This paper has evaluated the spatial growth of Bauchi Metropolis from 1976 to 2015
through the application of Remote Sensing and GIS techniques. Various satellite
imageries of the metropolis (Landsat MSS of 1976, TM of 1986, 1996 and ETM+ of 2006
and 2015) were integrated; processed and classified using ERDAS imagine 9.1. The
results showed an increase in area from 11.68km2
in 1976 to 12.51km2
in 1986 to
32.44km2 in 1996, to 49.66km2
in 2006 and finally to 89.23km2 in 2015. It is
recommended that government should provide the required capacities for the use of
Remote Sensing and GIS in planning for the growth of the town.
Muhammad Adil Khattak, Muhammad Khairy Harmaini Shaharuddin, Muhammad Saiful Islam Haris, Muhammad Zuhaili Mohammad Aminuddin, Nik Mohamad Amirul Nik Azhar, Nik Muhammad Hakimi Nik Ahmad
It is essential to ensure the nuclear power plant system are not compromise and avoid
failure that can result in significant economic loss and physical damage to the public.
However, a very little attention was given to software and cybersecurity hazard. This
review paper discusses about the cybersecurity in nuclear power plant, history of
accident, implementation and future plan on cybersecurity deeply. About 51 published
studies (2006-2017) are reviewed in this paper. It is marked from the literature survey
articles that it is important for the cybersecurity of a nuclear power plant to be at par
with the evolution of hardware and software and to counter the increasing risk on
cyber vulnerabilities. Moreover, it should be addressed as a concern and major priority
for researches and policy-makers.
Muhammad Adil Khattak, Nurul Syahrizzat Mohd Yasin, Hannah Natasha Andjani, Puteri Nurailah Husna Mohd Tajuddin, Sakeshraj Narajah, See, Zhi Fei, et al.
Geopolitical risks will less affect the oil supply in the United States due to its stability
and widespread oil sectors since 1970s. Nevertheless, energy prosperity in the United
States appears differently in relation to a fuller period for conventional energy export
states where geopolitical challenges have been intensified by monetary pressure and
escalating energy demand in residential areas. The relationship between the United
States and other energy export states will continue to change as the United States
becomes more independent and non-OPEC resources become worthwhile especially
in Western Hemisphere. With expansion of global economic growth, maintained
multilateral relationship among countries and technological development are two
prominent concerns to secure long-term energy supplies and to enable further
exploration of new energy sources.
Muhammad Adil Khattak, Mohammad Azfar Haziq Ayoub, Muhammad Ariff Fadhlillah Abdul Manaf, Mohd Faidhi Mahrul, Mohd Ridwan Mohd Juhari, Mira Idora Mustaffa, et al.
Energy supply security is a vital aim of energy policy in countries across the globe.
Global energy security is one of the main concerns as it depends on the concentrations
of the energy supplies political pressure from energy exporters. In Europe’s case,
energy security has been of large concern by the gas crisis which resulted from gas
prices and debts that caused the halt in Russian gas flowing through Ukraine’s
pipelines. The crisis coincidentally happened during the increasing concerns in the
nationalism resource of energy exporters as well as the circumstance involving high oil
prices. Europe’s economies were a huge concern as it was susceptible of energy
exporters’ political pressure and the rivalry with the resource demanding China. Energy
security, however, is still confused as it is shown in political actions. The focus of energy
security in the U.S. has originally been to reduce the susceptibility of it towards political
manipulation and that has tipped the politicians to voice out for the independence of
energy increasing shares of renewable energy. The plan of energy independence in
Brazil, however, had come to a reality as there were timeframes of politician
represented a rising share in fossil fuel supply imports and lowered shares of
renewable energy as to encourage energy security. For other countries, the energy
security they went for was the protection of the poor in countering the products price
instability while others highlight the prominence of defending the economy in contrast
of the disturbance in energy service supplies which is done by letting the prices of
products to increase in times of shortage. The paper will define the energy security
better in terms of the European Union as to shed some light on the issue. It will review
the European Union and the global energy security whilst including the implication of
oil market which will be concentrated in terms of EU, elaboration of the energy security
of EU in context of foreign relation, the physical security issues and challenges faced
by EU, and the elaboration of energy policy of EU.
Computer vision is applied in many software and devices. The detection and
reconstruction of the human skeletal structure is one of area of interest, where the
camera will identify the human parts and construct the joints of the person standing in
front. Three-dimensional pose estimation is solved using various learning approaches,
such as Support Vector Machines and Gaussian processes. However, difficulties in
cluttered scenarios are encountered, and require additional input data, such as
silhouettes, or controlled camera settings. The paper focused on estimating the threedimensional
pose of a person without requiring background information, which is
robust to camera variations. Each of the joint has three-dimensional space position and
matrix orientation with respect to the sensor. Matlab Simulink was utilized to provide
communication tools with depth camera using Kinect device for skeletal detection.
Results on the skeletal detection using Kinect sensor is analysed in measuring the
abilities to detect skeletal structure accurately, and it is shown that the system is able
to detect human skeletal performing non-complex basic motions in daily life.
Recently RESS method has been used by researchers to produce fine particles for pharmaceutical drug substances. Since RESS technology acknowledges a lot of benefits compare to conventional method of ginger extraction. Therefore, the objective of this research is to produce direct solid oil particles formation from ginger rhizome which contains valuable compounds by using RESS-CO2 process and to study the effect of pressure and temperature on extraction yield. RESS experiments were carried out at various extraction pressure of 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000 and 7000psi and at different extraction temperature of 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65 and 70°C, respectively for 40 minutes extraction time and constant flowrate (24ml/min).From the studies conducted, it was found that extraction pressure is an important factor that can affect particle size and extraction yield. By increasing the extraction pressure, the extraction yield was found to increase with increasing of pressure at constant temperature, but extraction yield was found to decrease with increasing temperature. The highest extraction yield is 2.41% obtained at extraction pressure of 6000psi and constant extraction temperature of 65°C.
Electrical Discharge Machining, EDM is one of the technologies used for surface
texturing such as the embedded micro-dimples on the metallic acetabular cup. During
the machining process, changes in the gap distance may lead to load changes from
open to short circuit. Limiting the load current under short circuit conditions and load
voltage under open circuit conditions is the requirement in this system. Power supply
is one of the elements that controls the process parameters which is related to improve
the machining condition as well as Material Removal Rate (MRR). A considerable
number of power supply design method were proposed for various EDM application.
This research proposed a Switch Mode Power Supply method implementing new
design of Flyback power supply which can stabilize the voltage during open circuit
condition as well as during discharge condition. Experimental studies were conducted
to verify the capability of Flyback power supply by machining eight micro-dimples in
lower position and twelve micro-dimples in upper position, both in circular
arrangement on metallic acetabular cup. Research conducted shows that the Flyback
power supply improve the consistency of MRR when compared to Linear power supply.
This may help to predict the machining time, thus improving the production of microdimples
in required time.
Lightning is among the most deadly natural phenomena to mankind. This phenomenon
is seen to increase globally as well as in Malaysia. Lightning does strike open areas
such as playing fields and playgrounds and these areas are places people gather.
Sensors that can detect the early occurrence of lightning have been developed for
detecting approaching lightning activity in this project. The main objective is to provide
early lightning warning system to the public and hence to reduce the number of
fatalities due to lightning strike. The warning circuit was designed and simulated using
Multism11. Basic operational method of the circuit is based on the comparative
voltage method using LM339N integrated circuit comparator (IC). Light Emitting Diodes
(LEDs) were used as indicators to indicate if the incoming voltage level is higher or
lower than that of the safety level.
Due to high energy demand worldwide, finding an alternative renewable and
sustainable energy source is of great interest. Plant microbial fuel cell (P-MFC) is one
of the most promising methods to generate green energy. In P-MFC, a plant is placed
into the anode compartment. Mutual interaction between plant root rhizodeposits
and bacterial community results in the biofilm formation at the vicinity of the
rhizosphere area in plant root could be utilized to generate electricity. Indeed, in PMFC,
bacteria metabolize rhizodeposits into electrons and protons. These electrons
could be then converted into green electricity. The objectives of this research are to
utilize Epipremnum aureum plant collected from Kota Tinggi’s lake to generate
electricity and observe current generation by different resistors, to characterize
immobilized bacteria attached on the anode surface then identify the optimum growth
temperature for isolated bacteria. Five plant microbial fuel cells were constructed in a
H-shape (dual- chambers) configuration in the plastic container. Maximum current
density for 20 days for P-MFC by external resistance of 100k Ω was 0.1 µA/cm2
with
maximum power density of 0.85 µW/cm2 and the open circuit voltage (OCV) was
measured at 195 mV. Besides, fresh biomass averages increased 5g after 20 days of
experiments below and above ground as compared to the initial fresh biomass. Five
isolated bacterial strains from the graphite felt surface found on the anode were
screened by nine biochemical tests such as catalase, TSI (triple sugar iron agar), gelatin
and etc. The immobilized bacteria attached to anode electrode in P-MFC were further
examined with Fast Electron Scanning Electron Microscopy (FESEM). The isolated
bacterial growth curves were determined at two different temperatures of 25 °C and
37 °C. The optimum growth temperature predominantly for them was 37 °C.
Chitin is a biopolymer that forms the exoskeleton of arthropods, and found in the shells of crustacea and in the cell walls of certain fungi and algae. Commercially, chitin is obtained from processing the outer skeleton of crustacea such as shrimp, crab, prawn, and crayfish. Extraction of chitin was carried out using various chemical procedures. The study aim is to examine characteristic of chitin for different aging of Leucaena leucephala pods using hydrochloric acid (HCl). Different aging of the raw materials was used to study their effect of nitrogen content in the pods. In this study, chitin in Leucaena leucephala was extracted using chemical methods by using hydrochloric acid (HCl). The extracted chitin was then characterized by using elemental analyzer. The results obtained revealed that the percentage of nitrogen and carbon content in the samples was significantly reduced after extraction. Elemental analysis, the N% value in younger pods is closer to the theoretical value than adult pods. The purity of chitin in younger pods is higher than chitin in the adult pods.
The objective of this study is to characterized chitin from Leucaena leucephala pods at different aging stages with hydrochloric acid HCl by using Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR). Leucaena leucephala is chosen to be used in this study because it is abundantly and can be found easily along the road as it is widely spread in Malaysia and available throughout the year. Leucaena leucephala is not fully utilized yet and it could potential for new source for chitin. Results from FTIR shows that Amide I band in Leucaena leucephala before and after extraction range of 1650-1600cm-1 and is not divided into two peaks which make it appear close to a β-chitin. Beside, Amide I band of Leucaena leucephala before and after extraction is appearing wide (U-shaped) rather than sharp therefore the chitin from Leucaena leucephala is determined to be in the form of β- chitin.
Repetitive movement can lead to the pain muscle, nerves, and tendons that cause by
repetitive overuse of working task. The muscle will fatigue due to; repetitive
movement, force that been applied, posture during working and duration of working.
The stress level during working can influent the energy performance usage during
working. The aim of this paper is to analyse the influence of heart rate and muscle
activity of workers in composite manufacturing towards muscle fatigue. The data was
collected for a worker in hand layup department and the Qualitative method was used
in a way to investigate the working load and level of pain received by their body. Then,
the Qualitative data was sorted and the respondent proceeded for a Quantitative
method which involves muscle activity analysis and heart rate analysis. The tools that
were used to conduct these experiments were surface electromyography (sEMG),
Wristwatch with chest strap and perceived stress scale (PSS). The experimentation
used to calculate the average reading of heart rate and muscle activity during working
and detect the duration the muscle to start fatigue. Moreover, this paper analysed the
relationship between heart rate and muscle activity through the duration of working.
As an overall finding of this research, it was shown that the heart rate of the workers
influence the muscle activity of workers and has high potential relationship to the
fatigue of muscles of the workers in the layup department.
Membrane technologies have received high interest in the separation gas mixture. The
ceramic inorganic membranes have possessed high permeability, excellent thermal,
chemical and mechanical stabilities compared to conventional polymer membranes.
This work presents the fabrication of silica ceramic membrane by sol dip-coating
method. The tubular support was dipped into the solution of tetrethylorthosilicate
(TEOS), distilled water and ethanol with the addition of nitric acid as a catalyst. The
fabricated silica membrane was then characterized by (Field Emission Scanning
Electron Microscope) FESEM and (Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy) FTIR to
determine structural and chemical properties at different dipping number. FESEM
images indicate that the silica has been deposited on the surface fabricated ceramic
membrane and penetrate into the pore walls. However, number of dipping did not
affect the intensity peak of FTIR analysis.
This paper aims to explore the level of manufacturing performance, environmental
actions and customer activities in implementing green supply chain initiatives. Besides,
the relationship between environmental actions and customer activities towards
manufacturing performance also been investigated. For this purposes, the data was
collected using questionnaire-based survey among Malaysian manufacturing firms.
Using the descriptive and correlation test, the data was analyzed. From the results, it
is showing that the manufacturing performance through the implementation of green
supply chain management has a positive relationship to environmental action and
customer activities.
This paper assessed the effect of time overruns on apartment building among
Kuantan Malaysian construction industries. A survey was conducted among 10
construction industries in Kuantan Pahang. Using proportionate stratified random
sampling, out of which 10 questionnaires were distributed for data analysis. Using
five point Likert scale categories from previous studies, statistical analysis affirmed a
significant positive relationship between time overruns and apartment building
among Kuantan Malaysian construction industries.
Most of the previous researchers used conventional extraction technique such as steam distillation and solvent extraction method in Chromolaena Odorata extraction. Therefore, in this study a clean extraction method that is Supercritical Fluid Extraction (SFE) technology using supercritical carbon dioxide as a solvent (SC-CO2) was introduced for Chromolaena Odorata leaves extraction to produce oil of bioactive components. The objective of this research was to find the optimum pressure for the highest oil yield extracted. The extraction was conducted within a range of temperature (40, 45 and 50°C) and pressure (3000, 3500, 4000, 4500 and 5000psi), at a constant flowrate (24 ml/min) for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 and 60 minutes of extraction time. From the studies, it was found that extraction pressure is an important factor that can affect the extraction yield where the oil yield increased as the pressure increased due to the increasing amount of CO2 consumed where it boost the density of the solvent to interact with the solute. The highest oil yield is 51.20% at pressure of 4000psi and temperature 50°C. Whereas at the highest pressure of 5000psi, the oil yield is the lowest. This shows that the extraction is not suitable at pressure 5000psi.