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Fulltext Multivariate Analysis Coupled with M-SVM Classification for Lard Adulteration Detection in Meat Mixtures of Beef, Lamb, and Chicken Using FTIR Spectroscopy

Siddiqui MA, Khir MHM, Witjaksono G, Ghumman ASM, Junaid M, Magsi SA, et al.

Foods, 2021 Oct 11;10(10).
PMID: 34681455 DOI: 10.3390/foods10102405

Adulteration of meat products is a delicate issue for people around the globe. The mixing of lard in meat causes a significant problem for end users who are sensitive to halal meat consumption. Due to the highly similar lipid profiles of meat species, the identification of adulteration becomes more difficult. Therefore, a comprehensive spectral detailing of meat species is required, which can boost the adulteration detection process. The experiment was conducted by distributing samples labeled as "Pure (80 samples)" and "Adulterated (90 samples)". Lard was mixed with the ratio of 10-50% v/v with beef, lamb, and chicken samples to obtain adulterated samples. Functional groups were discovered for pure pork, and two regions of difference (RoD) at wavenumbers 1700-1800 cm-1 and 2800-3000 cm-1 were identified using absorbance values from the FTIR spectrum for all samples. The principal component analysis (PCA) described the studied adulteration using three principal components with an explained variance of 97.31%. The multiclass support vector machine (M-SVM) was trained to identify the sample class values as pure and adulterated clusters. The acquired overall classification accuracy for a cluster of pure samples was 81.25%, whereas when the adulteration ratio was above 10%, 71.21% overall accuracy was achieved for a group of adulterated samples. Beef and lamb samples for both adulterated and pure classes had the highest classification accuracy value of 85%, whereas chicken had the lowest value of 78% for each category. This paper introduces a comprehensive spectrum analysis for pure and adulterated samples of beef, chicken, lamb, and lard. Moreover, we present a rapid M-SVM model for an accurate classification of lard adulteration in different samples despite its low-level presence.
Fulltext A Fusion-Based Machine Learning Approach for the Prediction of the Onset of Diabetes

Nadeem MW, Goh HG, Ponnusamy V, Andonovic I, Khan MA, Hussain M

Healthcare (Basel), 2021 Oct 18;9(10).
PMID: 34683073 DOI: 10.3390/healthcare9101393

A growing portfolio of research has been reported on the use of machine learning-based architectures and models in the domain of healthcare. The development of data-driven applications and services for the diagnosis and classification of key illness conditions is challenging owing to issues of low volume, low-quality contextual data for the training, and validation of algorithms, which, in turn, compromises the accuracy of the resultant models. Here, a fusion machine learning approach is presented reporting an improvement in the accuracy of the identification of diabetes and the prediction of the onset of critical events for patients with diabetes (PwD). Globally, the cost of treating diabetes, a prevalent chronic illness condition characterized by high levels of sugar in the bloodstream over long periods, is placing severe demands on health providers and the proposed solution has the potential to support an increase in the rates of survival of PwD through informing on the optimum treatment on an individual patient basis. At the core of the proposed architecture is a fusion of machine learning classifiers (Support Vector Machine and Artificial Neural Network). Results indicate a classification accuracy of 94.67%, exceeding the performance of reported machine learning models for diabetes by ~1.8% over the best reported to date.
Fulltext Understanding Hyaluronan Receptor (CD44) Interaction, HA-CD44 Activated Potential Targets in Cancer Therapeutics

Chaudhry GE, Akim A, Naveed Zafar M, Safdar N, Sung YY, Muhammad TST

Adv Pharm Bull, 2021 May;11(3):426-438.
PMID: 34513617 DOI: 10.34172/apb.2021.050

Cancer is a complex mechanism involving a series of cellular events. The glycoproteins such as hyaluronan (HA) are a significant element of extracellular matrix (ECM), involve in the onset of cancer developmental process. The pivotal roles of HA in cancer progression depend on dysregulated expression in various cancer. HA, also gain attention due to consideration as a primary ligand of CD44 receptor. The CD44, complex transmembrane receptor protein, due to alternative splicing in the transcription process, various CD44 isoforms predominantly exist. The overexpression of distinct CD44 isoforms (CD44v) standard (CD44s) depends on the tumour type and stage. The receptor proteins, CD44 engage in a variety of biological processes, including cell growth, apoptosis, migration, and angiogenesis. HA-CD44 interaction trigger survival pathways that result in cell proliferation, invasion ultimately complex metastasis. The interaction and binding of ligand-receptor HA-CD44 regulate the downstream cytoskeleton pathways involve in cell survival or cell death. Thus, targeting HA, CD44 (variant and standard) isoform, and HA-CD44 binding consider as an attractive and useful approach towards cancer therapeutics. The use of various inhibitors of HA, hyaluronidases (HYALs), and utilizing targeted Nano-delivery of anticancer agents and antibodies against CD44, peptides gives promising results in vitro and in vivo. However, they are in clinical trials with favourable and unfavourable outcomes, which reflects the need for various modifications in targeting agents and a better understanding of potential targets in tumour progression pathways.
Fulltext Frequency and Association of Stress Levels with Modes of Commuting Among Medical Students of a Developing Country

Jahangeer SMA, Hasnain N, Tariq MT, Jamil A, Zia SY, Amir W

Malays J Med Sci, 2021 Aug;28(4):113-122.
PMID: 34512136 DOI: 10.21315/mjms2021.28.4.12

Introduction: This study aimed at determining the frequency and association of stress levels with modes of transportation and was likely to reveal the contributing transportation-related factors for stress in medical students.
Methods: This was a questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study that included undergraduate medical students of a public sector medical university in Karachi, Pakistan. A total of 573 students participated voluntarily, of which 300 were provided a manual questionnaire and 273 filled it online. The reliability of the questionnaire was assessed using Cronbach's alpha at 0.791. The collected data were analysed using IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 21.0.
Results: Out of 573 participants, 99.3% (n = 298) of students filled the questionnaire manually, whereas 100% of students filled the questionnaire online. Almost two-thirds of students used university transport; more than 90% lived more than 5 km from the university and 56% had a traveling time of more than an hour. Approximately 15.4% of students reported physical trauma and some form of harassment. Sheldon Cohen's stress scale surprisingly revealed 90% of students to be within the moderate-to-high stress category. Risk factors were associated with stress levels and significant associations were observed with noise exposure (P = 0.023) and sleep quality (P = 0.001). The most common reported stressors associated with commuting included overcrowding, long travel, and air and noise pollution. Noise pollution was the main predictor of stress among commuters.
Conclusion: Poor transportation has adverse effects on health and academic performance. Administration in their respective jurisdictions is needed to investigate this matter to make commuting a routine rather than a hassle.
Investigating the myth of smokeless industry: environmental sustainability in the ASEAN countries and the role of service sector and renewable energy

Ahmad F, Draz MU, Chandio AA, Su L, Ahmad M, Irfan M

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2021 Oct;28(39):55344-55361.
PMID: 34137008 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-14641-8

Since the development of the service sector and renewable energy reduce fossil-based energy consumption which mitigates CO2 emissions and this nexus provides a better understanding of the environmental sustainability. Considering the substantially increasing contribution of service sector and tremendous potential for renewable energy in ASEAN5 countries, leaning forward from ASEAN's energy and growth nexus, this study examines the impact of service sector contribution and renewable energy on the environmental quality of ASEAN5 using annual data from 1990 to 2018. The results of the fully modified ordinary least squared, dynamic ordinary least squared, and canonical co-integrating regressions depicted that the service sectors of Thailand, the Philippines, and Singapore augment CO2 emissions; however, the service sectors of Malaysia and Indonesia could reduce CO2 emissions. The increasing share of renewable energy can enhance environmental quality, but its magnitude varies in ASEAN5 economies; non-renewable energy, population, and economic development deteriorate the environment. Our results confirm the existence of environmental Kuznets curve in all the ASEAN5; the Gregory-Hansen test confirmed that results are robust. Finally, the Granger causality designated that economic development and non-renewable energy have a significant causal relationship with CO2 emission of ASEAN5 countries. These findings suggest that the ASEAN5 economies need to optimize their economic structure for promoting sustainable development in the long run.Graphical abstract.
Fulltext A comparative analysis on question classification task based on deep learning approaches

Zulqarnain M, Khalaf Zager Alsaedi A, Ghazali R, Ghouse MG, Sharif W, Aida Husaini N

PeerJ Comput Sci, 2021;7:e570.
PMID: 34435091 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.570

Question classification is one of the essential tasks for automatic question answering implementation in natural language processing (NLP). Recently, there have been several text-mining issues such as text classification, document categorization, web mining, sentiment analysis, and spam filtering that have been successfully achieved by deep learning approaches. In this study, we illustrated and investigated our work on certain deep learning approaches for question classification tasks in an extremely inflected Turkish language. In this study, we trained and tested the deep learning architectures on the questions dataset in Turkish. In addition to this, we used three main deep learning approaches (Gated Recurrent Unit (GRU), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM), Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN)) and we also applied two different deep learning combinations of CNN-GRU and CNN-LSTM architectures. Furthermore, we applied the Word2vec technique with both skip-gram and CBOW methods for word embedding with various vector sizes on a large corpus composed of user questions. By comparing analysis, we conducted an experiment on deep learning architectures based on test and 10-cross fold validation accuracy. Experiment results were obtained to illustrate the effectiveness of various Word2vec techniques that have a considerable impact on the accuracy rate using different deep learning approaches. We attained an accuracy of 93.7% by using these techniques on the question dataset.
Fulltext The Adipokine Component in the Molecular Regulation of Cancer Cell Survival, Proliferation and Metastasis

Umar MI, Hassan W, Murtaza G, Buabeid M, Arafa E, Irfan HM, et al.

Pathol Oncol Res, 2021;27:1609828.
PMID: 34588926 DOI: 10.3389/pore.2021.1609828

A hormonal imbalance may disrupt the rigorously monitored cellular microenvironment by hampering the natural homeostatic mechanisms. The most common example of such hormonal glitch could be seen in obesity where the uprise in adipokine levels is in virtue of the expanding bulk of adipose tissue. Such aberrant endocrine signaling disrupts the regulation of cellular fate, rendering the cells to live in a tumor supportive microenvironment. Previously, it was believed that the adipokines support cancer proliferation and metastasis with no direct involvement in neoplastic transformations and tumorigenesis. However, the recent studies have reported discrete mechanisms that establish the direct involvement of adipokine signaling in tumorigenesis. Moreover, the individual adipokine profile of the patients has never been considered in the prognosis and staging of the disease. Hence, the present manuscript has focused on the reported extensive mechanisms that culminate the basis of poor prognosis and diminished survival rate in obese cancer patients.
Fulltext A mini-review on the impact of COVID 19 on vital organs

Shah MD, Sumeh AS, Sheraz M, Kavitha MS, Venmathi Maran BA, Rodrigues KF

Biomed Pharmacother, 2021 Nov;143:112158.
PMID: 34507116 DOI: 10.1016/j.biopha.2021.112158

COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease-2019) is an infectious disease caused by a novel coronavirus, known as the acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). This is a highly contagious disease that has already affected more than 220 countries globally, infecting more than 212 million people and resulting in the death of over 4.4 million people. This review aims to highlight the pertinent documentary evidence upon the adverse effects of the SARS-CoV-2 infection on several vital human organs. SARS-CoV-2 primarily targets the lung tissue by causing diffuse alveolar damage and may result in Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). SARS-CoV-2 infects the cell via cell surface receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). Besides lungs, SARS-CoV-2 critically damage tissues in other vital human organs such as the heart, kidney, liver, brain, and gastrointestinal tract. The effect on the heart includes muscle dysfunction (acute or protracted heart failure), myocarditis, and cell necrosis. Within hepatic tissue, it alters serum aminotransferase, total bilirubin, and gamma-glutamyl transferase levels. It contributes to acute kidney injury (AKI). Localized infection of the brain can lead to loss or attenuation of olfaction, muscular pain, headaches, encephalopathy, dizziness, dysgeusia, psychomotor disorders, and stroke; while the gastrointestinal symptoms include the disruption of the normal intestinal mucosa, leading to diarrhea and abdominal pain. This review encompassed a topical streak of systemic malfunctions caused by the SARS-CoV-2 infection. As the pandemic is still in progress, more studies will enrich our understanding and analysis of this disease.
How precious metal and energy resources interact with clean energy stocks? Fresh insight from the novel ARDL technique

Bibi M, Khan MK, Shujaat S, Godil DI, Sharif A, Anser MK

Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2022 Jan;29(5):7424-7437.
PMID: 34476685 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-16262-7

To boost the stability of economic and financial aspects along with the apprehensions for sustainability, it is important to promote the development of clean energy stocks around the globe. In the current research, the researchers have examined the impact of oil prices, coal prices, natural gas prices, and gold prices on clean energy stock using the autoregressive distribution lag (ARDL) approach from the year 2011 to the year 2020. The result of daily data analysis specifies that in the long as well as in the short run, gold prices, oil prices, and coal prices have a positive and significant effect on clean energy stock. On the other side, natural gas prices in the long as well as in the short run have a negative and significant effect on clean energy stock. So, the empirical analysis of our study is of interest to investors at an institutional level who aim at detecting the risk associated with the clean energy market through proper financial modeling. Besides, this study opens up a new domain to sustain financial as well as economic prospects by protecting the environment through clean energy stock as the investment in clean energy stocks results in producing a substantial effect on the economy and the environment as well.
Resource Allocation Schemes for 5G Network: A Systematic Review

Kamal MA, Raza HW, Alam MM, Su'ud MM, Sajak ABAB

Sensors (Basel), 2021 Oct 02;21(19).
PMID: 34640908 DOI: 10.3390/s21196588

Fifth-generation (5G) communication technology is intended to offer higher data rates, outstanding user exposure, lower power consumption, and extremely short latency. Such cellular networks will implement a diverse multi-layer model comprising device-to-device networks, macro-cells, and different categories of small cells to assist customers with desired quality-of-service (QoS). This multi-layer model affects several studies that confront utilizing interference management and resource allocation in 5G networks. With the growing need for cellular service and the limited resources to provide it, capably handling network traffic and operation has become a problem of resource distribution. One of the utmost serious problems is to alleviate the jamming in the network in support of having a better QoS. However, although a limited number of review papers have been written on resource distribution, no review papers have been written specifically on 5G resource allocation. Hence, this article analyzes the issue of resource allocation by classifying the various resource allocation schemes in 5G that have been reported in the literature and assessing their ability to enhance service quality. This survey bases its discussion on the metrics that are used to evaluate network performance. After consideration of the current evidence on resource allocation methods in 5G, the review hopes to empower scholars by suggesting future research areas on which to focus.
Fulltext Amorphous phase of SnO2 doped Al2O3 thin film: optical and structural properties

Puteri Sarah Mohamad Saad, Muhammad Nizar Aiman Mohd Zani, Anees Aziz, Hashimah Hashim

ESTEEM Academic Journal, 2021;17(2):23-31.
MyJurnal

Tin Oxide (SnO2) is an n-type semiconductor with a direct bandgap of 3.6eV.
It is highly conductive, transparent, and gas sensitive. The SnO2 can be
unstable depending on certain parameters and methods to prepare it. In this
work, the thin film of SnO2 doped with Al2O3 was deposited by
electrospinning on glass substrates. The thin films were then annealed at
100°C, 200°C, 300°C, 400°C, 500°C, and then the optical and physical films
were examined. Measurements of X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) and Microscope
were performed for structural and morphological analysis. The optical
characteristics were analyzed using the UV-Vis spectrophotometer. As the
annealing temperature increases, the optical transmittance also increases
due to the increase in film homogeneity and the degree of crystallinity of the
film. The rise in temperature leads to a decrease in absorption values.
Fulltext Numerical investigation on the effect of building overhang on the flow within idealised two-dimensional street canyon

Muhammad Fatih bin Ibrahim, Mohd Faizal bin Mohamad, Naoki Ikegaya, Azli Abd Razak

ESTEEM Academic Journal, 2021;17(2):67-77.
MyJurnal

Building overhang is an essential element in the construction of terrace
houses in Malaysia to protect occupants from the sunlight, car parking, and
social event purposes. However, there is still a lack of study investigating the
effect of overhang in a windy area of terrace houses despite its effect on the
flow modification around the building. Therefore, in this paper, a series of
computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed using
Reynolds Average Navier Stokes(RANS) equations and renormalization
group (RNG) k – ε as the turbulence closure model. Simulations were
conducted on a unity aspect ratio of two-dimensional street canyon
representing the low-rise terrace house area in a flat roof shape and three
different overhang conditions. The protruding overhangs were significantly
modified the in-canyon flow structure as it limited the penetration of the
above flow into the canyon as compared to the without overhang case. In
addition, spatially-averaged ? of the turbulent kinetic energy depicted that
the value decreased within the canyon, demonstrating the independence of
the overhang location. It is recommended to perform a further study on the
ventilation performance of the street canyon through evaluation of
ventilation indices such as ventilation rate, air exchange rate (ACH), and
pollutant exchange rate (PCH).
Fulltext Case series – Giant epidermal inclusion cyst of gluteal region and chest

Muhammad Fairuz Shah Abd Karim, Kong, Chee-Kwan, AR Yusoff, Alizan A. Khalil

JUMMEC, 2020;23(2):99-102.
MyJurnal

Epidermal cyst is the most common type of cyst to occur in subcutaneous tissue. It is usually small, asymptomatic, and solitary in lesion. When the size is greater than 5 cm, it is classified as a giant epidermal cyst. If the size is big, it may sometimes mimic a soft tissue sarcoma, hence requiring further evaluation with imaging or histopathological studies. We report a case series of two patients whom presented with a huge swelling at different body regions, involving gluteal and chest. Both patients underwent different modes of imaging to delineate the anatomical extent of the lesion. Excision biopsy was done and the histopathological report confirmed epidermal cyst with no malignancy. The purpose of this case series is to describe the rare occurrence of giant epidermal cyst and to elaborate the methods of approach to arrive at the diagnosis.
Fulltext A rare case of an acute on chronic thoracoabdominal aortic dissection

Aaina Iryani Mubarak, Wan Nur Aida Wan Muhammad Shukri, Ahmad Khaldun Ismail

JUMMEC, 2020;23(2):103-106.
MyJurnal

Aortic dissection (AD) is a rare cardiovascular emergency with a high rate of mortality. Most patients present with typical signs and symptoms of AD. However, atypical presentation increases risk of delay in diagnosis and treatment. Patients may present with syncope, seizures or other neurological symptoms which may deceive the diagnosis of AD. Dissection can be in the acute or chronic phase, but there has been no documentation of an acute dissection which occurs in a chronic dissection. We hereby to report a case of an acute on chronic thoraco-abdominal dissection.
Fabrication and dialysis performance of functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes integrated cellulose acetate/poly(vinylpyrrolidone) membranes

Ashraf MA, Islam A, Butt MA, Hussain T, Khan RU, Bashir S, et al.

Int J Biol Macromol, 2021 Nov 30;191:872-880.
PMID: 34571131 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2021.09.131

Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) of cellulose acetate/poly(vinylpyrrolidone) (CA/PVP) infused with acid functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes (f-MWCNTs) were fabricated by an immersion phase separation technique for hemodialysis application. Membranes were characterized using FTIR, water uptake, contact angle, TGA, DMA and SEM analysis. The FTIR was used to confirm the bonding interaction between CA/PVP membrane matrix and f-MWCNTs. Upon addition of f-MWCNTs, TGA thermograms and glass transition temperature indicated improved thermal stability of MMMs. The surface morphological analysis demonstrated revealed uniform distribution of f-MWCNTs and asymmetric membrane structure. The water uptake and contact angle confirmed that hydrophilicity was increased after incorporation of f-MWCNTs. The membranes demonstrated enhancement in water permeate flux, bovine serum albumin (BSA) rejection with the infusion of f-MWCNTs; whereas BSA based anti-fouling analysis using flux recovery ratio test shown up to 8.4% improvement. The urea and creatinine clearance performance of MMMs were evaluated by dialysis experiment. It has been found that f-MWCNTs integrated membranes demonstrated the higher urea and creatinine clearance with increase of 12.6% and 10.5% in comparison to the neat CA/PVP membrane. Thus, the prepared CA/PVP membranes embedded with f-MWCNTs can be employed for wide range of dialysis applications.
Fulltext Population preferences and attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination: a cross-sectional study from Pakistan

Tahir MJ, Saqlain M, Tariq W, Waheed S, Tan SHS, Nasir SI, et al.

BMC Public Health, 2021 09 26;21(1):1759.
PMID: 34565351 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-021-11814-5

BACKGROUND: While vaccine development is itself a challenge; ensuring optimal vaccine uptake at population level can present an even more significant challenge. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the Pakistani population's attitude and preferences towards the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine.
METHOD: A cross-sectional study was carried out through an online self-administered questionnaire from 27 September 2020 to 11 October 2020. A total of 883 people responded to the survey. The questionnaire included the participants' socio-demographic variables, attitudes, beliefs towards the COVID-19 vaccine and acceptance and rejection of vaccination, and reasons for them. Logistic regression analysis was used to analyze the predictors for vaccine acceptance and willingness to pay for the vaccine.
RESULTS: A majority (70.8%) of respondents will accept the COVID-19vaccine if available, and 66.8% showed a positive attitude towards vaccination. Monthly family income, education level, self-diagnosis of COVID-19 or a friend, family member, or colleague are significant factors influencing the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination. The dogma of being naturally immune to COVID-19 was a key reason for the refusal of the vaccine. Less than half (48%) of those who refuse will vaccinate themselves if government officials have made it compulsory. A third (33.9%) of participants were willing to pay up to (7 USD) 1000 Pkr (Pakistani Rupees) for the vaccine.
CONCLUSION: The population's positive attitude should be improved by increasing awareness and eradicating false myths about vaccines through large-scale campaigns.
Fulltext The use of simulation technique among undergraduate nursing student

Mohd Said Nurumal, Mohammad Syafiq Mohamad Azizi, Muhammad Kamil Che Hasan

Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2020;16(105):10-0.
MyJurnal

Introduction: Simulation is widely practiced as learning strategies in many disciplines including nursing. It is con- sidered an updated technological approach towards providing safe and sound patients care. Thus, this study was conducted to assess the level of knowledge among nursing students using a simulated mannequin for cardiovascular assessment. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study design focusing Year 4 nursing students at Kulliyyah of Nurs- ing, International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). A simulation mannequin was used for students performing a cardiovascular assessment. Level of knowledge was tested using an adapted questionnaire. The study was approved by the Kulliyyah of Nursing Postgraduate Research Committee (Ref: IIUM/313/DDAA/20/4/10) and IIUM Research Ethics Committee (Ref: IREC 2018-024). Results: A total of 57 nursing students involved in this study revealing good cardiovascular assessment knowledge. Majority of them reported that simulation exercise is one of the good learning strategies to enhance their capabilities and increase their confidence level. Conclusions: The results from this study could indicate that using technological simulation approach could provide a similar effect in performing cardiovas- cular assessment among nursing student IIUM. Future larger scale is needed including for any other disciplines in nursing to facilitate students’ preparation towards the real clinical setting.
Fulltext Smart Bran Dispenser for Animal Husbandry Purpose

Muhammad Alif Azanuddin Alias, Nur Athirah Mohd Taib, Nurul Nadia Adnan

Malaysian Journal of Science, Health & Technology, 2021;7(1):56-61.
MyJurnal

The creation of technology in this century changes people’s life. Technology plays an important role that benefits young people and has increased agriculture production’s efficiency and profitability. Innovative technology mainly involved in animal feeding automation is currently one of Smart Bran Dispensers’ new inventions. This project approaches an innovative animal husbandry management system to improve the agricultural system’s efficiency, particularly livestock nutrition and feed resources. The benefit of this project is to facilitate animal feeding for breeders, which can be remotely controlled and detected by a tracking module that transmits a signal to the user and informs them of the status of the bran dispenser through the Blynk server. NodeMCU ESP8266 and Arduino UNO were implemented as the main controller.
Fulltext THE POTENTIAL OF LOCAL EARTHWORMS IN VERMICOMPOSTING GOAT MANURE (GM) AND SPENT COCONUT FLAKES (SCF)

Muhammad Faris bin Md Yusoff, Suhaizan binti Lob, Nurul Faziha Ibrahim

UMT Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2019;1(4):19-28.
MyJurnal

Vermicomposting is a process that involves biological, chemical and physical transformations of solid organic materials such as agricultural residues of plant and animal through the use of microorganisms and earthworms. There are three main classes of earthworms, and only those from one class are usually used for vermicomposting. However, mostly foreign earthworms are used in the setup. Foreign earthworms are more expensive and harder to obtain than local earthworms. This makes the local farmers reluctant to try since they are expensive. The difference in vermicompost using two species of epigeic earthworms, a local earthworm and a foreign earthworm (Eisenia fetida), and normal compost without any earthworms was measured in this study. Both species of earthworms were placed in identical vermibeds consisting of partially composted goat manure and partially composted spent coconut flakes (SCF) with the ratio of 5:1 respectively in terms of weight. The vermibed moisture content was maintained at 60 – 70% throughout the whole process. The end products showed a difference from one another. The E. fetida showed a better result compared to the local earthworms in terms of the nutrient content presence and the adaptability of the earthworms during the whole process. However, the end product from the local earthworms was still better compared to the normal compost without any earthworms.
Fulltext VESSEL LIFE JACKET COMPATIBILITY MOBILE APPS FOR SAFETY ASSESSMENT

MUHAMMAD SYUKRI HANAFI BASRI, MOHAMMAD AIZAT BASIR, AHMAD FAIZAL AHMAD FUAD

UMT Journal of Undergraduate Research, 2020;2(2):83-92.
MyJurnal

Life jacket is one of the safety appliances that can be found on the ship that provide buoyancy and prevention against drowning. Before the ship can sail, every element of safety of the vessel should be confirmed. Despite the establishment of standards for life jacket, both local and international, there have been cases of drowning associated with the usage of life jackets by the passengers of passenger boat/vessels for open-deck situation. Moreover, deficiency of information on safety instruction is reason the passengers are lack of personal safety information during on board. Thus, the evaluation on safety standard of life jackets and passenger vessel are vital for assessing the provision of the life jacket on board passenger vessel with respect to compatibility between life jacket and passenger vessel. In this paper, A Vessel Life Jacket Compatibility Mobile Apps (VELIT) was developed using software development methodology called Rational Unified Process (RUP) to automate the safety assessment process based on model called LCI (Life Jacket Compatibility Index). VELIT apps synchronized the safety assessment aspect and which allow user to compute the element in the model and produce the result of the safety assessment in real time. The VELIT apps are expected to be used in maritime area especially for ship safety assessment process.

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