Advanced Materials and Engineering Technologies

In recent years, industrial pollution is a currently big issue. Research toward biodegradable materials such as coconut shell reinforced composites has increased due to environmental awareness and global warming concerns that grow day by day. The researcher is triggered to implement material that is eco-friendly. The research has been conducted to determine the mechanical properties of coconut composites by using the Taguchi method. The mechanical properties of tensile strength, modulus elasticity, and elongation were investigated in studying whether they are affected by the weight percentage and speed. The mold is the redesign and fabricated based on ASTM D638-14. According to the composition of the coconut composite 30, 40, and 50%, the tensile specimen have been fabricated. The tensile test has been conducted to determine the mechanical properties of the coconut composite using a universal testing machine (UTM), and the result was analyzed using the Taguchi Method L9. According to the Taguchi analysis, the optimum parameters are 30% weight percentage while speed is 7 mm/min. The weight percentage 30% has better tensile test (6.24 N/mm2), modulus of elasticity (2097.07 N/m2), and elongation at failure (0.19%) compared to weight percentage (40 and 50%) and speed (5 mm/min and 6 mm/min), respectively. Overall, the weight percentage and speed can affect the mechanical properties of coconut composites.

The widespread use of additive manufacturing (AM) for Ti6Al4V components have demanded an equally extensive study on their comparison with the subtractive manufactured counterparts. Subtractive manufacturing (SM) of Ti6Al4V has its own limitations due to the peculiar properties of the material in the rolled condition. AM process too has its own set of limitations that include porosity, brittleness, and high residual stresses leading to premature failure. Heat treatment (HT) is an option to counter these drawbacks to a certain extent. This study analyzes the effects of HT on the mechanical properties, surface and subsurface characteristics of both AM and SM specimens. A stress relieving process followed by HT above β transus temperature and an aging process enhances the hardness in both counterparts. However, surface levels of SM specimens prove better than AM specimens for wear-resistant applications. AM specimens require the removal of surface to depths between 100 and 200 µm to act as a wear-resistant surface. AM specimens attain a β phase prior to HT and hence a stress relieving operation would suffice in case its being used for applications that require a tough core.

Wood is one of the primary combustible fuels used for Class A fire tests for clean agent fire suppression systems. The species classified in the standards, on the other hand, did not originate locally and are hardly found. It is overpriced to obtain in small quantities for the sake of the experimental test. Thorough investigations were suggested to validate the use of the proposed material, including verifying the species of the specimen, burning test, and conducting wood moisture content verification using oven-dry method to ensure the quality of combustible fuel for the final test as per standard requirement. The aim of this study is to justify the use of unspecified wood to meet the appropriate requirements for performing a fire crib test. As a result, the pinewood specifications were nearly and within the minimum criterion for performing the fire crib test.

Talus fractures keep on presenting to a difficult and generally experienced gathering of injuries. This published report shows that not all the current bone implants are the ideal counterpart for the specific population. Along these lines, this investigation received a three-dimensional (3D) estimation way to deal with given exact information to the anatomical morphology of talus bone. Seventy-four Malaysian healthy subjects experienced computerized tomography (CT) arthrography. 3D computerized talar models were generated and three morphological boundaries predicted through Mimics and Solidworks software. Sagittal Talar radius (STRa), Throchlea Tali length (TTL), Talar Anterior width (TaAW) are the most part chosen. Information investigation was directed by determination of information test through Matlab programming. In this way, the information was obtained dependent on the artificial intelligence (AI) forecast of the talus bone morphometric. While, the AI strategy demonstrated a more noteworthy limit of forecast in regards to the low level of mistake and high correlative qualities since the average percentage errors of the predicted talus bone morphology parameters are around 10% which 11.3% for STRa, 12.95% for TaAW, and 9.45% for TTL. AI is an exceptionally exact prescient technique and can be utilized as helping instruments in developing bone implant specifically for Malaysian patient and for Asian patient in general.

Pedicle screws are widely used for the treatment of spinal instability by spine fusion. This treatment can be performed at any level in the spine (cervical, thoracic, or lumbar) and prevents any movement between the fused vertebrae. However, screw loosening is a major problem of spine fusion, contributing to delayed patient recovery. This appears to be a minor problem for fixation and fusion of healthy, non-osteoporotic bone. Screw loosening happens when insertion torque and angle are not suitable for the pedicle screw which affects the screw pullout strength. Based on the optimum torque and angle in finite element analysis, loosening of screw in spine fusion can be minimized by increasing the screw pullout strength. The highest pullout strength can minor the loosening of the screw. Four insertion angles of the pedicle screw were used which are 0°, 10°, 20°, and 30°. Besides that, the effect of insertion torque on pullout strength can be seen on the equivalent von Mises stress value when applied three values of moment to pedicle screw-bone with constant insertion angle. The lowest stress for pedicle screw can give a better fixation with bone and thus can increase the pullout strength. We found that the insertion angle of 10° gives higher pullout strength of pedicle screw-synthetic bone which indirectly will minimizing the effect of the screw loosening from bone. Besides that, insertion torque with 1200 Nm gives a lower equivalent von Mises stress which causes a lower effect on fixation between screw and bone and thus has potential in minimizing the loosening to pedicle screw.

Surface modification of metallic implants is often required to facilitate positive interaction between the implant and the surrounding hard tissue. In this study, a polymer-ceramic composite coating of polylactic acid/hydroxyapatite (PLA/HA) was successfully deposited on a Co–Cr–Mo alloy by the dip coating method in chloroform suspension at room temperature. The effect of various PLA/HA dipping layers was studied and the dip coating process parameters were optimized in order to obtain a homogeneous, crack free, densely packed and adhesive coating. It is found that PLA/HA-coated substrate with 3 dipping layers were denser and less crack sensitive compared to 6 dipping layers. Although it is hypothesized that a coarser coated surface helps to facilitate ingrowth of osseous tissue in human body, but current findings show opposite manners due to the fact that a higher corrosion rate was obtained. The coated substrate with 6 dipping layers also were found more profound to micro-cracks and delamination with a lower microhardness value compared to coated substrate with 3 dipping layers.

Vibration is known as one of the energy losses experienced by a ship propulsion system. Excessive vibration might occur resulting in the negative effect to the system leading responsible bodies such as the International Maritime Organization (IMO) have set a certain guidelines and requirements in reducing vibration. The rudder stock is one of the mechanisms that experiences vibration due to the energy loss in the propulsion system. This paper will discuss on the vibration level generated by the rudder stock in different materials on the boat hull. There are some parameters that have been taken into account in this research such as speed of motor, size of propeller, rudder stock position from the center of the propeller, and the 30° angle of turn for both port and starboard side. Different parameters should generate different vibration effects that will be transmitted to the rudder stock.

Biofouling is the accumulation of several non-native species of organism such as algae, barnacles, and small animals. These non-native species usually grow on the surface of any material that is immersed in water for a long period of time such as a ship’s hull. The growth of this biofouling species on a ship’s hull will increase this ship’s drag and physical resistance which then leads to reduction of ship’s speed and velocities. With this being said, the fuel consumption of the ship will also increase. Various methods were introduced to control or reduce the growth of marine biofouling such as antifouling paint. An antifouling paint possesses a few characteristics which help in reducing the marine biofouling growth such as self-cleaning properties. This same characteristic can also be found in superhydrophobic materials. A superhydrophobic surface is a surface which is very difficult to get wet and can be found in natural superhydrophobic materials such as lotus leaf, taro leaf and banana leaf. This paper studies the effect of natural superhydrophobic materials mixed with paint when subjected to various types of parameters. Different types of parameters were chosen such as several types of natural superhydrophobic materials as binders, thickness of paint, underwater depth, and sun-orientation were compared and recorded over 60 days. Results of the experiment were observed and discussed. The aim of this experiment is to determine the most efficient and suitable natural superhydrophobic material between lotus leaf, taro leaf, centella leaf, banana leaf, and rose petal.

The nationality of a ship would be based on what flag that they are flying. The flag that a ship is flying to ensure that the vessel is in act with the conformity with the applicable rules of the international laws. The marine accidents in Malaysia can be divided into five categories which are collision, grounding, contact, oil spill, and others. In three period at Tanjung Pelepas port, there are 33 accidents that occurred as 61% are from the oil spills, 15% collisions, 9% contacts, 9% grounding, and the others are 6%. The flag of conveniences (FOCs) are prospering that it equally criticized as for turning blind eye to the world’s maritime safety and security norm. The FOCs are notoriously known for having a substandard ship which the ITF had declared a list of 32 countries where they are operating in international registries were including the FOC countries. There are several international organizations which are ITF, IMO, and others are fighting against FOCs as it does not make much differences in their practices as they observed. There are several incidents of collision of FOC registered vessels, and it would cause a million of tons of oils spills. Most of non-compliance vessels that are flying flags are FOCs, but not all FOC registries are poor performers as not all the national registries had the perfect record.

The use of modern and renewable technology is on the rise in a variety of fields. This can be seen in the use of water energy, wind energy, geothermal energy, water energy, and other renewable energy sources in different aspects of life and industry. In Malaysia, hydroelectric power generation from dam is commonly used to produce electricity for consumers. As for marine vessels in Malaysia, they usually use generators onboard to produce electricity. By applying the hydroelectric method to the fishing boat, fuel consumption and gas emission can be reduced. This study focuses on zone A class small fishing boats which commonly have no power sources installed onboard the vessel. Without a fixed power source installed, small fishing boats use portable generators and batteries as sources of electrical power. However, some small boats are not installed with any power sources onboard due to limited space and high weight. The primary objective of this study is to analyze the electrical power output generated from the hydro generator onboard small fishing boats by using the portable method mounted on the boat body, a suitable method to carry out the experiment.

Oil pollution or the introduction of oil into a body of water is a long occurring problem that affects the lives and growth of marine animals. In seas generally, oil pollution could be caused by either natural phenomenon or human error. Oil pollution may happen naturally through the natural oil seeps which occur when oil content underneath the surface of ocean floor escapes through cracks on the highly pressurized ocean floor. Even so, natural oil seeps are predictable and oil escapes in constant flow which allows easy containment. The collision or grounding of a ship is the example of oil pollution from human error. Collision or grounding of a ship may cause the hull to break open and releasing tons of oil which will harm the marine environment extensively. To combat oil pollution at sea, many laws and regulations have been applied by the International Maritime Organization. However, oil pollution at estuaries is often overlooked by many as it usually starts as a small-scale pollution and accumulates into a larger scale pollution. Main source of oil pollution in estuary is the fishing boat that accommodates the estuary area. There are various ways in dealing with oil pollution problems, and oleophilic material is one of them. An oleophilic material is a material which possesses a strong affinity toward oils instead of water. This materials could be in synthetic forms such as polystyrene or polyurethane and in natural forms which are kapok, rice husk, coconut coir, etc. This report will discuss and analyze the suitable and efficient natural materials that could be used to combat oil pollution at estuaries. The aim of this experiment that is conduct is to determine the oil sorption capacity of natural oleophilic materials in different types of water with the presence of several parameters.

In Malaysia, most farmers depend on traditional agricultural practice. The adaptation of modern agricultural technology plays an important role in improving the overall efficiency and productivity. In modern agriculture, the internet of things (IoT) connects farmers to their farms through sensors to facilitate monitor of real-time conditions of their farms from anywhere. Oyster mushroom is widely cultivated among farmers in Malaysian. Although this crop is widely consumed and cultivated, it remains overshadowed by traditional cultivation approaches which result in low productivity, high labor efficiency, high cost and effort. Thus, this study aimed to develop a monitoring system based on IoT on environmental conditions of a mushroom farm, namely temperature, humidity, moisture and light intensity. Oyster mushroom requires an optimum temperature between 26 and 29 °C, humidity from 85 to 95% and carbon dioxide not exceeding 600 ppm. Sensors were placed at fixed locations in the farm to measure the parameter status transmitted to a remote monitoring station via low-power NodeMCU. The data obtained were stored on the cloud platform. The codes for the controller were written in the Arduino programming language, debugged, compiled and burned into the microcontroller using the Arduino integrated development environment. The results showed the success of monitoring environmental conditions through internet access from anywhere. This approach will reduce human efforts and also help to automate production, which benefits farmers in Malaysia.

Various infill patterns are introduced in 3D printing to generate low-density objects that lead to reduced cost and fabrication time through mass reduction. However, as a trade-off, the strength of the 3D printed component is uncertain. Many works have been carried out to investigate the overall strength of the infill pattern but most of them do not address the specific study of the stress concentration region and cyclic loading durability. This paper focuses on investigating an effect of stress concentration region and cyclic loading durability of Hilbert curve pattern in a 3D printer sample that has been designed by following the ASTM D638 Type III standard. The density percentage of the infill pattern was varied from 20 to 60%. The analysis has been carried out by using the computational method. The results show that the stress concentration region is increased proportionally with infill density percentage probably due to the increasing of sharp edges amount in the Hilbert curve pattern. On the other hand, the results have shown that cyclic loading durability is inverse proportionally where the sample with 20% of infill density can withstand until 5000 times cycles under continuous cyclic loading and has been reduced consistently when the infill increases to 60% which the sample able to withstand up to 600 times cycles before the break.

This paper investigates the effectiveness of the adaptive filter, ANC, and ALE to improve vibration and sound signals. These signals have been used to detect the natural development of bearing defects for machine diagnosis applications. However, during measurement, these signals have been corrupted by the noise that was coming from other machine parts. In this work, the noise has been successfully removed by using an adaptive filter. Two types of adaptive filters will be compared which are the adaptive noise canceling (ANC) and the adaptive line enhancer (ALE). This investigation is carried out by collecting the vibration and sound signal from a bearing that has been loaded with 20 kg mass and rotated with fixed 1500 rpm. This bearing is continuously rotated for 40 h. It was shown that the ANC filter is more efficient compared to ALE with the least mean square error.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of needle size and substrate to needle height by measuring the droplet volume and epoxy covered area in encapsulation process of LED packaging. Five needle gages (16G, 18G, 21G, 22G, and 23G) were used in this experiment. Average volume of epoxy drops was determined for each size of needle. Experimental data shows that droplet volumes are directly related with the needle diameter. Optimum covered area by the epoxy encapsulation was found at the needle tip to substrate distance at 3.240 mm for the 16G needle. These findings are relevant and helpful for controlling the amount of epoxy, encapsulation area, and the encapsulant shape in encapsulation process of LED packaging.

Friction stir welding is commonly used to join dissimilar materials that are difficult to weld when using conventional methods. Weld joints of dissimilar aluminum alloy 6061 and mild steel were obtained by friction stir welding using a variation of parameter values. Macroscopic examination indicated successful bonding between the two materials although some defects may result in decreased joint strength. Further microstructure analysis revealed grain refinement from stirring action of tool pin with steel particles randomly scattered in plasticized aluminum. Chemical composition analysis identified Al-rich intermetallic compound Fe2Al3 at the weld interface. Thicker intermetallic layer was influenced by higher heat input from increased rotation speed and decreased welding speed. Maximum hardness was measured at the interface, indicating formation of a brittle intermetallic compound.

The 5th generation mobile network, also known as 5G, is rapidly developed and expected to be widely implemented soon. This situation raises concern on the effect of millimetre-wave (mm-wave) utilised by 5G devices to impact human health negatively. While mm-wave carries no risk of causing genetic mutation for being non-ionising, the main concern is the heating effect on human skin, measured by measuring the specific absorption rate (SAR) of skin exposed to a 5G antenna. This research sets up to simulate the 5G mobile phone antenna effect on human skinheads. Three antennas are designed and optimised close to the human head model for an operating frequency of 28 GHz, 30 GHz, and 33 GHz, respectively. The characteristic of the three antennas was examined for their performance then a 3D SAR plot is generated. All three antennas designed have acceptable performance. The SAR plots of 3 antennas show the maximum SAR decrease as the operating frequency increases with similar SAR distribution.

This article presents an overview of green ship recycling yard design. This article presents the basic process and method used in recycling yards. This article also provides an insight to the relevant aspects of yard facilities and layout design. This approach used for designing green ship recycling yards are briefly discussed. The last section of the article explains issues arise in green ship recycling and related works taken to overcome the issues including the prospect of systematic layout planning (SLP) as one of methods for efficient ship recycling yard design. Finally, it can be concluded that there is a gap in green ship recycling yard specifically on layout design that requires further work.

One of the problems that occurs inside public transport is that passengers often overlook or ignore public transport’s rules such as in regards to eat and drink. Eating foods and drinks are not even allowed in public transport in avoiding excessive littering and drink spills which could potentially cause unwanted accidents. This system aims to recognize two actions such as eating and drinking through image processing in real-time environment. It also aims to classify and label the behavior of the passengers. This research is on a passengers behavior recognition system using computer vision (PBRSUCV) as a prototyping model. The method consists of image processing with a faster region-based convolutional neural networks (faster R-CNN) classification project that can be implemented in public transport to solve the stated problem. The system consists of a camera and laptop. The camera is used as a sensor to detect the targeted behaviors while the laptop will be the main device where every image processing takes place. The system was tested in real-time and is able to detect and label the eating and drinking behavior correctly with 99% accuracy on a single and two people in the image frame. It is certain that this system is capable to accurately recognize and classify the targeted behaviors in the public transport without any problem with the help of the faster R-CNN deep neural network.

In technological advancement, Internet of things or IoT technology is widely used in everyday life such as environmental monitoring, military, smart lifestyle, and transportation. IoT technology produces a smart device that connects sensors or devices to produce and analyses data. Wireless IoT networks consisting of battery-powered devices require highly energy efficient network access. Large communication links between devices will exhaust energy during the transmission process, causing a shift in network topology and degrading the quality of service QoS. Cluster techniques developed for wireless sensor networks can be applied to IoT to increase energy efficiency, spatial reuse, and large IoT networks’ scalability. This paper surveys designed clustering techniques philosophy that can be implemented in IoT.

Graphene is well known for its electroanalytical activity due to the presence of enormous π-electrons in the structure. For this reason, it is believed that the graphene used for modification of the conventional electrodes have a great potential to become a good electrode. The drop-casting method is the most widely used approach due to simple observation in dispersion composition of the substrate and it is capable to tailor the detection limit and reproducibility of the samples. There are two main factors to ensure a good drop-casting material; the solvent used to disperse and the temperature during drying the substrate. Water has been used as vector to carry graphene in this study. Drying in an oven at 100 °C displayed a good electroanalytical activity compared to unmodified screen-printed carbon electrode. The sample with 100% graphene nanoplatlet (GnP) has been selected as an excellent candidate for producing a good analytical study and excellent current densities.

Some communities have difficulties accessing clean water sources because of a lack of water supply facilities especially in rural areas and during disasters such as droughts and floods. Thus, the atmospheric drinking water generator is proposed to overcome this problem by providing a system that can convert air into safe drinking water. This atmospheric drinking water generator uses the principle of condensation of air, cooled to its dew point, and becomes so saturated with water vapor that it can no longer hold the liquid. Peltier or thermoelectric cooler (TEC) is used as a condensation process medium to cool the air to the dew point. Water that has been converted from the air is collected in a collector tank. When the collection tank is full of water, water will be pumped out through a filter set to remove possible bacteria and add minerals to the water. The proposed system with a condenser size of 4.5 cm × 4 cm × 2 cm can produce 6–9 ml of water per hour depending on surrounding conditions. To increase the amount of water converted from the air, the size of the condenser used needs to be enlarged to increase the surface area of the condensation process.

Performing Hajj or Umrah is an Islamic pilgrimage ritual and the fifth essential pillar of Islam. Preparation to perform Hajj or Umrah is very vital before and in the middle of traveling to Mecca including learning all the rituals, obligatory, and rules [1]. The existing mobile applications in the market that are related to Hajj or Umrah are less interactive, too simple, have limitations and do not offer smart features to assist the user, and do not meet the target users’ demand. Hence, the proposed project, Umrah and Hajj application are used to provide pilgrims and “mutawwif” with guidance and information about the Hajj or Umrah pilgrimage. The “mutawwif” can utilize the features to manage his group while pilgrims can learn and see all the mandatory and obligatory rituals to be performed at various locations. The other features are the global positioning system (GPS) tracking system and the Lilypad Tawaf counter that can help the pilgrims to track the number of completed rounds when the Tawaf is complete. The development of this mobile application used the Android Studio software and JAVA programming language and is exclusively for the Android platform only. Moreover, the Android platform for the mobile application is cost-effective and the open-source idea is very popular nowadays for all generations [2]. This application also can help the pilgrims of Android device users to learn, understand, and perform the Hajj and Umrah ritual perfectly. The methodology used in this application is the ADDIE method that contains 5 phases, namely analysis, design, development, implementation, and testing.

In this paper, an IoT-based technology is demonstrated to efficiently monitor indoor air quality in real-time monitored online through Wi-Fi. The idea was derived from the issues of toxic gas poisoning that cause environmental pollution, general health as well as death due to excessive inhalation of toxic gases in a closed area. This paper proposed a device of air quality monitoring system which should be able to provide an alert for the presence of toxic gases effectively via any mobile applications. The device is composed of a SAMD21 ARM cortex processor as microcontroller, pollutant detection sensors and data transmit to a Web server. The device was designed to measure a concentration of carbon monoxide (CO) and temperature-humidity for monitoring the air quality. SD card has been integrated into a Seeeduino Xiao microcontroller for analyzing and visualizing the air quality data from the device. A Web-based mobile application was developed to monitor the air quality at anytime and anywhere. To demonstrate the feasibility, the device has been tested in three closed areas which are inside a room, inside a static car with burning fuel energy to power the car and a kitchen area that has cooking facility. The result indicates that CO gas produced from the kitchen area when the gas stove being used shows more than 63.75% and 82.5% compared to condition from inside a car and inside a room, respectively. Additionally, the device has been successfully implemented to provide notification for community to prevent from the areas that contaminated with toxic gases.

The ability to accurately quantify the survival of fish in culture systems has been a challenge for the fish-farming aquaculture industry for many years. The fish hatcheries in many developing countries still rely on manual and volumetric counting to enumerate the post-larvae (PL) for sale to customers and used a lot of manpower whilst performing the task. Thus, this research reviews on the image processing technology in aquaculture that could be promoted in fish farming and hatcheries for the application of monitoring purposes. The fish counting monitoring system used the Arduino module to detect the post-larvae and capture the image through the IR sensor module. Arduino's information will be displayed on the LCD screen in which the farmer could monitor the fish counting via the system. MATLAB processes the captured image by implementing the image processing system. It is expected that the system will be able to count the post-larvae (PLs) with small mean absolute error, for large and small PLs, and the system has the potential for faster counting as compared to the conventional methods. Furthermore, it will open up possibilities for counting other small aquatic animals such as shrimp, crab, oysters in their nursery process. As for the recommendation, a colour sensor could be applied in the system to improve the readability on the LCD display screen.

One of the factors that contributes to the increased number of Covid-19 cases in Malaysia is according to the authorities that Covid-19 patients, persons under investigation (PUI) and persons under surveillance (PUS) had deliberately left their home quarantine without valid reason and permission. There were irresponsible people who act selfishly by cutting their quarantine wrist tags provided by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and casually left their quarantine zone. The authorities are having a hard time to track down these irresponsible people especially among those who are ordered for self-quarantined at homes. These challenges had inspired for this work to propose a monitoring system to notify and remind respective individuals if they left the permissible area. The developed system could also update the authorities when these individuals continuously defy orders to return to their quarantine area. Through prototype testing, the proposed system offers an acceptable battery consumption since its tracking device consumed an average 150 mAh for a whole day operation. It is anticipated that this system could be an effective technology tool to ensure the quarantine session is undergone perfectly by these individuals and thus, combating the spread of deadly Covid-19 virus in the country.

In every way, the world is becoming less safe for women. Because of the rise in crime, women feel unprotected. According to WHO estimates, one in every three women in the world has experienced physical or non-physical violence at some point in their lives. This paper proposes a quick responding mechanism that helps women during trouble, specifically in a public toilet and house or public parking. This work aims to develop a wearable device for the safety monitoring system for women. The device consumes less power and is created on an open-source single-chip ATmega328 microcontroller with 8-bit reduced instruction set computer RISC processor core based on Harvard architecture. The coding software is written in Java and can be run on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. A smart device for women’s safety is proposed in this paper, which automates the emergency alert system by using a motion-detectors sensor and a body temperature sensor to detect a potential incident instantly using a detection algorithm. This device detects and sends alerts to close friends and families with the women’s location coordinates without requesting communication in crucial circumstances.

Our silicon industries are giving indicator that they are having shortage of expertise in IC design especially from local graduates. On top of that the employed graduates are also lacking of skills. IC design involves with wide topics due to wide application. Specialization is normally related to application such as RF design, memory design, analog design, and digital design. Expertise may end up with specializing in one or two applications only due to long effort to capture the whole skill and knowledge. It is known that the process to build up expertise in this field is hard and challenging. The degree structure needs to equip with high-end software, experience staff, and fund for fabrication. Most programs aim is to produce high level of graduate with good competitive skills that would help the silicon industries to employ them without retrain issue. Hence, in this article, a compilation of teaching process is shared which involves a highly skill mentor who is guiding the trainee on the design process. The sample results concluded that teaching advanced technology in IC design requires sophisticated facilities as well as experienced trainers.

Internet of things (IoT) is a modern technology that connects between physical equipment and some other devices to the Internet network for the desired application. The demand for weather monitoring application leads to an initiative for smart IoT development. There is the issue of an urgent weather alert need for someone who wants to monitor environmental conditions before involving in outdoor activities. Thus, this paper proposes a device of weather information monitoring system to efficiently monitor weather conditions in real time and sending alert notifications via mobile Blynk application, SMS, and email. The device is composed of ESP8266 as microcontroller, temperature-humidity sensor (DHT11), rain drop, and carbon monoxide (CO) detection sensors with integrated real-time data transmit through GSM and Wi-Fi network. The proposed system is designed with a user-friendly GUI mobile application and Web based, accordingly the users can get the updates from the weather monitoring system at anytime and anywhere.

Internet of things (IoT) refers to the infrastructure of connected physical devices which is growing at a rapid rate as a huge number of devices and objects are getting associated with the Internet. Home security is one of the useful applications of IoT. This paper describes a project for a home security system. The system will inform the owner about any unauthorized entry or whenever the door is opened or if there is any gas leakage by sending the notification to the user through a smartphone. The system consists of an Arduino Uno as the main microcontroller, a PIR sensor to detect human movement, a buzzer to sound an alarm, an MQ-6 gas sensor to detect gas leakage, and an ESP8266 Wi-Fi module or NodeMCU to connect to the Internet. The main advantages of the system are ease of use, lower cost, and low maintenance.

Automatic real-time translation of gestured languages for hearing-impaired would be a major advancement on disabled integration path. Cued speech (CS) is a specific visual hand gesture that complements oral languages lip-reading. Cued speech in Bahasa Malaysia (CSBM) is an adaptation of cued speech for use in the Malay language. The cued speech recognition system is capable of detecting all necessary parameters of CS (handshape, hand position, and hand movement) and translate it to text equivalent. The aim is to help the deaf learn and practice the basic of cued speech consonant and vowel using hand gesture. This paper looks into the existing researches involved in this area and also the sensors and methods they used. Due to the limited number of researches for cued speech, related researches such as sign language (SL) translator systems and hand gesture recognition are also reviewed. This paper gives a general overview on the implementation of cued speech recognition system that automatically recognize a succession of cued speech hand gestures in real time. A Malay cued speech recognition system using image analysis is proposed.

Haze is a natural atmospheric phenomenon that happens in Malaysia yearly. Since haze mainly consists of dust and soot, there are high chances that haze particles can be caused by attenuation in millimetre waves. This paper is mainly focused on the haze attenuation rate in Batu Muda, Kuala Lumpur area and analyzed the results if haze particles can affect attenuation. The double Debye formula is used to analyze the haze attenuation rate since there is no concise mathematical modeling for haze. Few variables need to be considered for haze attenuation, such as the API values, size of the particles and particle concentrations. The lower the API values, the concentration of the particles is lower. The size of particles can be divided into two, which are 10 and 2.5 microns. Results show that the size of haze particles also plays an essential role in causing attenuation in millimetre waves. Bigger particles such as PM10 will cause more significant problems in implementing millimetre waves in a real-life scenario.

Most works in antenna design are focussed on the results for the fundamental antenna parameter that can be achieved in the antenna simulator. For further investigation, the antenna must be fabricated, measured and installed to observe the propagation results. This work involves antenna characterisation and a 3D propagation model. Characterisation of the antenna for the transmitter and receiver is for 28 GHz frequency. The input for the computation of the propagation model is using the radiation pattern from the designed antenna. The antenna performance is analysed in different mobile user antenna orientations in vertical and horizontal array configurations. Results show that the propagation performance for the horizontal orientation for the user equipment antenna is outperformed compared better as the downlink SNIR receive power is 45 dBm, 10 dBm higher than the vertical orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to predict the reliability parameters of the DC uninterruptible power supply (UPS) by using the reliability block diagram (RBD) method. Application of RBD in predicting reliability of the DC UPS is capable to produce the important quantitative reliability indices such as the system’s failure rates, mean time between failures (MTBF), availability, and unavailability, which will be useful to the UPS designer, manufacturer and finally the user to decide for the best DC UPS configurations. In this paper, two configurations of the DC UPS (with and without generator) are considered, and comparisons on their resultant reliability parameters by using the proposed RBD method are discussed in detail. Sensitivity analysis on the major components of the DC UPS is performed to investigate the effect on the overall reliability of the power systems. Field data from industrial best practice are used to validate the results of the analytical model.

Buildings account for about 40% of the global energy consumption and contribute over 30% of carbon emission, globally. A large proportion of this energy is used to achieve a thermal comfort within the building. To overcome this problem, green building elements in the construction reduce excessive energy consumption of the building. This paper reviews the effect of thermal comfort to electrical energy consumption through wall and roof material selection of each four mock-up green building in UniKL Green Building test-site. All the data are collected and descriptive analysis has been done to investigate the potential of green building as a method to reduce electrical energy consumption. Test results have been obtained and analysis has been performed to identify the characteristics of the four different materials of the wall (building envelope). The result from this study showed that mock-up green building that is built from green material could provide a better thermal environment than mock-up green building that is built from non-green material. The result also showed the amount of energy consumption could be reduced as less active cooling than the mock-up green building that is built from non-green material.