Universiti Teknikal Malaysia Melaka: UTeM Open Journal System
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Comparative Adsorption Of Crude Oil Using Coconut Shell And Coconut Shell Activated Carbon
Get PDFCoconut shell (CS) and Coconut Shell Activated Carbon (CSAC) as effective adsorbents for removal of crude oil were examined in this work through batch experiments. Variation in adsorption efficiencies was observed with respect to adsorbate loading, adsorbent loading, contact time, temperature, rotational speed, and pH of the mixture. Langmuir, Freundlich, Temkin and Dubinin-Radushkevich isotherms were used to study the adsorption of the crude oil for both adsorbents, and it was observed that the mechanism of adsorption was of a multi- molecular-layer in nature. Fourier Transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy analyses were also carried out on the two adsorbents, before and after adsorption. The results indicated the presence of crude oil component functional groups on the two adsorbents. Optimum values of the six variable parameters for CS and CSAC adsorption were obtained using design of experiments (DOE). Optimum crude oil removal with CS was 51.32% at pH of 6.9, 49.18°C, mixed for 52.35 minutes at a speed of 347.50 rpm, using 3.76 g absorbent on a 0.06 g/L adsorbate mixture, while 91.25% removal was observed when CSAC was used at optimum pH of 6.2, 62.93°C, mixed for 70.12 minutes at a speed of 482.50 rpm, using 4.26 g absorbent on a 0.07 g/L adsorbate mixture. The enhanced effect from CS activation was justified statistically using ANOVA and Bonferroni-Holm Posthoc significance test, confirming that CS and CSAC are useful for crude oil adsorption
Power Quality Improvement Based On PSO Algorithm Incorporating UPQC
Get PDFThe usage of the term power quality is increasing day by day with extensive usage of large capacity loads and nonlinear loads. The major power quality issues are voltage disturbances and current disturbances in the present-day power systems. Today, with the advent of power semiconductor devices these power quality issues are solved to a great extent. The unified power quality conditioner is one such power semiconductor device which utilizes active filtering methodology to deal with the concerned power quality issues. Here an attempt is made to control and generate the reference currents and voltages for a unified power quality conditioner with the optimal tuned synchronous reference frame theory. The particle swarm optimization is employed to evolve gains of the proportional-integral controller. The unified power quality conditioner is a combination of shunt and series voltage source converters. The hysteresis band current controller for series and the pulse width modulation current controller for the shunt active filter are used for generation of gating pulses required by the switches of the voltage source converters in the unified power quality conditioner. The performance evaluation of multi-objective convergence fitness function (dealing: the voltage sag, the source current variations, and the load voltage variations) with unified power quality conditioner based on particle swarm optimization algorithm is performed. The efficacy of the proposed work is validated by conducting simulations in MATLAB/SIMULINK software environment.
The Sustainable Service Management Factors in High Technology Transport Service Industry
No full textRecently, environmental sustainability has become a global concern and the majority of world organizations are striving hard to achieve this mission. Despite, many studies have attempted to explore the factors that help towards environmental sustainability in the manufacturing sector, the service sector has not yet received a considerable attention in all countries generally and in developing countries particularly. Thus, this paper aims to explore the factors that help to attain environmental sustainability in the service sector. A case study through fifteen semi-structured interviews is conducted with managers from AirAsia as the High Technology Transport Service Provider to explore the factors that are related to environmental sustainability and green services. The finding of this paper emphasizes to three important factors namely top management support, ensure quality control and organizational capabilities towards sustainable services on green practices rather than the economic gain on profit maximization alone
Feasibility of Food Recognition and Calorie Estimation of Fast Food and Healthy Meals Available in the Philippines
Get PDFThis paper presents the design and development of a food recognition smartphone application which can also display the estimated calorie/s of the food itself. It is intended for people who would like to monitor their diet through food calorie intake measurement (i.e. user’s daily calorie intake record). It is equipped with a food database consisting of typical fruits and vegetables commonly found in the Philippines. As part of the study, it also includes some of the meals in food chains (i.e. McDonald's, and The Healthy Corner) found in the Philippines where the calorie information is readily available. The result shows 82.86 % accuracy for the top-1 category, and 99.29 % for the top-5 category. The algorithm being used in this project is Artificial Neural Network (ANN) wherein the recognition process must properly be achieved. Furthermore, the aforementioned database is supported by TensorFlow which is an open-source software library for Machine Intelligence
Rearrangement of Coordinate Selection for Triangle Features Improvement in Digit Recognition
Get PDFTriangle geometry feature demonstrated as useful properties in classifying the image. This feature has been implemented in numerous recognition field such as biometric area, security area, medical area, geological area, inspection area and digit recognition area. This study is focusing on improving triangle features in digit recognition. Commonly, triangle features are explored by determining three points of triangle shape which represent as A, B and C to extract useful features in digit recognition. There is possibilities triangle shape cannot be formed when chosen coordinate are in line. Thus, a prior study has proposed an improvement on triangle selection point technique by determining the position of coordinate A, B and C use gradient value to identify the triangle shape can be modelled or vice versa. The suggested improvement is based on the dominant distribution which only covers certain areas of an image. Hence, a method named Triangle Point using Three Block (Tp3B) was proposed in this study. The proposed method proposes the arrangement of selection coordinate point based on three different blocks which where all coordinates points of an image were covered. Experiments have developed over image digit dataset of IFCHDB, HODA, MNIST and BANGLA which contains testing and train data of each. Features classification accuracy tested using supervised machine learning (SML) which is Support Vector Machine (SVM). Experimental results show, the proposed technique gives a promising result for dataset HODA and MNIST
Survey on Public Participation of Malaysia’s MRT Project with Reference To Environmental Impact Assessment
No full textPublic participation plays a very important role to ensure the process of developing a country has support from the citizen as well as letting the citizen know on the development which might affect them later on. Public participation has been used in various matters and is widely known as a requirement in regulation, internationally and domestically. However, this paper focuses on the environmental impact assessment (EIA) process and it concentrates on public participation process in EIA. This study is carried out to identify why there is a need for improvement in public participation of EIA process. The study uses the MRT project in Malaysia as its case study. The study leads to identify the level of public understanding and level of public participation in EIA process
Persuasiveness of Web 2.0 Technologies in an Educational Context
Get PDFThe use of the application of web 2.0 technologies such as social media, blogs, youtube, and line in everyday communication is commonplace. The use of these technologies in communication can bring persuasiveness aspect for users. Therefore, feasibility and suitability of the web 2.0 technologies as persuasive technologies need to be prepared and analyzed. This study focuses on aspects of the web 2.0 technology acceptance as persuasive on students in an education system. Higher education students were selected as the participants of this study. A PLS-SEM analysis was conducted to measure the potential effect of the web 2.0 technologies as persuasive technology using TAM, UTAUT and Persuasive Potential Questionnaire. This study found that the dimensions of Perceived Persuasive Individual Potential and Intention to Use the System affects the user’s intention leading to changes in students’ behavior
Optimum Allocation of Reactive Power Sources for Voltage Stability Improvement and Loss Minimization in Power Distribution Systems
Get PDFThe real power losses in distribution systems are generally quite appreciable, constituting a major portion of the overall system losses. Low power factors and poor voltage profiles are the main reasons for higher losses and unsatisfactory conditions of power supply to the consumers. Installation of reactive power sources at suitable locations in distribution systems is usually suggested for the dual purpose of achieving improved voltage profiles and reduction in real power losses. Analytical methods are available to find the optimum locations and size of shunt capacitors in primary radial feeders. Most of these methods assume only uniformly loaded radial feeders while very few methods consider feeders with distributed load. However, these methods have limited application and cannot be applied to complex distribution systems, typically urban systems, where the conductor gradation also varies amongst the various feeders. On load transformer tap settings also change the reactive power distribution in the network and hence it is important to account for them while deciding the reactive power compensation requirements in distribution systems. A novel method has been developed for finding the optimum location of feeding point/reactive power compensation point in distribution systems. Results based on the proposed methods and successfully applied to a complex distribution system and an L.T and an H.T radial distribution system are presented. Results on 32-Bus Urban distribution system showed that the system power loss for initial and optimization for case-A and case-B are 23.0, 15.00, and 14.20 MW, respectively
Fabrication of Porous Titanium-Hydroxyapatite Composite via Powder Metallurgy with Space Holder Method
No full textThe porous structure of metals has been attracting a growing interest, particularly the use of titanium for bone implants as it promotes cell growth and matches the elastic modulus of the human bone. A porous titanium-hydroxyapatite (Ti-HA) composite was successfully fabricated through the powder metallurgy route using the space holder method. Ti, HA and NaCl space holder were mixed with a binder system consisting of palm stearin (PS) and low-density polyethylene (LDPE). The mixture was later put through a hot press process at a pressure of 20 bars and a temperature of 150 °C. The binders were removed in a two-step process; solvent and thermal de-binding, followed by sintering in a high vacuum furnace at 1300 °C for 5 hours holding time. The Ti-HA at the ratio of 9:1 possessed the best compressive strength and the strength was in the range of 2-70 MPa, which is the range for the trabecular bone of humans. The XRD analysis revealed the existence of a new β-TCP phase due to the decomposition of the HA at a high temperature which resulted in biocompatibility, thereby, indicating a promising prospect for the use of the material in medical implants in the future
Sliding Mode Observer Based Controller for Active Steering Control
Get PDFThe purpose of this paper is to enhance the performance of steering control of a vehicle. A nonlinear sliding mode observer based active steering controller that will overcome the disturbances such as road condition and crosswind is proposed. Condition of stability is given by using Lyapunov stability theory that relates to sliding mode characteristics. The controller proves that it is able to stabilize the steering wheel better when disturbances such as braking action and crosswind are included in the system. Lastly, simulations are given to prove the validity of the controller stability. In the simulations, comparisons are made between the outcome of the uncontrolled, Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR), Sliding Mode Controller (SMC) and Sliding Mode Observer Based Controller (SMOC)