Biosugar production from oil palm mesocarp fiber (OPMF) using viscozyme

In this study, the performance of HNO3 and NaOH pretreatmentson oil palm mesocarp fiber (OPMF) was evaluated based on the residual carbohydrate. The best pretreatment condition was ascertained for reducing sugar and biosugar produced after saccharification with viscozyme. The pretreatment with 2 % (v/v) HNO3 improved cellulose concentration from 33.14 % to 60.0 %, while hemicellulose, lignin and ash were reduced by 25.59 %, 10.0 % and 25.9 % to 10.0 %, 5.33 % and 3.0 %, respectively. Enzymatic treatment using 1g solid loading, produce highest production in terms of arabinose 10.5 g/l, glucose (1.1 g/L) and xylose (0.42 g/L) was obtained under agitation. While for 10 grams solid loading, highest level of bio-sugar was obtained with arabinose (0.8 g/L) and glucose (1.6 g/L). FESEM-EDX and FTIR images before and after saccharification successfully showed the effect of enzymatic treatment on the mesocarp fiber

MEDIA OPTIMIZATION FOR BIOPROTEINS PRODUCTION FROM CHEAPER CARBON SOURCE

There are high demands for animal and human food supply especially protein, which is an important dietary component. Agricultural wastes, cheap carbon sources- which are rich and have high energy, can be used for producing the value added bioprotein. A lab scale study was carried out to optimize the media composition for bioprotein production from a cheaper carbon source - wheat flour using potential strain, which was selected earlier by screening different microorganisms. The performance of the selected strain was enhanced by media optimization with varied substrate concentration, nitrogen sources and nutrient supplementation according to the central composite design from STATISTICA software. Statistical optimization was carried out to evaluate the polynomial regression model through effect of linear, quadratic and interaction of the factors. The maximum biomass produced was 21.89 g/L with optimum fermentation conditions of wheat flour (4 g/L), nitrogen concentration (0.5 g/L), nutrient concentration (0.1 g/L), and four days of fermentation

Regionalization and harmonization in TVET

A transversal skill is one of the skills needed in every type of workplace setting. There is limited information about the perceptions of which transferable skills are needed in the workplace. The objective of this study is to explore the transferable skills among students and lecturers in TVET higher learning institutions in Indonesia and Malaysia. In the present study, transferable skills consist of communication skills, collaboration skills, problem-solving skills, entrepreneurship, and learning to learn skills. A qualitative research was conducted using survey. The five Likert scale questionnaire was distributed to lecturers and students from selected Malaysian and Indonesian universities who have bachelor program in engineering. Based on the analysis outcomes, it is clearly shown that Malaysian university engineering students yielded significantly higher scores on the perceptions of transferable skill acquisition in all measured components compared to their counterparts in Indonesia. Similar patterns of data distribution have been observed in Malaysian and Indonesian engineering students. Based on the lecturers’ perception, Malaysian and Indonesian Engineering Lecturers have comparable perceptions in the aspects of problem solving skills and entrepreneurship skills. In contrast, Malaysian university engineering lecturers gained significantly higher scores on the perception of communication skill, collaboration skill, and learning to learn skill compared to the Indonesian lecturers. The results indicate the need to increase transferable skills of both lecturers and students

The relationship between ICT adoption and business performance in Malaysia and Indonesia

This paper reviews the relationship of information communication technology adoption (ICT) and Business Performance (BP) from women entrepreneur perspective in Malaysia and Indonesia. The aim of this paper is to identify the dimension of ICT adoption and BP to develop a conceptual framework for further study about the relationship to identify those that can determine women entrepreneur success. To achieve this objective, literature review is conducted by extend number of literature in ICT, BP, and women entrepreneur. Related studies are review and analyze by using literature table. The finding of this paper reveals a proposed conceptual framework and hypothesis that gain support from literature. The significant of this study is expected to provide guideline for women entrepreneurs in Malaysia and Indonesia who wish to adopt ICT in their business and help them to evaluate the relationship with BP. This study can assist women entrepreneurs in considering the adoption of Electronic commerce (EC) and Mobile commerce (MC) to embark themselves in technology and innovation. Further efforts are to test this conceptual framework and hypothesis by using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to develop a research model

Moringa oleifera seeds as natural coagulant for water treatment

Developing countries and third world countries are facing potable water supply problems because of inadequate financial resources. The cost of water treatment is increasing and the quality of river water is not stable due to suspended and colloidal particle load caused by land development and high storm runoff during the rainy seasons especially in a country like Malaysia. During the rainy seasons the turbidity level increases and the need for water treatment chemicals increase as well, which leads to high cost of treatment which the water treatment cannot sustain. As a result, the drinking water that reaches the consumer is not properly treated. Therefore, it is of great importance to find a natural alternative for water coagulant to treat the turbidity. It has been found that Moringa oleifera is the best natural coagulant discovered yet, that can replace aluminium sulphate (Alum) which is used widely all around the world. The study is focusing in Moringa oleifera seeds to find the active constituents which are responsible about the coagulation mechanism and improving the coagulation property. This will help in producing this alternative locally as Moringa oleifera is grown in Malaysia and other tropical countries and can be of great benefit for water treatment

Chemical constituents and lipoxygenase inhibitory activity of Piper stylosum Miq.

ABSTRACT. Chemical constituents and lipoxygenase inhibitory activity of the aerial part of Piper stylosum have been studied. Fractionation and purification of the extracts afforded five lignans, identified as yangambin (1), sesamin (2), syringaresinol (3), pinoresinol (4), and medioresinol (5), together with other constituents; 4-allyl resorcinol, β-sitosterol, β-sitostenone, taraxerol, vanilin, and vanilic acid. The structures of these compounds were established by analysis of their spectral data, as compared to that of reported compounds. The lipoxygenase inhibitory activity of the extracts and isolated lignans were also evaluated.               KEY WORDS: Piperaceae, Piper, Piper stylosum, Lignan, Lipoxygenase Bull. Chem. Soc. Ethiop. 2019, 33(3), 587-592.   DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.4314/bcse.v33i3.1

Impact satisfaction factors of ecotourism for sustainable tourism business and management

In almost all real-world problems, consideration of multiple-criteria decisions requires the decision maker to make constructive decisions to obtain the desirable outcomes. A multiple-criteria decision making tool is the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) which is frequently used in most applications involving decision making. Since Sabah is well known for its natural and rich resources, ecotourism has a significant potential to enhance the tourism industry. This paper aims to determine the satisfaction factors of tourists visiting Sabah and specifically in the ecotourism industry. The four-step modelling procedure for a decision model using AHP is introduced. It includes the pairwise comparison table, building of the normalised matrix, weightage determination, and finally, the consistency ratio of the overall main criteria. The ranking of the main and sub-criteria are then made so that the best main and sub-criteria related to tourist satisfaction are identified. The results showed that the top criteria preferred by tourists for eco-tourism is safety, followed by benefits, activities, services and finally destination. The most strongly preferred sub-criteria for destination is 'interest', for benefit is 'relaxing and fulfilling', for activities is 'experiencing nature and beautiful scenery', for safety is 'concerned personal Safety and security', and for service is 'on time service to tourists'. All preferred factors have met the values of inconsistency of less than 0.1 (<0.1). Findings of these impact factors towards ecotourism may enhance further adventurous and physical challenges at Sabah ecotourism hotspots by introducing, increasing and developing more adventurous activities, inclusive of notified safety and security, which needs sustainable tourism management. In conclusion, tourists are said to be very satisfied with the ecotourism industry in Sabah as indicted in their great positive responses, hence creating more tourism businesses

Identifying national security fundamentals in the big data of digital asymmetrical environment communication

This conceptualization article discusses the impact of technology to society from variousperspectives which relates on humanities aspect of social convention, hegemony, generation warfare and intelligence constructs.The narratives provide understandings of the current transition, emphasizing the changing need of intelligence protocols to understand the society in current technological advancement era. Intelligence output is detrimental as information is no longer secluded in this borderless communication spheres. The article narrates generation warfare intelligence in complex information system of digital asymmetrical environment in current generation warfare to digest the social implications and of technology to society and provides appropriate recommendations.Keywords: communication; generation warfare; hegemony; intelligence; society; socialconvention

Autocorrelated process control: Geometric Brownian Motion approach versus Box-Jenkins approach

Existing of autocorrelation will bring a significant effect on the performance and accuracy of process control if the problem does not handle carefully. When dealing with autocorrelated process, Box-Jenkins method will be preferred because of the popularity. However, the computation of Box-Jenkins method is too complicated and challenging which cause of time-consuming. Therefore, an alternative method which known as Geometric Brownian Motion (GBM) is introduced to monitor the autocorrelated process. One real case of furnace temperature data is conducted to compare the performance of Box-Jenkins and GBM methods in monitoring autocorrelation process. Both methods give the same results in terms of model accuracy and monitoring process control. Yet, GBM is superior compared to Box-Jenkins method due to its simplicity and practically with shorter computational time

Clustering for binary data sets by using genetic algorithm-incremental K-means

This research was initially driven by the lack of clustering algorithms that specifically focus in binary data. To overcome this gap in knowledge, a promising technique for analysing this type of data became the main subject in this research, namely Genetic Algorithms (GA). For the purpose of this research, GA was combined with the Incremental Kmeans (IKM) algorithm to cluster the binary data streams. In GAIKM, the objective function was based on a few sufficient statistics that may be easily and quickly calculated on binary numbers. The implementation of IKM will give an advantage in terms of fast convergence. The results show that GAIKM is an efficient and effective new clustering algorithm compared to the clustering algorithms and to the IKM itself. In conclusion, the GAIKM outperformed other clustering algorithms such as GCUK, IKM, Scalable K-means (SKM) and K-means clustering and paves the way for future research involving missing data and outliers