Anaerobic digestion of crude glycerol for biohydrogen production

Biodiesel has become one of the main interests for the diesel replacement because it is renewable, and can be produced from various sources. However, the rapid acceleration of biodiesel production consequently contributes towards the mass amount of generation of biodiesel by-product; the waste crude glycerol (CG) which consisted high amount of impurities including the heavy metal that may lead to environmental issues. This has raised the concern and also the interest for the researchers and industries to look for the best solution in managing the excessive crude glycerol. This is included to convert the CG into valuable products, chemically or biologically. Anaerobic digestion process for biohydrogen production using biodiesel waste or crude glycerol as sole substrate seems to have a great potential to be explored. Thus, this study used batch anaerobic fermentation approached using biodiesel wastewater sludge containing indigenous mixed bacteria to produce biohydrogen using CG as the main substrate, and to assess the performance of biohydrogen production under different pH, temperature, incubation time, and initial glycerol concentration. The experiments conducted with the biodiesel wastewater sludge and CG sample were collected from Vance Bioenergy Sdn. Bhd. and Carotino Sdn. Bhd, respectively. The results of the preliminary study using both pure and crude glycerol showed that the mixed culture favours crude glycerol than pure glycerol. There was no methane gas generated throughout this study based on the gas chromatography analysis. Thus, the crude glycerol is further used in this study. Results on the effect of various parameters showed that the mixed culture has successfully converted and utilized the CG up to 99% with hydrogen yield (HY) of 1.05 mol H2/mol glycerol utilized with 10 g/l concentration of CG at 48 hours with 37°C. The optimization study showed that, the most significant parameter that influenced the high HY were the pH and temperature. The result of HY at 1.0 – 1.26 mol H2/mol glycerol could be achieved under the pH, incubation time, and temperature range were within 7.0 - 9.0, 30 - 55 hours, and 31 - 38°C respectively

Evaluation of prognostic factors in patients with osteosarcoma: the HUSM experience

Introduction: Osteosarcoma is a highly malignant primary bone tumour thus the evaluation of prognostic factors influencing the survival rates is extremely essential for defining the approach to the management of these patients. Despite the recent advancement in chemotherapy and improved prognosis, 30 - 40% of patients still succumb to the disease; therefore reliable prognostic factors would be essential to plan a more aggressive treatment in patients at a higher risk of failure of treatment. Among multiple variables evaluated in literatures, it is known that pulmonary metastases and chemo-necrosis are the best prognostic components on the survival. At present, there is no consensus on the prognostic significance of simple and cheap biochemical markers of pretreatment serum alkaline phosphate (ALP) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH). This study analyzed the prognostic factors of particularly ALP and LDH and other general variable for prognosis and overall oncological outcome. Method: Clinical data of at least 5 years related to prognostic factors of 163 patients with osteosarcoma who were under follow-up under Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia were retrospectively reviewed. This was a retrospective cohort study of all patients treated between January 2005 and December 2010. A total of 163 patients with the mean age of 18.9 years (range 6 – 59 years old) were evaluated. There were 109 males and 54 females. Majority of the patients were of Malay ethnic background (82.2%), compared to the Chinese (11.66%), followed by Indian ethnicity (4.29%). 55.2% of our patients presented with pulmonary metastases. In terms of type of surgery, 66.1% of our patients underwent limb salvage surgery and 33.9% underwent amputation. Results: The overall survival was 40.5%. The mean pre-treatment serum LDH level was 493.19 IU/L, and 52.8% of our patients had high values. The mean level of pre-treatment ALP was 273.93 IU/L, and 53% of our patients had high values. The 5-year overall survival rate of patients in the normal pre-treatment serum LDH group is 66.2%, whereas in the high pre-treatment serum LDH group is 17.4%. The 5-year overall survival rate of patients in the normal pre-treatment serum ALP group is 55.8 %, whereas in the high pre-treatment serum ALP group is 26.7%. In the multivariate statistical analysis, only the pre-treatment serum LDH and presence of metastasis maintained its prognostic significance as both the pre-treatment serum ALP and the type of surgery loses its independent predictive value. In regards to the other variables, 66.9% of our patients were male, with the overall survival of 39.4%. Our female patients had a similar overall survival of 42.6%. Pulmonary metastases presented in 90 patients (55.2%). The overall survival of these patients was 27.8% compared to 56.2% in those without metastatic disease. For patients who underwent limb-sparing surgery, their overall survival was 56.8%, whereas in the amputation group the overall survival was 17.6%. Conclusion: The overall survival of our osteosarcoma patients was influenced by the presence of pulmonary metastases and type of surgery. Pre-treatment serum LDH and ALP were of significant influence on the final survival. However age, gender, race, primary site of tumour, histological sub-type, were not of significant influence on the survival of our patients

Design a CVT lubricant test device

The technology of metal pushing V-belt (MPVB) Continuously Variable Transmission (CVT) is n o w commercially available in the market but to date the questionable reliabilities and limited torque capabilities have inhibited their growth. Belt slip is one of the major losses that cause inefficiency in CVT and limited the t r a n s f e r r e d torque f r om the engine to the tyres. One of the factors that believe cause this belt slip is because of unstable in oil lubricant behaviour especially due to operate in high temperature and pressure. Therefore, this report presents the work which has been carried out on designing a C V T Lubricant Test Device which capable to investigate the phenomena of f i lm collapse in a C V T mechanism. Modern design concepts and methods have been applied in designing this device where a five phase design model as proposed by Eggert has been used. The five phase designs are formulation, conceptual design, configuration design, parametric design and detail design. The device is significant because, hence to study and investigate film collapse, this device also capable to study and investigate the other specific parameters which affect the transmission efficiency such as differ in contact angle, contact area and material used

Institutions and foreign direct investment (FDI) in Malaysia: empirical evidence using ARDL model

Since 1990’s, institution factors have been regarded as playing important roles in stimulating foreign direct investments (FDI). However, empirical studies on their importance in affecting FDI are still lacking especially for small open economies. This paper attempts to investigate the role of institutions upon the inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI) in a small open economy of Malaysia. Using bounds testing approach (ARDL model), the empirical findings reveal that there exists a long run relationship among FDI and the institution variables. Specifically, several institution variables namely government stability, bureaucracy, and corruption are found to play prominent roles in influencing the inflow of FDI. Thus, in attracting foreign investors, implementing FDI-friendly policies by providing and maintaining the quality of domestic institutions would be beneficial to Malaysian economic growth.Institutions; Foreign Direct Investment (FDI); ARDL

Kajian mengenai kesesuaian modul subjek pengaturcaraan Java di kalangan pelajar politeknik

Kajian ini dijalankan bertujuan melihat kesesuaian pembelajaran berbantu komputer di dalam bentuk web di dalam membantu pelajar memahami pengaturcaraan java. Modul ini dihasilkan dengan menggunakan pakej perisian yang dikeluarkan oleh Macromedia. Kajian ini melihat pada aspek bahasa, motivasi dan juga pemahaman pelajar. Penekanan diberikan kepada penggunaan Bahasa Melayu dalam menggantikan Bahasa Inggeris di dalam kandungan dan konsep pennodelan objek. Seramai 39 orang pelajar Diploma Teknologi Maklumat di Politeknik lohor Bahru yang berada di semester 5 dipilih untuk menjadi responden. Data dikumpul dan dianalisis secara deskriptif menggunakan pakej perisian Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) bagi mendapatkan peratusan dan nilai min. Dapatan kajian menunjukkan majoriti responden bersetuju bahawa modul yang dibina telah membantu mereka di dalam proses pembelajaran, berdasarkan purata min keseluruhan bagi setiap persoalan kajian iaitu aspek susunan bahasa, aspek grafik, aspek motivasi dan aspek pembeiajaran. Daripada hasil kajian didapati pelajar menerima baik modul yang dihasilkan sebagai satu sumber rujukan aItematifyang baik

Faking it: a conceptual discussion on emotional labor, emotional dissonance and emotional intelligence

Emotional labor is a construct that is intertwined with the hospitality industry as employees are required to accommodate certain behavior or emotion to conform with the idea of providing excellent and sincere service to guests or customers. The concept of emotional labor will be further investigated and so does the implication of its utilization. In mentioning emotional labor, one would relate it with emotional dissonance as emotional labor has two forms which are surface acting and deep acting. The internal conflict between the inner feeling and displayed emotion is what termed emotional dissonance. The hospitality industry requires their employees to present their selves in a certain way as prescribed by each establishment. Thus, there are bound to be dissonances in the emotions of the employees. Previous literature also supports the idea of emotional intelligence playing a role in emotional labor with emotional labor having a positive relationship with emotional labor. Therefore, this paper is written with the idea of discussing conceptually the two variables and to explore Emotional Labor and Dissonance in detail; with elaboration of how emotional intelligence relates to them