Most of Napier grass industry in Malaysia is labored in small and medium scale. Therefore, the harvesting works are done manually by man power using conventional equipment such as sickle and machete. However, there are some efforts made to design the low cost equipment in assisting this Napier grass harvesting works. The aim of this study is to compare the Rapid Upper Limb Assessment (RULA) and Rapid Entire Body Assessment (REBA) performance in order to evaluate the certain body parts condition during harvesting works by using conventional equipment and innovation machine assisted. Based on survey, conventional harvesting method might increase the risk of low back pain (LBP) due to repetitive stooping posture. Furthermore, the back biomechanical load and force impact were also not handling wisely. The objective of this study is to prove that the usage of machine during harvesting works might improve the body posture especially on stoop level condition. Based on results, the overall RULA and REBA score are excellently improved as well as trunk position which is depicts the stooped level condition. Hence, the innovation of harvest machine could contribute to the Napier grass industry especially on small and medium entrepreneur.

The fabrication of starch-hydroxyapatite (HA) scaffolds was conducted previously by using corn, tapioca and rice. Here, local brown rice was chosen as the source of starch since different type of rice may give different outcome of in term of the scaffold’s materials characteristics. The main aim of this study is to obtain a brown rice starch-hydroxyapatite (HA) composite scaffolds that could imitate the structure and the characteristics of a natural bone. The fabrication process involved solvent casting and particulate leaching method which using NaCl as a porogen agent. Four ratios of starch-HA were fabricated with concentration of starch 50wt%, 60wt%, 70wt% and 80wt%. Afterward, the effects of the brown rice starch on the scaffolds were investigated by water absorption test and Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). Here, only 50wt% and 60wt% ratio of starch-HA can be used to fabricate tissue scaffolds using solvent casting and particulate leaching method. Hence, the 60wt% ratio scaffolds has the highest water absorption of all and the pore’s size observed through SEM corresponded to this. The FTIR also shows there are more interactions between Brown Rice starch and HA for the 60wt% ratio.

Fabrication of an impedance tube for measuring sound absorption coefficient is presented in this paper. Transfer-function method is chosen for the sound absorption analysis. The impedance tube is designed and fabricated in accordance with ISO 10534-2. The tube is made from brass with diameter of 114.3 mm and length of 1.42 m. It is designed for the frequency range 60 Hz to 1800Hz. Three microphone positions are installed to achieve the frequency range with a single tube. The theoretical background of transfer-function method between two microphones is discussed. Initially, impedance tube is characterized by the measurement without testing material in the tube. Micro-perforated panel (MPP) with 50 mm and 100 mm of cavity depth are used for measurement. The sound absorption coefficient measurement of the MPP is compared with theory and good agreement is achieved. Various problems related to design and construction is addressed and the optimal configuration is presented.

This study was conducted to investigate the feasibility of loop antenna in gauging level of salinity of water via electromagnetic wave reflection. High salinity cause adverse effect to environment. When high levels salinity of water diffuse into soil, it declines values of land for human and animal consumption. These impacts can cause tremendous monetary lost because the restoration of impairments is extremely costly. Therefore, a reliable salinity detection system of water source is crucial. In this work, reflection measurement was conducted using loop antenna in conjunction with network analyser for water salinity detection. Dielectric probe will be then used for dielectric characterization due to different water salinity. It comes to learn that the different level of salinity of water exhibit different dielectric properties through reflection measurement. The increment of salinity leads to increment and decrement of dielectric constant and loss factor, respectively. Similar observation can be found in reflection coefficient.