Design of sediment oxygen demand (SOD) 'in-situ' measuring chamber and its application in several rivers

Sediment oxygen demand is defined as the rate of dissolved oxygen removal from the water column by the decomposition of organic materials in the bottom sediments. Accurate SOD rates are important, as they will allow for more precise permits specifications and therefore the degree or level of wastewater treatment needed. The "in situ" SOD chamber designed for the study was adapted from an earlier design by the USEPA (Hatcher, 1986). Two sets of chambers of differing sizes were fabricated and used to measure the SOD levels in several rivers and a small lake. These measurements could be used for the calibration and validation water quality models. Another applied usage of the SOD chamber was for the management of aquaculture ponds. The knowledge of the SOD levels at the bottom of the aquaculture ponds will allow for a more systematic pond-cleaning schedule

FDI and Economic Growth in Malaysia

Abstract: This study examines the causal relationship between foreign direct investment and economic growth. Methodology is based on the Toda-Yamamoto test for causality relationship and the bounds testing (ARDL). Time-series data covering the period 1970-2005 for Malaysia, the study found, in the case of Malaysia there is no strong evidence of a bi-directional causality and long-run relationship between FDI and economic growth. This suggests that FDI has indirect effect on economic growth in MalaysiaForeign direct investment, Toda-Yamamoto test, bounds testing (ARDL), economic growth. Malaysia

Aspirations of students in the diploma music program / Abidsa Yusop

Students aspirations is a term commonly used in education, yet there is little agreement of what it means and even less understanding about its motivation. It is a purpose of this paper to trace the students' aspirations for their enrolment in the Diploma in Music program at UiTM. Sample for this study were 185 diploma students. Questionnaires were distributed to students which consisted of questions that sought to investigate the reasons why they had chosen to study music at UiTM and their aspirations posterior to the completion of their course at UiTM. Findings indicate that most of the students plan to further their study to improve themselves. Bachelors degrees in Music Education and Music Performance are two most chosen programs for further study. Interestingly, female students choose to further in the Music Education while male students prefer the Music Performance program. Interest in music, wanting to make music as a career, the Bumiputera policy and low fees are some of the main reasons why the students chose to pursue their studies in music at UiTM

Effects of Logging on Streamwater Quality and Solute Input-Output Budgets in Small Watersheds in Peninsular Malaysia

The effects of selective logging on streamwater quality and solute budget s were investigated using three small catchments: C1, C2 and C3. After a three-year calibration period,Cl and C3 were logged using" unsupervised" and "supervised" logging methods respectively, whereas C2 was left as control. Several control measures were imposed in the supervised C3 but none in the unsupervised C1. During the calibration period the levels for most of the streamwater quality parameters measured were within the standards for potable water. The exceptions were colour, turbidity and iron.Significant increases in pH, specific electrical conductivity, hardness, suspended solids, alkalinity, turbidity, dissolved solids, silicate, calcium, iron,and sodium were recorded in the unsupervised C1. The levels for colour and nitrate were also elevated initially but recovered to background values within a year. In contrast, in the supervised C3, significant changes were detected only for hardness, magnesium and iron. The impact of logging was enhanced during the wet months especially for suspended solids, turbidity and iron

An Automated Approach To Elicit And Validate Security Requirements Of Mobile Application

Mobile phone usage has continued to rise,and it is becoming more convenient for users to use mobile applications for booking hotels,conducting online transaction and online payment.In this case,secured applications are required to increase the confidence among mobile users.In order to achieve correct secure application,a correct security requirements needs to be elicited and defined.Additionally,it is also crucial for security requirements of mobile apps to fulfill basic quality attributes such as correct,consistent and complete (3Cs).However,few problems are found in eliciting security requirements for mobile apps.Firstly, most requirements engineers (RE) are identified to have less knowledge and understanding of security requirements attributes,leading to the failure of implementing the 3Cs of security requirements.Secondly,most of the elicitation and the validation of security requirements are conducted at the later stage of the development and leads to poor quality security requirements implementation which might resulted to project failure.Motivated from these problems,the objectives of this thesis are three-folds; 1) To analyze the security requirements for mobile apps, 2) To propose an approach to elicit and end-to-end validation of security requirement,and 3)To evaluate the efficacy in term of correctness and performance as well as usability of the approach.This thesis proposes a new automated approach to assist the elicitation and validation of security requirements.Here an automated tool support called MobiMEReq is also developed.For this, we have adopted Test Driven Development (TDD) methodology with semi-formalized models:i) Essential Use Cases (EUCs) and ii) Essential User Interface (EUI).We then divided our approach into two parts:1)Elicitation and 2)End-to-end validation security requirements.Further,we have developed pattern libraries to assist on the correct elicitation and validation.They are mobile Security attributes pattern library and mobile security pattern library.Then,we have constructed a new algorithm using fuzzy logic to assist on the prioritization of the test for better performance of validation.Finally,a comprehensive evaluation of the approach,comprising experiments of correctness test and usability test were conducted.Here,we have also evaluated the feedback from the industry experts especially on the usability of the automated approach and tool support.In summary,the findings of the evaluations show that our approach is able to contribute to the body of knowledge of mobile security requirements engineering especially in enhancing the performance and correctness level of security attribute elicitation and its usability for end-to-end elicitation and validation.It is found that the approach able to enhance the correctness level of the elicited security attribute compared to the manual approach,and produce correct generation of test.Then,the results of the usability test by the novice and experts show that the approach is useful in eliciting and validating security requirements at the early stage of application development and is able to ease the elicitation and validation process of security requirements of mobile apps

New Power Converter Topology For Low Power Rotary Capacitive Power Transfer System

Since the past decade, many researchers have taken interest to investigate the capacitive power transfer (CPT) as an alternative to achieve contactless power transfer. By employing the electric field as the energy transfer medium, CPT has the advantages of the confined electric field between coupling plates, power transfer capability through metal barriers, low eddy current power losses associated with metal surroundings, as well as the potential to minimise circuit size and cost. This thesis mainly concentrates on the development of a fundamental theory of CPT system and its application for low power contactless charging. Initially, the thesis begins by analysing the Class-E resonant inverter performance to generate high frequency AC power source to drive the CPT system. Due to the sensitivity of components variation, the investigation of Class-E resonant inverter with feedback frequency controller unit is proposed to enhance the efficiency of CPT system by preserving the zero voltage switching (ZVS) condition over a longer distance. Second, the utilization of compensation network to serve as an impedance converter in order to enable efficient power transfer between two stages with non-matching impedances had been investigated. Here, mathematical analysis of the sensitivity of the system output power in respect to the load variation was introduced. Third, a Class-E combined with LCCL compensation network topology for both transmitter and receiver is proposed to provide impedance matching and hence, keeping the ZVS condition for wider load-range changes. Next, based on the proposed Class-E LCCL topology, a single plate rotary CPT system was developed to realize power transfer to the rotating load. Finally, in enhancing the capacitive coupler embedded in the rotary CPT system, the rotating capacitive coupler was upgraded with multiple plate structure approach to generate a small and compact capacitive coupler plate without the need of increasing electric field emission. This was controlled by a novel power flow control topology called cascaded Boost-Class-E. With the application of these proposed control methods, the output power of rotary CPT system could be adjusted. Overall, this thesis presents a fundamental study on CPT technology carried out by employing mathematical analysis, computer simulations, and practical experiments for validation purpose. A 10W prototype was constructed to verify the proposed circuit. The best experiment prototype of this work has demonstrated more than 90% efficiency at 2 mm working distance, which can be considered as an exceptional performance, when compared to the existing low power scale CPT system achievements. In conclusion, the research outcomes portray the feasibility and the potential of CPT as an emerging contactless power transfer solution, as well as the theory and the practical design methods that establish a solid foundation for future CPT research and development

Factors Influencing Foreign Direct Investment in the Manufacturing Sector of Malaysia

This study is meant to identify local(country-related) factors that affect foreign direct investment (FDI) in the manufacturing sector of Malaysia. FDI in Malaysia was concentrated in the agricultural and extractive industries until the early post-independent period when efforts to diversify the country's economy were initiated. Generally, industrialization has brought several positive effects however, it also features a few weaknesses such as narrow manufacturing base and manufactured exports and under utilization of local resources. The different rates of investment across the various manufacturing industries in the country can be associated with the pattern of FDI which is concentrated in certain industries such as electrical and textile. Therefore, it is important to conduct a study on factors affecting FDI in Malaysia so that policy-makers can hopefully benefit from the findings of the study in making the appropriate policies to improve the distribution of FDI across the manufacturing industries. Previous studies show that FDI activities can be explained by theory of comparative advantage, industrial organization as well as investment theory. To determine the factors influencing FDI in the Malaysian manufacturing, both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. In the quantitative analysis, gross national product(GNP),level of external reserve (lagged one year), interest rate, manufacturing output/GNP, current profit of foreign controlled manufacturing companies and total asset of local financial systems how significant positive relationship with FDI while public investment rate shows significant negative relationship. The qualitative analysis concludes that economic and social stability; freedom of repatriation; avail ability of efficient labour force; existence of physical infrastructures;efficiency of financial institutions; tariff and trade protection; currency stability; market avail ability; and public sector efficiency are among the roost important determinants of FDI