Investigating factors for disaster preparedness among residents of Kuala Lumpur

The review of past researches discussed that factors such as climate change and movement toward urbanization will result in more frequent and severe disasters in the near future (Yasuhara et al., 2011). Flash flood is the most common type of disaster that residents of Kuala Lumpur (KL) come across, thus in this study, it was desired to discover the factors affecting preparedness among residents of KL as well as assessing the variation of individual preparedness among residents. With the aid of SPSS analysis, the reliability of data, correlation and regression analysis between the investigated factors and disaster preparedness were obtained. According to this research it was found that level of preparedness of residents of KL is still below average; majority of social demographic indicators such as income, education, age, and property ownership showed significant contribution to the variation of disaster preparedness among the residents. For instance men were much more prepared in comparison to women; residents with high level of income and education had also significantly higher preparedness compared to those with low level of income and education. Race was the only factor that differs from the findings of previous studies; since race does not affect the preparedness

Evaluation of FIT impacts on market clearing price in the restructured power market

The development of intermittent wind firms in the restructured power market has required the entry of several creative approaches in evaluating the market clearing price in the restructured power market. This study proposes a model to investigate the seasonal market clearing price by considering the hybrid wind-heat firm. In this article, fixed and variable Feed in Tariff (FIT) is considered and compared as two regulatory policies for wind generation units. Wind resources modeled by using the scenario based technique. Furthermore, strategic behavior of other investors is considered based on the game theory concepts. The Cournot game concept has been applied to determine the Nash equilibrium for each state of stochastic programming. This model has been implemented on a test system. The effects of the fixed and variable FIT and the variations of electricity price cap have been investigated on the profit of each firm in the restructured power market. Moreover, the market clearing price offered for each season and load level

Eating culture among ASEAN countries and its implication towards development of regional halal industries

Halal industries play important roles in developing Malaysian economy with its halal product export reached RM7768.4 million from January to March this year alone. The main halal exports are food ingredients which valued for RM2521.9 million, followed by food and beverages which valued for RM3140.8 million and fats and oil derivatives account for RM1449.2 million. Malaysia is now leading in development and establishment of halal certification and became center of references for other country’s certification bodies. With broad export market and variety of resources it creates a brighter sight for Malaysia to be one of the biggest halal exporters in ASEAN. Despite the opportunity and the strength that Malaysia has in halal market, several loopholes which badly affect the halal product export need to be addressed. These include the inadequate information on legislation, social and culture of the importing countries that contribute to fewer acceptances of the exported products. Malaysian industries tend produce food products without proper knowledge of consumer acceptance in their respective importing countries. This paper is an attempt to explore the eating cultures among selected ASEAN countries and its implication on the development of the regional halal industries. Several ASEAN countries which include Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand have been targeted as the respondents for this study. Data was collected from both documents and an in-depth interview with experts from respective countries. Findings show that local preferences on food products is related to several factors which include socio-economics, religion, age, education, social class and the place of culture itself. Different culture in different countries creates a different preference in food consumption. The paper concludes that in order to penetrate the halal products into different ASEAN countries both the producers and the exporters need to understand the local preferences and cultures on food products before embarking into the business

LDH-intercalated D-gluconate: generation of a new food additive-inorganic nanohybrid compound

Intercalation of d-gluconate into the interlamellae of zinc–aluminum-layered double hydroxide for the formation of a food additive-inorganic layered nanohybrid was accomplished by both direct (co-precipitation) and indirect (ion-exchange) methods. Powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) together with CHNS and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) analyses showed that the hybridization of d-gluconate with pure phase and good crystallinity was successfully accomplished by a direct method within ranges of pH 7.5–10, Zn to Al initial molar ratio of 2–5 and DG concentration of 0.05–0.3 M. The same nanohybrid compound was also prepared using an indirect ion-exchange method by contacting the pre-prepared LDH with 0.1 M DG for 80 min. The basal spacing of the nanohybrid synthesized by the direct method ranged between 9 and 12.0 Å while that synthesized by the indirect ion-exchange method was 14.0 Å. The crystallinity of the latter was higher than the former and it inherited the crystallinity of the precursor. This work shows that a food additive, such as d-gluconate, can be hybridized into an inorganic host for the formation of a new nanohybrid compound, which can be used to regulate the release of acidity in the food industry

Coal bottom ash for palm oil mill effluent (POME) decolourization

The utilization of coal bottom ash (CBA) from thermal power plant for palm oil mill effluent (POME) decolourization was studied. CBA is prepared using chemical activation with hydrochloric acid (HCl) to increase adsorption performance. Physico-chemical characterizations of CBA-HCl was analysed using BET for surface area, FTIR for its surface chemistry, SEM for morphology and EDX for elemental analysis. The effectiveness of CBA-HCl for colour adsorption of POME was investigated as a function of pH, initial concentration, adsorbent dosage and contact time by batch experiments. Adsorption increased with increasing contact time and the equilibrium states could be achieved in range of 18 to 24 hr. Results showed that CBA-HCl perform with maximum colour removal of 93% at pH 6 with 10% (w/v) adsorbent dosage in 24 hr. It was shown that the isotherm for adsorption of colour from POME on CBA-HCl was well fitted by Freundlich equation (correlation coefficient, R2 = 0.9636). Based on the results, CBA showed potential adsorbent candidate for POME decolourization

Design a MATLAB-based system architecture for locating fiber fault in optical access network

This paper experimentally demonstrated a MATLAB-based graphical user interface (GUI) named Smart Access Network _Testing, Analyzing and Database (SANTAD) that able to measure the optical signal level, attenuation, losses, as well as detect any occurrence of fault and address the failure location in optical access network with point-to-multipoint (P2MP) configuration.This paper also presented a restoration mechanism scheme, where the protection mechanism for tree based optical switch will have capability to divert the signal onto protection line according to the types of failure condition and location of failures in access network.This will ensure the data flow continuously due to breakdown occur in the network and instantly repair the operation.The restoration scheme was simulated using OptiSystem, Inc. software in order to prove the solution feasibility

Identifying fiber fault in fiber to the home using access control system

This paper proposed a design of identifying fiber fault in fiberto-the-home passive optical network (FTTH-PON).Our design works on a standard local area network (LAN) using a specially designed hardware interfaced with a microcontroller integrated Ethernet to monitor the status of optical signals flow and provide the restoration against fiber fault in FTTH.This design will be implemented with optical line terminal (OLT) at central office (CO) to monitor and control each optical fiber line’s status as well as detect any failure that occurs in the network system downwardly from CO towards multiple optical network units (ONUs)

Food culture ('uruf) among Muslim community in Borneo: an exploratory research

Every society is reflected by the culture that they had practiced one of it, is in halal food culture (‘uruf). This study explores the Muslim community in Sabah for the practiced of halal food culture. To obtain data on the research, researchers have applied the method of literature and field. This study found that Muslim communities in Sabah do have awareness about halal but still in a low level of understanding the concepts include, dietary food sources and its guiding principles. Most Sabahan people prefer to have fresh seafood such as fish, shrimp and seaweed in their regular diet. This even coincide with the local geography, which mostly they inhabit the coastal area and in island. Hence this exploratory study was to describe more clearly about the dietary food in halal food culture that is applied by the Muslim community