This study was conducted to identify the practices of Malay chefs in preparing traditional Malay dishes at hotels in the Klang Valley. In addition, this study aimed to identify the level of knowledge and practices of these chefs with regard to traditional cooking and to analyse how the knowledge could be passed on to the younger generation of Malay chefs. In reality, these practices and traditions which include the practices in food preparation, skills and cooking techniques to maintain the authenticity and sustainability of the traditional Malay cuisine are slowly being neglected, especially among those in the hotel industry. The younger generation of Malay chefs no longer seems to take pride in the traditional way of cooking. In addition, the use of processed food in Malay kitchens is very common today. In order to achieve the aims of the study, a qualitative research was conducted. Chefs at various hotels in the Klang Valley were interviewed to determine their current practices. The findings showed that the techniques of cooking traditional Malay foods have been tainted with modern culinary techniques due to a lack of exposure and knowledge in traditional Malay cuisine. In general, traditional cooking methods are viewed as outdated, obsolete and not in accordance to modernisation. By conforming to the style of cooking with modern equipment and technology, this has indirectly altered the prevailing practices of the traditional food preparation in hotels.
In this paper, a configuration of a single-stage AC-DC converter and a high voltage resonant controller
IC L6598 for LED street light driver is discussed. The converter is obtained by integrating two boost
circuits and a half-bridge LLC resonant circuit. A voltage double rectifier circuit is adopted as output
to lower the voltage stress on transformer and the associated core. The two boost circuits work in
boundary conduction mode (BCM) to achieve the power factor correction (PFC). The converter works
in soft-switching mode allowing the power switches to operate in zero-voltage-switching (ZVS) and
the output diodes to operate in zero-current-switching (ZCS). This reduces the switching losses and
enhances the efficiency. The converter features lower voltage stress on the power switches and the bus
voltage is reduced to slightly higher than the peak input voltage. Therefore, the converter can perform
well under high-input-voltage. Here, the DC bus and the output filter capacitances are greatly reduced.
So, electrolytic capacitor-less converter can be realized for a long lifetime LED driver. Simulation results
from PSpice are presented for a 100-W prototype.
Non-edible Ceiba oil has the potential to be a sustainable biofuel resource in tropical countries that can replace a portion of today's fossil fuels. Catalytic deoxygenation of the Ceiba oil (high O/C ratio) was conducted to produce hydrocarbon biofuel (high H/C ratio) over NiO-CaO5/SiO2-Al2O3 catalyst with aims of high diesel selectivity and catalyst reusability. In the present study, response surface methodology (RSM) technique with Box-Behnken experimental designs (BBD) was used to evaluate and optimize liquid hydrocarbon yield by considering the following deoxygenation parameters: catalyst loading (1-9 wt. %), reaction temperature (300-380 °C) and reaction time (30-180 min). According to the RSM results, the maximum yield for liquid hydrocarbon n-(C8-C20) was found to be 77% at 340 °C within 105 min and 5 wt. % catalyst loading. In addition, the deoxygenation model showed that the catalyst loading-reaction time interaction has a major impact on the deoxygenation activity. Based on the product analysis, oxygenated species from Ceiba oil were successfully removed in the form of CO2/CO via decarboxylation/decarbonylation (deCOx) pathways. The NiO-CaO5/SiO2-Al2O3 catalyst rendered stable reusability for five consecutive runs with liquid hydrocarbon yield within the range of 66-75% with n-(C15 + C17) selectivity of 64-72%. Despite this, coke deposition was observed after several times of catalyst usage, which is due to the high deoxygenation temperature (> 300 °C) that resulted in unfavourable polymerization side reaction.