agreement of the measurement and simulated confirms the theory and validates the proposed coupler design. The measurement shows 33.83% and 9.22% bandwidth for the lower and upper frequency, respectively

Rice Leaf Blast Disease Detection Using Multi-Level Colour Image Thresholding

Rice diseases have caused a major production and economic losses in the agricultural industry. To control and minimise the impacts of the attacks, the diseases need to be identified in the early stage. Early detection for estimation of severity effect or incidence of diseases can save the production from quantitative and qualitative losses, reduce the use of pesticide, and increase country’s economic growth. This paper describes an integrated method for detection of diseases on leaves called Rice Leaf Blast (RLB) using image processing technique. It includes the image pre-processing, image segmentation and image analysis where Hue Saturation Value (HSV) colour space is used. To extract the region of interest, image segmentation (the most critical task in image processing) is applied, and pattern recognition based on Multi-Level Thresholding approach is proposed. As a result, the severity of RLB disease is classified into three categories such as infection stage, spreading stage and worst stage