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Fulltext Methane production from poultry waste; effect of different types of pre-treatment

Hazwani Hasmi, Asmida Ahmad, Faeiza Buyong

Science Letter, 2016;10(2):19-22.
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—Anaerobic digestion (AD) of biomass is a well-established process to produce renewable energy, where organic matter is converted to biogas by microorganism. High solid content and complex structure of sludge-derived organic matter, methane production during digestion is limited at the hydrolysis step. Therefore pre-treatment of substrate is a way to accelerate the hydrolysis step. This study aimed to identify the optimum pre-treatment method to increase the methane production from poultry waste prior anaerobic digestion. The poultry waste was mixed with water, pre-treated, seeded with inoculums. Chemical and thermochemical pre-treatment were performed with NaOH and Ca(OH)2. The AD was conducted in bioreactors and incubated in water bath at 37 °C for 15 days. Results obtained show that the highest methane yield was at the thermochemical pre-treatment with Ca(OH)2 with cumulative amount of methane at 1665.17 ppm followed by chemical pre-treatment with Ca(OH)2, thermochemical pre-treatment with NaOH and chemical pre-treatment with NaOH with cumulative amount of methane at 1381.76 ppm, 884.07 ppm and 607.98 ppm respectively. Based on the comparison of the results, the thermochemical pre-treatment with Ca(OH)2 is the best pre-treatment as it produced the highest methane yield.
Biodiversity of macroalgae in blue lagoon, the straits of Malacca, Malaysia and some aspects of changes in species composition

Asmida, Noor Akmal A, Sarah D

Sains Malaysiana, 2017;46:1-7.

This research was conducted to study the biodiversity status of marine macroalgae (seaweeds) in Blue Lagoon, Port
Dickson and assess the changes in species composition in the area. The sampling site is located in the west coast of
Peninsular Malaysia, which has been regarded as one of the Malaysia’s popular beach resort destinations. This tourist
spot has seen major physical changes over the last few decades. Despite habitat disturbance, our study recorded 44 species
of macroalgae with Sargassum asperifolium noted as a new record for this area. Brown seaweeds (Phaeophyta) and
green seaweeds (Chlorophyta) dominated the sampling areas with each division recorded 19 and 16 species, respectively.
Change to species composition was evident for the common genus Sargassum (Sargassaceae, Fucales). Chlorophyta
was mostly found in the upper intertidal to subtidal zones while Phaeophyta proliferated in the mid-tidal areas. The red
seaweeds (Rhodophyta) were distributed and grew better in lower light intensity in the subtidal zone. This study will
contribute to the seaweed database of Malaysia for future reference and this may help in the conservation of seaweeds.
Bio-electrochemical power generation in petrochemical wastewater fed microbial fuel cell

Sarmin S, Ethiraj B, Islam MA, Ideris A, Yee CS, Khan MMR

Sci Total Environ, 2019 Dec 10;695:133820.
PMID: 31416036 DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.133820

The petrochemical wastewater (PCW) from acrylic acid plants possesses a very high chemical oxygen demand (COD) due to the presence of acrylic acid along with other organic acids. The treatment of PCW by conventional aerobic and anaerobic methods is energy intensive. Therefore, the treatment of PCW with concurrent power generation by employing microbial fuel cell (MFC) could be a potential alternative to solve the energy and environmental issues. This study demonstrates the potentiality of PCW from acrylic acid plant with an initial COD of 45,000 mg L-1 generating maximum power density of 850 mW m-2 at a current density of 1500 mA m-2 using acclimatized anaerobic sludge (AS) as biocatalyst. The predominant microbes present in acclimatized AS were identified using Biolog GEN III analysis, which include the electrogenic genera namely Pseudomonas spp. and Bacillus spp. along with methanogenic archea Methanobacterium spp. The mechanism of electron transfer was elucidated by cyclic voltammetry (CV) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) which clearly demonstrated the natural metabolite-based electron transfer across the electrode/biofilm/solution interface. The abundance of the electron shuttle metabolites was increased with the microbial growth in the bulk solution as well as in the biofilm leading to a high power generation. The COD removal efficiency and the coulombic efficiency (CE) were found to be 40% and 21%, respectively after 11 days of operation using initial COD of 45,000 mg L-1. The low COD removal efficiency could drastically be increased to 82% when the initial COD of PCW was 5000 mg L-1 generating a power density of 150 mW m-2. The current work proves the feasibility of the MFC for the treatment of acrylic acid plant PCW using acclimatized anaerobic sludge (AS) as a biocatalyst.
Fulltext MYNursingHome: A fully-labelled image dataset for indoor object classification

Ismail A, Ahmad SA, Che Soh A, Hassan MK, Harith HH

Data Brief, 2020 Oct;32:106268.
PMID: 32984464 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2020.106268

A fully labelled image dataset serves as a valuable tool for reproducible research inquiries and data processing in various computational areas, such as machine learning, computer vision, artificial intelligence and deep learning. Today's research on ageing is intended to increase awareness on research results and their applications to assist public and private sectors in selecting the right equipments for the elderlies. Many researches related to development of support devices and care equipment had been done to improve the elderly's quality of life. Indoor object detection and classification for autonomous systems require large annotated indoor images for training and testing of smart computer vision applications. This dataset entitled MYNursingHome is an image dataset for commonly used objects surrounding the elderlies in their home cares. Researchers may use this data to build up a recognition aid for the elderlies. This dataset was collected from several nursing homes in Malaysia comprises 37,500 digital images from 25 different indoor object categories including basket bin, bed, bench, cabinet and others.
Fulltext Epiphytic Terrestrial Algae (Trebouxia sp.) as a Biomarker Using the Free-Air-Carbon Dioxide-Enrichment (FACE) System

Ismail A, Marzuki SD, Mohd Yusof NB, Buyong F, Mohd Said MN, Sigh HR, et al.

Biology (Basel), 2017 Mar 07;6(1).
PMID: 28272328 DOI: 10.3390/biology6010019

The increasing concentration of CO₂ in the atmosphere has caused significant environmental changes, particularly to the lower plants such as terrestrial algae and lichens that alter species composition, and therefore can contribute to changes in community landscape. A study to understand how increased CO₂ in the atmosphere will affect algal density with minimal adjustment on its natural ecosystem, and the suitability of the algae to be considered as a biomarker, has been conducted. The current work was conducted in the Free-Air-Carbon Dioxide-Enrichment (FACE) system located in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Malaysia. CO₂ was injected through special valves located along the ring surrounding specimen trees where 10 × 10 cm quadrats were placed. A total of 16 quadrats were randomly placed on the bark of 16 trees located inside the FACE system. This system will allow data collection on the effect of increased CO₂ without interfering or changing other parameters of the surrounding environment such as the wind speed, wind direction, humidity, and temperature. The initial density Trebouxia sp. was pre-determined on 1 March 2015, and the final density was taken slightly over a year later, on 15 March 2016. The exposure period of 380 days shed some light in understanding the effect of CO₂ on these non-complex, short life cycle lower plants. The results from this research work showed that the density of algae is significantly higher after 380 days exposure to the CO₂-enriched environment, at 408.5 ± 38.5 × 10⁴ cells/cm², compared to the control site at 176.5 ± 6.9 × 10⁴ cells/cm² (independent t-test, p < 0.001). The distance between the trees and the injector valves is negatively correlated. Quadrats located in the center of the circular ring recorded lower algal density compared to the ones closer to the CO₂ injector. Quadrat 16, which was nearing the end of the CO₂ valve injector, showed an exceptionally high algal density-2-fold higher than the average density at 796 ± 38.5 × 10⁴ cells/cm². In contrast, Quadrat 9, which was located in the center of the ring (lower CO₂ concentration), recorded only 277 ± 38.5 × 10⁴ cells/cm², which further supports the previous claim. Based on the data obtained, this study provides useful data in understanding the positive effect of CO₂ on algal density, in a natural environment, and suggests the use of epiphytic terrestrial algae as a biomarker.
Genomic landscape of childhood acute lymphoblastic leukemia in Malaysia: insights from array-CGH

Ismail A, Ahid F, Moi WN, Kamaluddin NR, Esa E, Yusoff YM, et al.

Mol Cytogenet, 2025 Mar 28;18(1):7.
PMID: 40155977 DOI: 10.1186/s13039-025-00709-4

BACKGROUND: Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) is the most common childhood cancer, comprising approximately 25% of pediatric malignancies. Notably, chromosomal aberrations and genetic alterations play a central role in the pathogenesis of ALL, serving as critical diagnostic and prognostic markers. In this study, we use array-based comparative genomic hybridization (array-CGH) to explore the landscape of copy number variations (CNVs) and variants of uncertain significance (VUS) in 67 Malaysian childhood ALL patients with normal karyotype.
RESULTS: A total of 36 pathogenic CNVs (26 gains, 10 losses) were identified in 19 (28.4%) patients which harbor genes related to the development of ALL. The genes include the MLLT3 (9p21.3), ETV6 (12p13.2), RUNX1 (21q22.12), ERG (21q22.2) and DMD (Xp21.1). On the other hand, a total of 46 variants of uncertain significance (VUS) was observed in 34 (50.7%) patients.
CONCLUSIONS: Our study indicates that array-CGH is able to identify and characterize the CNVs responsible for the pathogenesis of childhood ALL. However, further studies are required to determine the pathogenic implications of VUS in the development of childhood ALL.