Now showing 1 - 10 of 13
  • Publication
    Carbon footprint assessment from purchased electricity consumption and campus commute in Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP): Pre- and during COVID-19 pandemic
    Most institutions and organizations nowadays have been taking responsibility in reducing their carbon footprint (CF) to curtail the global warming impact to at least 20–25% reduction by 2030. Universities and higher learning institutions are starting to invest in becoming greener and carbon-free. Current COVID19 communicable disease has swayed the routine and concurrently influenced regular trends of greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions throughout the world. This study explored the possible GHG emissions (calculated as CO2e) from internal campus commute and purchased electricity consumption from the year 2018–2020 at Universiti Malaysia Perlis main campus to analyze the influence of COVID19 pandemic on its CO2e emission. The average amount of CO2e emitted during pre-COVID19 period (n = 26) was 1,518.8 tCO2e/year while during COVID19 period, it was 1,071.5 tCO2e/year (n = 10), marked as 29.5% reduction. Due to completeness and quality of data for contracted bus (monitoring period of years 2018, 2019 and 2020 as 12 months, 12 months, and 2 months, respectively), year 2019 was determined as the appropriate baseline year for setting the CO2e reduction target due to COVID19 pandemic precedented year. In comparison to pre-COVID19 pandemic, almost 95%/year and 7%/year reductions of CO2e were recorded for both Scope 1 and Scope 2, respectively. Comparing Scope 1 and 2, it was obviously observed that the purchased electricity consumption (Scope 2) was the predominant contributor to GHG emission at UniMAP campus by 78% despite of current pandemic influence and its reduction was indistinct (7%/year reduction). Thus, the reduction target in future should be venturing in energy savings and energy auditing in addition to carbon offsetting.
      1
  • Publication
    Early Detection of Diabetic Foot Ulcers through Wearable Shoe Design
    Diabetes Mellitus is categorized as a chronic metabolic disease where blood glucose levels are abnormal. Diabetic foot ulcer is a complication often associated with this disease. Diabetes foot ulcer is also commonly known as diabetes foot pain. It is a type of foot damage medical condition that progresses from diabetes mellitus. According to scientific data, almost 15% of diabetes patients may develop diabetes foot ulcer in their lifetime [1]. A foot ulcer is an open wound that commonly found under the feet, it can be a shallow open wound on the surface of the skin (less severe) or it can be a deep wound which exposes bones, tendons and joints [2]. However, if early prevention is carried out, diabetes patients might be able to avoid problems from diabetes foot ulcer. Thus, in this study, a wearable shoe prototype for early detection of foot ulcers is proposed to be used in home. The developed device will be associated with temperature sensor, vibration motor and pressure sensor. This device enables diabetes patients to carry out evaluation on their foot in daily life. With this device, early symptoms of foot ulcer can be detected and the seriousness of foot ulcer can be monitored.
  • Publication
    Investigation on effect of gas concentration in distinguishing conventional plastic and bioplastic for plastic recycling
    Distinguishing type of plastic was important for the recycling process. In this project, the effect on gas concentration released from composite was studied to distinguish between conventional plastic and bioplastic. This project involved the fabrication of a composite from polypropylene (PP), empty fruit bunches (EFB), and recycle acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBRr), with PP used as a conventional plastic and PP/NBRr/EFB used as a bioplastic. Trans-polyctylene (TOR) was used as a compatibilizer to evaluate the effect on the PP/NBRr/EFB. Tensile testing and SEM were conducted to study the mechanical properties and morphological properties on the PP/NBRr/EFB and the PP/NBRr/EFB/TOR composite. The gas sensor (MQ135) was used in this study to detect the presence of NH3 and CO2 released from heating conventional plastic and bioplastic. From the overall result, composite with TOR as compatibilizer has shown better performance than composite without TOR in mechanical, morphological and gas sensor testing. By using MATLAB software, it shows that from gas sensor testing, it can be verified to distinguish between conventional plastic and bioplastics for plastic recycling. The average classification obtained from the Probabilistic Neural Network (PNN) was 99.29 % accurate.
  • Publication
    Predictive Maintenance System Design for Infant Intensive Phototherapy Lamp
    Planned-Preventive maintenance (PPM) is an essential part of clinical engineering to ensure correct functionality of the medial equipment. PPM involves the extension of equipment's life and reducing failure by performing selective substitution of its components in contrast to the "fix it when it fails"concept. However, this strategy often leads to un-necessary downtime and increased costs, especially in hospital environment. Therefore, a maintenance system for predictive preventive maintenance that can monitor the usage of medical equipment is much preferred option. In this regards, a predictive maintenance system design is proposed that focuses on the LED Infant Intensive Phototherapy Lamp. In order to improve the weakness arise from the schedule Planned-Preventive Maintenance (PPM), the predictive maintenance system will be real time performance based in which the performance of the LED Infant Intensive Phototherapy Lamp will be monitored. The purpose of this monitoring system is to ensure that the light intensity, which is measured in irradiance level, can be delivered in sufficient amount for the baby with jaundice. In order to monitor the performances of LED infant intensive phototherapy lamp, a cloud based webpage has been implemented for real time monitoring of LED infant intensive phototherapy lamp which can be accessed by authorized personals.
  • Publication
    Assessment on Water Footprint of Paddy Cultivation in Kedah
    A measurable metric to gauge both the amount of water pollution and water consumption per unit of crop is the water footprint (WF). WF can be used as a thorough indicator of the utilization of freshwater resources. To increase the yield of crops, agriculture, consumed large amount of water. To prevent water shortages, it is crucial to understand how much water is consumed during agriculture. This study's goal is to estimate the region of Kedah's water footprint for paddy cultivation in the year 2017. By using CROPWAT 8.0 computer programming, climatic parameters were used for the estimation of water evapotranspiration for blue and green to proceed with the water footprint accounting. The methodological framework followed the crop water requirement (CWR) option based on the water footprint assessment manual. Focusing on the water footprint accounting phase, the blue, green and grey water footprint was calculated. The findings demonstrated that the three forms of water footprints differ significantly from one another. In Kedah, the value of the green water footprint (1201m3/ton) is higher than that of the blue water (130m3/ton) and the grey water (357m3/ton) footprints. 71% of green water footprint indicates that there is enough rainfall to support paddy growth.
  • Publication
    Investigation on Medicated Drugs in ECG of Healthy Subjects
    Heart diseases are now the leading cause of death worldwide, it is estimated that around 7 million patients who are living in developed countries, lost their lives due to diseases related to their cardiovascular system. In Malaysia, cardiovascular diseases represents one fifth of total deaths in the country in the past three decades. Currently patients need some sort of drugs that help them to stabilize and restore the regular patterns of their heart beat because if the patients cannot manage to restore the normal heart beat pattern, the undesired heart condition could lead life threatening situations. Advancement of biotechnology has enabled the creation of new medicated drugs to provide better treatment options. However, when this treatment option fails and there is a need to provide emergency intervention to the patients in hospitals, the medical experts often need to know about the patients' intake of any medications prior to hospital admittance for providing suitable treatments. Sometimes, this would be a difficult task as the patient might be admitted in semi-conscious or unconscious state. Therefore, this study focusses on identification of different medicated drugs usage through analysis of ECG data of the users. The data for the experiment was obtained from physionet library, which provides ECG data of subjects administered with a combination of Dofetilide, Mexiletine, lidocaine, Moxifloxacin and Diltiazem medicated drugs. The use of morphological and non-linear features derived from the ECG signals were able to provide prediction accuracy of 77.26% using SVM classifier.
  • Publication
    Optimum Binder Content of Asphaltic Concrete (ACW14) Mixture Incorporating Limestone
    Due to the high demand for natural aggregates in pavement construction, researchers have been looking for alternative materials to replace natural aggregate. In this research, the optimum binder content of asphalt mixture incorporate limestones was investigated. The optimum binder content of asphalt mixture was tested according to Marshall method. About 20 % of limestone was used as aggregate replacement in asphaltic concrete mixture. To determine the stability, volumetric properties, and bitumen binder content, three percentage of asphalt binder content, namely 4.0%, 5.0% and 6.0% was prepared. From analysis, it indicated that stability and volumetric properties of asphalt mixture incorporate limestone meet the requirement set by JKR. From the result obtained, the optimum binder content of the control sample is 5.0% and optimum binder content of limestone mixture is 5.2%. The slightly different in optimum binder content value indicate that the optimum binder content of limestone mixture was comparable with control mixture.
  • Publication
    Compatibilizers Effect on Recycled Acrylonitrile Butadiene Rubber with Polypropylene and Sugarcane Bagasse Composite for Mechanical Properties
    Compatibilizers effect on recycled acrylonitrile butadiene rubber (NBRr) with polypropylene (PP) and sugarcane bagasse (SCB) composite for mechanical properties is evaluated. Trans-Polyoctylene Rubber (TOR) and Bisphenol a Diglycidyl Ether (DGEBA) are used as compatibilizers in this study. Three (3) different composites (80/20/15, 60/40/15, and 40/60/15), with fixed filler (15 phr) and compatibilizers (10 phr) content, were carried out. These composites were arranged via melt mixing technique utilizing a heated two-roll mill at a temperature of 180 C for 9 minutes employing a 15-rpm rotor speed. Tensile and morphological properties were evaluated. The result shown average tensile strength dropped by 48.50% as the recycle NBR content rises 20 phr. Nevertheless, subsequent compatibilization reveals that the compositesâ tensile properties were all greater than control composites. The morphology discovered validates the tensile properties, indicating a stronger interaction between the PP/SCB and recycle NBR composites with the addition of compatibilizer DGEBA.
  • Publication
    Influence of pretreated coconut shell on gasification product yield
    Gasification of untreated and pretreated coconut shell (CS) was carried out in a fixed-bed reactor to assess the effect of temperature (600, 650, 700, 750, and 800 C) and holding time (30 and 40 min) on gases composition. The untreated CS was first torrefied in a fixed-bed reactor at different temperatures (200 â 300 C) and holding times (30 min, 60 min and 90 min). Pretreated CS at the optimal torrefaction temperature (275 C and 60 min) was used for gasification. Under optimal conditions of 750 C and 30 min holding time, gasification contributed the most gas production. At this optimum condition, the gas composition of pretreated CS was 35.03 % of CH4, 24.43 % of CO2, and 40.54 % of H2 + CO. Untreated CS contains 37.63 % of CH4, 24.03 % of CO2, and 38.34 % of H2 + CO gases. The production of CH4 gas was higher when untreated CS was used for gasification rather than pretreated CS. Moreover, when untreated CS was used for gasification, the amount of CO2, H2, and CO produced was minimal. Therefore, for high H2 production, pretreatment prior to gasification is appropriate.