This paper presents the housing improvement proposition in the Melaka resident area.Quality Function Deployment is used as a method to analyze customer behavior regarding customer requirement, satisfaction and comparison among the developers. By using this method, the main requirement by the buyer for their bungalow is their need of sufficient space to place their appliances in the house. At the end of the study, the details of buyer requirements are plotted into House of Quality, where it is believed to improve the quality of future bungalow house development in Melaka.
Among athletes, endurance is one of the key elements to victory. In addition to
training, athletes normally used supplement to prevent fatigue during the event. With
prolonged and intense activity, our body started to experience decrease in muscle
performance due to several factors such as oxidative stress, dehydration and
accumulation of lactic acid in the body fluids. The free radicals generated during
intense exercise will expose the cells to oxidative damages. In the event of
dehydration, there will be significant losses of water and functional electrolytes during
intense exercise which affected the body fluid balance. Fatigue will also occur during
reduced oxygen in aerobic metabolism which later caused accumulation of lactic acid
in the muscle. This will change the pH balance toward more acidic and caused the
muscles to lose contractile efficiency. In addition, fatigue can also be studied using rats
as model organism. Results from this activity can be useful to analyse cellular
metabolism and physiology effects of the tested rats toward physical exercise.
Therefore, this review aims to discuss the causes of fatigue through oxidative stress,
dehydration and lactic acid accumulation. In addition, the effectiveness of using rats as
a model system in measuring fatigue is also included in illustrating examples on fatigue
assessment in vivo.
Incineration of both industrial and municipal solid waste has been widely used due to
its ability to reduce the volume of waste by about 90% and detoxify the waste.
However, a great challenge associated with waste incineration is production of toxic
fly and bottom ashes. These ashes contain heavy metals which enters water bodies
through percolation and absorption, and their consequences on human and animals is
enormous. Various researches were conducted on the application of thermal plasma
arc technology to safely detoxify incinerator ashes. The final product from plasma
treatment is a melt or vitreous slag within which toxic heavy metals are cemented. This
paper reviewed the different studies conducted on the treatment of incinerator fly and
bottom ashes in thermal plasma arc reactor. The review looked at the characteristics
of the ashes, the thermal plasma reactor specifications, the operating conditions and
the product characteristics. It also focused on effectiveness of the treatment processes
in terms of volume reduction, detoxification, crystalline structure of the product and
their usability. It is generally observed that thermal plasma arc reactors detoxify both
fly and bottom incinerator ashes, reduce the volume of waste by about 90% and
convert the ash to a vitreous slag where heavy metals are immobilized. Low basicity in
parent ash favours conversion of ash into glassy vitreous slag
Offering inexpensive, widely available and safe method to evaluate the bone condition
as a prevention step to predict bone fracture which caused by Osteoporosis disease
makes ultrasound becomes an alternative method beside X-ray based bone
densitometry. Conventional quantitative ultrasound (QUS) applies the analysis of
attenuation and velocity to estimate bone health with several measurement
techniques which analyzes different types of ultrasound waves and bones. However,
most of the QUS results still does not match the accuracy of the Dual X-ray
absorptiometry due to the interaction of ultrasound and bone microstructure are not
fully exploited. The Biot’s theory has predicted that, porous medium like a cancellous
bone supporting two types of longitudinal wave known as fast and slow wave which
depends on the type of medium travelled. Both experiment and simulation were
conducted to investigate the correlation of fast and slow waves individually with a
variety of cancellous bone condition. Some of the analysis methods are based on
conventional QUS methods. The fast and slow wave relates more to the microstructure
of the cancellous bone compared to overall waves. In addition, overall waves had been
proven to consist of fast and slow wave and can be separated using Bayesian methods.
Overall waves also found to suffer artifact such as phase cancellation and negative
dispersion that could cause confusion in analyzing the parameters of ultrasound wave
with bone structure. In vivo application based on fast and slow wave analysis is able to
produce results based on mass density which can be compared directly and have high
correlation with X-ray based bone densitometry. The recent backscattered simulation
result indicates that, fast and slow waves can be reflected inside the cancellous bone
might offer a new method to evaluate bone especially in crucial skeletal parts.
Gas turbine cooling can be classified into two different schemes; internal and external
cooling. In the internal cooling method, the coolant provided by compressor is forced into the cooling
flow circuits inside turbine components. Meanwhile, for the external cooling method, the injected
coolant is directly perfused from coolant manifold to save downstream components from hot gases.
Furthermore, in the latter coolant scheme, coolant is used to quell the heat transfer from hot gas stream
to a component. There are several ways in external cooling. Film cooling is one of the best cooling
systems for the application on gas turbine blades. This study concentrates on the comparison of
experimental, computational and numerical investigations of advanced film cooling performance for
cylindrical holes at different angles and different blowing ratios in modern gas turbines.
Historically, there is evidence to suggest that communities in the developing countries
are still using plant-based materials as one of the strategies for purifying drinking
water. In this review, the coagulant properties of Moringa oleifera seeds extract were
quantitatively evaluated toward suitable wastewater treatment and examining its
coagulation mechanism. The seeds are rich in bio-active components and also used as
a natural coagulant for effective water treatment. The seeds extract operates
predominantly by bridging coagulation mechanism and operates through charge
neutralization. This natural ingredient of an organic polymer is essential as it contains
acrylamide monomers that are harmless to human’s health and lesser expensive as
compared to conventional chemicals since they are available in most rural
communities. The application of this readily available natural product as part of pointof-use
in water treatment technology may offer a practical, cheap, appropriate and
sustainable solution for producing potable water in some developing nations.
Production Sharing Contract (PSC) is one of the petroleum agreements mode that
are being utilized in many parts of the world in enabling exploration, development
and production of the petroleum resources at the respective locations. It was first
introduced in Indonesia in 1966, and followed by Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, and
Brunei. One of interesting aspects of PSC management is the operatorship
transferhandling when a PSC is nearing its expiry. When the time come, the
current PSC contractor as operator has the option to relinquish it to the host
authority to be handed over to other operator, farm it out to the other PSC
contractor to reduce the risk exposure or continue operating under a new PSC
terms. The most challenging will be to relinquish the operatorship to another
operator whereby several complexities will need to be adequately addressed to
ensure benefit preservation to the host authority, incoming operator and
outgoing operator. Therefore there is a need to adhere to key factors or enablers
to administer the operatorship transfer exercise if it occurs in the near future. The
key enablers would be able to address the operatorship transfer exercise
effectively with the objective to alleviate complications to the host authority,
outgoing operator and incoming operator. With the emphasized in the PETRONAS
Procedure & Guideline for Upstream Activities together with three case studies,
this paper proposed several key enablers to be considered for a PSC successful
operatorship transfer which is human resources, data management, asset
reliability and integrity management, supply chain management and good
relationship between parties. With identified key factors, it is hoped that any PSC
operatorship transfer will be able to be managed smoothly and will ensure
benefits to all parties concerned.
Healthcare facilities in a hospital has diverse indoor cleanliness due to the different health
needs by the patients. Among the facilities, an operating room was identified as a critical space that
required high cleanliness environment. In recent years, an ISO 14644-1 Standard of Class 1 to Class 7
is prescribed in operating room for better particles concentration and airflow controlled. The objective
of this article is to review the assessment of airborne particles transportation and airflow distribution
in an operating room. This study shows that two main types of ventilation strategies have been widely
installed to control airborne particles trajectory, namely unidirectional airflow system and mixing
airflow system.
The use of automated teller machine (ATM) services by bank customers in Sokoto State,
Nigeria depends on the level of trust they have towards its operating nature. The positive or negative
perception that bank customers’ develop towards trust tends to determine their level of ATM usage.
Therefore, this article adopted the following factors (attitude towards behaviour, intention behaviour,
actual usage, perceived ease of use and usefulness) from technology acceptance model (TAM) to assess
their influence on customers’ trust in the use of ATM services in Sokoto State, Nigeria. Correlation
analysis was conducted on 300 customers of some selected banks (Guaranty Trust Bank, Zenith Bank,
First Bank, Eco Bank and Mainstreet Bank) in Sokoto State, Nigeria. The result shows that attitude
towards behaviour, intention behaviour, actual usage, perceived ease of use and usefulness has a
significant and positive relationship with customers’ trust in the use of ATM services in Sokoto State,
Nigeria.
Urban Transit Network Design Problem (UTNDP) focuses on deriving useful set of
routes, manageable timetabling for each transit route and transit scheduling based on
available resources. UTNDP is commonly subdivided into Urban Transit Routing
Problem (UTRP) and Urban Transit Scheduling Problem (UTSP), respectively. There are
various approaches applied to solve the UTSP. The aim of this paper is to give a
comprehensive list of studies on UTSP that deals with metaheuristic approaches such
as Tabu Search, Simulated Annealing, Genetic Algorithm and their hybrid methods. This
review also addressed possible gaps of the approaches and the limitations of the
overall problem. It can be concluded that only some of the metaheuristic approaches
and sub-problems are highly studied in UTSP. This review will be useful for researchers
who are interested in expanding their knowledge and conduct research in UTSP using
metaheuristic approaches.
Dividend policy is one of the most important element to measure changes in stock
prices. The relationship between dividend policy and stock price volatility shows
different results based on different studies. This paper focuses on the relationship
between dividend policy and stock price volatility through seminal literature on both
theoretical and empirical evidences from 1989 to 2016. The various consequences of
this relationship depend upon each country specific characteristics, different data
sample and different methodology techniques which utilized by researchers in
developed and developing countries. Most of the studies found negative relationship
between dividend policy and stock price volatility, while developed countries have
more impact on this relationship as compared to developing countries. Based on the
prior literature, this paper argues that the relationship between dividend policy and
stock price volatility is inconsistent and the organization needs to decide the dividend
policy according to their capability and organizational culture.
Fibrous concrete composite (FCC) have been applied in numerous civil engineering
structures, such as pavements, dams, runway, hydraulic structures, aircraft parking,
and runway. The desire for their usage as being due to their unique properties
compared with other materials. The stability of fibres in cement concrete appears to
be good enough, but further long term tests are necessary to evaluate their durability
and performance under mechanical sustained load. This is owing to the dearth in
knowledge on the fibrous concrete particularly bio fibrous concrete composites (BFCC)
behaviour and response to compressive, flexural and uniaxial tensile sustained loads.
Therefore, an in-depth study into the creep performance of BFCC is necessitated to
understand the long term behaviour of this biodegradable and environmental friendly
construction product. This will avail the structural engineers and builders’ adequate
understanding and data for design construction purpose of this green concrete
product.
Issue related to safety, health and environmental has become major priority to be
concerned of in the transportation of hazardous materials (HAZMAT) worldwide. Due
to the high risk that entailed in the operation of HAZMAT transportation, many
accidents in this industry have been reported which include chemicals spillage, fire
and explosion. In order to quantify the degree of hazards and risks of these accidents,
various assessment methods have been introduced either by the academia, the
industry as well as the authority. The methods present various approaches for the
assessment, ranging from a simple to highly complicated ones depending on the
purpose of the assessment and the available resources and constraints. To date there
is yet any study conducted to review those available methods. This paper intends to
present a comprehensive review of the existing methods for hazards and risks
assessment of HAZMAT transportation between years 1995-2015 which considers
road, marine, railway, air and pipeline system. Based on careful screening of the
abundance of methods available, 151 of them were selected – that is those
specifically meant for hazards and risks assessment of HAZMAT transportation only.
The methods are reviewed in terms of the types of assessment; either qualitative,
quantitative or hybrid techniques, as well as their specific application in different
mode of transportation. Also, statistical analysis was performed to determine the
trend of past publications regarding on the type of journal, year of publication and
also financial support received in the context of hazard and risk assessment of
HAZMAT transportation.
This study was performed to review the experience of work-family conflict and work-family
enrichment with social support as the moderator. Work-family conflict or enrichment occurs when
behaviours, moods, stresses, and emotions from work bring bad or good effects into family. Social
support has been seen as an important factor to assist employees with their role at work and at home.
This will reduce work-family conflict among the employees and achieve positive level of inter-role
between work and family, which is work-family enrichment. The review provides evidence that social
support may be helpful in improving the quality of work-family life of employees.
Business strategy plays a key role in determining the success of organizations. In view
of its important role, studies have attempted to investigate the approaches adopted
by organizations to develop as well as implement their business strategy. As far as the
approaches to business strategy are concerned, the review of past studies indicates
that organizations tend to adopt different approaches. At the same time, questions
have been raised as to whether these strategic approaches are relevant and applicable
to all organizations, especially with regard to their emphasis, focus and scope. Based
on the literature, this paper reviews the most common approaches to business
strategy and identifies the differences in their emphasis, focus and scope.
The purpose of this paper is to propose appropriate sustainable design solution for a
suitable housing architectural design that responds towards ecological needs vital for
a comfortable home living environment. This paper is vital as there are many arising
issue relating to middle income housing development involving comfort quality that
need much attention from various parties. Past literature on middle income housing
development in Malaysia focuses on limited areas of study. These are quality of
communal living in settlements; neighbourhood facilities and its effectiveness; crime
prevention through housing design; dwelling support services; policy making on
housing ownership; corporate social responsibility on housing development from
developer’s and buyer’s perspective; efficient housing construction system; waste
management in residential areas; the increment of housing price and related factors
as well as documentation on factors that hinders the implementation of sustainable
technology in middle income housing schemes. None of the above literature discusses
on how to implement ecological approach in home design. This research analyses the
home users’ perception from direct observation and questionnaires on two selected
case studies of middle income housing located in two major cities in Malaysia’s urban
context to establish appropriate ecological home design attributes for future
referencing. Findings indicate there are four key factors that contributed in the
development of ecology housing for the benefit of occupants which are suitable
structure usage, placement of building; proper openings, application of building
fenestration and appropriate landscape. The established referential guideline design is
of benefit for future designers, builders, developer and related authority to build
comfortable homes in the future.
A summary of research on image visualization in fluid flow is presented. The review
addresses the topics of method in image processing, the application of particle image velocimetry and
different sensor source of tomography. One of the greatest challenges in image visualization research
is the improvement of flow measurement for multiphase flow. As there a lot of prediction in studying
multiphase flow, the selection of image visualization method has to be chosen carefully. The important
part is the method to process the image which consists of parameters to be studied. The improvement
in image visualization method is important to further applied to other area of process.
This review paper describes in general the use of VR as a training tool in manufacturing
technology like design, rapid prototyping, and manufacturing with some practical
examples where VR is used and its benefits in manufacturing industries which reduces
a lot of cost in the design stages to the finish stages. VR is the closest man can get to
reality as the names implies with the present capabilities. The technique enables
engineers and designers to move around and interact with the object in real time. This
review paper looks into some challenges of VR applications in manufacturing
industries.
Hypertension is a condition associated with adverse vascular complications. Its
prevalence is on the increase globally and same is true for Nigeria. Very few studies
have assessed the prevalence, awareness, treatment and blood pressure control
among hypertensive patients in Nigeria. The few available studies generally show
figures less than 50% for all the three indicators of success with regards to
hypertension. These studies are however deficient in their coverage, country
representativeness and methodology, and as such, they fail to provide the evidence
for which conclusions can be drawn. There is need to intensify blood pressure
screening at both hospital and community levels. More comprehensive research with
wider coverage and sound methodologies are also needed to determine those
associated factors and to discover better treatment options for hypertension in
Nigeria. These findings would guide health promotion activities and policy making.
Evidence on rising global temperature, melting of ice caps, and withdrawal of glaciers
brings attentions to the enhancement of energy efficiency in energy intensive industries. Having a
realistic comparison between one plant and the best practice technology (BPT) in operation in the field
helps significantly to distinguish and diagnose the potentials where measures towards energy efficiency
improvement would be applicable. In this regard, for manufacturing industries, one of the most widely
used energy benchmarking tools is the Energy Benchmark Curve. An energy benchmark curve plots the
efficiency of plants as a function of the total production volume from all similar plants or as a function
of the total number of plants that operate at that level of efficiency or worse. This paper reviews the
methodology through which the benchmark curve is obtained for a specific industry followed by a
comparison of energy intensity for the iron and steel industry among China and the US. According to
the international energy benchmark curve for the iron and steel industry, the savings potentials per ton
of crude steel for the US. and China have been respectively 4.1 and 7.1 gigajoule comparing with the
BPT in the field. Finally, an overview over certain measures to enhance efficiency of such plants is
presented.