Archives-December 

There is lack of shared vision among the employee and employed. By referring to the Ministry of Education of Malaysia, there is mismatch between keeping the quality management techniques and education process. Current realities on education in Malaysian education is those who control (Education Ministry), there is a crisis of confidence in the ability for institution as school, college and University.

The relationship between carapace length/width - body weight of the red ghost crab Ocypode macrocera was studied at the southern proximity of the Sagar island, western sector of Indian Sundarbans (World’s largest mangrove biome) that faces the regular tidal influences of Bay of Bengal. The females were more abundant (54%) than males (46%) considering the overall sample and the length/width-weight distribution pattern did not show remarkable differences between sexes. The carapace length and width are linearly related to body weight and appeared to be highly significant (P < 0.001) in each case. The regression coefficient (b) of length-weight and width-weight relationship found to be in positive allometry. Moreover, the correlation between weight with length and width is strongly positive in male, female and irrespective of sex. The condition factor (K) value of carapace length between two sexes varies significantly and higher in females. Despite of small sample size, the present study is able to predict the morphometric relationship is useful in stock assessment of the Ocypode macrocera and comparing the different stocks of the same species at different geographical locations.

Analysis of Reversed Hazard Rate (RHR) can provide insights in making it suitable for industrial applications. From the published literature it is learnt that Nature of reversed Hazard rate for standard continuous distributions is a decreasing function. Obviously this makes RHR suitable in the field of maintenance engineering to address hidden failures in a given system. One of its most useful applications lies in the assessment of waiting time of hidden failures. RHR is closely related to another important concept known as the mean waiting time. This concept is useful in casualty insurance, reliability, and medicine including forensic science to predict times of occurrences of events. For instance, the incubation times of diseases, are difficult to measure because the infection time is unobserved in general. Mean waiting time will offer its great help in such situations, which are analyzed and incorporated appropriately in this paper.

A shale sample was evaluated for its elements, minerals and hydrocarbon potential. Elemental analysis by EDS (energy-dispersive x-ray spectroscopy), mineral analysis by XRD (x-ray diffraction), and hydrocarbon potential evaluation by Rock-eval pyrolysis was done. EDS showed Oxygen, Carbon, Silicon, Aluminum, Iron, and Titanium. XRD showed Kaolinite (Dickite), Thaumasite, Calcite, and Quartz as the minerals. Rock-eval showed TOC (total organic carbon) of 15% by weight. Evaluation suggests the shale to have a good hydrocarbon generation potential and Titanium.

The study was designed to assess the level of farmers’ participation in organic farming practices in a rural farming community using a sample of 63 randomly selected farmers. The results show that there is a general awareness of climate change among the respondents. In addition, majority of the farmers considered the rise in temperature as the most prominent indicator of climate change in the research area. The major specific change considered to be as a result of climate change was the late on set of rainfall. The farmers moderately participated in organic farming practices but not deliberately to mitigate climate change. It was therefore recommended that extension agents should enlighten farmers on the potentials of organic farming practices in mitigating climate change.

Several investigations have established that the formability of sheet metal can be assessed from the stress-strain relationship(Sing,W.M and Rao,K.P[1997]). A true stress-strain curve is frequently called a flow curve because it gives the stress required to cause the metal to flow plastically to any given strain. In this paper the flow curve is used for modelling. A model based on an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) is introduced to reveal the flow curve of IF steel of thickness 0.85 mm non-coated. After using experimental data to train and test it, the model is applied to new data for prediction of the flow curve. Flow curve represents the basic plastic flow characteristics of the material.

Supplier selection and allocating orders to supplier is a complex multi objective problem which includes both quantitative and qualitative factors. In order to achieve an efficient solution in the quantitative factors, a Multi Objective Fuzzy Linear Programming [MOFLP] model with fuzziness in objective, resources, technological coefficient and resources for the proposed weighted additive model and it is compared with zimmermann method to help the management to allocate the optimum order quantities, in which the three objectives are to optimize purchasing cost, quality, and service and satisfy constraints like supplier’s capacity, supply chain demand etc are considered. The model has been applied to supplier selection of a high technology company named Multi-Flex Lami-Print Ltd which manufactures Flexible Packaging materials. In fuzzy supplier selection problem four different cases are considered to incorporate the uncertainty by zimmermann and weighted additive method. The result shows that the model is effective and applicable to industries.

Ocular complications are common manifestations in HIV/AIDS patients. Cytomegalovirus retinitis (CMV-R) and Herpes zoster opthalmicus are the two most common ocular complications. With the advent of highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART), CMV-R has declined considerably in the western world, but it is still possesses a major challenge in developing countries with significant ocular morbidity. CMV-R usually involves anterior segment and retina, manifesting as confluent retinal necrosis with haemorrhage, granular lesion, and frosted branch angiitis. The clinical picture of HIV-associated eye disease has changed dramatically since the introduction of HAART. It can lead to severe complications at times like rhegmatogenous retinal detachment and vision loss. Management of CMV Retinitis is more challenging and continuously evolving with time. Currently available effective anti-CMV pharmacological agents include injectable ganciclovir, its prodrug valganciclovir, and foscarnet. Surgical management of the complications include various approaches like pars plana vitrectomy (PPV) with gas or high viscosity silicone oil tamponad, scleral buckling and laser photocoagulation. Because of the varied clinical presentation and difficult course, CMV-R has established itself as the major determinant of visual morbidity in HIV/AIDS patients. Therefore with the introduction of newer screening methods and routine ocular examination in high risk groups, we can significantly reduce the burden of disease, severe ocular complications and ocular morbidity.

Image compression is a widely addressed researched area. Image compression is a key technology in transmission and storage of digital images because of vast data associated with them. Various types of compression methods are present in place. The performance analysis of various schemes to compress a True image in graphical user interface is discussed in this paper. True images can be compressed with the help of same scheme as grayscale images by applying them to each of the three color components. Experimental results demonstrate that the STW wavelet algorithm is more efficient for PSNR while EZW method provides the better compression ratio.

Conductive polymers are good candidates for preparation of conducting graft copolymers. Therefore, polyaniline (PANI) was chemically grafted with chitosan by using ammonium peroxydisulfate (APS) initiator to obtain a product called as chitosan-graft-polyaniline (CHIT-g-PANI). Polyaniline, chitosan and CHIT-g-PANI were characterized by fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), UV-vis spectroscopy, X-Ray diffraction (XRD) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). UV –vis and FT-IR studies confirmed the chemical structure and conjugation of CHIT-g-PANI. FTIR studies suggested the graft copolymerization of polyaniline on to chitosan. XRD of the CHIT-g-PANI further evidenced the grafting. The surface structure of CHIT-g-PANI was also verified by SEM.