Natural radioactivity from non-nuclear power generation power industries: regulatory control of naturally occurring radioactive material (NORM) for environmental sustainability

Coal is a widely used mineral and contains almost all elements which include Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) from natural origin such as from Uranium-238 (238U) and Thorium-232 (232Th) Series along with Potassium-40 (40K). It is the most important source of fossil fuel for non-nuclear power generation industries due to its accessibility and abundance in nature. The burning of coal generates bottom and fly ash which are released into the atmosphere. This process potentially tends to distribute the natural radionuclides originating from coal and enriched in the environment that could contribute to higher external radiation exposure to the population at large. This study aimed to presents an analysis of radioactivity concentration of feed coal burned and ashes from a typical coal fired power plants (CFPP) which is a non-nuclear power generation in Malaysia. The sample was analyzed for two most important natural radionuclides content namely 238U and 232Th by using Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA). An extensive investigation of this nature is warranted for radiation protection towards legislative compliance in ensuring safety of the public and workers and the protection of the environment

A new egg parasitoid for possible biological control of the asiatic maize borer in Malaysia

A species of egg parasitoid tentatively identified as Trichogramma papilionis Nag. was found attacking egg masses of Ostrinia furnacalis Guenee. The life cycle of the parasitoid was completed within 9 days; the egg, larval and pupal stages lastedfor 2,4 and 3 days, respectively. The female: male sex ratio was 3:1, higher than the usual 2:1 sex ratio for Trichogramma spp. Superparasitism was observed whereby 3 individuals were produced from one . host egg. All eggs were parasitized in 4 days at 2:1 (host: parasitoid) ratio. The female parasitoid showed a high degree of searching efficiency and normally parasitized all eggs in a batch before continuing her search for the next egg batch. The female spent 40% of the time searching on the upper surface of a maize leaf, 30% on the lower surface and 30% on the leaf edges. The female searching and parasitization behaviour followed the Type III functional response curve. The female parasitoid showed positive response to the odour ofthe maize leaf, indicating a possibility that a kairomone or contact communication chemical is involved. T. papilionis appeared to be a very efficient egg parasitoid of O. furnacalis and a good candidate for a biological control programme of the pest

Acoustic Analysis of Nigerian English Vowels Based on Accents

Accent has been widely acclaimed to be a major source of automatic speech recognition (ASR) performance degradation. Most ASR applications were developed with native English speaker speech samples not minding the fact that the majority of its potential users speaks English as a second language with a marked accent. Nigeria like most nations colonized by Britain, speaks English as official language despite being a multi-ethnic nation. This work explores the acoustic features of energy, fundamental frequency and the first three formats of the three major ethnic groups of Nigerian based on features extracted from five pure vowels of English obtained from subjects who are Nigerians. This research aimed at determining the differences or otherwise between the pronunciations of the three major ethnic nationalities in Nigeria to aid the development of ASR that is robust to NE accent. The results show that there exist significant differences between the mean values of the pure English vowels based on the pronunciation of the three major ethnics: Hausa, Ibo, and Yoruba. The differences can be explored to enhance the performance of ASR in recognition of NE

Grinding characteristics of Asian originated peanuts (Arachishypogaea L.) and specific energy consumption during ultra-high speed grinding for natural peanut butter production

Roasted peanuts of China and India origin were ground in a commercial ultra-high speed grinder operated at 20,000 rpm for 2.0–5.0 min for natural peanut butter production. Grinding characteristics of both peanuts were evaluated in terms of specific energy consumption, Esc with respect to its grinding time and mean particle size. The Esc increased with grinding time with China peanuts having higher Esc than India peanuts. The specific energy consumption modeled to the size reduction ratio of China and India peanuts was predicted more accurately using a linear and exponential model respectively compared to the classical models by Bond, Rittinger and Kick. From the comparison of Bond’s working index, Wi, the ultra-high speed grinder is said to be more energy efficient than other comminutors in terms of its capability to produce finer particle size in shorter time than the rest

Assessment of power plant emission and its health impact in Gaza

The aim of study was to investigate the concentrations of the ambient air pollutants (i.e PM2.5, CO, CO2) and to examine the health impacts on the residentials living surrounding the power plant in Gaza City-Palestine.The pollutants were monitored several distance surrounding the plant for a period of four months during both summer and winter seasons using a portable laser particle counter and gaseous monitor. A public health questionnaire was also distributed on the residents living around the power plant in order to assess the impact of air pollution on their health status.The results showed that the concentration of particulate matter exceeded the WHO standard where the highest level was 79 ?g/m3 and the lowest level was 49?g/m3. However the concentration of carbon monoxide was lower than the WHO standards where the highest level was 2.18 ppm and lowest level was 0.1 ppm. Moreover, the concentration of carbon dioxide oscillated from 254 ppm to 514 ppm. The health assessment results showed that 50% of the study sample suffered of breathing difficulties.This study concluded that the concentration of particulate matter and carbon dioxide were high, while the level of carbon monoxide was low, furthermore the level of public awareness was good. Meanwhile 40% of population sample visited the hospital because of a disease that infects the respiratory tract

Characterization of an azo-dye-degrading white rot fungus isolated from Malaysia

Sixty-three local white-rot fungi were isolated from soil and wood samples on potato dextrose agar (PDA). All these isolates were screened for their ability to degrade 4 textile azo dyes;Ponceau 2R (C.I. 16450), Orange G (C.I. 16230), Direct Blue 71 (C.I. 34140) and Biebrich Scarlet (C.I. 26905). Out of 40 isolates that gave positive results, only 1 promising isolate which completely degrades all 4 dyes in the minimum amount of time was selected for further investigation. This isolate was sourced from University Putra Malaysia (UPM) Serdang campus.The isolate was tentatively identified as Coriolopsis sp. Strain arf5 based on the analysis of the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region. Nutritional studies on defined solid medium showed that this isolate was only able to degrade the 4 azo dyes under nitrogen-limiting conditions and an additional carbon source (glucose) need to be added to provide sufficient energy for the degradation to occur. Various parameters were optimized

Islamic home financing and the real sectors in Malaysia: An ARDL bound testing approach to cointegration

This study examines the dynamic relationship between macroeconomic variables (i.e., gross domestic product, house prices, stock prices, and interest rate) and home financing provided by Islamic banks in Malaysia.Using quarterly data from 2007 to 2014, this study employs autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bound testing cointegration approach, impulse response function (IRF), and forecast error variance decomposition (FEVD) to analyze the long-run and short-run relationships between selected macroeconomic variables and amount of Islamic home financing.This study finds that macroeconomic variables have distinct long-run and short run influence on Islamic home financing.Our findings reveal that policy intervention to stimulate or dampen home financing provided by Islamic banks, in the long run, can focus on GDP, house prices, and monetary policy. This further underscores the link between the real sector of the economy and bank lending by Islamic banks. In addition, this study documents evidence that Islamic home financing in Malaysia, at least in the short run, is not dependent on interest rate and hence, calls for a potential alternative rate, possibly rental rate, that can be used as a benchmark rather than the current conventional interest rate.To a certain extent, the findings suggest that Islamic banks are non interest based and have managed to live up to their ideals in achieving the objectives of Sharīʿah (maqāṣid alSharīʿah) by promoting real sectors to increase Islamic home financing.This study is among the very few studies that empirically examine the nexus between Islamic home financing and real sector of the economy

Quality changes of stabilizer-free natural peanut butter during storage

The storage stability of preservative-free peanut butter was evaluated for changes in physicochemical quality including moisture content and water activity, microbiological properties, oxidative stability and textural quality in terms of spreadability and firmness. The study was conducted for 16 weeks at storage temperature of 10, 25 and 35 °C on natural and pure peanut butter produced from two varieties of peanuts, the Virginia and Spanish TMV-2 varieties of China and India origin, respectively. The peanuts were ground using a high speed grinder for 2.5 and 3.0 min to produce peanut butter without addition of other ingredient. The natural peanut butter exhibited stability and had acceptable microbial count during storage. Storage at 10 °C gave similar textural quality with commercial product until week 8 and without appreciable loss in oxidative stability until week 12. At higher storage temperatures of 25 and 35 °C, oxidative stability was shortened to 4 weeks of storage. Among the factors of storage temperature and time, grinding time and peanut variety, storage temperature had the most significant effects on quality changes of natural peanut butter

Examining the citizens' self-knowledge in decision making model for Iraqi e-government

The study on citizens’ behaviors and thinking is often dependent on the citizens’ various levels of education, cultures, nature of jobs, experiences, and environments. These characteristics form the basis of Citizens’ Self-Knowledge. Decision making in e-government is a collaborative action between the government who functions to serve the public and the citizen who are the recipient of the government services. Such collaboration would provide best e-government model (planning, application) and other parts of the e- government initiatives. This study is intended to improve the model of decision-making in E-government using the Citizens' self-knowledge. This article is intended to discuss the results and findings from the pilot study to develop the decision making model in Iraqi e-government by employing citizens' self-knowledge characteristics in decision making

Energy and nutrient intakes: findings from the Malaysian Adult Nutrition Survey (MANS)

Nutrition surveys based on a representative sample of the Malaysian adult population have hitherto not been reported. In 2003, the Ministry of Health, Malaysia, conducted the Malaysian Adult Nutrition Survey (MANS), the first and largest nutrition survey in the country which aimed to provide detailed quantitative information on nutritional status, food and nutrient intakes, and physical activity pattern on a nationwide representative sample of adult subjects between the ages of 18 and 59 years. The survey covered four zones in Peninsular Malaysia (Central, Southern, Northern and East Coast), Sabah and Sarawak. This paper presents the mean and selected percentiles of energy and nutrient intake of 6886 subjects by selected demographic and socioeconomic characteristics. Energy contributions by macronutrients and dietary adequacy in relation to the Recommended Nutrient Intake for Malaysians are also described. Information on dietary intake was collected by trained nutritionists using a one day 24-hour diet recall. Dietary data were analysed using Nutritionist Pro, a diet analysis software and statistical analysis was carried out using the SPSS ver. 13.0. In most of the demographic and socioeconomic groups, males had higher mean energy (1776 kcal) and nutrient intake and percent achievement of RNI than females (1447 kcal). The proportions of calories derived from macronutrients were within the recommendations for a healthy diet. Intake of micronutrients such as iron, calcium and vitamin A was about 50% of RNI particularly in women. Sodium intake of Malaysians, not reported in earlier studies, is also made available. Under-reporting using the EI/BMR ratio was found in half of the population studied. The present study provides the first national estimates of energy and nutrient intake of the Malaysian adult population. Regular nutrition surveys are needed at the national level to provide valuable information on trends in food and nutrient intake, particularly among age and ethnically diverse subgroups of the population