Clinacanthus nutans, known to the locals as Belalai Gajah, is a medicinal plant widely used by Malaysians in the belief to cure various diseases including cancer. However, the production of Belalai Gajah hardly fulfils the market demand since the growing techniques of stem cutting and tissue culture are inefficient and expensive. Therefore, improvements in tissue culture techniques and materials application are required. Hence, this study tested Carica papaya (locally know as papaya) stem, an agricultural waste, to enhance the tissue culture of C. nutans. The effects of C. papaya stem powder and extract on the shoot proliferation of C. nutans parameters were investigated. The average number of shoot, leaves and length of leaves were observed. Phytochemicals screening was also conducted. Overall, C. papaya stem extract showed positive performance and 1% extract was found to be the optimum concentration to enhance the shoot proliferation. Meanwhile, C. papaya stem powder inhibited the shoot proliferation. It was also found that flavonoids, glycosides, steroid and terpenoid contributed in the shoot proliferation. In conclusion, the papaya stem extract is a potential in-vitro supplement for tissue culture studies. This study gained insights in sustainable green economy and showed that zero waste can be attained by converting local papaya stem waste to valuable product. In addition, sustainable technology in pharmaceutical approach could be addressed through in-vitro low cost large-scale production of Belalai Gajah medicinal plant.
Solid waste management in developing countries including Malaysia is dominated by waste dumpsites which have a high possibility of transporting organic and inorganic pollutants to the underlying groundwater and surface water within the surrounding area. The objective of this study is to characterise the landfill leachates and its surrounding groundwater and river water quality and metals concentrations, namely arsenic (As), cadmium (Cd), chromium (Cr), copper (Cu), nickel (Ni), lead (Pb) and zinc (Zn) from Beris Lalang, Kelantan. Nine sampling points were collected within the dumpsite for analysis of in-situ: dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, total dissolved solids (TDS), conductivity, turbidity and ex-situ; Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD) and Suspended Solids (SS) and the results were compared with permissible limits. As and Pb in groundwater samples were collected from the surface of two dug grounds within the vicinity of the dumpsites exceeded the standard of Ministry of Health. Cr, Cu and Pb in leachates exceeded Environmental Quality Act (EQA, 1974)’s standard, whereas Ni, Pb and Zn in surface water of Gali River exceeded the limit of class III National Water Quality Standard (NWQS). Exceeding metals concentration in leachates and its surrounding groundwater and river water relative to their respective standards points out toward potential leachate migration to the waterbodies within the surrounding vicinity of Beris Lalang dumpsite. This study provides the initial baseline data and preliminary monitoring assessments as a first step towards improving water security and waste management in Kelantan.
In order to ensure the optimum quality of palm oil, oil palm fruit needs to be harvested at the optimum maturity to avoid free fatty acid (FFA) accumulation. The high content of FFA not only reduces the quality of palm oil but also increases the refining cost. Optimum maturity based on plantation standard operating procedure (SOP) is determined by identifying the tree with loose fruit on the ground. The matured bunch is further identified based on the colour of the bunch. This paper presents a research work on formulation and validation of mathematical equations to estimate the maturity stages (age in weeks) of fresh fruit bunch (FFB) based on FFB position in oil palm phyllotaxis (spiral leaves arrangement) as an additional feature to confirm the maturity level of oil palm FFB. Regression analysis showed that the proposed method was able to estimate the maturity stages of oil palm FFB with the coefficient of determination R2 = 0.9 and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 1.58 weeks. The FFB yield estimation model and harvesting can be created based on the extracted data using the formula which will help in the planning of harvesting operation. Plantation manager can use this information to generate yield variability map and estimate the appropriate number of workers and machine. Planned harvesting operation can save a significant amount of time in site harvesting operation.
Carbamates are poisonous pesticides which have been used widely in agriculture production for decades. Unlike other pesticides such as organophosphate, carbamate pesticides are not persistent in the environment however, their degradation is crucial due to their toxicity to living system. The World Health Organization, categorized carbamate pesticide as toxic, hazardous and restricted for use. Example of carbamates pesticides include Carbaryl, Aldicarb, Methomyl, Carbofuran, and Propoxur. They are extensively used to control many insect and pests of crops. Presently, there is significant awareness regarding the negative effects of pesticides due to their ability to pollute soil and water bodies. Most pesticides are readily degraded or metabolized by microbes. Carbamate pesticide degradation by microorganisms relies not only on the availability of microbes with suitable biodegradative enzymes, but also on the various ecological factors. This reviewarticle outlines the present development in biodegradation of carbamate pesticides, their toxicity and enzymatic degradation as well as their degradative pathways.
This study was conducted to evaluate the physical habitat of spawning areas for Thynnicthys thynnoides (T. thynnoides) in the Rui River, Gerik, Perak. Five sampling sites of Rui River’s floodplain were chosen. Sampling was conducted between May and October 2015 by using a visual-based habitat assessment developed for Rapid Bioassessment Protocols for Use in Streams and Wadeable Rivers: Periphyton, Benthic Macroinvertebrates and Fish. This study showed that T. thynnoides still migrated to the upper stream of Rui River during spawning season mainly in August. Habitat assessment scoring indicated that the physical habitat structure of Rui River fell into a suboptimal category, which was most likely able to support fish populations and thus providing a suitable habitat for T. thynnoides during the spawning season. Conclusively, it was observed that the T. thynnoides population was dependent on environmental conditions.
A new approach for speaker and accent recognition based on wavelets, namely Discrete Wavelet Packet (DWPT), Dual Tree Complex Wavelet Packet Transform (DT- CWPT) and Wavelet Packet Transform (WPT) based non-linear features are investigated. The results are compared with conventional MFCC and LPC features. k-Nearest Neighbors (k-NN), Support Vector Machine (SVM) and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) classifier are used to quantify the speaker and accent recognition rate. The database for the research was developed using English digits (0~9) and Malay words. The highest accuracy for speaker recognition obtained is 93.54% while for accent recognition; it is 95.86% using Malay words. Combination of features for speaker recognition is obtained from ELM classifier is 98.68 % and for accent recognition is 98.75 % using Malay words.
The functional data model has recently received increasing attention particularly in their application to mortality forecasting. The advantage of this method over the well-known Lee-Carter model is the ability to treat the underlying process as functional, and provide estimations that are robust to outliers. This research investigates the accuracy of functional data approach in estimating the mortality rates and life expectancy at births in developing countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Singapore. The functional data method was applied to these countries’ mortality data, and the out-sample forecast errors showed that, in terms of overall, the functional data model was more accurate than that of the original Lee-Carter model for males and females. The results provide evidence that the functional model is accurate to forecast the life expectancy at births for developing countries.
This study was conducted to determine the baseline water quality characteristics of a contaminated NAHRIM lake undergoing remediation by the constructed wetlands, based on the physico-chemical and biological parameters. The sampling was conducted for six months (May-October) in 2016 from 5 stations of the lake and analysed using APHA standard methods for water and wastewater analysis, while Malaysian water quality index (WQI) was used to calculate quality of the lake. The results showed that, the Conductivity, Dissolved Oxygen, NO3-N, NO2-N, PO4, Temperature, Turbidity, TDS, TSS, and Zn were under class I, while pH, B and COD were categorized under class II. NH3-N, BOD, Fe, Escherichia coli, Total coliform and Mn were categorized as class III. Moreover, Al was not given any classification under NWQS but their concentration did not exceed EPA guidelines. Furthermore, as compared to the water samples from the constructed wetlands that reported a class III WQI, the lake was observed to show an overall class II WQI. This is suggestive of the retaining and remedial role of the constructed wetlands being the first point of contact for the contaminants going to the lake. Thus the lake is suitable for recreational activities.
This study aims to develop a side-sensitive modified group runs control chart using auxiliary information (SSMGR-AI) to enhance the speed of detecting mean shifts in a process. The average run length (ARL) and expected average run length (EARL) criteria are adopted as performance measures of the proposed chart. The performance of the proposed chart is compared to the exponentially weighted moving average chart with AI (EWMA-AI) and the run sum chart with AI (RS-AI), in terms of the ARL and EARL criteria. The results reveal that the optimal SSMGR-AI chart generally outperforms all charts under comparison for detecting shifts in the process mean. An application with numerical data is presented to elaborate the implementation of the SSMGR-AI chart.
Timber is one of the most sustainable and renewable raw materials available. Globally, it has been increasingly used for the manufacture of home and workplace furniture. Timber products are known to have ignition resistance and a low heat release rate. These characteristics delay burning and maintain the structural durability of a product, protecting both the occupants and their properties in a fire. Timber, however, experiences thermal degradation during combustion, yielding smoke, heat, toxic gases, and char when burned. To understand the fire conduct of timber, extensive knowledge in its process of decomposition is essential. This paper, therefore, reviewed the methods of flammability tests widely employed to investigate the reaction of timber and timber-based product to fire, namely cone calorimeter test, room-corner test, limiting oxygen index (LOI) test, furnace test, and single burning item test (SBI). In addition, an overview of the fire retardant treatments; impregnation and coatings was also presented. The potential effects of fire retardants on the durability, strength, hygroscopicity, corrosion, machinability, glueing characteristics, and paintability of the timber were also highlighted.
The purpose of this research is to analyse the influence of change management and e-learning in Malaysian private higher education institutions focusing on educators’ perspectives. The conceptual framework was modified in combination of various theories from Systemic Change Models and E-learning Cycle Models. A self-administered questionnaire adapted from Siebel 4.0-2 Survey Questionnaires (SSQ) by Hambling, 2010 was the data collection instrument. The sample consisted of educators from private higher education institutions with visions or missions based on e-learning implementation in Malaysia. As per findings, through review of the visions and missions, the selected private higher education institutions integrated teaching and learning with Stepwise Multiple regression analysis, has a significant relationship on independent variables that contribute to e-learning implementation.
Execution of the green building project specifically among the housing developers in Malaysia is still at its infancy. As of August 2016, there are only 16 housing projects certified by the Green Building Index (GBI) under the category of Residential New Construction (RNC) since the assessment systems established in 2010. The authors address this issue in the context of the factors affecting the execution of the green building project among the housing developers in Klang Valley. A pilot study by using questionnaire survey was conducted among 30 housing developers from 10 different zones divided by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, Malaysia. This paper aimed to report the results of the reliability test of the designed questionnaire. The results based on the Cronbach’s Alpha analysis showed that the items used in the questionnaire were reliable and obtained an acceptable level of internal consistency, which were relevant for the main study. The pilot study revealed that only 9 out of 30 respondents had the completed or ongoing green building projects. The findings exposed the level of knowledge, emotion, value, attitude, behavior and the potential factors affecting the execution of the green building projects among the housing developers in Klang Valley.
The objective of this study was to determine the prevalence of symptoms and problems in Malaysian brain pathology patients. A total of 100 respondents in Kuala Lumpur Hospital were included in this cross-sectional study. The study utilized European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer Quality Of Life questionnaire (EORTC QLQ-C30). Patient with a “symptom/problem” having the minimum response of “a little”. A response of “quite a bit” was defined as having a “severe symptom/problem”. The two most prevalent “symptoms/problems” among the neurological disorder patients were fatigue (65%; severe: 28%) and reduced cognitive functioning (64%; severe: 25%). The mean number of “symptoms/problems” ranged from 4.63 (meningioma) to 6.80 (cerebellar edema) while the mean number of “severe symptoms/problems” ranged from 1.39 (astrocytic glioma) to 2.8 (cerebellar edema). Therefore special attention should be given to these patients in order to improve the overall quality of life of the patients.
Bisphenol A (BPA) is an endocrine disrupting chemical (EDC) widely used in industry as a plasticizer for the production of polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. The liver is highly sensitive to BPA, even at low doses. The objective of the study is to investigate the effect of BPA on histo-architecture of the liver in post-weaning rats. Post-weaning female rats were exposed to BPA by oral gavage over a six weeks period. The results showed that even at low environmental doses, BPA exposure had adverse effects on the liver histoarchitecture, thereby disrupting the functions of cellular. The administration of BPA resulted in severe hepatocytes necrosis, dilated sinusoid, and depicting features of conspicuous Kupffer cells. The results may be due to the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) by BPA. In conclusion, post-weaning exposure of BPA resulted in significant histological alterations due to ROS generation.
The ocean has an exceptional resource with various groups of natural products that are potentially useful for biomedical and other applications. Marine sponges have prominent characteristic natural products with high diversity. They produce many vital therapeutic metabolites with prominent biological activities. Marine invertebrates and microbial communities are the primary producers of such metabolites. Among the richest sources of these metabolites, class Demospongiae and the order Haplosclerida and genus Xestopongiae from family Petrosiidae are of interest. This review summarizes the research that has been conducted on two classes, eight orders, twelve families and fourteen genera of marine sponges available in the South East Asia region, covering the literature of the last 20 years. Ninety-five metabolites including alkaloids, sterols, terpenoids, quinones isolated from marine sponges collected in South East Asia along with their bioactivities especially cytotoxicity and antibacterial activities were reported in this review. Chemistry and biology are highly involved in studying marine sponges. Thus, tight collaboration is needed for understanding their taxonomy aspects. This review will outline chemistry and biological aspects, challenge, limitation, new idea and a clear future perspective on the discovery of new drugs from South East Asia’s marine sponges.
Centella asiatica or known as ‘pegaga’ in Malaysia, is a popular medicinal herb, which is being used as main ingredient or incorporated into various herbal products. Apart from efficacy, the chemical profile and potential toxic effect of the plant are two important aspects of concern towards ensuring product satisfaction and safety of consumers. This paper reports the qualitative and quantitative chemical analysis of the leaf ethanolic extract of C. asiatica using LCMS/MS. The acute toxiciy effect of the extract and selected marker chemical constituents were further analysed using a zebrafish model. Twenty constituents, were identified and the main chemical marker constituents of the plant viz asiaticoside, asiatic acid, and madecassic acid were further quantified. Asiaticoside was found to be present in higher concentration than the other marker constituents. Meanwhile in the acute toxicity test, the LD50 of the extract on the zebrafish model was determined to be 1250 mg/L while 100% mortality was observed at the highest test concentration of 2500 mg/L. However, acute toxicity evaluation on four marker triterpenoids of the herb, i.e asiatic acid, madecassic acid, asiaticoside and madecassoside, indicated them to be quite safe on the zebrafish model, with no mortality shown for test concentrations between 10 to 500 mg/kg BW.
The oil palm trunk (OPT) currently represents a massive volume of agricultural waste with great potential to be rapidly developed in the wood composite industry. An improvement in sawing technology has potential to improve the yield of the commercially hard outer core of the OPT by about 27 % thus replacing the present sub-optimal square sawing pattern with a more efficient and higher-yielding polygon sawing pattern. To achieve this, a 'wedge' device was designed to be mounted on the existing sawing carriage. The proper methodology was followed including extraction of the design layout of the machine, development of the schematic drawing and wireframe model, modification of the design in computer-aided design (CAD) environment, the performance of stress, total deformation, and fatigue analysis, and production of a complete drawing for fabrication purpose. Results from the analysis showed that the designed part was safe to be fabricated with a small maximum equivalent stress of 2.546 MPa, maximum total deformation of 0.007935 mm and total life cycle of one million cycles. These evaluation results indicate that the material used for the wedge device (including the base part) satisfies the design requirements of static strength and is safe within its designed fatigue life.
This study provides predictable flow behavior of a hybrid biocomposites made from kenaf/coir reinforced unsaturated polyester using the Moldflow software. A medium size electrical part has been chosen as a mold having multi-wall thicknesses and complex surfaces. Three different shapes of charges of the bulk molding materials were used and compressed into the mold part. The shapes of charges would be rectangular, cubic and cylindrical shapes. The results showed that rectangular charge took 0.2 seconds to fill up the part while the cubic and the cylindrical charges took 1.911 and 2.898 seconds respectively. After 70 seconds the conversion at nodes was more than 98% for all charges. On the other hand, the final densities were 1.88 ± 0.08 g/cm3 for all charges. The cubic charges showed a better temperatures distribution at flow front followed by rectangular, the last being the cylindrical charge, and the average shrinkage was 5-7% for the charges. The cubic shape showed good fibers orientation to the flow direction of the bulk materials followed by cylindrical charge while the rectangular charge showed poor orientation of fibers affected on the deflections, weld lines and air traps in the internal part. For the rectangular, the charge showed more critical weld lines and more air traps especially on the surface of the molded part and more deflections on the corner edges. But, the cubic charge showed the lowest deflections rate, air traps and weld lines defects.
Basal stem rot (BSR) caused by Ganoderma boninense is a major disease attacking the oil palm plantation in Malaysia, and incur big losses in palm oil industries. The disease is spread mostly by root either through spore availability in soil or roots contacts. Soil properties were reported to have significant influence on the growth of fungi. Meanwhile, the value of soil resistivity is influenced by soil properties. This paper presents a new approach of BSR detection by using soil moisture sensor which measures resistivity of soil in unit ohm (Ω) at 15 cm surrounding the basal stem of oil palm trees. The study was conducted on 39 oil palm trees at different healthiness levels. The sensor was embedded approximately 4.7 cm deep in the soil at eight different points for each palm. The results showed that healthy oil palm trees significantly have higher mean (ERMEAN ≥ 400) of electrical resistance (ER) readings compared to infected trees (ERMEAN< 400). More specifically, ER readings at points without symptoms (i.e. fruiting bodies and/or hollow) were significantly higher compared with ER readings at points where symptoms appeared even though the points of measurements were on the same palm. This finding has brought to the introduction of a new index to detect Ganoderma infection, named as K-index. Combination of ERMEAN taken from eight points of measurement and its K-index gave better results of detection and a new model was developed based on these two parameters (i.e. ERMEAN and K-index). The developed model has accuracy rates of 82% and gained 100% successful rate during validation. This research showed that soil resistivity can contribute to Ganoderma-infected detection in oil palms with a high degree of accuracy.
Livestock operation activities such as cleaning operation, feeding, milking and manure disposal are potential sources of contaminants into nearby surface and groundwater. In this study, the number of wastes generated from a cattle farm in Ladang 16 UPM, Serdang Selangor was estimated. Two monitoring wells were constructed at the site for groundwater quality monitoring assessment. The concentration of pollutants such as Potassium, Nitrate, and Copper was used in the simulation as an initial waste state. The simulation was conducted using Visual MODFLOW Software to predict the contaminants in groundwater. The aim was to predict the concentration of the pollutants distributed in groundwater and surface water sources in 365 days. Results of MODFLOW simulation showed that the flow of groundwater was in the direction towards the pond. The concentrations of Potassium, Nitrate, and Copper were predicted to accumulate in the groundwater to the pond within a year but the values were still below the drinking water standard. The groundwater contaminants could be due to seepage from the manure storage basin through subsoil into the shallow aquifer.