Malaysian Journal of Applied Sciences (Journal of UniSZA - Universiti Sultan Zainal Abidin)
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Instrumental Measurement, Sensory Descriptive Analysis and Consumer Acceptability of “Kaya” Supplemented with Pumpkin Puree
Full text linkKaya toast is a common choice for traditional Malaysian home breakfasts. Kaya, a spread made from eggs, sugar, coconut milk, and sometimes edible starch, is notable for its elevated levels of fat and sugar, contributing to its calorie content. In order to improve its nutritional content, pumpkin puree was supplemented into the kaya formulations. The objectives of the present study were to determine the sensory descriptive profile and consumer acceptability of kaya supplemented with different percentages of pumpkin puree (control: 0%, F1: 20%, F2: 40% and F3: 60%), as well as to evaluate the relationship between the instruments, descriptive and consumer acceptability data. The quality of kaya was evaluated by 10 trained (quantitative descriptive analysis) and 40 untrained (consumer testing) panelists. For instrumental measurements, the kaya was evaluated for its colour, texture and observed under optical microscope. The instrumental data of colour and texture were in good agreement to the one evaluated by the trained panelists. The colour of the kaya became more orangey (decreasing L* values and increasing a* values) with an increase in the amount of pumpkin puree. A higher amount of pumpkin puree resulted in a rougher, firmer, less sticky and less spreadable kaya. The kaya made with 60% pumpkin puree exhibited the softest texture due to the absence of eggs. Among the formulations, kaya supplemented with 20% pumpkin puree was rated the highest acceptance by consumer, thus indicates that consumer prefer kaya that quite similar to control
Materials and Corrosion in Seawater Reverse Osmosis Plants: A Review
Full text linkDesalination is emerging as one of the most promising solutions to extraction and increasing global demand for drinking water. A water purification process called reverse osmosis (RO), in which dissolved solids are separated from solutions by partially permeable membranes. Advances in membrane technology have resulted in the removal of up to 99% of salts in seawater. However, the process and system of seawater treatment RO are associated with many problems, such as scaling and fouling of the membranes, corrosion of the pumps, valves and piping system due to the highly concentrated salt solution and high chemical consumption. Nowadays, these problems have become very critical as they severely affect the desalination process and also massively deteriorate the performance and lifetime of the system components and materials. To ensure that the desalination process is always the best option for a low-maintenance, highly efficient and cost-effective system and process, a comprehensive study of these problems is essential. Therefore, this article addresses the characteristics of metallic materials and corrosion problems in the reverse osmosis process of seawater desalination, as well as the best solutions to focus on and evaluate for an optimal seawater desalination process, and the selection of the category of duplex stainless steels suitable for seawater desalination plants to reduce maintenance, avoid plant shutdown and ensure plant safety
A Note on Redesign Material Substitution and Topology Optimization in a Lightweight Robotic Gripper
Full text linkThe gripper is required because it is the portion of the robot that makes direct contact with the object being grasped. It should weigh as little as possible without compromising functionality or its performance. This study aims to reconsider the construction of a lightweight robotic gripper by modifying the gripper's materials and topology. Using the finite element (FE) method, several types of gripper materials were evaluated for static stress. On the basis of the results of the FE analysis, the optimal material candidate was chosen using the weighted objective method. Using the Fusion 360 software, the topology of the selected material was then optimized in an effort to achieve the 40% weight reduction’s objective. In addition, the suggested optimized geometry is then fine-tuned so that it can be manufactured as efficiently as possible. The final step in the validation of the robotic gripper's design was stress static analysis. The revised gripper design has a mass of 0.08 kg, a reduction of 94% from the original mass, and a safety factor of 3.67%, which satisfies the desired level of performance for the robotic gripper. Utilizing different materials and optimizing the gripper's topology can significantly reduce the overall mass of a robotic gripper.
 
Water Hammer Analysis in Water Pipelines and Methods for Protection
Full text linkIn water processing industry, pressurised pipeline problems bring dangerous consequences, causing flooding, traffic accidents or death, financial and material losses and the disruption of the water supply. There are some problems in water pressurised pipelines system occur gradually, and some problems occur in very sudden without any warning with massive impacts and harms. Most of the sudden events that affect water system and municipal operation and maintenance centres are the phenomenon of sudden explosions and cracks in water pipes which lead to disaster. The phenomenon of water hammer is as a result of imperfect design or poor operation methods. The transition in the pressurised pipeline from one steady state to another steady state such as from a constant velocity to another velocity without a protection system make huge in pressure change. Any change in velocity leads to a pressure changes in very short time will cause to disaster strikes for the system stabilization. Professional design of liquid pipelines and proper selection of materials prevents the phenomenon of water hammer. Therefore, in this paper, the important issues on water hammer, protection systems and professional planning with special software programmes such as Allievi software was addressed
Exploring YouTube Comments to Understand Public Sentiment on COVID-19 Vaccines through Deep Learning-based Sentiment Analysis
Full text linkCOVID-19 was first found in China in 2019. Since then, it has quickly spread around the world, which has led to a lot of news stories and social media posts about the pandemic. YouTube, a popular video-sharing website, has become a valuable source of information on COVID-19 and other topics. However, it can be difficult to extract useful insights from the vast array of user comments that accompany these videos. One potential method for understanding public sentiment is to use sentiment analysis, which involves classifying text as positive, negative, or neutral. In this study, the dataset of over 44,000 YouTube comments related to COVID-19 vaccines was used, which was filtered to a total of 16,073 comments for analysis. The data was cleaned and organised using NeatText and then processed using GloVe word embedding, a technique for establishing statistical relationships between words. Based on the experiment, the performances of three different types of deep learning techniques: recurrent neural networks (RNN), gated recurrent units (GRU) and long short-term memory (LSTM) are compared in accurately classifying the sentiment of the comments. The study found that the GRU had the highest accuracy of 80.19%, followed by the LSTM with 79.00% accuracy, and the RNN with 67.15% accuracy
Floriculture Industry: Multifunction Leaves Stem Cutting Machine for Small Medium-sized Enterprises
Full text linkThe floriculture industry plays a crucial role in the global economy by providing not only aesthetic value but also contributing significantly to agricultural employment and the export market. However, the efficiency and sustainability of SMEs in floriculture are often hindered by labourintensive practices, especially in the propagation of plants through stem cutting. This novel multifunction leaves stem cutting machine designed specifically to cater to the needs of SMEs in the floriculture sector. This machine serves the function to separate the flowers and leaves for selling purposes. It has gained lots of interest specifically in the flower-related field, florist businesses, and leaves extraction processes due to its convenient applications in separating the leaves from the flowers. However, readily available machines such as rose cutting machine are lack in it functions where it only operates only one function. The deficiency of the current product may cause serious injury to employees because the existing machine does not have good safety features that can avoid the workers being injured while carrying out the work. The objective of this study is to design, fabricate and test the functionality of the new system and ergonomic multifunction leaves stem cutting machine. The design was created by using Fusion 360 with the main part separating leaves, cutting the stem, washing part, and system part. All the processes will be carried out on the machine that have safety features that will not harm the user. The machine demonstrated exceptional performance including consistency of the machine that will benefits the SMEs with high productivity and lower production cost
Prediction Of Carboxylic Acid Toxicity Using Machine Learning Model
Full text linkCarboxylic acids are organic compounds characterized by the presence of a carboxyl functional group capable of donating a proton and forming carboxylate ions in aqueous solutions. The carboxylic acid has widely been used in in manufacturing and medical applications. The rapid growth in carboxylic acid has established a need to predict its toxicity. The purpose of this paper to build predictive toxicity of carboxylic acid models by using five molecular descriptors (refractive index, The octanol/water partition coefficient (log P), acid dissociation constant (pKa), density, and dipole moment) through Machine Learning algorithms. The accuracy of the Machine Learning algorithm was determined by using three different types of models which are Decision Tree, Random Forest and k-Nearest Neighbour (k-NN). Among the machine learning algorithms used, we have determined that the decision tree is the best model for predicting the toxicity of carboxylic acid. This finding demonstrates that the decision tree model exhibits an acceptable level of performance in predicting toxicity within the field of toxicology
Preliminary Ethnoichthyological Assessment: Fish Consumption Patterns among Orang Asli Semelai (Aborigines: Proto-Malay) in Tasek Bera, Pahang
Full text linkEthnoichthyology, as a field of study, examines the indigenous knowledge held by ethnic groups concerning different fish species. Despite its significance in understanding traditional fishing practices and cultural connections to aquatic resources, data on fish species consumption among the Orang Asli Semelai community remain limited. Therefore, this ethnoichthyological preliminary study aims to address this research gap by documenting the fish species utilized by the Orang Asli Semelai in the Tasek Bera region of Pahang, Malaysia. To achieve this objective, a comprehensive survey and interview session were conducted with a small sample size of four randomly chosen respondents. The study identified 15 fish species solely consumed as food by the community. The most commonly consumed fish species were the Climbing Perch (Anabas testudineus) and Snakehead Murrel (Channa striata). Additionally, the study revealed the presence of the Critically Endangered Jullien's Golden Carp (Probarbus jullieni) among the consumed species, indicating the urgent need for conservation efforts. The findings underscore the significance of integrating sustainable fishing practices and conservation efforts to protect the unique ecosystem of Tasek Bera and preserve the cultural heritage of the Orang Asli Semelai community. Further comprehensive studies and collaborative approaches are vital to safeguarding the region's aquatic biodiversity and ensuring the community's food security sustainably
Application of Internet of Things (Iot) for Physicochemical Parameters Measurement in The PVC and Bamboo Material
Full text linkAquaculture is the practice of cultivating and farming aquatic organisms under controlled conditions. High pH conditions, more toxic ammonia is present which can be harmful to aquatic organisms, particularly fish. The presence of ammonia in water can have implications for dissolved oxygen (DO) levels. The purpose of this study was to develop Internet of things (IoT) for measurement pH, DO and ammonia-nitrogen using Blynk platform. Additionally, the study aimed to determine physicochemical parameters trend in aquaponic system using IoT application. The reading of pH and DO from IoT sensor were collected from Blynk platform every ten seconds and ammonia nitrogen was observed twice a month. The presence of ammonia nitrogen in aquaponic system was determined using Nitrogen-ammonia reagent set, TNT, AmVer (Salicylate), High range. The data from this study were statistically analysed using Microsoft Excel 2019 to perform one-way ANOVA. Through this study, it could be concluded that internet accessibility is statistically significant to intention to use internet of things (IoT) application and the use of IoT sensors in aquaponic systems has yielded advantage
Effects of Graded Levels of Xylanase-Treated Rice Husk on Nutrient Digestibility and Growth Performance of Broiler Chickens
Full text linkThis study investigated the feeding value of Aspergillus tubingensis xylanase-treated rice husk in broiler chickens. The objectives of the study are (I) to investigate the effect of xylanase treatment on the utilization of rice husk in broiler chickens and (II) to determine the optimum level of xylanase-treated rice husk that can be tolerated by broiler chickens. Xylanases are hydrolytic enzymes that degrade xylan and hemicelluloses located in plant cell walls, into xylose which is a reducing sugar and enhancing nutrient digestibility in animal feeds. The production of extracellular xylanase by a locally isolated Aspergillus tubingensis was conducted using solid-state fermentation. The selected isolate was identified by cultural techniques and verified by molecular identification. Conventional feed ingredients such as maize is the primary cereal as source of energy in broiler diet. High cost, availability and competition existing among man, industry and livestock has necessitated the need to find cheap and available alternative feedstuffs for maize in poultry diet. Rice husk is one of the alternative feedstuffs but characterized by high fibre content and Non-Starch Polysaccharide (NSP) (Dalibord, 2006). Thus, addition of the xylanase enzyme breaks the NSPs resulting in plant cell wall destruction after releasing the trapped nutrients such as starches and proteins within fibre-rich cell walls (Gade et al., 2017). Crude xylanase produced was used for enzymatic degradation of rice husk to improve its nutritional value. The rice husk was initially subjected to physical pre-treatment by soaking in water for 24 hours or ground to increase the surface area. Pre-treated rice husk was treated by spraying xylanase onto the rice husk at 100g/ 0.2mL representing the concentration level that recorded the best degradation of fibre content in the treated rice husk. Xylanase-treated rice husk (XTRH) was used with other ingredients in formulating a broiler chicken diet at different inclusion levels. The experiment was a complete randomized design with five experimental diets containing xylanase-treated rice husk at different inclusion levels 0, 5, 10, 15 and 20 kg/100kg. The control diet contained no xylanase-treated rice husk (XTRH). There were five (5) treatments each with three (3) replicate cages of eight (8) broiler chicks totalling 120 birds for the feeding trial. One hundred and twenty (120) day-old chicks with an average weight of 54.85g were randomly allotted to five dietary treatments formulated with 0 (control), 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% (XTRH), and fed for eight weeks. There were three replicates of eight (8) birds per treatment. Results showed that the performance of Broiler chickens such as feed intake, and weight gain feed fed diet containing a 20% inclusion level of xylanase-treated rice husk was significantly higher (p<0.05) compared to other treatment diets. This showed an improvement in the utilization of a high-fibre diet, nutrient digestibility, growth performance, and carcass characteristics which can be beneficial to farmers in reducing the cost of feed, and increasing savings and profit margin. Conclusively, the application of xylanase produced by Aspergillus tubingensis on rice husk may have enhanced efficient enzymatic hydrolysis of its fibre fractions and improved its nutritional values. Supplementation of rice husk treated with xylanase at 100g/0.2mL concentration level and included at 20% in broiler chicken may enhance nutrient digestion and utilization and improve the growth performance of broiler chickens