Effect of population growth on demand and water crisis in Universiti Malaysia Pahang

This study was conducted with the demand; water crisis and consumptive water use at Universiti Malaysia Pahang Pekan Campus since it build. Increasing demand for water depends on population at UMP Pekan itself that increase rapidly in one year. The region around UMP Pekan also face water crisis and it affected also not only residents at UMP Pekan, but residents at Kuala Pahang. This study was conducted to identify the volume of the water demand and capacity at UMP Pekan Campus and also analyze the water demand and crisis for making a suggestion in future plan. The data was collected via interview with residents of UMP Pekan Campus, questionnaire developed for UMP Pekan's residents and also data collected from Jabatan Perbendaharaan dan Pengurusan Harta, Bahagian Pengurusan Pelajar and Pengurusan Air Pahang Berhad (P AIP). From the study, the real causes of water shortage that occur at UMP Pekan Campus was determined and also it concluded with the best solution to avoid the water crisis occur in the future

Stir bar sorptive extraction of organic dyes from water samples using silica-based sol-gel hybrid adsorbent

The first synthetic dye ‘mauveine’ was discovered in 1856. Since then, other types of synthetic dyes are massively produced and used in several industries including textiles. Even though dyes are not strongly hazardous, they are considered as potential water pollutants due to their solubility in water which are usually high. Some cases reported that they are cytotoxic and carcinogenic to human [1]. The common technique used in the analysis of dyes is solid phase extraction (SPE). It provides a simple and economical analysis compared to liquid-liquid extraction (LLE). However, SPE has some drawbacks which include the production of organic waste, timeconsuming and complex set-up [2]. Therefore, a solventless technique namely stir bar sorptive extraction (SBSE) under the trade name TWISTERTM has been developed to overcome the limitations. However, commercial TWISTERTM is rather expensive and limited in the types of coating materials available. Thus this study attempts to synthesize new adsorbent materials based on silica for use in SBSE. Our successful hybridization of sol-gel materials [3, 4] have led us to the synthesis of another silica-based sol-gel hybrid adsorbent, mercaptopropyltrimethoxysilane-methyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMOS-MTMOS) as sorbent in the analysis of selected organic dyes namely crystal violet, methylene blue and methyl orange in water sample. The use of hybrid material as adsorbent enhanced the ability of the stir bar to extract polar compounds compared to the commercial stir bar [3], and reduced the production cost

The Optimal Performance of Multi-Layer Neural Network for Speaker-Independent Isolated Spoken Malay Parliamentary speech

This paper describes speech recognizer modeling techniques which are suited to high performance and robust isolated word recognition in speaker-independent manner. In this study, a speech recognition system is presented, specifically for an isolated spoken Malay word recognizer which uses spontaneous and formal speeches collected from Parliament of Malaysia. Currently the vocabulary is limited to ten words that can be pronounced exactly as it written and control the distribution of the vocalic segments. The speech segmentation task is achieved by adopted energy based parameter and zero crossing rate measure with modification to better locates the beginning and ending points of speech from the spoken words. The training and recognition processes are realized by using Multi-layer Perceptron (MLP) Neural Networks with two-layer feedforward network configurations that are trained with stochastic error back-propagation to adjust its weights and biases after presentation of every training data. The Mel-frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCCs) has been chosen as speech extraction approach from each segmented utterance as characteristic features for the word recognizer. The MLP performance to determine the optimal cepstral orders and hidden neurons numbers are analyzed. Recognition results showed that the performance of the two-layer network increased as the numbers of hidden neurons increased. Experimental result also showed that the cepstral orders of 12 to 14 were appropriate for the speech feature extraction for the data in this study

Mortality from gastrointestinal congenital anomalies at 264 hospitals in 74 low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries: a multicentre, international, prospective cohort study

Summary Background Congenital anomalies are the fifth leading cause of mortality in children younger than 5 years globally. Many gastrointestinal congenital anomalies are fatal without timely access to neonatal surgical care, but few studies have been done on these conditions in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). We compared outcomes of the seven most common gastrointestinal congenital anomalies in low-income, middle-income, and high-income countries globally, and identified factors associated with mortality. Methods We did a multicentre, international prospective cohort study of patients younger than 16 years, presenting to hospital for the first time with oesophageal atresia, congenital diaphragmatic hernia, intestinal atresia, gastroschisis, exomphalos, anorectal malformation, and Hirschsprung’s disease. Recruitment was of consecutive patients for a minimum of 1 month between October, 2018, and April, 2019. We collected data on patient demographics, clinical status, interventions, and outcomes using the REDCap platform. Patients were followed up for 30 days after primary intervention, or 30 days after admission if they did not receive an intervention. The primary outcome was all-cause, in-hospital mortality for all conditions combined and each condition individually, stratified by country income status. We did a complete case analysis. Findings We included 3849 patients with 3975 study conditions (560 with oesophageal atresia, 448 with congenital diaphragmatic hernia, 681 with intestinal atresia, 453 with gastroschisis, 325 with exomphalos, 991 with anorectal malformation, and 517 with Hirschsprung’s disease) from 264 hospitals (89 in high-income countries, 166 in middleincome countries, and nine in low-income countries) in 74 countries. Of the 3849 patients, 2231 (58·0%) were male. Median gestational age at birth was 38 weeks (IQR 36–39) and median bodyweight at presentation was 2·8 kg (2·3–3·3). Mortality among all patients was 37 (39·8%) of 93 in low-income countries, 583 (20·4%) of 2860 in middle-income countries, and 50 (5·6%) of 896 in high-income countries (p<0·0001 between all country income groups). Gastroschisis had the greatest difference in mortality between country income strata (nine [90·0%] of ten in lowincome countries, 97 [31·9%] of 304 in middle-income countries, and two [1·4%] of 139 in high-income countries; p≤0·0001 between all country income groups). Factors significantly associated with higher mortality for all patients combined included country income status (low-income vs high-income countries, risk ratio 2·78 [95% CI 1·88–4·11], p<0·0001; middle-income vs high-income countries, 2·11 [1·59–2·79], p<0·0001), sepsis at presentation (1·20 [1·04–1·40], p=0·016), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) score at primary intervention (ASA 4–5 vs ASA 1–2, 1·82 [1·40–2·35], p<0·0001; ASA 3 vs ASA 1–2, 1·58, [1·30–1·92], p<0·0001]), surgical safety checklist not used (1·39 [1·02–1·90], p=0·035), and ventilation or parenteral nutrition unavailable when needed (ventilation 1·96, [1·41–2·71], p=0·0001; parenteral nutrition 1·35, [1·05–1·74], p=0·018). Administration of parenteral nutrition (0·61, [0·47–0·79], p=0·0002) and use of a peripherally inserted central catheter (0·65 [0·50–0·86], p=0·0024) or percutaneous central line (0·69 [0·48–1·00], p=0·049) were associated with lower mortality. Interpretation Unacceptable differences in mortality exist for gastrointestinal congenital anomalies between lowincome, middle-income, and high-income countries. Improving access to quality neonatal surgical care in LMICs will be vital to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.2 of ending preventable deaths in neonates and children younger than 5 years by 2030

Evaluation of new polar functionalised sol-gel hybrid sorbent for stir bar sorptive

Stir bar sorptive extraction is widely used in the extraction of analytes from aqueous samples. However, commercial stir bar is relatively expensive. The high cost of the stir bar has led to the development of new coatings mainly based on silica. In this study, a new organic-inorganic hybrid silica-based material based on 3-mercapto-propyltrimethoxysilane (MPTMOS) and methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMOS) was synthesized via sol-gel technology and use in the evaluation of its extraction performance of three organic dyes namely crystal violet, methylene blue and methyl orange as test analytes. The test analytes were analyzed simultaneously using UV-Vis spectroscopy at 422 nm for methyl orange, 592 nm for crystal violet and 653 nm for methylene blue. Several sol-gel preparation parameters were optimized to obtain the sorbent with optimum extraction efficiency for the three selected dyes. The organic-inorganic sol-gel hybrid sorbent with the composition 3:1 MPTMOS-MTMOS showed the highest extraction performance for the three selected dyes

Malaysian students’ awareness and experiences of halal products in South Korea / Nurul Shulehaf Mansor … [et al.]

Many Malaysian students have been studying in South Korea since “Look East Policy” was implemented by the government of Malaysia three decades ago. The major challenge faced by the Malaysian students in this non-muslim community is the difficulty to find halal products such as food and beverages, medicine, toiletries and cosmetics. It is therefore vital to investigate students’ experience in meeting the challenge of searching for halal products in this foreign land. Apart from that, this study intends to investigate the attitude of Malaysian students and their awareness on halal products. Data were collected through online questionnaire and the respondents were Malaysian students from Persatuan Pelajar Malaysia Korea (PPMK) who are currently studying in South Korea. Implications of this study can be valuable to future Malaysian students’ comprehension in matters related to halal products