Factors Favoring Solar Water Heating System ( Swhs ) Usage Among Malaysian Landed Property Owners In Malaysia

Pemanasan global akibat kesan karbon telah mencapai tahap yang membimbangkan dan keutamaan haruslah diberikan untuk memelihara alam sekitar dengan menggunakan sumber alam semulajadi dan tenaga solar. Global warming resulting from carbon footprints is at an alarming stage and high importance has to be given to preserve the environment by using the earth natural resources and solar energy

Experimental investigation on cold-formed steel beams under pure bending

This paper presents the flexural behaviour of cold-formed double lipped channels beams under pure bending action. Two channel sections are bolted back-to-back to form an I-shape structural beam member. A series of six experiment tests were carried out on beam specimens DC200 and DC250, each with 200 mm depth and 250 mm depth respectively. The thickness of beam section is 2 mm and the design yield strength is 350 N/mm2. All beams failed at local buckling at top-flange due to lateral instability of the cold-formed steel structural members. The moment resistance for DC200 is 17.87 kNm and DC250 is 31.53 kNm. The experimental results are compared to theoretical resistance prediction based on British Standard and Eurocode. The comparison showed that the experimental moment capacity is lower than the theoretical bending moment resistance but higher than theoretical buckling moment resistance from Eurocode. This showed that a better agreement is achieved between experimental data and Eurocode buckling moment resistance for cold-formed steel beam under pure bending

Production of essential oil in plants: ontogeny, secretory structures and seasonal variations

Essential oil production in plants is known to play crucial roles in attractive and defensive mechanism responses to environmental conditions. Various factors are known to determine the chemical variability and yields for specific essential oil bearing plants including genetic, physiology and environment. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent publications on the variation of essential oil and its composition with regards to physiological aspects of the plants

Turner syndrome with ring x chromosome: do they have a distinct phenotype?

In contrast to classic Turner syndrome, Turner patients with ring X chromosome are associated with distinct dysmorphism and are likely to be mentally impaired. Four Turner patients with ring X chromosome were examined for phenotypic features of Turner syndrome and additional dysmorphism. Both patients 1 and 2 are twins with normal intelligence whereas patients 3 and 4 have mental impairment. With the exception of patient 4, the other three patients only have few Turner characteristics. None of the patients have the distinctive dysmorphism previously reported in Turner syndrome with ring X chromosome. Both twins developed spontaneous puberty. Patients 3 and 4 however had no spontaneous puberty. We postulate that this variation may be related to the ring size, the proportion of 45,X and ring X chromosome in cell lines of various body tissues as well as the ability of these rings to be inactivated as a result of lyonisation

Production of Essential Oil in Plants: Ontogeny, Secretory Structures and Seasonal Variations

Essential oil production in plants is known to play crucial roles in attractive and defensive mechanism responses to environmental conditions. Various factors are known to determine the chemical variability and yields for specific essential oil bearing plants including genetic, physiology and environment. The purpose of this review is to summarize recent publications on the variation of essential oil and its composition with regards to physiological aspects of the plants

Postharvest quality of Lepisanthes alata (Blume) Leenh. fruit harvested at three maturity stages

Lepisanthes alata or locally known as ceri Terengganu is one of tropical exotic fruits and native to Malaysia. The discovery of this fruit is relatively new thus there is lack of reports available on the physicochemical characteristics of the fruit. A study was conducted to investigate fruit quality harvested at three maturity stages, i.e. green, half green-red and red. Changes in peel colour were observed where values of L* (lightness) and h° (hue) decreased significantly whereas C* (chroma) increased significantly as ripening progressed. Fruit firmness decreased significantly from 79.33 to 28.76 N as fruit ripened from green to red. Soluble solids concentration (SSC) of fruits increased from 11.28 to 13.61% while titratable acidity decreased as fruit matured and ripened. As the pH of ceri Terengganu fruit increased, the ascorbic acid content decreased significantly upon maturation and red stage contained the lowest ascorbic acid content at 5.36 mg 100 g-1. In conclusion, red stage ceri Terengganu fruit is palatable with soft texture and soluble solids concentration

Structural behaviour of slab panel system with embedded cold-formed steel skeletal frame

Precast lightweight slab panel system offers several advantages in construction industry, such as lightness, high strength-to-weight ratio, ease of transportation, saving of materials, and offers rapid construction. The design for the conventional reinforced concrete slab has been well established in current code of practice. There is, conversely, little scientific and technical information available for structural-grade lightweight foamed concrete (LFC) and lightweight slab panel design involving LFC incorporates with cold-formed steel (CFS) sections. This study aims to develop the design procedures for lightweight slab design, to find the optimal mix design for structural-grade LFC, to develop lightweight slab system that utilizing lightweight foamed concrete and cold-formed steel sections, to investigate the strength behaviour and to validate strength of the developed slab system via analytical and experimental investigation. Theoretical prediction on ultimate resistance and design procedure based on stress block method was deliberated. Trial mixes for structural-grade of LFC material are performed in accordance with Eurocode and ASTM to obtain the optimum mix design, with its mechanical properties are investigated. In addition, 16 full-scale slab specimens, incorporating different concrete mixes, reinforcement and CFS sections are prepared and tested to investigate the structural behaviour, such as ultimate load resistance, load-deflection profile, load-strain distributions and the failure modes. Theoretical validation for the experimental results was carried out. A design procedure for the lightweight slab panels is proposed for its possibility to be used. From the material study on LFC, an optimal mix design with cement-sand ratio of 3:1 and water-cement ratio of 0.49 was identified. Throughout the experimental investigation on full-scale slab, it was observed that all slab panels achieved the design resistance in accordance to Eurocode. Comparison is made between normal weight and lightweight slab panels revealed that the flexural resistance of lightweight slab panel is lower than that of normal weight slab panel. Nevertheless lightweight slab panel can save weight up to 47.1% relatively. The lightweight slab panels with single horizontal (SH) configuration showed the best performance. In addition, the results also exhibited that the flexural resistance of the slab panels increased as the effective steel area of cold-formed steel section increased. The convincing results concluded that the lightweight slab panel system incorporating lightweight foamed concrete (LFC) and cold-formed steel (CFS) skeletal frame is feasible to be used in construction industry

Synthesis and characterization of molybdena and phosphate doped silica-titania oxidative catalyst for epoxidation of styrene

New oxidative catalysts of molybdena and phosphate doped silica-titania (xMo/PO4 3-/ SiO2-TiO2, x = 0, 1, 2, 4 and 5 wt%) have been prepared in this study. Silica-titania was prepared via sol-gel method by using titanium isopropoxide and tetraethyl orthosilicate as precursors of titania and silica, respectively. Sufficient amount of ammonium molybdate tetrahydrate and 0.2 M phosphoric acid were loaded on silica-titania through impregnation method. The XRD results confirmed the amorphous phase of all the samples Mo/PO4 3-/ SiO2-TiO2, indicating well dispersion of Mo, phosphate and Ti on the silica support. DRUV-Vis analysis revealed the existence of both tetrahedral and octahedral Ti species in the samples. The N2 adsorption surface area analysis showed the surface area decreased with the increasing amount of doped molybdenum. The oxidation catalytic behavior of xMo/PO4 3-/SiO2-TiO2 was evaluated through epoxidation of styrene using H2O2 as oxidant. Amongst, 5Mo/PO4 3-/ SiO2- TiO2was the best oxidative catalyst which gave the highest conversion of styrene and the highest yield of styrene oxide

Cr doped TiO2 supported on TUD-1 photocatalyst for congo red photodegradation

A series of new visible light driven photocatalysts of 1 mol% Cr doped Ti02 supported on various amount of TUD-1 have been successfully synthesized via sol gel method. XRD analysis revealed that all the Cr-Ti02/x TUD-l (x = 10,20,30,40 and 50 mol%) photocatalysts were in amorphous form. Both Ti02 and Cr were incorporated in the highly porous siliceous matrix. FTIR analysis indicated the existence of Si-O-Ti bonding in all the materials. UV-Vis D R analysis suggested that alteration of Ti species occurred from tetrahedrally to octahedrally coordinated Ti species when higher TUD-1 amount was used as photocatalyst support. However, the amount of TUD-1 did not affect the wavelength response and the band gap energy of the resulted materials. All the materials were having band gap energy of ~2.9 eV. The photocatalytic performance of the synthesized materials was evaluated through the photodegradation of Congo Red under visible light irradiation at 298 K for 5 h. Results showed that all the Cr-TiO2/TU D -1 materials had higher photocatalytic activity compared to Cr-TiO2, Amongst, Cr-TiO2/30TU D-1 appeared as the most superior photocatalyst that gave the highest percentage of dye degradation

Molybdena doped titania supported TUD-C as as oxidative catalyst for styrene epoxidation

Molybdena doped titania supported on TUD-C (Mo-TiO2/TUD-C) oxidative catalyst has been synthesized and characterized. The self assembled zeolite inside the silica matrices with MFI framework has been confirmed using XRD analysis. The attainment of zeolite and MFI structures was supported by FTIR results. Crystallinity of the synthesized material decreased with increasing Si/Al ratio in the TUDC due to the formation of amorphous silica. The crystallite size of the materials was 30 nm as evidenced by TEM analysis. Among the samples prepared, Mo-TiO2/TUD-C of Si/Ti = 10 and Si/Al = 10 showed the highest catalytic activity with styrene oxide yield and selectivity of 8.42 mmol and 97%, respectively at room temperature. The increase of both Si/Ti and Si/Al ratios in Mo-TiO2/TUD-C led to poor catalytic performance due to less availability of catalytic active sites. The catalytic performance of Mo-TiO2/TUD-C was 8- fold higher than that unsupported Mo-TiO2. Results strongly suggested that TUD-C played an important role as catalyst support for the homogenous dispersion of Mo-TiO2 active sites, leading to the enhanced catalytic performance of Mo-TiO2. It has been demonstrated that Mo-TiO2/TUD-C was a good oxidative catalyst for styrene epoxidation at room temperature with high conversion and selectivity towards styrene oxide