Categorisation and Causes of Building Design Defect: A Case Study on Public Building Hospital

Hospital is a complex building which involves a diverse range of people, equipment and systems. The building maintainability aspect has always been neglected at the design stage of project development; on the other hand issues related to maintainability may affect the performance of hospital building and incurred unnecessary cost. Some of the defect could be eliminated with proper attention and consideration during the design stage. The aim of the study is to identify the category and causes of building defects of public hospital. Hospital Sultanah Bahiyah, Alor Setar has been selected as a case study. Data collection has been conducted based on secondary reports produced by the hospital services outsourcing company maintenance. The building defect were categorised based on three items that are enclosure, settings and fittings. Each defect will be discussed in detail in the paper. The study provides a significant contribution to the knowledge on public hospital defect in Malaysia

Overview of Bio-Based Surfactant: Recent Development, Industrial Challenge, and Future Outlook

Bio-based surfactants are surface-active compounds derived from oil and fats through the production of oleochemicals or from sugar. Various applications of bio-based surfactants include household detergents, personal care, agricultural chemicals, oilfield chemicals, industrial and institutional cleaning, and others. Due to the stringent environmental regulations imposed by governments around the world on the use of chemicals in detergents, as well as growing consumer awareness of environmental concerns, there has been a strong demand in the market for bio-based surfactants. Bio-based surfactants are recognized as a greener alternative to conventional petrochemical-based surfactants because of their biodegradability and low toxicity. As a result, more research is being done on producing novel biodegradable surfactants, either from renewable resources or through biological processes (bio-catalysis or fermentation). This chapter discusses the various types, feedstocks, and applications of bio-based surfactants, as well as the industrial state-of-the-art and market prospects for bio-based surfactant production. In addition, relevant technological challenges in this field are addressed, and a way forward is proposed

Application of direct payment clause 30A.0 of the Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC) standard form of contract (with quantities)

Conditional payment such as “pay when paid” or “pay if paid” can create negative chain effect on the parties in construction projects, resulting in delay on the completion of a project, adversarialism and may affect a contractor’s reputation. Asian International Arbitration Centre (AIAC) has launched a standard form of contract which is Construction Industry Payment Adjudication Act (CIPAA) compliance with the aim to reduce payment issues. The aim of the research is to identify whether the clause for “direct payment under CIPAA 2012” of the new AIAC standard form of contract can facilitate problems in direct payment. In achieving the aim of the research, five legal cases were analysed and thirty questionnaires forms were distributed. Legal cases analysis findings highlighted that the major reasons of the direct payment issue being referred to court is due to the validity of the direct payment agreement between the disputant’s parties. Based on the cases heard before CIPAA enactment, the findings show that out of the three cases, the disputants went to litigation because of the legality of direct payment agreements. Most of the agreements were made orally. For cases analysed after CIPAA was enacted, the findings show that the disputant parties do not opt for adjudication and that the main contractors try to mitigate their responsibilities to the employer. The results from the questionnaires distributed established that, the direct payment clause could be successfully adopted for future use of the industry. Eventhough the AIAC standard form of contract has been formally introduced to the industry, but it is not widely used. From the findings of the questionnaire, it shows that with encouragement and support from the industry, direct payment clause of AIAC standard form of contract have the potential in reducing payment issues in the future. With the remodeling of standard form of contracts that are available in construction industry to be CIPAA compliance, it is hoped that this move may scale down the prevalent payment issues in Malaysian construction industry

Badan bukan kerajaan (NGO) wanita: cabaran di Malaysia

Pertubuhan badan bukan kerajaan (NGO) di tanah air kita memainkan satu peranan yang penting dan positif untuk mengekalkan kestabilan politik sejak kemerdekaan negara. Hal ini kerana NGO di Malaysia juga amat penting dalam penentuan bentuk demokrasi negara dan nasib rakyat jelata kerana NGO boleh memainkan peranan yang tidak dapat dimainkan oleh parti-parti politik. Namun begitu, penulisan ini bukan sahaja melihat kepada NGO secara keseluruhan tetapi lebih kepada penglibatan NGO wanita. Kini, wujud pelbagai cabaran bagi golongan wanita dimana golongan ini terpaksa menangani dan bertindak balas terhadap impak dan cabaran globalisasi yang mendatang.Dalam konteks ini usaha dibuat dalam penulisan ini untuk membincangkan mengenai NGO di Malaysia dan beberapa masalah serta cabaran yang perlu dihadapi oleh NGO khusunya NGO wanita

The propensity of building information modelling and integrated project delivery in building construction project

The Building Information Modelling (BIM) implementation is to create a centralised knowledge sharing resource that contains all the necessary design and operational information about the project. BIM is a collaborative approach and integrated project delivery to design and delivery embraced by various construction teams in the construction projects. In the context of the most suitable project delivery to be used, with regards to the use of BIM, the Integrated Project Delivery (IPD) approach is highlighted as the best method which correlates building procurement of the design-to-construction business process through literature review analysis. IPD is developed as project delivery system that integrates people in effective collaborative approach between the key players in the project. IPD is going to be particularly beneficial for BIM because the contracts relation between the contractor, designers, consultants, constructors, sub-contractors and suppliers were binded and expressly determined at earlier stage. This relationship between these two subjects will helped the project team to achieve the project goals in terms of timely schedule, life cycle costs, quality and sustainability in construction project. Therefore, this study investigates on the propensity of the best methodology of project delivery system which can correlate with procurement adoption for projects adapt BIM concept. This is a descriptive study and the method used is based on review of the literature in relation to BIM and IPD. The analysis revealed that propensity of adopting IPD project delivery and the adoption of BIM are based on these factors: improve the communication, closer collaboration; liability and legal relationships are specifically determined, the best quality outcome; and lastly with reductions in design and construction period, it provides a cost effectiveness and a saving in overall construction period

Nutritional knowledge, attitude and practice among antenatal and postnatal mothers in Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan (HTAA), Kuantan, Pahang 2016

Background: Balanced and sufficient maternal nutritional intake ensures not only the wellbeing of pregnant mother, fetus and newborn (protection of life), but also her future health and her three generations (protection of progeny). Nutritional inadequacies during pregnancy have been reported and several factors were attributed. The objectives were to measure nutritional knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) during pregnancy and the relationship with socio-demographic characteristics. Methods: Cross-sectional study was conducted among 320 antenatal and postnatal mothers in Hospital Tengku Ampuan Afzan (HTAA), Pahang, Malaysia from 18th July to 27th August 2016. A pre-tested self-constructed, interview-guided questionnaire was used. Independent variables were age, ethnicity, educational level, marital status, and monthly household income. Outcomes were nutritional KAP level with median used for the categorization. Relationship between independent variables and outcomes obtained by logistic regression with significance at p<0.05. Results: Sixty-five percent aged from 25 to 34, 84% Malays, 37% completed secondary education with SPM/Olevel, 96% married, 48% from middle-income family, 52% had good nutritional knowledge, 67% with positive attitude and 55% with good practice. Age and educational level were significantly related to knowledge. Only educational level was significantly related to practice. Less than 70% of respondents have good nutritional KAP, reflected by educational level with more than half of them received up to secondary education. Hence, the rights of mothers in getting necessary and adequate education should be fulfilled. Conclusion: Results emphasize on the importance of empowering girls and women with adequate educations and to strengthen the nutritional and health education of our educational system. It is for them to be knowledgeable with good attitude and practicing healthy nutritional lifestyle as they entering reproductive life, maintaining and transferring at least optimum healthy life to their progenies

Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship ENT300 Ti'ke Freshwater Fish / Vincent Arnold Soueng... [et al.]

As we agreed before, all the shareholders in our company have decided the name of our company is Ti Ke Freshwater Fish. We have decided to form our business in partnership form which consists of five shareholders. Our company main activities are selling fresh and frozen tilapia and catfish. Our business located at 1234, Jalan Matang Batu 8, 93050 Kuching, Sarawak. In this business, each of the shareholders will have the responsibility to perform their own job and task that has been given. This is important for the company to gain the maximum profit thus to achieve our mission and vision. In addition, we are concern about the quality of our product and services among the organization and customers. As this business is in a partnership form, all shareholders had agreed that Vincent Arnold anak Soueng as the General Manager. The Administration Manager is Mohd Nazri bin Mahmud, Melissa Fiona anak Nelson as the Marketing Manager, Muhammad Haziq bin Othman as the Operation Manager and lastly Nur Izni Liyana binti Yusof as the Financial Manager. The General Manager is responsible to make a decision of the company, make sure all managers do their work, and make a short-term and long-term planning of the company. The Administration Manager will indicate the company’s structure and key talents. Meanwhile, the Operation Manager will control the operation of our business while the Marketing Manager is responsible in preparing the market plan that includes the target market and sales forecast. Lastly, our Financial Manager will handle all the financial such as preparing budget and financial statement for the company

Identification of acoustic signals of internal electric discharges on glass insulator under variable applied voltage

A Partial Discharge (PD) is an unwanted phenomenon in electrical equipment. Therefore it is of great importance to identify different types of PD and assess their severity. This paper investigates the acoustic emissions associated wi1h Internal Discharge (ID) from different types of sources in the time-domain. An experimental setup was arranged in the high voltage laboratory, a chamber with an electrode configuration attached to it was connected to a high voltage transformer for generating various types of PD. A laboratory experiment was done by making the models of these discharges. The test equipment including antennas as a means of detection and digital processing techniques for signal analysis were used. Wavelet signal processing was used to recover the internal discharge acoustic signal by eliminating the noises of many natures