Simulating urban growth in the George town conurbation

Simulation of land use changes has been discussed at length, with increasing papers proposing new methods to predict urban growth. Simulating urban growth can provide a clearer view of urban expansion which gave huge impact in developing a city. This phenomenon, however, also has driven the encroachment into agricultural and forest land in order to cater urban growth expansion. Therefore, this paper aims to develop an urban growth simulation model using GIS-based CA-Markov approach, incorporated with driving forces of urban growth in the Malaysian context. Land use data based on year 2006, 2010 and 2014 of the study area were prepared in a GIS database and used to develop and validate a CA-Markov Model using Idrisi Kilimanjaro software. The findings indicated new or expanded built-up areas of 2018 are found to be located in close proximity to existing growth centers and settlements.Keywords: CA-Markov; Geograpghic Information Sciences (GIS); Land use changes;Urbanization

Modification Of Aggregate Grading For Porous Asphalt.

In the 1970’s, the fatality index on Malaysian roads exceeded 20. In 1991, a Cabinet Committee on Road Safety was set up to come up with measures to reduce the predicted number of deaths by 30% or translated into a fatality index of 3.14 by the turn of the century. Among the measures suggested included the application of porous asphalt

Growth of tiger grouper (Epinephelus fuscoguttatus) juvenile from wild and hatchery at different type of feeds

This study aimed to observe the influence of two sources of juvenile tiger grouper Epinephelus fuscoguttatus (Forsskål, 1775) from the sea and the hatchery by several types of food (pellets, tilapia anchovies). Growing Studies were carried out above 9600 juvenile tiger grouper from two sources namely differing from the sea of 4800 juvenile and 4800 juvenile hatchery from hatching. The design of treament were done by 2x3  with four replications. During the 30 day rearing period, each 5 days is taken  sampling total body length (cm) juvenile tiger grouper. The results showed that during the rearing period the value of marine juvenile grouper only high growth in juvenile ate anchovies and tilapia except on day 5 and 30, and could not adapt to the food from the pellet. While in hatchery juvenile tiger grouper had high growth to consume pellets only and could not adapt well to the food of tilapia and except anchovies on day 15th

Performance Evaluation of Dynamic Absorbers Based on Randy Fox and Dunkerley Methods / Syafirah A. Samat ...[et al.]

Dynamic Absorber (DA) application is the method used to avoid resonance in a vibrating system. In practice, many types of DA are utilized such as active and passive DA and it depends on the cost and environmental conditions. Designers/ engineers select DA parameters and model the absorber before it is implemented and tested to the main system. Hence, it will be beneficial to have tools or templates for fast and effective selection of DA. This paper will discuss the selection parameters of a passive DA based on templates derived from Dunkerley Method (DM) and Randy Fox Method (RFM) and its accuracy is verified experimentally. It is observed that in this case, DA has reduced the vibration amplitude significantly. Furthermore, the results show the RFM absorber has performed better than the DM absorber. This study enables verification of the effectiveness of DA to tackle resonant problems. In the future, these GUI templates could be helpful for industrial application with vibrating problems

Experimental Analysis to Evaluate the Effect of Dynamic Absorber / M. Azhan Anuar...[et al.]

Passive Dynamic Absorber (PDA) is a mechanical device used to tackle unwanted vibration resonance within the operational frequency of the system. Theoretically, resonance can be avoided if the excitation (operating) frequency is far away from the natural frequencies of the structures. Hence, it is important to identify the structural natural frequencies, to ensure this condition did not occur. In this study, an experimental main system is designed and fabricated and then, tested using Operational Modal Analysis (OMA) to obtain the natural frequency. PDAs are developed based on Dunkley Method (DM) and Randy Fox Method (RFM) and applied to the main vibrating system. Frequency Response Function (FRF) for both models is obtained using OMA and its effectiveness is evaluated. It is shown that the PDA reduces the magnitude of FRF of the main system at the selected resonance frequency and splitting it into two new resonance frequencies. Hence, it can be predicted that the vibration can be effectively suppressed at a specific frequency when the PDA is attached to the main system. This study enables verification of the effectiveness of dynamic absorber to tackle resonance problem. In future, these results will be helpful to evaluate the performance of PDA based on DM and RFM methods

Bis(acetyl­acetonato-κ2 O,O′)(2-amino-1-methyl-1H-benzimidazole-κN 3)oxido­vanadium(IV)

The title mixed-ligand oxidovanadium(IV) compound, [VO(C5H7O2)2(C8H9N3)], contains a VIV atom in a distorted octahedral coordination, which is typical for such complexes. The vanadyl group and the N-heterocyclic ligand are cis to each other. The coordination bond is located at the endocyclic N atom of the benzimidazole ligand. Intra­molecular hydrogen bonds between the exo-NH2 group H atoms and acetyl­acetonate O atoms stabilize the crystal structure

Hydrological extremes and responses to climate change in the Kelantan River Basin, Malaysia, based on the CMIP6 HighResMIP experiments

This study introduces a hydro-climatic extremes assessment framework that combines the latest climate simulations from the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) HighResMIP with the Soil and Water Assessment (SWAT) model, and examines the influence of the different climate model resolutions. Sixty-six hydrological and environmental flow indicators from the Indicators of Hydrologic Alteration (IHA) were computed to assess future extreme flows in the Kelantan River Basin (KRB), Malaysia, which is particularly vulnerable to flooding. Results show that the annual precipitation, streamflow, maximum and minimum temperatures are projected to increase by 6.9%, 9.9%, 0.8 °C and 0.9 °C, respectively, by the 2021–2050 period relative to the 1985–2014 baseline. Monthly precipitation and streamflow are projected to increase especially for the Southwest Monsoon (June–September) and the early phase of the Northeast Monsoon (December) periods. The magnitudes of the 1-, 3-, 7-, 30- and 90-day minima flows are projected to increase by 7.2% to 8.2% and the maxima flows by 10.4% to 28.4%, respectively. Lastly, changes in future hydro-climatic extremes are frequently quite different between the high-resolution and low-resolution models, e.g., the high-resolution models projected an increase of 11.8% in mean monthly flow in November-December-January compared to 3.2% for the low-resolution models

Reproductive biology of the introduced sailfin catfish Pterygoplichthys pardalis (Pisces: Loricariidae) in peninsular Malaysia

Reproductive biology of the introduced sailfin cat fish Pterygoplichthys pardalis in the Langat River of peninsular Malaysia was studied. Fish samples were collected monthly from Langat River during March 2003-June 2004. The sex ratio observed for P. pardalis was female-biased with 1: 2. Gonadal maturity stage is achieved at 12.5 cm standard length (SL) for males and 13.0 cm SL for females. This species appeared to have continuous spawning that peaked when water levels were high between September and January. Egg sizes were found to reach as large as 3.3 mm in dia in the ovary; suggesting that they spawn in batches. Fecundity varied from 1297 to 18791 numbers per brood, proportional to individual size. Data obtained from this study indicate that the introduced sailfin cat fish has successfully colonised in Langat River in Malaysia

ENHANCING GRAPHITIC CARBON CONTENT OF CARBON-BASED ELECTRODE MATERIALS BY PULSED ELECTROPHORETIC DEPOSITION FOR ELECTROCHEMICAL CAPACITOR

Crystallinity of carbon electrode materials and their deposition techniques are the crucial factors for electrochemical capacitor (EC) performance. The present work investigates deposit yield and graphitic content of activated carbon (AC) and CNT coatings deposited by pulsed electrophoretic deposition (EPD). Pulse voltage with pulse separation times of 30 to 50 s, alternated with the long pulse width (i.e. 2.5 min) was applied. Although the pulse separation time at 30 s reduced the CNT coating yield, its graphitic content increased by 40 % as compared to the CNT coating deposited by continuous voltage EPD, as indicated by the IG/ID ratio of Raman spectra. However, graphitic content increase was not observed in the deposition of AC. Consequently, the CNT deposition gained a higher graphitic-nongraphitic content ratio than the AC. This finding opened up the possibility of the EC performance enhancement by the graphitic CNT control in electrode materials through EPD process