Pineapples internal quality inspection approaches and its potential effects in Malaysia

Pineapple (Ananas Comosus L. Metil) is a tropical plant under Bromeliaceous family that is grown in American tropics, subtropics, and warmer regions (U. Nations 2012). Pineapple is the second harvest tropical fruit after banana in the world (S. Ndungu 2014). Pineapple has spiny skin that will turn into yellowish brown from green when ripe. Pineapple is a non-climatic fruit that will stop ripping once it is harvested. Pineapple is famous not only because its taste but also its nutrients for health (M. Farid Hossain 2015, p.84). It contains nutriet that can supply suffiecient requirement of calcium, sodium, potassium, fibre, vitamin C, and so on. Those nutrients can help to build up healthy and growth of bone, enhance body immune system, and decrease high blood pressure for body system

Addressing Spectrum Congestion by Spectrally-Cooperative Radar design

This dissertation attempts to address a significant challenge that is encountered by the users of the Radio Frequency (RF) Spectrum in recent years. The challenge arises due to the need for greater RF spectrum by wireless communication industries such as mobile telephony, cable/satellite and wireless internet as a result of growing con-sumer base and demands. As such, it has led to the issue of spectrum congestion as radar systems have traditionally maintain the largest share of the RF spectrum. To resolve the spectrum congestion problem, it has become even necessary for users from both radar and communication systems to coexist within a finite spectrum allocation. However, this then leads to other problems such as the increased likelihood of mutual interference experienced by all systems that are coexisting within the finite spectrum.. In order to address this challenge, the dissertation will seek to resolve it via a two-step approach that are described as follows. For the first step of this approach, it will present a structured and meticulous approach to design a sparse spectrum allocation optimization scheme that will lead to the release of valuable spectrum previously allocated to radar applications for reallocation to other players such as the wireless video-on-demand and telecommunication industries while maintaining the range resolution performance of these radar applications. This sparse bandwidth allocation scheme is implemented using an optimization process utilizing the Marginal Fisher information (MFI) measure as the main metric for optimization. Although the MFI approach belongs to the class of greedy optimization methods that cannot guarantee global convergence, the results obtained indicated that this approach is able to produce a locally optimal solution. For the second step of this approach, it will present on the design of a spectral efficient waveform that can be used to ensure that the allocated spectrum limits will not be violated due to poor spectral emission containment. The design concept of this waveform is based on the joint implementation of the first and higher orders of the Poly-phase coded Frequency Modulated (PCFM) waveform that expands previous research on first order PCFM waveform. As any waveform generated using the PCFM framework possesses good spectral containment and is amenable to high power transmit operations such as radar due to its constant modulus property, thus the combined-orders of PCFM waveform is a very suitable candidate that can be used in conjunction with the sparse bandwidth allocation scheme in the first step for any radar application such that the waveform will further mitigate the issue of interference experienced by other users coexisting within the same band

Life table of Cochlochila bullita stål (hemiptera: tingidae) on Orthosiphon aristatus (blume) miq. and Ocimum basilicum l. in laboratory conditions

Ocimum tingid, Cochlochila bullita Stål (Hemiptera: Tingidae) is a pest of Lamiaceae plants such as basil, tulsi and coleus. It is now being recorded in Malaysia as a pest of the cat’s whiskers plant, Orthosiphon aristatus (Blume) Miq. Nevertheless, apart from its brief biological description, no other information is available. The life table of this pest was studied in laboratory conditions. Development time for C. bullita feeding on O. aristatus was 23.3 ± 0.9 days, which was found to be similar to those feeding on Ocimum basilicum (22.8 ± 0.3 days). Although C. bullita posts a higher mortality rate on O. aristatus than on O.basilicum (52% vs. 37%), the adult longevity of the bugs that feed on O. aristatus (♀: 33.9; ♂: 38.2 days) was found to be significantly higher than those bugs that feed on O.basilicum (♀: 27.2; ♂: 26.0 days). The pre-ovipostion, ovispostion and fecundity of C. bullita were also different between the host plants. The net reproductive rates (R0), finite rate of increase (λ) and intrinsic rate of increase (r) were also higher on O. aristatus (10.7504, 1.0690 and 0.0667), although there was an increased in immature survival on O. basilicum (6.0287, 1.0556 and 0.0541). Therefore, it is concluded that O. aristatus is as good as O. basilicum, or the population growth of C. bullita is more favoured as compared to O. basilicum

Trade-off Between Validity and Efficiency of Merging P-Values Under Arbitrary Dependence

Various methods of combining individual p-values into one p-value are widely used in many areas of statistical applications. We say that a combining method is valid for arbitrary dependence (VAD) if it does not require any assumption on the dependence structure of the p-values, whereas it is valid for some dependence (VSD) if it requires some specific, perhaps realistic but unjustifiable, dependence structures. The trade-off between validity and efficiency of these methods is studied via analyzing the choices of critical values under different dependence assumptions. We introduce the notions of independence-comonotonicity balance (IC-balance) and the price for validity. In particular, IC-balanced methods always produce an identical critical value for independent and perfectly positively dependent p-values, a specific type of insensitivity to a family of dependence assumptions. We show that, among two very general classes of merging methods commonly used in practice, the Cauchy combination method and the Simes method are the only IC-balanced ones. Simulation studies and a real data analysis are conducted to analyze the sizes and powers of various combining methods in the presence of weak and strong dependence

Effect of post-thermal treatment on the density profile of rubberwood particleboard and its relation to mechanical properties

The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of heat treatment on the changes in density profile of rubberwood particleboard samples. The relationship between density profile and mechanical properties of particleboard samples was determined using regression analysis. Single layer particleboard made from rubberwood particles with dimensions of 340 mm × 340 mm × 12 mm and targeted density of 700 kg m-3 was heat-treated using oven and hot press at three different temperature levels, namely, 100, 150 and 200 °C for 30 min. All density profile attributes were significantly affected by heat treatment. Bending properties, internal bond strength and hardness were influenced by treatment temperature. However, samples treated using hot press had better mechanical properties compared with those treated using oven. Mean and peak densities exerted profound effects on mechanical properties of the samples

Relative contribution of risk factors for early-onset myopia in young Asian children

10.1167/iovs.15-16577Clinical and Epidemiologic Research56138101-8107GUSTO (Growing up towards Healthy Outcomes

Properties of particleboard with oil palm trunk as core layer in comparison to three-layer rubberwood particleboard

Compaction ratio is highly dependent on the density of the wood materials used in the production of particleboard. Lower density wood materials will produce particleboard with higher compaction ratio and is believed to give better properties. The objective of this study was to evaluate the properties of threelayer particleboard made from rubberwood and oil palm trunk with different bulk density as the core layer, while the rubberwood fine particles served as surface layers for both types of particleboard. This study also investigated the effect of shelling ratios on the mechanical and physical properties of the threelayer particleboard. Melamine-fortified urea formaldehyde (UF) resin was used as the binder. The modulus of rupture (MOR), internal bond strength (IB) and thickness swelling (TS) of the particleboards were evaluated based on the Japanese Industrial Standard for particleboard (JIS A 5908:2003). The results showed that both species and shelling ratios are variables that influenced the mechanical and physical properties of the particleboard. Despite its lower compaction ratio, particleboard made from rubberwood alone had better strength properties and dimensional stability than particleboard made from a mixture of rubberwood and oil palm trunk

Thermal treatment of wood using vegetable oils: a review

Wood is an ideal building material as it is renewable and green. However, low dimensional stability and durability might restrict its usage in structural application. Therefore, modification is needed to improve the aforementioned issues. As an environmentally friendly wood modification method, heat treatment of wood using oil as a heating medium has brought to researcher’s attention to the fact that it might serve as an excellent treatment procedure in treating wood. This paper presents a review about the effects of oil heat treatment on the properties of wood such as colour stability, dimensional stability, mechanical strength and durability against termites and fungi as well as its potential to be used as construction and building materials. The pros and cons of using oil as a heating medium in wood treatment are discussed. This review shows discrepancies between the treatment methods or procedures and its resultant findings. Moreover, the effectiveness of the treatment is governed by several factors such as the type of oils used and wood species. The objective of the present paper is to conduct a review of the published literatures regarding the properties of wood modified by oil heat treatment and the results obtained were compared systematically

Occurrence of Cochlochila bullita Stål in Malaysia

The first occurrence of Lace bug, Cochlochila bullita Stål, was recorded in Malaysia in year of 2010. Description of this species was made. Damage on Ocimum basilicum and Orthosiphon aristatus caused by Cochlochila bullita Stål was investigated in this study. Symptoms of the infested plants were also described. Possible control method against this pest was also suggested