A Review Factors Affecting Building Defects of Structural Steel Construction. Case Study: Student Accommodation in UiTM Perak

AbstractIn Malaysia, building condition survey is currently vastly underrated and ignored by owners, managers and professionals. The building owners or facilities managers has identified that the complaints about building defects have gone up in recent years with common problem such as leaky roofs and walls, dampness and water penetration from the upper toilet, crack at floor slab and others. This paper presents a brief description of building defect in use of student hostels in UiTM Perak. The main objective is to highlight the important problems and suggest a possible remedial work and increased the awareness of building owners regarding building condition survey and its relation to building maintenance management. The building condition survey will take quite a range of Building Surveyor specialist equipment to seven hostel buildings in UiTM Perak. This paper has gained an insight into a better understanding of factors affecting building defects of structural steel construction. It also explores opportunities for improving the understanding of building surveying profession in our country

Nano Fe3O4-activated carbon composites for aqueous supercapacitors

In this study, a symmetric supercapacitor has been fabricated by adopting the nanostructured iron oxide (Fe3O4)-activated carbon (AC) composite as the core electrode materials. The composite electrodes were prepared via a facile mechanical mixing process and PTFE polymeric solution has been used as the electrode material binder. Structural analysis of the nanocomposite electrodes were characterized by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) analysis. The electrochemical performances of the prepared supercapacitor were studied using cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) in 1.0 M Na2SO3 and 1.0 M Na2SO4 aqueous solutions, respectively. The experimental results showed that the highest specific capacitance of 43 F/g is achieved with a fairly low Fe3O4 nanomaterials loading (4 wt. %) in 1 M Na2SO3. It is clear that the low concentration of nanostructured Fe3O4 has improved the capacitive performance of the composite via pseudocapacitance charge storage mechanism as well as the enhancement on the specific surface areas of the electrode. However, further increasing of the Fe3O4 content in the electrode is found to distort the capacitive performance and deteriorate the specific surface area of the electrode, mainly due to the aggregation of the Fe3O4 particles within the composite. Additionally, the CV results showed that the Fe3O4/AC nanocomposite electrode in Na2SO3 electrolyte exhibits a better charge storage performance if compared with Na2SO4 solution. It is believed that Fe3O4 nanoparticles can provide favourable surface adsorption sites for sulphite (SO32-) anions which act as catalysts for subsequent redox and intercalation reactions

Application of Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy in the Study of Mixed-Valence Asymmetric Ruthenium Polypyridyl Complexes

Circular dichroism (CD) spectroelectrochemistry is used to determine the extent of singly occupied molecular orbital delocalization in mixed-valence multinuclear complexes, specifically the mixed-valence RuIIRuIII states of the four diastereoisomers of [(Ru(bpy)2)2(bpt)]3+ [bpy = 2,2'-bipyridyl and bpt = 3,5-bis(pyrid-2'-yl)-1,2,4-triazolato anion]. The complex was found to be stable to thermal racemization in the three oxidation states, but photoracemization in the RuIIRuII state was observed.

Global maps of soil temperature.

Research in global change ecology relies heavily on global climatic grids derived from estimates of air temperature in open areas at around 2 m above the ground. These climatic grids do not reflect conditions below vegetation canopies and near the ground surface, where critical ecosystem functions occur and most terrestrial species reside. Here, we provide global maps of soil temperature and bioclimatic variables at a 1-km <sup>2</sup> resolution for 0-5 and 5-15 cm soil depth. These maps were created by calculating the difference (i.e. offset) between in situ soil temperature measurements, based on time series from over 1200 1-km <sup>2</sup> pixels (summarized from 8519 unique temperature sensors) across all the world's major terrestrial biomes, and coarse-grained air temperature estimates from ERA5-Land (an atmospheric reanalysis by the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts). We show that mean annual soil temperature differs markedly from the corresponding gridded air temperature, by up to 10°C (mean = 3.0 ± 2.1°C), with substantial variation across biomes and seasons. Over the year, soils in cold and/or dry biomes are substantially warmer (+3.6 ± 2.3°C) than gridded air temperature, whereas soils in warm and humid environments are on average slightly cooler (-0.7 ± 2.3°C). The observed substantial and biome-specific offsets emphasize that the projected impacts of climate and climate change on near-surface biodiversity and ecosystem functioning are inaccurately assessed when air rather than soil temperature is used, especially in cold environments. The global soil-related bioclimatic variables provided here are an important step forward for any application in ecology and related disciplines. Nevertheless, we highlight the need to fill remaining geographic gaps by collecting more in situ measurements of microclimate conditions to further enhance the spatiotemporal resolution of global soil temperature products for ecological applications

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries

Rural industrialization: a strategy for rural development in Nigeria

Rural industrialization is a gate way to rural development most nations particularly an agrarian economy like Nigeria. This paper assessed the genesis, the need, prospects arid constraints of industrialization as a v~ritable tool for development. Some general and necessary information on rural industrialization were highlighted which if properly utilized will serve :as a way forwarci for achieving sustainable rural transformation and national development. The study reveals that past government policies on rural industrialization as good as they were, has not yielded the desired result expected, hence the need for re-approach. Identified constraints include: inadequate infrastructure, poor utilization of available manpower and absent e of a sound technology base, low level-of: private sector (foreign and domestic) investment, government policy art macro economics, political environment and institutional set-up.· Alternative measure proposed in this study will foster rural industrialization on a sustainable bases includes: review of government policies on investment options of, agriculture (foreign and domestic) vigorous . development of agro-industries with focus on availability of unlimited raw material resources, development of agricultural sector driven by appropriate technology, development of post-harvest systems and agro-industry and creation of agriculture information rietwork centers located in · all local go·vernment areas headquarters for easy access by farmers and local investors

The Importance of Building Condition Survey Report for New House Buyers

AbstractPurposeThis paper is to identify the importance of Building Condition Survey Report (BCSR) for New House Buyers by way of listing the detailed of building defects and to report any building's specification incompliance literally stated in Sales & Purchase Agreement (SPA) and to highlight requirements of Uniform Building By-Law (UBBL). BCSR will be used as a comprehensive report to be submitted to the respective property developer for repairing and replacement works. In the event, If property developer failed to carry out the required complaints, the same report could be extended for filing to Tribunal of Housing Claims. Thus the report will protect the interest of new house buyers. Methodology: This paper attempts to establish understanding and importance of BCSR in reporting all defects occurred within Defect Liability Period (DLP). This research presents preliminary study on BCSR contributions in securing interest of New House Buyers in Malaysia. The research adopts comprehensive literature reviews from numerous published sources such as journals, magazines, government reports, unpublished thesis and website document focusing on Malaysia's housing problems published by Malaysia Ministry of Local Housing and Authority (MLHA). Comprehensive literature reviews focusing on the Scenario housing of problems in Malaysia, Understanding the rights within Defect Liability Period, Understanding the importance of building condition survey report and its benefit to New House Buyers. Anticipated Outcomes: The paper expects that new house buyers will understand the function of BCSR to list their defects complaints before submitting them to Property Developer. BCSR should be recognized as a double edged sword, whereby it can be used as a tool for Property Developer in monitoring defects complaint and to ensure every complaint received to be rectified by the appointed contractor.lastly, the paper intends to generate awareness among new house buyers on their rights to receive newly completed houses in acceptable standard

Synthesis of Iron Oxide (Fe3O4) magnetic nanocrystals by green chemistry approach

In the present study, we report the size distribution study on the iron oxide (Fe3O4) magnetic nanocrystals (NCs), which have been synthesized by using green chemistry approach with palm-oil based carboxylic compound (oleic acid) as capping ligands. The Fe3O4 NCs were prepared by one pot reaction under non-hydrolytic approach. With the assistance of oleic acid that plays the role as effective capping-ligands, we showed that the Fe3O4 NCs that are highly monodispersed in size and shape can be synthesized by scrupulously controlling the reaction time. The diameter of Fe3O4 NCs can be tuned within the range of 4.0-18.0 nm and exhibit very uniform morphology, which are spherical in shape. Current synthetic approach offers a cheap, environmentally benign and excellent repeatability route in large-scale production of high-quality magnetic Fe3O4 NCs if compared to the preceding reports