bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
UTILIZATION OF DURIAN PEEL AS POTENTIAL ADSORBENT FOR BISPHENOL A REMOVAL IN AQUOEUS SOLUTION
Authors: Mat Lazim Zainab , Hadibarata Tony , Puteh Mohd Hafiz , Yusop Zulkifli , Wirasnita Riry , Mohd Nor Nurafifah
Published: September 2015

This study explored the low-cost adsorbent of durian peel for BPA removal from aqueous solutions. The effect of various operational parameters such as contact time, temperature, concentration, agitation and pH on the adsorption of BPA was investigated using the batch adsorption study. It was found that Durian peel can be used as a low cost adsorbent for the removal of BPA in aqueous solution after treated with sulfuric acid. The effects of morphology, functional groups, and surface area of adsorbent, before and after pretreatment with sulfuric acid and reaction were investigated by using FESEM, FTIR, and BET. The present study indicates that durian peel had removed 69.63% of BPA with adsorption capacity of 4.178 mg/g for 24 hours. The result proved that this treated agricultural waste was promising material as an alternative adsorbent for the removal of BPA from aqueous solution. Kinetic study of the results gave a pseudo-second order type of mechanism while the adsorption characteristics of the adsorbent followed the Langmuir adsorption isotherm.
METHODS IN FORECASTING CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS: A DECADE REVIEW
Authors: Abdullah Lazim , Mohd Pauzi Herrini
Published: September 2015

Analyses and forecasts of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions is one of the key requirements to educate people about the issues of clean and healthy environment. Various methods have been proposed to forecast CO2 emissions. This paper reviews the literature of the methods for the forecasting as well as estimatingCO2 emissions. Related articles appearing in the international journals from 2003 to 2013 were gathered and analysed to find the answers for these two questions: (i) Which methods were prevalently applied? (ii) Which factors were regularly been investigated? Based on the overall observations on the journal articles some improvements and possible future works are recommended. This research not only provides evidence that the artificial intelligence methods are the most favour methods, but also aids the researchers and policy makers in applying the methods effectively.
MODELING AND VALIDATION OF ELECTRONIC WEDGE BRAKE MECHANISM FOR VEHICLE SAFETY SYSTEM
Authors: Aparow Vimal Rau , Hudha Khisbullah , Ahmad Fauzi , Jamaluddin Hishamuddin
Published: September 2015

This paper presents the performance characteristic of an electronic wedge brake (EWB) mechanism for a vehicle braking system. Based on a Gaussian cumulative distribution method, a non-parametric model, using Bell-Shaped curve method has been proposed in this study to characterize the behavior of an actual EWB mechanism. Therefore, a brake test rig has been developed to investigate the performance of the Bell-Shaped curve model. For the purpose of validation of EWB, an electronic control unit (ECU) which consists of microcontroller unit (MCU), H-Bridge driver and opto-coupler is designed to control the EWB’s pinion according to the given rotational input during the experiment. The response measured throughout the experiment is the gapping displacement of the brake piston, clamping force and also brake torque of the EWB mechanism. The responses of the actual EWB mechanism obtained from the experiment are compared with the proposed Bell-Shaped curve. The result of the study shows that the response of the Bell-Shaped curve model closely follows the response of a real EWB actuator in term of clamping force and brake torque with percentage of errors less than 10%.
MULTIPLE INTERACTIONS MIXED MATRIX MEMBRANE CHROMATOGRAPHY USING ANION AND CATION EXCHANGER RESIN FOR WHEY PROTEIN FRACTIONATION
Authors: Fong Shiew Chan , Shamsinar Nurul , Rasli Nurul Izwanie , M. Saufi Syed
Published: September 2015

Membrane chromatography can overcome the limitation of packed bed chromatography in terms of high processing speed, low pressure drop and acceptable protein binding capacity. In the current study, multiple interactions mixed matrix membrane (MMM) chromatography was prepared for batch fractionation of whey protein. Lewatit CNP105 cation exchanger resin and Lewatit MP500 anion exchanger resin were mixed into two different membrane polymer solutions of ethylene vinyl alcohol (EVAL) and cellulose acetate (CA). The membranes were test to bind lactoferrin (LF)-spiked whey. The binding capacity for acidic whey proteins to the MMM follows the order of β-lactoglobulin (β-Lac) > BSA > α-lactalbumin. The binding capacity of EVAL MMM is higher than CA based MMM, more prominently for β-Lac. The average binding capacity of β-Lac in the EVAL and CA MMM are 50.827 mg β-Lac/ g MMM and 19.174 mg β-Lac /g MMM, respectively. High purity of β-Lac and LF were recovered from the MMM after the elution as shown by the SDS PAGE gel.
IMPROVE THE PERFORMANCE OF MPEG VIDEO ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM USING MODIFIED RC4 ALGORITHM BASEDON CHAOTIC MAP
Authors: Mohamed Ali Abdulgader , Ismail Mahamod , Zainal Nasharuddin
Published: September 2015

With rapid growth in communication techniques and multimedia application, security is becoming more important for multimedia data storage or transmission. Traditional encryption algorithm such as Advance Encryption Standard (AES) and Data Encryption Standard (DES) are not suitable for video data because it caused large computational overhead and reduce the MPEG compression efficiency. The encryption algorithm that has less computation overhead is needed. The proposed algorithm combines encryption process with MPEG video compression. Some modifications of the RC4 algorithm were proposed in this paper to enhance the performance of video encryption algorithm in terms of encryption time, compression ratio and to provide accepted level of the security. The modification of the RC4 algorithm depends on the maximum value of the plain text, chaotic map and circular shift operation. This modification will reduce the number of iteration in the Key scheduling Algorithm (KSA) and make the Pseudo Random Generator Algorithm (PRGA) depend on initial condition of chaotic maps to provide the strong shuffling inside the PRGA. The random rotation technique based on chaotic map is proposed to increase security of MPEG video. This technique depends on the value generated from chaotic map to rotate the Y blocks in I frame. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method provided better encryption times and provides sufficient level of the security. Thus the proposed method is suitable to protect the MPEG video with minimizing the overhead.
POTASSIUM CARBONATE-TREATED PALM KERNEL SHELL ADSORBENT FOR CONGO RED REMOVAL FROM WATER
Authors: Lin Zhi Lee , Ahmad Zaini Muhammad Abbas
Published: September 2015

This work was aimed to evaluate the adsorptive characteristics of potassium carbonate-treated palm kernel shell adsorbent for the removal of congo red from water. The adsorbent was characterized according to the specific surface area, surface morphology and surface functional groups. The bottle-point technique was employed to investigate the equilibrium uptake and the adsorption kinetics of congo red, and the removal mechanisms were proposed from the widely used isotherm and kinetics models. Results show that the specific surface area of adsorbent increased after the treatment rendering the maximum congo red uptake of 8.0 mg/g. The removal of congo red obeyed Langmuir isotherm and pseudo-second-order kinetics model suggesting the chemically-attributed homogeneous adsorption. Regeneration of congo red-loaded adsorbent by irradiated water showed a better regeneration efficiency of 82%. Palm kernel shell is a promising adsorbent candidate for congo red removal from water.
THE EFFECT OF SURFACE HETEROGENEITY ON WETTABILITY OF POROUS THREE DIMENSIONAL (3-D) SCAFFOLDS OF POLY(3-HYDROXYBUTYRIC ACID) (PHB) AND POLY(3-HYDROXYBUTYRIC-CO-3-HYDROXYVALERIC ACID) (PHBV)
Authors: Zubairi Saiful Irwan , Bismarck Alexander , Mantalaris Athanasios
Published: September 2015

Biopolymers such as poly(3-hydroxybutyric acid) (PHB) and poly(3-hydroxybutyric-co-3-hydroxyvaleric acid) (PHBV) are preferred ingredients for the manufacture of materials especially in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine application because they are biocompatible, biodegradable and do not possess any environmental problems associated with their production, fabrication, use and disposal. For that reason, studies have been initiated to produce a 3-D biomimetic scaffolds with an improved thickness greater than 1 mm as an alternative material to synthetic polymers in tissue engineering application. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the physico-chemical surface properties of these polymeric 3-D structures and its corresponding thin films prior to be used as biomimetic materials. To measure the surface free energy (wettability), a Cassie-Baxter contact angle correction for heterogeneous wetting of two liquids (water and methylene iodide) were utilized. To verify its wettability, surface free energies were used to estimate the interfacial energy, work of adhesion and spreading coefficient. The results indicate that the calculated Cassie-Baxter contact angle correction method have proven to exhibit one dominant factor that cause a huge deviation from the true contact angles of its corresponding thin films which is surface heterogeneity. This material characteristic would possibly give a side effect (e.g., low cell attachment and proliferation) against cell-biomaterial affinity as highly hydrophobic material are most likely to be unfavorable for the absorption of essential extracellular matrix proteins (compounds that give a signal to cell to attach on the solid surface).
PRELIMINARY STUDY OF VEHICULAR TRAFﬁC EFFECT ON RADIO SIGNAL FOR RADIO
Authors: Sabri Nor Hazmin , Umar Roslan , Wan Mokhtar Wan Zul Adli , Abidin Zamri Zainal , Ibrahim Zainol Abidin , Azid Azman , Juahir Hafizan , Toriman Mohd Ekhwan , Kamarudin Mohd Khairul Amri
Published: September 2015

Radio signals detected from the ground are very weak since it travels far from the universe. Radio wave carries photons with low energies compared to other electromagnetic spectra such as visible light, ultraviolet, X-rays, and the most energetic electromagnetic wave is gamma-rays. The microwave region is the shortest wavelength of radio waves. Hence, microwave photons have greater energy. Radio astronomy studies are restricted due to radio frequency interference (RFI) that produces by human daily activities. If this disturbance is not shrinkage, it poses critical problems in radio observation. There are many factors of man-made RFI, such as, the availability of mobile telecommunications, radio transmission, TV broadcasting, satellite communication, vehicular traffic area, power transmission line and many more. In this paper, we present a preliminary study of the radio sources (electronic system in the car) from the vehicular traffic area (highway) on radio astronomy observation. This study is important to assess how the vehicles  affect the radio signal in radio astronomical sources of low frequency such as hydrogen line and deuterium (which wavelength more than 1mm). These research findings would benefit radio astronomy research, especially to profile the RFI pattern in Malaysia.
PRELIMINARY STUDY OF SOIL-CEMENT PILING AS A NEW ALTERNATIVE IN LEVEE AND RIVER BANK STRENGTHENING
Authors: Bahrom N. D. S , Abdul Ghani A. N.
Published: September 2015

Malaysiahas not yet experienced a totally severe levee failure as what have happened in other countries. However, flood has always been the major problem inMalaysiacaused by several factors including weather condition, man-made and also including levee or bund failure. Therefore, in order to produce a new alternative to improve the structures of levees and river banks, this study on preliminary investigation of soil-cement piling is done to see the possibility of it to be used in the strengthening of levee or bund and river banks. The investigation focused on determining suitable soil-cement ratio to produce soil cement pile encased in PVC pipes in terms of axial capacity. The results show that the soil-cement mixture with 11% cement ratio produced the reasonable pile axial/compressive capacity.
ROAD SUBGRADE STRENGTH UNDER VARIOUS FLOODING EVENT
Authors: Roslan N. I. , Abdul Ghani A. Naser , Abdul Hamid A. H.
Published: September 2015

Flooding and water inundation could result in great damage to road pavements. In principle, the design of pavement structure is based on the strength of compacted soil known as subgrade or road foundation. Therefore, subgrade is the major significant part of road structural systems. When roads are inundated for a long time or repeatedly, the materials in each layer of road structure become saturated, and then the original condition of subgrade soils will be compromised. This study investigated the effect on sub-grade strength and properties due to road submergence period and repeated submergence of road structural systems. Two types of soil that are normally used as the embankment soils in road construction, which can be categorized as cohesive and cohesionless materials were used in this study. California Bearing Ratio (CBR) test and Oedometer consolidation test were carried out on the various categories of inundation and loading conditions including repeated inundation. The findings indicated that the strength of subgrade materials were affected differently depending of inundation period and number of repeated inundation.
COMPRESSIVE, FLEXURAL AND SPLITTING TENSILE STRENGTHS OF LIGHTWEIGHT FOAMED CONCRETE WITH INCLUSION OF STEEL FIBRE
Authors: Othuman Mydin M. A. , Sahidun N. S. , Mohd Yusof M. Y. , Md Noordin N.
Published: September 2015

Lightweight foamed concrete (LFC) application in building construction is rather limited due to its low strength and brittleness. This study has been undertaken to investigate the effects of steel fibers lightweight foamed concrete at a relatively low volume fraction (0.2 % and 0.4 %) on the mechanical properties such as compressive strength, flexural strength and splitting tensile strength. Steel fibres were used as additives. The foamed concrete was designed to achieve the result of effect from volume fraction of steel fibres used with different density of 700 and 1200 kg/m3 at the age of 7, 28 and 60 days. Detail experiments were setup to study the behavior and reaction of additives which is expected to give different results on mechanical properties of lightweight foamed concrete. The result showed, addition steel fibres have greater contributions in terms of mechanical properties in LFC.
THE KINECT-BASED EDUTAINMENT APPLICATION IN A CLASSROOM: A PILOT STUDY FOR SCIENCE PRIMARY ONE IN MALAYSIA
Authors: Othman Aniza , Mohd Azmi Nurul Aqilah
Published: September 2015

Kinect technology which works in four ways of sensing through a natural user gesture and spoken command interfaces: motion sensor, skeletal tracking, facial recognition and voice recognition.is potentially suitable to be implemented in educational game application. In this paper, we investigate Kinect sensors type that could be used in learning that resulting interactive fun-learning environment. A prototype system which implementing the sensors has been developed and tested in teaching Science Primary One at Sekolah Kebangsaan Taman Tasik, Ampang, Selangor, Malaysia. The Kinect application let the student explore and participate physically during learning period and by providing good multimedia content, they can understand the syllabus easier and in a fun way, thus creating good bond between teachers and students. Natural interaction could be suitable to be implemented for learning in the classroom, however, the implementation of Kinect in classroom has technical limitations for example it requires large classroom space. But still, living in the 21st century where the technology is emerging, the education also needs to be one step ahead. Therefore it can be said that Kinect and education are able working together well.
CLASSIFY THE PLANT SPECIES BASED ON LOBES, SINUSES AND MARGIN
Authors: Bong Mei-Fern , Sulong Ghazali , Kumoi Rosely , Mohd Rahim Mohd Shafry
Published: September 2015

This paper proposed a novel approach to cluster the species of plants based on their lobes, sinuses and margin. Firstly, all the boundary points in the clockwise or anticlockwise direction were selected. Then, an estimated centre point for leaf boundary points was used to compute the distance between the leaf boundary points and centre point. Next, the peaks and valleys from the distance found stated above were located where peaks represent lobes and valleys represent the sinuses. The number of peak and valleys is calculated to cluster the plant according to the rule-based method. From the results obtained, the accuracy for the plant clustering is up to 100 percent.
TEXT LOCALIZATION IN IMAGES USING REVERSE THRESHOLDS ALGORITHM
Authors: Wong Lih-Fong , Idris Mohd Yazid , Abdullah Abdul Hanan
Published: September 2015

High color similarity between text pixels and background pixels is the major problem that causes failure during text localization. In this paper, a novel algorithm, Reverse Thresholds (RT) algorithm is proposed to localize text from the images with various text-background color similarities. First, a rough calculation is proposed to determine the similarity index for every text region. Then, by applying reverse operation, the best thresholds for each text region are calculated by its similarity index. To remove other uncertainties, self-generated images with the same text features but different similarity index are used as experiment dataset. Experiment result shows that RT algorithm has higher localizing strength which is able to localize text in a wider range of similarity index.
ASSESSMENT OF BUILDING MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE AND OCCUPANT SATISFACTION OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS IN PERAK, MALAYSIA
Authors: Yong C. Y. , Sulieman M. Zailan
Published: September 2015

A properly implementation of maintenance management is able to extend the building life spans and the unnecessary failure of the building element can be avoided. To develop an adequate environment that encourage learning and teaching, maintenance have to be undertaken wisely in the school buildings.  However, the awareness of the importance of the school maintenance management is still very low in Malaysia. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to determine the current maintenance practice provided by District Education Office with the satisfaction level of user regarding to the maintenance management practice in school buildings. All the data will be collected through interview, visual inspection and questionnaires. In this study, the conclusion shown that most of the schools are still not yet up to the satisfaction level in terms of the maintenance practice.
THE EFFECT OF OIL PALM ASH INCORPORATION IN FOAMED CONCRETE
Authors: A. Hadi Farah , Awang Hanizam , Almulali Muhammed Zuhear
Published: September 2015

This paper investigates the effect of replacing different portions of cement by fine oil palm ash (FOPA). A target density of 1000 kg/m3 was used for the foamed concrete mixes. A foamed concrete mix of 1 part binder, 2 parts filler and 0.45 part of water has been used. Cement was replaced at levels of 25, 35, 45, 55 and 65% by weight of binder. The compressive strength, density, water absorption, drying shrinkage and sorptivity were tested at different ages. The mix containing 25% of fine OPA showed enhanced properties in comparison to the control mix at the age of 90 days. The mixed showed higher compressive strength, less water absorption, increased density and lesser sorptivity. However, the same mix showed higher shrinkage readings than that of the control mix.
GRAPH CUT SEGMENTATION METHOD AND ITS APPLICATION IN MEDICAL IMAGES
Authors: Norouzi Alireza , Mat Amin Ismail , Mohd Rahim Mohd Shafry , Ehsani Rad Abdolvahab
Published: September 2015

Graph cut is an interactive segmentation method. It works based on preparing graph from image and finds the minimum cut for the graph. The edges value is calculated based on belonging a pixel to object or background. The advantage of this method is using the cost function. If the cost function is clearly described, graph cut is presents a generally optimum result. In this paper graph concepts and preparing graph according to image pixels is described. Preparing different edges and performing min cut/max flow is explained. Finally, the method is applied on some medical images.
FRAMEWORK DEVELOPMENT OF REAL-TIME LIP SYNC ANIMATION ON VISEME BASED HUMAN SPEECH
Authors: Ngiik Hoon Loh , Abd. Rahman Khairul Aidil Azlin , Yin Chai Wang
Published: September 2015

Performance of real-time lip sync animation is an approach to perform a virtual computer generated character talk, which synchronizes an accurate lip movement and sound in live. Based on the review, the creation of lip sync animation in real-time is particularly challenging in mapping the lip animation movement and sounds that are synchronized. The fluidity and accuracy in natural speech are one of the most difficult things to do convincingly in facial animation. People are very sensitive to this when you get it wrong because we are all focused on faces. Especially in real time application, the visual impact needed is immediate, commanding and convincing to the audience. A research on viseme based human speech was conducted to develop a lip synchronization platform in order to achieve an accurate lip motion with the sounds that are synchronized as well as increase the visual performance of the facial animation. Through this research, a usability automated digital speech system for lip sync animation was developed. Automatic designed with the use of simple synchronization tricks which generally improve accuracy and realistic visual impression and implementation of advanced features into lip synchronization application. This study allows simulation of lip synching in real time and offline application. Hence, it can be applied in various areas such as entertainment, education, tutoring, animation and live performances, such as theater, broadcasting, education and live presentation.
INTERACTIVE NON-PHOTOREALISTIC RENDERING
Authors: Al-Rousan Riyad , Sunar Mohd Shahrizal , Kolivand Hoshang , Alhajhamad Hasan
Published: September 2015

Due to increasing demands of artistic style with Interactive Rate, we propose this review paper as a starting point for any person interested in researching of interactive non-photorealistic rendering. As a simple yet effective means of visual communication, interactive non-photorealistic rendering generates images that are closer to human-drawn than are created by traditional computer graphics techniques with more expressing meaningful visual information. This paper presents taxonomy of interactive non-photorealistic rendering techniques which developed over the past two decades, structured according to the design characteristics and behavior of each technique. Also, it covers the most important algorithms in interactive stylized shade and line drawing, and separately discussing their advantages and disadvantages.  The review then concludes with a discussion of the main issues and technical challenges for Interactive Non-Photorealistic Rendering techniques. In addition, this paper discusses the effect of modified phong shading model in order to create toon shading appearance.
DIGITAL INTERPRETIVE MEDIA USAGE IN CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES AT YOGYAKARTA
Authors: Chandini Pendit Ulka , Bahrin Zaibon Syamsul , A. Abubakar Juliana
Published: September 2015

Cultural heritage is the asset of tourism industry to attract tourist for visiting a country. Cultural heritage needs to be conserved in order to prolong the life from being deterioration. However, conservation needs huge financial cost and this reason becomes the major obstacles for cultural heritage to be maintained its existence in a country. Nowadays, digital cultural heritage conservation is alternatively utilized as it reduces the cost of conservation in the form of digital interpretive media such as video, animation, 3D simulation, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Therefore, this study attempted to seek about the availability of digital interpretive media at cultural heritage sites through a survey. This paper presents the findings of availability level of digital media in the heritage sites in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The findings show that the availability of digital media in Yogyakarta cultural heritage sites are mostly in traditional media types such as signs, brochures, maps, leaflets, and books. In attracting tourist, it is suggested that the cultural heritage sites should be provided with more advance interpretive media, namely computer simulations; personal stereo guided tours, virtual reality, and recently augmented reality as a way to conserve cultural heritage information and values.
FALLING HEAD TEST FOR GEOTEXTILE DRAINAGE CAPACITY
Authors: Amran Noor Hidayu , Abdul Ghani A. Naser
Published: September 2015

One of the leading causes of roadway degradation in the world is contamination of the aggregate base which results in strength loss. Thus, it will decrease the effective aggregate thickness destroying the road support and reducing roadway performance. Authorities and practitioners have found out that using geotextile in road construction can overcome the problems. However, there are a few tests must be done before the geotextile can be approved by the responsible party for use in road construction. One kind of the test is permittivity test. This paper presents an analysis of developing a prototype of falling head test for geotextile drainage capacity (permittivity) according to ASTM standard D4491-99. The tests were carried out in order to ensure all the parts of the apparatus can work smoothly and can give the accurate output data. The type of geotextile used in this analysis is a non-woven geotextile. The test was performed using different number of the layers and finally the head. The permittivity value obtained from this apparatus satisfies the standard values of permittivity of the materials tested.
ASSESSMENT OF BUILDING DEFECTS OF TRADITIONAL TIMBER HOUSES IN PENANG, MALAYSIA
Authors: Shuib Dayang Sufeane , Baharum Faizal
Published: September 2015

Traditional timber houses is one of historical heritage building in Malaysian built environment which needs to be maintain because it is diminishing by time. Timber construction is once widely used in construction industry especially used in many historic building. However most of them are fail to be maintained thus many building defects can be found on traditional timber house. Surveys were conducted in three traditional timber houses in Balik Pulau,Penang. The data collected were analysed using Building Rating System (BARIS) to specify the overall condition of the building good; fair or dilapidated. All the three traditional timber houses are in fair condition which are in acceptable condition but need repair works to maintain.
MATERIALS EVALUATION FOR GEOTHERMAL APPLICATIONS
Authors: Bäßler Ralph , Keserovi Amela , Sobetzki Joana , Sarmiento Klapper Helmuth
Published: September 2015

In order to provide basic information on corrosion resistance to the designers and users of geothermal plants different metallic materials including duplex and austenitic stainless steels as well as a nickel alloy have been evaluated in artificial geothermal fluids simulating the conditions in some locations with geothermal potential in Germany as well as two sites in Indonesia. By electrochemical and long-term exposure tests at 100 °C and 150 °C the suitability of low alloyed steel UNS G41300, stainless steels UNS S31603 UNS S31803, UNS S32760, super austenitic steel UNS N08031 and nickel based alloy UNS N06059 was investigated in these geothermal fluids, using critical potentials and corrosion rates. In high-saline environments the crevice corrosion turned out to be the determining mechanism. The nickel based alloy shows excellent corrosion resistance against pitting corrosion. Excluding its high cost, it is very good to be used in the construction of geothermal facilities having highly saline brines. Stainless and duplex steels exhibit a limited corrosion resistance concerning pitting and crevice corrosion. Therefore they are not suitable for highly saline brines. The super austenite UNS N08031 showed a temperature depending behavior. In non-saline environments the low-alloyed steel UNS G41300 (beside of the higher alloyed materials) could be employed as a constructional material for the geothermal power plant, as long as a sufficient wall thickness of the material is considered.
SYNTHESIS OF METAL OXIDE-BASED NANOCOMPOSITES AND MULTICOMPONENT COMPOUNDS USING LAYER-BY-LAYER METHOD AND PROSPECTS FOR THEIR APPLICATION
Authors: Korotcenkov G. , Cho B. K. , Gulina L. B. , Tolstoy V. P.
Published: September 2015

The ability of Layer-by-Layer (LbL) or Successive Ionic Layer Deposition (SILD) technology to synthesize the layers of nanocomposites, “hybrid” structures and multicomponent metal oxides on various substrates is being discussed in this report. It was shown that concentration and pH of the solutions used, the processing time, and the number of the LbL (SILD) cycles were the main parameters of this process. It was made a conclusion that coatings formed by LbL technology can be used in gas sensors and catalysis for the surface functionalization, in membranes and filters for  the pore size controlling, in solar cells for the solar energy conversion, in medicine for the formation of bactericidal coatings, and so on.
CONDUCTIVITY AND IONIC MOBILITY STUDIES ON Li2WO4-LiI- Al2O3 BY EIS AND NMR TECHNIQUES
Authors: Omar Mohd Khari , Ahmad Azizah Hanom
Published: September 2015

Li2WO4-LiI-Al2O3 solid electrolytes have been found to be a potential electrolyte for battery applications due to its high electrical conductivity at ambient temperature. The binary solid electrolyte with incorporation Al2O3 was prepared in solid state reaction and characterized by Electrical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and 7Li Magic Angle Spinning (MAS) solid state Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (ssNMR) technique. Maximum electrical conductivity of 3.35x10-3 Scm-1 was recorded for the sample containing 20 wt.% of LiI. The conductivity improved up to 3.92x10-3Scm-1 as 5wt.% of Al2O3 was added into the optimum composition of the binary system. Mobility of the charge carrier in the sample was investigated and NMR result showed that the electrolyte with high ionic mobility contribute into high electrical conductivity.
EFFECT OF SPUTTERING PRESSURE ON THE STRUCTURAL AND OPTICAL PROPERTIES OF ZNO FILMS DEPOSITED ON FLEXIBLE SUBSTRATE
Authors: Mui Li Lam , Manie @ Mani Azmizam , Shain Farah Lyana , Alias Afishah , Salleh Saafie
Published: September 2015

Zinc Oxide (ZnO) has get attention because of its excellent optical transmittance approximately ~80%. A systematic study has been made of the effect of sputtering pressure on the structural and optical properties of the deposited ZnO films. ZnO thin films were deposited on plastic substrate by RF powered magnetron sputtering using ZnO disk with 99.99% purity. The RF power of 100 W and argon gas flow from 10 - 30 sccm was used to perform the sputtering process. The argon sputtering pressure was varied between 3 mTorr to 11 mTorr and the growth time is constant at 25 minute. The deposited ZnO thin films are characterized structurally and optically.  Structural analysis using X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) show that all the films exhibit a (002) preferential orientation and the estimated grain size measured was varied from 24.5 nm to 29.8 nm. Surface Profilometer was used to measure the thickness and RMS of the deposited films where the thickness decrease from 900 nm to 600 nm and the root mean square (RMS) roughness increase from 4.97 nm to 11.45 nm. The optical transparency value that achieved from UV-Vis Spectrometer is over 80% in the visible range and the band gap energy is within 3.27 eV-3.29 eV range.
USERS’ NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS OF URBAN RECREATIONAL FORESTS IN SELANGOR, MALAYSIA
Authors: Norhuzailin H. , Norsidah U.
Published: September 2015

Background: Forests or woodlands provide ecosystem services including provisioning services, cultural services, regulating services and supporting services. Recreational forests in Peninsular Malaysia areas are for recreation, research and development, and for economic benefit. Objectives: This paper examines users’ needs and expectations of recreational forests in Selangor, Malaysia in relation to the maintenance and management aspects. Results: The results indicate that the respondents have various expectations related to their needs. The respondents will come more often if more facilities, activities and security provided. Conclusion: The recreational forest management should consider the users’ needs and expectations in planning programs, managing and designing future recreational forests so that potential users will feel comfortable when visiting the area. Therefore, to have frequent visits, it is important to enhance the users’ experience in the forest. Cultural aspects, gender and age of Malaysian users’ are factors to be taken into account in ensuring a sustainable use of recreational forest.
IMPORTANT CRITERIA FOR MANAGING DISASTER WASTE IN MALAYSIA
Authors: Zawawi E. M. A. , Yusof N. S. , Kamaruzzaman S. N. , Ismail Z.
Published: September 2015

InMalaysia, disaster impacts have become an impediment to the sustainable development. Limited number of case studies has been carried out on the topic of the Disaster Management Guidelines inMalaysiaand the needs of the waste management to be adopted into disaster management guidelines. Thus, the main purpose of this study is to highlights possible entry points for waste management adaption into Disaster Management Guidelines inMalaysia. This study will adopt qualitative research design involving comprising of journal review, previous case study and semi-structured interviews. This paper presented the important criteria relating to the disasters waste management inMalaysia. It is anticipated that this research will generate interests from disaster waste researchers and disaster waste management policy makers, as it will provide fundamental elements towards more rigor disaster waste management policy.
BUILDING THE SAFE CITY PLANNING CONCEPT : AN ANALYSIS OF PRECEDING STUDIES
Authors: Rozhan Arinah , M. Y. M. Yunos, , Othuman Mydin Md Azree , Mohd Isa Nor Kalsum , Mohd Ariffin Noor Fazamimah , Ismail Nor Atiah
Published: September 2015

The upsetting number of crime occurring in the cities evokes the fear of crime among the civilians. In order to provide a good quality of living environment, a safe city planning must be implemented. To achieve this, several safe city concepts are reviewed. This paper aim to study several safe city concepts done by other researchers. In order to search for the best safe city concepts, a qualitative method research which involves content analysis is the most suitable approach to be employed in this study. This research will develop a new safe city conceptual framework based on the synergy of the previous studies. It is noted that the main concept of safe city planning are the activities and proposition of land use planning, identification of hot spot crime areas, improvement of physical environment and public transport system and appropriate surveillance.
FRAMEWORK OF STRATIFIED RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY MANAGEMENT SERVICES
Authors: Omar Mustafa , Mohd. Ali Hishamuddin , Kamaruddin Norhaya , Baba Maizan , Sapri Maimunah , Abdullah Shahabudin , Godwin Aliagha Ghali Uche
Published: September 2015

This study focuses on the development of stratified residential property management services framework by identifying and investigating the management services and their major attributes in providing a well-structured framework of property management service delivery. The methodology towards this study involves the intensive reading and review of various literatures on the subject title and a group discussion. A panel of experts drawn from industry provides advice and evaluates the identified services and attributes and framework development. Based on literature review and focus group discussion, a theoretical framework was developed. The framework was underpinned by eleven core activities and their major attributes that emerged from the research findings. These core activities and attributes have been identified both nationally and internationally as being crucial to the effective stratified residential property management service delivery.
MALAYSIA HIGH RISE RESIDENTIAL LIGHT WELL QUALITY SATISFACTORY ASSESSMENT
Authors: M. N. Noorsidi Aizuddin, , Z. Ainur Zaireen, , M. Y. Norhidayah, , M. N. Razali, , M. Abdul Hakim, , E. Chris, , A. M. Noor Faizah,
Published: September 2015

Most commonly, residents are always arguing about the quality of their high rise residential property. A growing number of high rise residential buildings in Malaysia with differing light well were designed by the structural design and planning since 15 years ago. This light well is defined as an intermediate space area between indoor and outdoor of the high-rise residential building. The questionnaire survey of three high rise residential buildings that have different sizes of the light well and building designed were conducted to make clear the occupants' evaluation about the real quality conditions of the buildings. As a result, the quality of light well is clearly satisfied and well managed by the property manager in their high rise residential buildings.
TWEET DATA EXTRACTOR FOR CREATING A TWITTER TRAFFIC MAP MASHUP
Authors: Jasmi Amirul Afif , Ishak Mohamad Hafis Izran , Idris Nurul Hawani
Published: September 2015

Over recent years, there has been a growth of interest in the use of social media including Facebook and Twitter by the authorities to share and updates current information to the general public. The technology has been used for a variety of purposes including traffic control and transportation planning. There is a concern that the use of new technologies, including social media will lead to data abundance that requires effective operational resources to interpret the big data. This paper proposes a tweet data extractor to extract the traffic tweet by the authority and visualise the reports and mash up on top of online map, namely Twitter map. Visualisation of traffic tweet on a map could assist a user to effectively interpret the text based Twitter report by a location based map viewer. Hence, it could ease the process of planning itinerary by the road users.
THE NEED FOR RETROFITTING TO ACHIEVE SUSTAINABILITY OF MALAYSIAN BUILDINGS
Authors: Nazri Abdul Qayyum , Mohammad Izran Sarrazin , Baba Maizan , Zainol Nurul Nadiah , Afiq Lokman Muhamad Amir , Bee Woon Neo , Ramli Nur Aqlima
Published: September 2015

Malaysia is a country that is progressively developing that uses energy as the main input for its continuous development. The increasing demand and consumption of energy subsequently led to increase concentration of greenhouse gas emission and resource depletion. To cope with the challenges in mitigating adverse effects and sustaining energy, Malaysia has made efforts in emphasizing on the green building initiatives in the building sector. This has been demonstrated through promulgation of policies (i.e. NTGP, NPCC), impetus in developing ‘greenness’ (i.e. GTFS, GBI) and government-owned green buildings manifests. Considerable attention on green building initiatives can be seen through the increasing number of new green buildings that are presented in the GBI executive summary. However, the existing building stocks remain with less attention. Furthermore, there is a lack of consideration in retrofitting these existing buildings as a mean to contribute to sustainability. Therefore, this paper presents and reviews the measures that have been taken towards Malaysia’s building sector and the emphasis of retrofitting existing buildings to contribute in the sustainability movement.
SOLID WASTE GENERATION AND COLLECTION EFFICIENCIES: ISSUES AND CHALLENGES
Authors: Akhtar Mahmuda , Hannan M A , Basri Hassan , Scavino Edgar
Published: September 2015

Solid waste management is a big challenge throughout the world. It is becoming more complicated with the increased globalization and worldwide urbanization. Solid waste monitoring and management depends on the solid waste generation and collection efficiency. Without an efficient collection system, improvement of the solid waste monitoring and management system is a difficult task. Thus, it is a big hindrance on the way of development of solid waste management and sustainable environment. This paper deals with a comprehensive survey on the solid waste generation and their collection efficiencies. From the rigorous review, it is observed that the existing methods and system, however, not reliable and intelligent enough to monitor and manage the increased level of solid waste. Accordingly, this review is being highlighted on the issues and challenges for future efficient solid collection systems. This review paper may guide the reader about the basics of solid waste generation and their collection process to facilitate the planning and design of a sustainable new system
PI CONTROL APPLICATION FOR BUILDING AIR CONDITIONING SYSTEM
Authors: Nasution Henry , Abdul Aziz Azhar , Abdul Latiff Zulkarnain
Published: September 2015

This manuscript presents a PI controller implementation to control the compressor speed of an air conditioning system based on cooling load to fulfill thermal comfort requirements with higher energy efficiency. Hence, an interface was designed to monitor the experiment, including the controller algorithm. The temperature settings of the conditioned space were 20, 22, and 24oC with internal heat loads of 0 and 1000 W. The experiments conducted indicated that the proposed technique had better temperature control and energy efficiency compared to the thermostat controller.
GAP CONTROL OF ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE GRINDING WITH HIGH BANDWIDTH DUAL STAGE ACTUATORS
Authors: Hu Bo , Rahim M. Zulafif , Ding Songlin , Brandt Milan , Lim Christopher , Mo John
Published: September 2015

Electrical discharge grinding process has four types of discharge states and abnormal states, such as arcs and short circuits have great impact on the machining efficiency and the surface finish of workpieces, for example, polycrystalline diamond cutting tools. The aim of this study had been to develop a new servo system with high bandwidth dual stage actuators, which can quickly change the gap width to eliminate these harmful discharge states. The structure of the dual stage system is that a piezoelectric actuator stands on a linear actuator and both move along one axis. The piezoelectric actuator, which has high bandwidth but short travel distance, was used for the gap width control and the linear actuator, which is relatively slow but has long travel distance, tunes the feed rate of the workpiece to match the erosion rate. The gap information obtained from the electrical discharge waveform was used as a feedback signal. The linear actuator system adjusted its velocity based on the average piezoelectric displacement value. Hence, an electrical discharge machine was developed with a one-axis dual stage system. The results from simulations and experiments showed that the new system provided a high bandwidth response, as well as enhanced the machining rate and stability.
EVALUATION ON THE TRIBOLOGICAL PROPERTIES OF DOUBLE FRACTIONATED PALM OLEIN AT DIFFERENT LOADS USING PIN-ON-DISC MACHINE
Authors: Nuraliza N. , Syahrullail S. , Musa M.N.
Published: September 2015

The use of vegetable oil-based lubricant as a lubricant in various applications has increased and it is eyed by the industry due to its superior tribological properties, besides possessing the potential to replace petroleum-based lubricants. Palm olein is one of alternative lubricants that could be suitable and attractive as a lubricant to be studied due to its advantages and large production in the country. Thus, in this study, the behavior of palm olein characteristics was investigated by using pin-on-disc experiment, in which a hemispherical pin was loaded against the rotating grooved disc. The experiments via sliding were performed with pin-on-disc tester using pure aluminum as the material for hemispherical pin and SKD11 for disc. The test was implemented by dropping continuous flow of palm olein as lubricating oil on sliding surface at different loads applied, which were 10N, 50N, and 100N. The wear rate of the pin and the friction coefficient were also investigated. Moreover, the surface roughness before and after the experiment was analyzed as well. All the results obtained were compared to hydraulic oil and engine oil-SAE 40. From the analysis, the friction coefficient acquired from lubricated with palm olein was the lowest for both conditions. The wear rate obtained for the three lubricants increased from 10N to 100N load for palm oil, but decreased for hydraulic and engine oil-SAE 40. Meanwhile, the wear rate obtained for lubrication with hydraulic oil showed the lowest value compared to Engine oil-SAE 40 and double fractionated palm olein.
GRANULAR-ACTIVATED CARBON FROM MUKAH COAL USING CARBON DIOXIDE ACTIVATION
Authors: Ani Farid Nasir , Mat Junoh Muhammad , Ab Muis Zarina
Published: September 2015

A study was conducted on Mukah coal using fixed bed reactor and one step activation with varying resident time and temperatures. CO2 gas was used for the activation process. The one-step continuous process comprised of carbonization and activation processes. The burn off analysis for 80 grams of Mukah coal was done to obtain volatiles removal at various carbonization temperatures. The results obtained showed that at 900oC, the percentages of burn off and the remaining weight were 42.2% and 57.8% respectively. Micrometrics ASAP2010 was used to analyze Mukah coal activated carbon in obtaining the BET surface area, the micropore area, and the average pore diameter. The results obtained indicated that activation at 900oC gave the highest BET surface area with 675m2/g, while the highest micropore area with 427 m2/g was obtained at 800oC. In addition, the average pore diameter range was within 18.5 to 26.4 A.
EXTREME VALUE ANALYSIS FOR MODELING HIGH PM10 LEVEL IN JOHOR BAHRU
Authors: Mohd Amin Nor Azrita , Adam Mohd Bakri , Aris Ahmad Zaharin
Published: September 2015

Extreme value theory is a very well-known statistical analysis for modeling extreme data in environmental management. The main focus is to compare the generalized extreme value distribution (GEV) and the generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) for modeling extreme data in terms of estimated parameters and return levels. The maximum daily PM10 data for Johor Bahru monitoring station based on a 14 years database (1997-2010) were analyzed. It is found that the parameters estimated are more comparable if the extracted numbers of extreme series for both models are much more similar. The 10-years return value for GEV is  while for GPD is . Based on the threshold choice plot, threshold  is chosen and the corresponding 10-years return level is . According to the air pollution index in Malaysia, this value is categorized as hazardous.