Temperature influence on total volatile compounds (TVOCs) inside the car cabin of visible light transmittance

In the automotive industry indoor air quality or Vehicle Indoor Air Quality (VIAQ) are caused by various substances emitted from interior materials inside a vehicle. The volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are an example of emitted substances from the interior materials which is harmful to the human body. As stated by previous researches, there is a strong correlation between the total VOCs emission and interior temperature. This occurs due to the solar radiation through the back window glasses, windscreen and side window glasses. This trapped heat can accelerate the melting process of trim materials such as hard plastic and rubber, thus causing the emission of total VOCs (TVOCs). Therefore, reducing the percentage of visible light transmittance (VLT) will help to reduce radiation process. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of VLT level on TVOCs emission in the vehicle cabin under static condition (parked and unventilated) and operating condition (driving and air-conditioned). For static condition the result shows that the TVOCs concentration linearly decreases whenever the percentage of VLT level decreases. However, for operating condition the percentage of VLT have less significance after 50 minutes driving time. In conclusion, the VLT levels have a strong relationship to the TVOCs concentration despite after a long driving time

PI Controller Design Using Model Reference Adaptive Control Approaches For A Chemical Process

This paper discusses the application of Model Reference Adaptive Control (MRAC) concepts in designing an adaptive feedback controller to tune a given PI controller. The approaches of using the gradient (MIT) and stability (Lyapunov) methods are shown. The effectiveness of the two methods are shown through simulation and comparison is made to show which method give the best result. The results show that the stability method produces a better result

Development of Standard Approach for Sickle Blade Manufacturing

The sickle blade used in the motorised palm cutter known as “CANTAS” provides fast, easy and safe pruning and harvesting for those hard to reach applications. Jariz Technologies Company is experiencing problem in the consistency of sickle blade which was supplied by various blade manufacturers. Identifying the proper blade material with a certain hardness value would produce a consistent as well as long lasting sickle blade. A Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) in the manufacturing of the sickle blades was suggested to ensure a consistent blade. From this study, the optimum temperature for hardening and tempering of SUP 9 had been identified as 850 °C for hardening and 480 °C for tempering. The final hardness after heat treatment for SUP 9 was around 55HRC

Assessment of imbalance among environmental and economic performance within Malaysian manufacturing industry: a sustainable approach

Sustainability has emerged as a key area of concern especially for manufacturing industry to address major environmental issues. Carbon dioxide emission has increased rapidly over the past few decades resulting in harmful outcomes such as global warming, climate change, water and air pollution and degrading environmental performance. The objective of this study is to assess a descriptive study evaluate the imbalance between economic and environmental performance of Malaysian manufacturing industry in general. Secondary data of both economic performance and environmentaperformance (2011-2016) was descriptively examined. The findings are revealed a significant imbalance between two indicators. In addition, this study also proposed a conceptual model based on previous literature how to reduce this imbalance and create sustainable performance within Malaysian manufacturing firms

Simulation and analysis for harvesting Dioscorea hispida tubers

This study discussed an analysis and simulation of fixture stand structure that will use for data collection of force required for harvesting the tubers of Dioscorea hispida. The tubers were surrounded by roots which were well gripped to the soil which made harvesting process difficult. Therefore, a new tool fixture equipped with digital force gauge device to gripped stem dioscorea hispida is required. Imada digital force measurement gauges are state-of-the-art, instruments capable of the highly accurate measurements required in quality testing to determine the strength or functionality of a part or product. The information from the experiments is used to model and simulate the tool in Computer Aided Design (CAD) environment. The solid modelling software Solidworks was used for the design, modelling and simulation of the equipment and the finite element analysis to determine the stress affected on various fixture designs

Robust beamforming and user clustering for guaranteed fairness in downlink NOMA with partial feedback

In this paper, a downlink multiuser non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) with full and partial channel state information (CSI) feedback is considered. We investigate beam design and user clustering from the throughput-fairness trade-off perspective. To enhance this trade-off, two proportional fairness (PF) based scheduling algorithms are proposed, each has two stages. The first algorithm is based on integrating the maximum product of effective channel gains and the maximum signal to interference ratio with the PF principle (PF-MPECG-SIR), to select the strong users in the first stage and the weak users in the second stage. This algorithm is designed to maximize the throughput with moderate fairness enhancement. Whereas, in the second algorithm, the MPECG and the maximum correlation are combined within the PF selection criterion (PF-MPECG-CORR) in order to maximize the fairness with a slight degradation in the total throughput. In addition, we present an optimal power allocation that can achieve a high data rate for the overall system without sacrificing the sum-rate of weak users under full and partial CSI. Simulation results show that the proposed PF-MPECG-CORR can significantly improve the fairness up to 50.82% and 44.90% with only 0.42% and 1.13% degradation in the total throughput, for full and partial CSI, respectively. All these performance gains are achieved without increasing the computational complexity

A whole genome analyses of genetic variants in two Kelantan Malay individuals

The sequencing of two members of the Royal Kelantan Malay family genomes will provide insights on the Kelantan Malay whole genome sequences. The two Kelantan Malay genomes were analyzed for the SNP markers associated with thalassemia and Helicobacter pylori infection. Helicobacter pylori infection was reported to be low prevalence in the north-east as compared to the west coast of the Peninsular Malaysia and beta-thalassemia was known to be one of the most common inherited and genetic disorder in Malaysia.By combining SNP information from literatures, GWAS study and NCBI ClinVar, 18 unique SNPs were selected for further analysis. From these 18 SNPs, 10 SNPs came from previous study of Helicobacter pylori infection among Malay patients, 6 SNPs were from NCBI ClinVar and 2 SNPs from GWAS studies. The analysis reveals that both Royal Kelantan Malay genomes shared all the 10 SNPs identified by Maran (Single Nucleotide Polymorphims (SNPs) genotypic profiling of Malay patients with and without Helicobacter pylori infection in Kelantan, 2011) and one SNP from GWAS study. In addition, the analysis also reveals that both Royal Kelantan Malay genomes shared 3 SNP markers; HBG1 (rs1061234), HBB (rs1609812) and BCL11A (rs766432) where all three markers were associated with beta-thalassemia.Our findings suggest that the Royal Kelantan Malays carry the SNPs which are associated with protection to Helicobacter pylori infection. In addition they also carry SNPs which are associated with beta-thalassemia. These findings are in line with the findings by other researchers who conducted studies on thalassemia and Helicobacter pylori infection in the non-royal Malay population.Wan Khairunnisa Wan Juhari, Nur Aida Md Tamrin, Mohd Hanif Ridzuan Mat Daud, Hatin Wan Isa, Nurfazreen Mohd Nasir, Sathiya Maran, Nur Shafawati Abdul Rajab, Khairul Bariah Ahmad Amin Noordin, Nik Norliza Nik Hassan, Rick Tearle, Rozaimi Razali, Amir Feisal Merican and Bin Alwi Zilfali

First report of decompression sickness (DCS) in a sei whale (Balaenoptera borealis) stranded in southern Peninsular Malaysia

Decompression sickness, a condition in whales caused by bubble formation in certain body tissues from dissolved inert gases. It occurs during transition from a high pressure environment to one of lower pressure, resulting in a range of conditions from itching to joint pain, convulsions, and death. A carcass of a stranded Sei Whale, Balaenoptera borealis, found on the shores of southern coast of Peninsular Malaysia was presented for postmortem. Investigation results showed that the male Sei Whale, named Si Corner showed pathologic lesions as seen from histology with the formation of fibrosis, emphysema and edema in the lungs and hepatic atrophy which indicated chronic starvation. It believed that he also suffering from “Barotrauma or decompression sickness” which affected the ear or lungs which lead to unbalanced movement due to changes in air pressure. This may have caused the whale to beach and consequent mortality. The pathologic lesions found give an insight into possible causes of death of beached whales in Malaysia