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Foliar application of chitosan increases plant growth and ecofriendly control of Cucumis sativus leaf disease
No full textBiological prevention of plant disease with bio-pesticides is widely encouraged and recommended due to the high environmental risk of chemical pesticides. Because of their non-toxic, biodegradable, and biocompatible properties, chitosan and oligo-chitosan are well-known biocontrol agents. The objectives of this research were to determine the best chitosan foliar concentration for Cucumis Sativus growth and yield, and its leaf and fruit disease control. Observation towards the impact of chitosan as an environmentally approach to plant disease control will be explored. To grow Cucumis Sativus the medium used was 100% cocopeat, with electrical conductivity (EC) nutrient solution 1.9mS/cm. The concentrations of chitosan applied were 0, 25, 50, 75, 100 and 125 ppm. The chitosan was applied once a week. It started 30 days after sowing from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. As a result, the highest length of fruits was achieved at 75 ppm and the highest average diameter at 100 ppm chitosan concentration. Next, at 75 ppm, the impact of chitosan on the total number of fruits and the total weight showed a positive result. Furthermore, the effect of chitosan as an environmentally friendly plant disease control indicated that chitosan has a positive influence on cucumber plant fruit and leaf disease. Chitosan concentrations of 75–100 ppm show the best performance in controlling diseases that affect fruits and leaves. Based on the result, increase the chitosan concentration will increase the plant growth and control the cucumber disease. In conclusion, foliar applications of chitosan resulted in increased vegetative growth, better cucumber fruit quality and plant disease control compared to control plants (0 ppm)
Object Character Recognition for automatic labelling of pharmaceutical products
Get PDFIn the current modern era, storing data information from images or documents to a computer drive is in high demand as it can be utilized the information for various purposes, especially in the pharmaceutical industry. The current method of storing data information about pharmaceutical products is to manually key-in the information about the products to the computer system. Therefore, one simple method for storing information from documents on a computer system would be to scan the image or document and then save it as an image file. However, analysing this information from the image can be exceedingly difficult. There is a need for dependable manual labour to review the information on pharmaceutical products. For this reason, a method to automatically fetch and store the information from the image is required. Object Character Recognition (OCR) is a well-known method that can identify and process information from pixel-based images to text format. In this thesis, OCR is implemented to extract text characters from images for the labelling of pharmaceutical products. The challenges that are associated with this task include variances in illumination, rotation when acquiring the image, and the different fonts that are shown on the pharmaceutical product. Besides, there is too much information for the computer system to accurately retrieve from the images. In addition, Named Entity Recognition (NER) is implemented to identify the important information from the OCR process. The system successfully extracts all the important information for several pharmaceutical products and successfully converts them into a sample form. The results obtained by OCR show a 92.85% accuracy rate. Meanwhile, the results obtained by NER have a 100% accuracy rate for MAL numbers and a 90% accuracy rate for product names. Overall, it is hoped that this system may help to optimize the work in the pharmaceutical supply chain industry and contribute towards the national industry
Omega-3 fatty acids and astaxanthin produced by chlorella vulgaris and haematococcus pluvialis cultivated in chicken manure medium
Get PDFChicken manure contains a high concentration of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphate, which can be used to replace commercially available medium for growth of microalgae. Cultivating microalgae by using chicken manure as the nutrients can reduce the cost of cultivation and also increase the quality of fish pellet in aquaculture systems. This research was conducted to study the growth of Chlorella vulgaris and Haematococcus pluvialis in different concentrations of chicken manure on the growth of C. vulgaris and H. pluvialis. The concentration of omega-3 fatty acids in C. vulgaris and astaxanthin in H. pluvialis were determined by cultivating C. vulgaris and H. pluvialis in Bold Basal medium and Rudic medium respectively, and compared with chicken manure medium (CM). 50% of CM concentration was considered the best chicken manure concentration to replace commercial medium in C. vulgaris cultivation, although the Bold Basal Medium and 50% of CM has a comparable specific growth rate of 0.178 day-1 and 0.512 day-1 respectively. However, it will be much cost effective to use a waste product with high nutrients, i.e., CM instead of commercial medium to grow the microalgae. In H. pluvialis cultivation, the highest specific growth rate was obtained in 50% of CM and 40% of CM with 0.554 day-1 and 0.528 day-1, respectively. For omega-3 fatty acid, the highest concentration was obtained in 14.8% C. vulgaris in 10% of CM due to depletion of nitrogen, which causes the increase of fatty acid production in the microalgae. For astaxanthin production, H. pluvialis grown in 50% of CM gave highest concentration of astaxanthin (0.082 mg/mL). The increase in astaxanthin was due to low concentration of phosphorus in the growth medium
Solar-powered aquaponics prototype as sustainable approach for food production
No full textThis paper presents the establishment of a solar-powered aquaponics prototype as a sustainable, cost effective and environmentally sound approach for food production. In this study, a prototype bench top aquaponics rig with an integrated 20 W solar panel were fabricated for the cultivation of red Hybrid Tilapia (Oreochromis spp.) and leaf mustard (Brassica juncea). The size of the fish tank is about 29.5L and serves as the base for the setup. Additionally, the hydroponic grower compartment (0.45 m (L) × 0.32 m (W) × 0.13 m (H)) was stacked on top of the fish tank and was filled with LECA media bed for the plant growth. Two important operating parameters were studied. First, the amount of energy produced by the solar panel and the energy consumption by the water pump used in the setup. Secondly, the resultant effects from fish cultivation and plants growth on the water qualities and nitrification efficiency of the aquaponics unit. The aquaponics unit was operated for a month and the values of pH, temperature, and ammonia level were measured to be within the range of 6.4–7.2, 27.1–31.7 °C, and 1 mg·L-1, respectively. Survival rate for fish was about 75% with specific growth rate (SGR) of 3.75% per day and food conversion ratio of about 1.15. A slight nutrient deficiency was evident and plants showed a healthy growth with height gain as high as 5 cm was achieved. Despite raining season, our data shows that the energy produced via 20 W solar panel enabled the unit to run at night without depending on local electricity for nearly two hours. Clearly, a larger solar panel is needed for longer operation. Nevertheless, the study has proven the potential of operating a low cost aquaponics setup using renewable energy for a sustainable food production method
Synthesis of N, N(1,3-phenylene)dimethanimine: A useful resource for the removal of free fatty acid in waste vegetable oil
Get PDFDeveloping an efficient material for the removal of free fatty acids (FFAs) in waste vegetable oil is a challenge in the refining of vegetable oil in food and oleochemical industries. In response to this, N,N(1, 3-phenylene)dimethanimine (NPD) was synthesized via green reaction route without involving solvent. NPD was characterized using Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), X-ray diffraction (XRD), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), thermogravimetric (TG) analysis, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). NPD was then applied as a material for the removal of FFA from waste cooking oil (WCO). The synthesis process gave a high yield of 95% of NPD. The FTIR result revealed different functional groups in NPD, the TG showed mass loss at diverse temperature range revealing loss at 80–150, 180–250, 250–410 and 410–600 °C while loss above 600 °C was assigned to loss of char. while TEM revealed the surface of NPD to be smooth with an irregular shape. EDX results further demonstrated the presence of oxygen, nitrogen and carbon in NPD. Removal of FFA from WCO may be described by pseudo-second-order with an adsorption capacity of 42.30 L kg-1. The process obeyed Langmuir isotherm with ?H of -0.679 kJ mol-1 and ?S of -0.049 kJ mol-1 K-1 while ?G increased with increase in temperature. The Density Functional Theory (DFT) concept was used to explain the action of NPD as an adsorbent with the aid of lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) and the highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO). It revealed the mechanism of removal of FFA from WCO by NPD to be via nucleophilic interaction
Passively q-switched fiber laser employing graphene and carbon nanotubes saturable absorber
Get PDFPulse laser has charmed photonic properties due to its high photon energy, broad absorption bandwidth and easy thermal management. These advantages allow it to be widely used in various applications especially in the area of electronic devices, scientific research, industrial, military and medical treatment. Q-switched fiber laser which has the ability to generate an energetic short pulse from a laser by modulating the intra-cavity losses and Q factor of the laser resonator. This Q-switched technique is practical for obtaining high energy and peak power with solid-state bulk lasers from microsecond to nanosecond pulses. These criteria make the research on Q-switched fiber laser is highly demanding. There are numerous techniques to generate the Q-switched fiber laser such as semiconductor saturable absorption mirror (SESAM), nonlinear polarization rotation (NPR), nonlinear optical loop mirror (NOLM), and nonlinear amplifying loop mirror (NALM). These techniques have drawbacks in terms of complex design and high fabrication cost. For instance, SESAM needs additional optical components such as lens, mirror or U-bench. To overcome these drawbacks, passively Q-switched erbium doped fiber laser (EDFL) employing carbon based saturable absorber (SA) is proposed in view of its advantages of ultrafast recovery time, simple fabrication process and easy to incorporate in the cavity. In this research, the passively Q-switched EDFL was generated by using graphene and carbon nanotubes (single-walled carbon nanotube (SWCNT) and multi-walled carbon nanotube (MWCNT)) based SA. The fabrication of graphene and CNT SAs was done by using dip coating and drop casting method. Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) was used as the host polymer due to its excellent film-forming, very high flexibility and water-solubility. SWCNT SA solution was combined with PVA solution with the ratio of 1:1, 2:3 and 3:2, whereas MWCNT SA solution was mixed with PVA solution with the ratio of 1:1 and 2:3. Next, SAs were characterized for optical and physical spectroscopic characterization. For optical spectroscopic characterization, SAs were characterized by using Raman characterization and surface morphology, and for physical characterization was done by observing the thickness of the SA materials. The performance of Q-switched EDFL was analyzed in the same ring cavity configuration by using graphene, SWCNT and MWCNT based SA. The properties of passively Q-switched EDFL namely the output spectrum, repetition rate, pulse width, pulse energy, output power, pulse train, and signal to noise ratio were analyzed. When the performance of the three SAs was compared, the SWCNT 2:3 ratio SA had the best pulse width of 3.31μs, repetition rate of 134.4 kHz, and SNR value of 52 dB. The SWCNT with the ratio of 3:2 attained the highest pulse energy of 29.98 nJ. The findings of this research provide significant steps toward the development of future research in the advanced pulse laser technology especially in the application of industrial, military and medical area
Assessment of environmental performance criteria in textile industry using the Best-Worst Method
No full textThe current consumption of clothing and textile causes great environmental concerns in the society, especially textile waste. With increasing environmental awareness, textile industries have begun to consider environmental issues in their production. This study evaluated and prioritized the important environmental performance criteria related to textile industry. In this paper, a recently developed multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) method, namely Best-Worst Method (BWM) which can solve decision making problems based on limited pairwise comparisons, was used to evaluate the environmental performance criteria in textile industry in order to derive the weights of the criteria and priorities of the sub-criteria. This study used five environmental performance criteria and twenty sub-criteria selected from the literature and validated by experts. After that, the BWM calculated the importance of each criterion. The findings showed that raw material, chemical oxygen demand and fresh water are the most important criteria while fabric waste, methane and non-biodegradable material are the least crucial criteria. This research provided useful insights for stakeholders in textile industry so that they can benefit from the results to optimize their operations
Rethinking empowering development environment to improve youth empowerment and civic engagement
Get PDFThe lack of youth empowerment has becoming a major concern for the socioeconomic growth of a nation, including Malaysia. Poor execution of policy and planning for the youth, and the lack of acknowledgment of youth capabilities on their contributions to the national economy has widen the generation and knowledge gap. This will become a major issue as the increasing number of youth in the world, and the rising rate of youth unemployment and the low average salary of fresh graduates, where it will expose to the risk of political instability, economic pain for the modest income-earners, and worsening communal value relations that will hinder Malaysia’s economy to the right path towards new growth engines that is sustainable and inclusive. Due to the lack of youth empowerment, there is a need to approach and acknowledge the hidden assets that the youth and the community represent, and make the public services as driving factor of Malaysia’s economic boost, as to generate meaningful economic contributions from community empowering processes to empowered production. The aim of this study is to look into the use of empowering development environment for the youth through civic engagement and participation of Sherry R. Arnstein’s civic engagement concept in order to improve the quality of life of the youth and their community. The objective of this research is to investigate the use of empowering development environment through youth engagement, empowerment, and integration through architectural design approaches in order to reduce the socioeconomic impacts of the community. Qualitative research paradigm was used to conduct this study as the empowering development environment is reliant on the qualitative data and feasibility literature. The analysis is carried out at the end of this dissertation by incorporating the empowering development environment with architecture design approach as an intervention of the youth empowerment
Impact of airline service quality on passenger satisfaction and loyalty: moderating influence of price sensitivity and quality seekers
No full textPassenger loyalty is one of the key success factors for the airline industry in most global markets. Four airlines based out of the United Arab Emirates (UAE); Emirates, Etihad, Flydubai and Air Arabia use airports in UAE as their hubs and compete for this highly sought-after passenger market. The strategies deployed by each company revolves around optimising their service offerings and pricing. Whether such strategies will be sustainable in the long term depends on a nuanced understanding of the relationship between service quality, passenger satisfaction and loyalty, in the backdrop of the consumer psychology related to price sensitivity and salience for quality among the passengers (quality seekers). The extant literature indicates that various studies have been undertaken to examine how service quality impacts customer satisfaction and loyalty using SERVQUAL and AIRQUAL models, among other theoretical frameworks. Nevertheless, relatively few studies have examined the impact of multiple dimensions of airline service quality on satisfaction and loyalty. Furthermore, there appears to be a dearth of studies that investigate how the above relationships are influenced by the constructs; price sensitivity and quality seekers. Therefore, the current study investigates the relationship between Pre-, In-, and Post-flight service quality and passenger satisfaction and loyalty when the relationships are moderated by price sensitivity and quality seekers. The research model comprises of a set of hypotheses that are tested using a sample of 386 passengers surveyed at three airports in UAE. The analysis conducted through SmartPLS confirms that price sensitivity and quality seekers weaken the relationships between service quality and passenger satisfaction. The findings of this study carry significant implications for theory and practice through a finer-grained understanding of how consumer preferences impact the linkage between service quality, satisfaction and loyalty
Production and characterization of biodiesel from canola oil through enzymatic transesterification
Get PDFBiodiesel, a promising type of biofuel, can be produced from various types of renewable feedstocks, ranging from animal fats to plant oil. It is mainly made up of fatty acid alkyl ester compounds due to the transesterification reaction. This work aims to synthesize and characterize biodiesel, known as fatty acid methyl esters, from canola oil using an enzymatic reaction involving immobilized Novozym 435 and Rhizomucor miehei (RM IM) lipase enzymes.4 g of canola oil was added to the reaction mixture consisting of 0.2 g immobilized lipase and 3:1 methanol to oil ratio. First, the enzymatic methanolysis reaction was conducted at the temperature of 35°C and at agitation rate of 216 rpm for 24 hours. Next, the synthesized biodiesel was characterized using the Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectroscopy (GC/MS) analysis. Based on the analysis results, the main fatty acid methyl esters present in both products were hexadecanoic acid, 9-octadecenoic acid (z)-, 9,12,15-octadecatrienoic acid, (z, z, z)-, and 11,14-eicosadienoic acid. The transesterification of canola oil using both enzymes consistently revealed methyl oleate as the methyl ester with the highest composition, ranging from 67 to 71 %. In conclusion, canola oil was successfully converted into fatty acid methyl ester via the enzymatic transesterification process in this study