The demand of fruits and vegetables across the world had increased throughout the years which urge the need to have better and proper way to increase produce safety, quality and postharvest life. Traditionally pesticides or other chemicals had been used to encounter microbes related to postharvest diseases. Over time, consumers are concern towards health effect of consuming those produce treated with chemicals. Ozone is one of the approach that provide both of the needs to deal with pathogenic microbes and also give no harmful residue throughout the process. Several reports had proven that ozone can almost kill or inhibit all pathogenic microbes on treated commodity which promote higher quality and postharvest life during storage. This review focus and summarise the use of ozone in the form of aqueous and gaseous towards fresh produces, its benefits and also the precaution during ozone application.
This paper discusses the three most prevalent elements of Islamic art that a r e embedded in modern furniture. This study is isolated from three design thinking approaches. A comparative study has been executed between three most apparent elements of Islamic art, which are arabesque, geometric and calligraphy. Those three types of design are applicable and relevant to modern furniture design nowadays. Therefore, the Islamic model was the paradigm in defining the furniture design character. The unstructured parameter within the appropriate method is a significant way of collecting the findings and usually used in the area of furniture design. The main results of this study are on how Islamic pattern is linked with the artistic design elements. The outcome of this investigation also contributes to a significant tendency in contemporary furniture design thinking solutions. Finally, this paper ends with discussions from three types of design thinking, which is the normative, reflective and hermeneutic design that collaborates with the current modern furniture design.
Living in today's era, artists’ practice in creating artwork is different from those practiced 20 years ago. With the existence of digital art followed by electronic art in the local art scene, the presentation, style and approach have evolved. Back in 2005 and 2007, some exhibitions brought hybrid art concept into an art exhibition. One of the shows was ‘Hybrid+ism’ which highlighted in various disciplines, media, applying unlimited processes and medium. The purpose of this paper is to study the artists’ practice in the hybrid art based on selected artworks. The artworks are selected based on some criteria ranging from experimental, mixed media, multi-disciplines, integration and technology as well as culture aspects. This paper is discussing the hybrid art practice among artists in the Malaysian art scene and the challenges to creating awareness on hybrid practice among audiences.
Red seaweeds (Rhodophyta) produce a variety of sulfated galactans in their cell wall matrix and intercellular space, contributing up to 50-60 % of their total dry weight. These sulfated polysaccharides are made up of galactose disaccharides substituted with sulfate, methoxyl, pyruvic acid, or non-galactose monosaccharides (e.g. xylose, glucose and mannose). They are required by the Rhodophytes for protection against pathogen, desiccation, tidal waves and extreme changes in pH, temperature and salinity. Since ancient times, sulfated galactans from red seaweeds, such as agar and carrageenan, have been consumed as human foods and later being used in traditional medicine. Nowadays, some red seaweeds are cultivated and exploited for commercial uses in various fields. In this review, different types of sulfated galactans found in red seaweeds and their current and potential uses in food, biotechnology, medical and pharmaceutical industries are discussed.
Hospitals have a complex environment setting which may cause confusion amongst visitors and the tendency of them getting lost is possibly high. This article aims to highlight the wayfinding aids used by visitors in hospitals. However, there are barriers and challenges that may affect the success of wayfinding experience amongst hospital visitors. Three targeted factors, namely poor and unfriendly signage; inconsistent utilisation of the numbering system; and difficulty in navigating the hospital premise have been identified to be improved. Therefore, by incorporating these factors with a constant stimuli method with fixed images in an indoor public hospital environment, this may improve visitors’ experiences when navigating in a hospital.
This review paper discussed about publications related to micropropagation of bamboo species. In recent years, the application of tissue culture technique like in vitro micropropagation has been used to meet the demands for bamboo planting materials. In the past 30 years, protocols for micropropagation of various bamboo species have been established by researchers from all over the world. The controlling factors for cultures such as the explants, culture medium, carbon sources, combination and concentration of plant growth regulators and other additional additives are varied. The controlling factors are crucial in developing successful regeneration protocols for various bamboo species. This paper attempts to review and summarize the available and up-to-date information regarding in vitro micropropagation of bamboos.
Small and medium scale enterprises (SMEs) act as a promoter of economic development of the developed and under developed nations. Developing countries like Nigeria that, require sustainable economic growth and development must pay attention to the SMEs sectors in order to reduce unemployment, poverty and improve the standard leaving of its society. Unfortunately, in Nigeria, SMEs have underperformed despite that, 90% of the Nigerian businesses are small scales but their contribution to the Nigerian GDP is below 10%. The main reason for this low contribution of SMEs to Nigerian GDP could be attribute to poor funding, lack of management expertise and lack of access to modern technology among others, with proper finance the SMEs can acquire modern technology and employed qualified staff. Thus, this paper focuses on crowdfunding as financial option for Nigerian SMEs. However, the paper is a conceptual framework.
Stingless bee is a diverse group of highly eusocial bees (meliponines) comprising the Meliponini subfamily of the Apidae family. Throughout the tropics, various kinds of stingless bee have been reared by beekeepers for their products (honey, propolis and bee bread) and pollination services for fruits and vegetables. This meliponiculture in logs or hives is considered safe due to the bee’s inability to sting, with the latter being more preferable for monitoring and managing the colonies and harvesting the products. The source of stingless bee colonies is depending on efficient hunting of feral colonies, which might affect the ecosystem. Following to the growing trend of bee rearing in Malaysia, mainly due to the smart branding strategy of the government through research institutes and universities, e.g. Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), Universiti Malaysia Terengganu and Universiti Sains Malaysia, it is crucial to increase the number of honey-producing hives by colony splitting. The basis of colony splitting includes provision oviposition (POP), swarming and antennation. Colony splitting is necessary due to deforestation, to expand income generation and for entomological study purposes. A more advanced approach in colony splitting is to prepare and rear the virgin queen bee in vitro, resulting in more queens per one single colony. With the advancement in stingless bee rearing techniques, people may apply the colony splitting strategy to maximise stingless bee products and enhance crop production.
This study assessed the feasibility of a syntactic analysis of newspaper editorials and to test out Morenberg’s (2010) syntactic theory. The purposes of this study hence, were to develop appropriate research questions and to determine whether Morenberg’s (2010) theory could be employed for the syntactic analysis of editorials. By adopting this theory, one editorial from The Star (2018), Malaysia and two editorials from The Sun (2018a, 2018b), UK were analysed, with the intention of investigating the concept of syntax to highlight the styles and constructions in professional writing. Sentences obtained from these three editorials were broken down via tree diagramming to answer the first research question - what are the syntactic patterns used in editorials in newspapers? The tree diagrams of all sentences were then examined to answer the second research question - are there syntactic differences in editorials? The study found the basic patterns of the sentences of all editorials used mostly transitive verbs, with the inclusion of many VBE verbs and very few intransitive and two-place transitive Vc verbs. Optional elements in the syntactic patterns, however, varied according to their different orders in sentence builds. Tree diagramming of the sentences revealed few noticeable differences in terms of sentence mood, structural parallelism, employment of wh-clause as well as subject ellipsis.
Awareness of recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption has increased substantially over the last 20 years. In addition, fruits and vegetables such as pumpkin (Cucurbita moschata Duchesne) are good sources of many important nutrients, including potassium, vitamin C, folate, fibre, and numerous phytochemicals. Malaysia produces pumpkinits own, with considerably large areas of production comparable to its high global demand. However, in reality, there is a limitation in the commercial production as the local pumpkinis very much dependent on the market demand as the utilization has been limited to the consumption of fresh product. Thus, the objective of the study first initiative to provide the information about the pumpkinand second to investigatesthe opportunities on commercialized local pumpkinin Malaysia as by products despite various nutritious it is also listed as prophetic foods. The scientific research that covered a broad range of in vitro to in vivo studies on the by-products potentials of these fruits is also discussed in detail.The current review is an update for researchers to have a better understanding of the pumpkin, which simultaneously can provide awareness to enhance their commercial value and promote their utilization.Malaysia have potential to growth pumpkin instead of continuously importing. The daily consumption of pumpkins may provide various health benefits to human. Future investigation is needed to explore the potential of pumpkin as by products in order to increase its competitiveness and self-sufficiency.
Malaysia has taken initiative in enforcing the Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Act 2007 (Act 672) since 2011 to ensure the uniformity of law relating to the solid waste management and public cleansing. Despite the alarming issues on the increasing of solid waste generation, Malaysian government has made solid waste separation at source as mandatory starting 1st September 2015 at eight states. Solid waste separation at source has been seen as the best practice of solid waste minimization where it eliminates and reduces the amount of solid waste produced by the society. The government has taken seriously in solid waste separation at source as the lifespan of disposal site has been decreased and limited space for the new disposal site due to the increasing cost of solid waste management. Hence, to overcome the increasing of solid waste generation, an integrated solid waste minimization through recycling should be implemented as it is involved in minimizing resource and offers the best outcome for the environment. Thus, this paper discussed the overview of solid waste minimization in Malaysia and the stakeholder’s role and their obstacles in solid waste minimization to attract the public participate in reducing the solid waste generation as an efficient solid waste management. A proper solid waste management ensures a sustainable development of Malaysia in terms of health, socio-economy and environment respectively towards Malaysian Vision of 2020.
The new millennium witnessed increasing attention to the field of robotics, especially the development of humanoid bipedal robot. Attention is noticed from the increasing number of publications as a result of a multitude of humanoid projects for commercial and academic goals. This paper briefly visits the recent activities in this field, highlighting the importance and motivation behind adopting bipedal humanoid projects, particularly underlining biologically inspired design concept, bipedal locomotion and communication. Ultimately, emphasising on power-efficient design. The problem of endurance and effective duty cycle were presented. Finally, potential future application for the humanoid robot was briefly listed.
Structural buildings in seismic prone area, the required energy dissipation of strong column-weak beam especially for reinforced concrete frame structures is achievably through adequate beam-column joint strengthening connection in order to have high seismic performance. Literature investigation shows several approaches and techniques for modelling the weak joint for a typical frame structure. This paper extensively reviews those techniques, methods, concepts and their performance in improving the shear capacity for a deficient reinforced concrete beam-column joints in withstanding seismic loads. The beam-column joints performance responses showed positive. However, the need for an improved connection that will offer high ductility capacity and energy dissipation ability for post-tensioned reinforced concrete beam-column joints with continuing bottom reinforcement is highly feasible with the use of the Direct Displacement Based design philosophy. This will be of great interest for the future development of highly efficient joint system for frame structure capable of resisting significant seismic load.
The overall reproductive process consists of both the human sex organs which include the male and female reproductive system. The ability to produce offsprings that have similar characteristic as their parents is the goal of reproduction. The sexual type of reproduction takes place in human and both male and female reproductive system is required. Male reproductive system is mainly concerned with production of semen (whitish viscous fluid emitted from the male reproductive tract that contains sperm and fluids) and transferring it into the female reproductive tract. In this review, we will discuss the latest findings in the research pertaining the male reproductive system and its contribution towards the research in advancement of reproductive physiology.
This paper explores the construct of motivation from the perspective of the instructional designer or teacher. It describes the motivation to learn in the context of intrinsic motivation, Expectancy-value Theory, Self-efficacy Theory, and Attribution Theory. The ARCS motivational model is examined in detail before discussing how motivation can be integrated in instructional design to enhance learning. This paper also explicates Cheng and Yeh’s (2009) framework in the context of classroom learning.
The hydrological effects of climate variation and land use conversion can occur at various spatial scales, but the most important sources of these changes are at the regional or watershed scale. In addition, the managerial and technical measures are primarily implemented at local and watershed scales in order to mitigate adverse impacts of human activities on the renewable resources of the watershed. Therefore, quantitative estimation of the possible hydrological consequences of potential land use and climate changes on hydrological regime at watershed scale is of tremendous importance. This paper focuses on the impacts of climate change as well as land use change on the hydrological processes of river basin based on pertinent published literature which were precisely scrutinized. The various causes, forms, and consequences of such impacts were discussed to synthesize the key findings of literature in reputable sources and to identify gaps in the knowledge where further research is required. Results indicate that the watershed-scale studies were found as a gap in tropical regions. Also, these studies are important to facilitate the application of results to real environment. Watershed scale studies are essential to measure the extent of influences made to the hydrological conditions and understanding of causes and effects of climate variation and land use conversion on hydrological cycle and water resources.
This intended paper was done to give an early overview of the expected quality attributes of pineapple-mango juice blend treated with ultraviolet irradiation (UV-C) and thermal pasteurisation. Josapine pineapple (Ananas comosus L.) and Chokanan mango (Mangifera indica L.) is the popular tropical fruits in Malaysia with unique taste and constant availability. The blend of pineapple-mango juice predicted to have good overall quality attributes as proved by prior studies on orange-pineapple, lemon-melon, pineapple-carrot-orange and carrot-apple-banana juice blends. Conventional thermal pasteurisation widely implemented in juice industry but resulted in massive quality degradation. Thus, research on the non-thermal technology of UV-C widely studied to overcome such drawbacks of thermal pasteurisation. Effect of UV-C and thermal pasteurisation on pineapple-mango juice blend will be evaluated in terms of physicochemical (pH, titratable acidity, total soluble solids, turbidity and colour), antioxidant (ascorbic acid, total phenolics content and total antioxidant DPPH assay) and microbiological properties. UV-C treated pineapple-mango juice blend believed to have better retention of heat sensitive ascorbic acid and other quality compared heat pasteurised juice with minimal distinctive characteristic compared to fresh juice.
Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is a major cause of disability and premature death throughout the world. This disease is commonly experienced by people with unhealthy lifestyle, stress and physical inactivity. Cholesterol has received the most attention as single risk factor of CVD. Reducing the intake of cholesterol, saturated fat, and trans faty acids may be beneficial, yet controversy is still lingering to what constituents more beneficial dietary fats. The purpose of this article is to give an overview on the impact of major dietary fatty acids on cardiovascular morbidity and mortality and to give an insightful information regarding fatty acids composition in selected fruits oils in search for novel oils as potential therapy against CVD.
As reported by the World Health Organisation (2014), Malaysia is the fattest country among the Southeast Asia. Among others, obesity is a leading contributor of non-communicable diseases (e.g., type II diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and cancer). This article aims to review the exiting weight management programmes targeting overweight and obesity in Malaysia from 2005 to 2015. The findings from this review could be useful for future intervention efforts in an attempt to address such issues in Malaysia.
Language is essential for communication. People who are involved in cross cultural communication have to be bilingual in order to interact with people from a different language background (Blackwell. Woolard, K. (2005). Bilingualism opens up various new pathways of thoughts, expressions, and it helps to reduce misunderstanding in interactions (Hidayat, T. 2012). The purpose of this review is to find out how code-switching plays a vital role in language communication especially in the social media such as Facebook, Twitter, SMS and Chat. This study reviewed fifteen journal articles to examine the ways code-switching was used. The review was to discover social phenomena and authentic identities of social actors. The study discovered that code-switching has been used widely to unmask bilinguals’ cultural background and group identity during online communication via Facebook. Finally, code-switching can be used to obtain positive feelings to the interlocutor, which here was combined with introducing humour as an in-group marker, quoting, and to some extent topic specificity as well as possible vocabulary limitation in one language or the other, in the online conversation by bilinguals such as to express group solidarity.