KEANEKARAGAMAN KUPU-KUPU PENGHISAP BUAH DI KAWASAN HUTAN LINDUNG GAPANG, SABANG

Penelitian mengenai kupu-kupu penghisap buah (fruit feeding butterflies) di kawasan Hutan Lindung Gapang, Sabang telah dilakukan dari bulan Juni sampai Juli 2014. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menghitung keanekaragaman jenis kupu-kupu penghisap buah yang terdapat di kawasan Hutan Lindung Gapang, Sabang. Selain itu juga dibandingkan sebaran jenis dan individu kupu-kupu penghisap buah pada understorey dan overstorey. Penelitian ini dilakukan dengan metode transek. Kupu-kupu yang ditangkap dengan menggunakan perangkap umpan cylindrical gauze yang dipasang secara vertikal (understorey dan overstorey) sebanyak 20 perangkap (10 pada understorey dan 10 pada overstorey). Hasil penelitian menunjukkan terdapat sebanyak 93 individu dari 12 jenis, 11 genus dan 5 sub famili yang tergolong ke dalam famili Nymphalidae; 4 jenis dari sub famili Satyrinae, 4 jenis dari sub famili Morphinae, 2 jenis dari Nymphalinae dan 1 jenis dari masing-masing sub famili Charaxinae dan Limenitidinae. Jumlah jenis dan jumlah individu yang tertangkap pada understorey lebih banyak dan berbeda nyata dibandingkan dengan overstorey. Indeks keanekaragaman kupu-kupu penghisap buah di Hutan Lindung Gapang, Sabang tergolong sedang

Detection of resistance of gastrointestinal nematodes to albendazole and ivermectin in goats

Gastrointestinal nematodes infection is one of the most important diseases of small ruminants in Malaysia, particularly goats. Control of gastrointestinal helminthiasis in small ruminants relies almost exclusively on the use of anthelmintic drugs but the effective control is limited by the development of anthelmintic resistance. This study evaluated the efficacy of albendazole and ivermectin that are currently used as preventive medicine in herd health programme of small ruminants as well as to detect the presence of anthelmintic resistance to both anthelmintics. Faecal examination was done by the McMaster technique to determine the number of eggs/g faeces. Efficacy of albendazole and ivermectin were calculated based on arithmetic means of pre-treatment and post-treatment eggs/g (e.p.g). While detection of anthelmintic resistance was done by faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT) in which arithmetic means of post-treatment e.p.g. for treated and control group were used. In this study, albendazole was moderately effective with percentage efficacy of 86% and ivermectin was ineffective with percentage efficacy of 16%. Anthelmintic resistance was detected to both drugs used in this study in which albendazole with 87% of reduction on faecal egg counts (FEC) associated with 61% lower 95% confidence limit and ivermectin with 13% reduction of FEC associated with -91% lower 95% confidence limit. In this study the resistance of gastrointestinal nematodes to albendazole and ivermectin in treated goats was detected. There was also evidence of reduction in FEC in both treated groups but not to a desirable level

Enhanced Face Recognition Method Performance on Android vs Windows Platform

Android is becoming one of the most popular operating systems on smartphones, tablet computers and similar mobile devices. With the quick development in mobile device specifications, it is worthy to think about mobile devices as current or - at least - near future replacement of personal computers. This paper presents an enhanced face recognition method. The method is tested on two different platforms using Windows and Android operating systems. This is done to evaluate the method and to compare the platforms. The platforms are compared according to two factors: development simplicity and performance. The target is evaluating the possibility of replacing personal computers using Windows operating system by mobile devices using Android operating system. Face recognition has been chosen because of the relatively high computing cost of image processing and pattern recognition applications comparing with other applications. The experiment results show acceptable performance of the method on Android platform

Presence of parasite larvae in goat manure for use as fertiliser

Some livestock farmers utilise goat manure to fertilise grasses grown for animal feed, which may lead to parasitic diseases caused by strongyle infection. Therefore, the presence of strongyle larvae in manure needs to be determined. In this study, goat faeces containing strongyle eggs were deposited into five replicates for daily sampling throughout 23 days and subjected to faecal egg count, larvae identification and enumeration. Absence of eggs was detected on Day 4 when the infective larvae of Haemonchus contortus, Trichostrongylus sp. and Oesophagostomum sp. were found. Larvae counts reached a maximum of 164 larvae on Day 8 and were negligible by Day 14, by which time the manure can be used as fertiliser to grow forage crops for animal feed

Materials selection analysis for vibration isolator pads

Isolator pads which also called as vibration pads are used in many applications to isolate vibration, extend machine life, reduce maintenance costs and reduce excessive wear. It is the process of isolating objects such as equipment from harmful vibration sources. In this study, two types of isolator pad materials; neoprene and sorbothone were analyzed in order to be used for stackable washing and dryer machine. In this case, the stackable washing and dryer machine together with the isolator pads were simplified into two degree of freedom system, where the first and the second natural frequencies for each material of isolator pad were determined by using matrix iteration method, in which later were validated by a modern tool such as Matlab. For neoprene material, the first natural frequency obtained was 44.2 rad/s and the second natural frequency is 107.7 rad/s. By contrast, sorbothone material shows slightly higher for both first and second natural frequencies compared to neoprene, which were 57.9 rad/s and 141.0 rad/s respectively. From this result, it shows that neoprene is suitable to be used as the coupling (spring) material since it has lower natural frequency value compared to sorbothone, besides the second natural frequency of sorbothone material is near to the forcing frequency 140 rad/s, thus could amplified the vibration due to resonance

Medical data analysis based on Nao robot: An automated approach towards robotic real-time interaction with human body

There is a significant increase of strokes, heart diseases and premature death, people need more than ever to be aware of their vital signs such as blood pressure, heart beats, cholesterol level etc. Monitoring and analysing this medical data can help increase the awareness of the risk factor of heart disease. However, there is a huge pressure on medical staff and general practitioners (GPs), therefore this research proposes a medical data analysis based on Nao robots to meet these needs and it will serve as an automated approach towards a robotics real-time interaction with the human body. The proposed research offers a new way to allow users to understand the meaning of their vital signs using a human robot interaction. The developed system has been tested on publicly available data and simulated data. It can predict the future risk of heart disease based on some data attributes. Based on the risk prediction, it can feedback the result and the required lifestyle changes to avoid any related risk

A decision support system tool for selecting and identifying off-site construction systems and components.

Thesis. M.E. American University of Beirut. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, 2019. ET:6998.Advisor : Dr. Hiam Khoury, Associate Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering ; Co-Advisor : Dr. Farook Hamzeh, Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering ; Member of Committee : Dr. Ibrahim Alameddine, Assistant Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering.Includes bibliographical references (leaves 94-100)Many studies have shown the positive impact of applying lean principles in off-site construction. Although efforts were channeled towards comparing off-site versus on-site construction systems, none has performed a comparison among off-site non-volumetric systems (e.g. panelized and natural materials), volumetric systems, and hybrid systems. Additionally, none have performed a granular comparison among the off-site system components. They have only focused on different types of off-site construction without sufficiently considering and comparing their respective attributes. In fact, off-site systems and components present different advantages and disadvantages implying a need to evaluate their value maximization in terms of cost, time, quality, etc. Therefore, this research study presents a decision making evaluation tool targeted at: (1) extracting and elaborately analyzing the attributes associated with the different off-site systems and components, (2) identifying the optimal off-site systems for a given project by resorting to the Analytical Hierarchy Process technique (AHP), and (3) identifying the optimal components through a Choosing by Advantage technique (CBA). The outcomes of this study will yield standardized policies for properly choosing optimal off-site systems and components based on lean principles

Utilizing ultrasonic energy for reduction of free fatty acids in crude palm oil

Recently, biodiesel production from abundant bio-sources has drawn the attention of the academic and the industrial community. In this study, crude palm oil (CPO) containing 8.7% free fatty acid content (FFA) was used as raw material. Different common types of acid catalysts (sulfuric acid, methanesulfonic acid and hydrochloric acid) were optimized to investigate the catalytic activity of each acid in the pre-treatment of CPO by the esterification process. Ultrasonic energy was used for the reduction of FFA in CPO. FFA content was measured at different sonication intervals, and the optimum time was determined. Hydrochloric acid showed the highest catalytic activity in the reduction of FFA content in CPO, as well as in converting FFA to fatty acid methyl ester (FAME). From this work, it is reasonable to conclude that there is significant enhancement in the pre-treatment of oils by applying ultrasonic energy using long sonication time.Keywords: Biodiesel, crude palm oil, free fatty acids, ultrasonic energ