|
Archives |
Volume 2, Issue No 2, December 2015 <<Previous Volume II Next Volume>>
Issues in Volume 2 Cover Page and Table of Contents Full Articles
Effects of viscoelastic properties on the performance of the polyurethane sensor
Sang-Kyun Hwang; Hui-Yun Hwang. 2015. Transactions on Science and Technology, 2(2), 1 - 5 Abstract The purpose of this study is to develop self-sensor type tactile sensing technology where the material itself serves as sensor, to actually apply the technology into the arm of robot, and to monitor the location and intensity of the external force exerted on random place in real time. In order to develop such system, preceding study conducted experiments on the output signal of sensor for different magnitudes of the external force, speeds, and locations. Among all, the results of the preceding study identified the decreasing tendency of output signal with increasing load input speed. Hence, this study conducted viscoelastic property test of the material and compared and analyzed the two results to identify the cause of decrease of output signal. View article
toxA gene as a chromosomal marker for rapid identification of Otitis media Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Ibtesam Ghadban Auda; Israa M.S. Al-Kadmy; Alaa Naseer Mohammed Ali; Sahira Nsayef Muslim; Istabreq Muhammed Ali Salman. 2015. Transactions on Science and Technology, 2(2), 6 - 10 Abstract Exotoxin A (ETA) is a powerful chromosomal extracellular virulence factor produced by most of clinical P. aeruginosa isolates. Aims of this study is that, identification of aerobic acute and chronic causative agents of otitis media and test whether the chromosomal toxA gene can be used as marker for rapid identification of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Ear swabs were taken from 49 patients complaining of symptoms of otitis. Patient’s age ranging from 6 months to 85 years, 25 males and 24 females. Ear swabs were collected in period from January to April 2010. Bacterial causative agents were identified. Chromosomal DNA of Pseudomonas aeruginosa isolates was extracted and subjected to PCR to amplify toxA gene. Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumonaie were the bacterial causative agents of acute otitis media while P. aeruginosa and S. aureus were predominant in chronic otitis media. E. coli and Proteus spp. and Enterobacter spp were also identified. Amplification of toxA showed that 23 (100%) of P. aeruginosa isolates were positive and were chromosomal encoded. As a conclusion, Staphylococcus aureus and Streptococcus pneumonaie were predominant bacterial causative agents of acute otitis media while P. aeruginosa and S. aureus were predominant ones in chronic otitis media. P. aeruginosa Exotoxin A is a chromosomal encoded feature and can be used as a marker in identification of P. aeruginosa isolates by molecular methods. View article
Removal of crystal violet dye using sugarcane fiber
Siti Kartina Abdul Karim; Rabuyah Ni; Millaa-Armilla Asli; Siti Hajijah Ismail. 2015. Transactions on Science and Technology, 2(2), 11 - 15 Abstract The occurrence of dye in water is a visual nuisance and greatly affects the appearance of water. Use of natural based sorbent, such as sugarcane, can reduce the amount of dye in water without changing it into more toxic substance. In this paper, the effect of sorbent dose, pH and initial concentration was studied towards the percent removal of crystal violet dye in water. A high sorbent dose, up to 50 mg/mL can remove about 95% of this dye in water. Further increase in sorbent dose will only increase the removal slightly, moreover it will also increase the cost of the sorbent. The dye can be removed efficiently even at concentration as low as 200 ppm, where the removal was about 75%. At higher initial concentration, the percent removal increased accordingly. However, the pH did not greatly affect the percent removal. Varying the pH from 3 to 11, the percent removal was changed from about 90% to 95% only. View article
Antibiotic resistance among bacteria from Antarctic and Tropics
Elizabeth James; Clemente Michael Vui Ling Wong. 2015. Transactions on Science and Technology, 2(2), 16 - 20 Abstract The emergence of antibiotic resistant strains of environmental bacteria and human pathogens is a natural phenomenon that happens when bacteria are constantly exposed to sub-inhibitory concentration of antibiotics. As a result, many environmental bacteria develop resistance to multiple antibiotics. These antibiotic determinants can be transferred to other bacteria as well as human pathogens through horizontal gene transfer. A better understanding of the extent of multiple antibiotic resistance determinants among environmental bacteria may help to predict and counteract the emergence and future evolution of resistance. Hence, this research is undertaken to determine the antibiotic resistance profiles of 14 bacterial strains from the Antarctic and 11 bacterial strains from the tropics. All bacterial strains were exposed to 13 different types of antibiotics. The results showed that all tropical bacteria were sensitive to most of the 13 antibiotics tested. Meanwhile, most of the Antarctic bacteria were resistant to multiple antibiotics and sensitive to only few antibiotics such as imipenem, metronidazole and novobiocin. Bacterial strains that were resistant to a significant number of antibiotics, such as AP1, AP3, AP4, and AP6 were identified based on their 16S rDNA sequences. Isolates AP1, AP3, and AP4 were identified as Pedobacter spp. while AP6 was identified as Arthrobacter sp. All bacteria were checked for presence of plasmid. It was found that only bacterial strain DL5 from Antarctica possessed a plasmid. View article
Improvised two-step elution of chromatographic purification of grouper’s iridovirus plasmid-based vaccine by monolithic adsorbent
Tamar Kansil; Clarence M. Ongkudon; Kenneth F. Rodrigues; Yi Wei Chan. 2015. Transactions on Science and Technology, 2(2), 21 - 27 Abstract Vaccines have significantly reduced the antibiotics usage especially in the aquaculture industry. Plasmid-based vaccine offers potential effective immunity against the Grouper Iridovirus and Grouper Nervous Necrosis Virus in groupers. Chromatographic purification system is crucial for the efficient recovery of plasmid DNA vaccine construct. With monolith technology, a platform for the vaccine purification has been developed to obtain a high-throughput production of plasmid DNA vaccine in economic manner and time less. The monolith was prepared via free radical co-polymerization of glycidyl methacrylate GMA and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate EDMA in the presence of cyclohexanol as porogen at 70% porogen concentration which gave a minimum heat build-up and homogenous pore size distribution. Monolithic based purification concluded that 0.1 M NaCl as a running buffer coupled with 0.9 M of sulphate salt solution and a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min used for separation are found to be able to produce a reasonably pure DNA. First peak elution is eluting all the RNA leaving DNA alone to be eluted in the second peak. The result of the studies will advance knowledge in the control of disease in the aquaculture industry using plasmid based vaccination and high throughput plasmid purification process. View article
Taxonomy of rain detection and rain removal techniques
Raima Hassim; Abdullah Bade. 2015. Transactions on Science and Technology, 2(2), 28 - 35 Abstract There are number of occurring weather conditions phenomena. Bad weather condition such as rain can lead to image degradation of the captured image or video. The visual effects produced by rains are very complex due to the properties of raindrops that can reflect and refract the environment. A common solution to reduce the visibility of rain is by using filtering techniques. This paper intends to give a summary on the raindrop detection and removal techniques that has been used in order to enhance the weather degraded images. The merits and demerits of the rain detection and removal are discussed to motivate the further research. The analysed and studied techniques on rain detection and removal techniques will become the fundamental to design the fundamental of this study to produce an efficient technique in rain detection and removal and applicable for real-time application. We believe this study on detection and removal of rain can be used in many applications such as image or video editing, surveillances vision system and Vision-based Driver Assistance Systems (DAS). View article
Effect of number of steps on the quality of Eurycoma longifolia extract and cost efficiency of the extraction process
Raima Hassim; Abdullah Bade. 2015. Transactions on Science and Technology, 2(2), 36 - 47 Abstract The importance of number of extraction step on cost efficiency of extraction of Eurycoma longifolia is undeniable, in addition to main processing factors like temperature, duration, rotation speed, particle size of raw material, and solvent to raw material ratio. In lab-scale, the highest cost efficiency of the process was obtained in two-sequential extraction, i.e. 1.45 gram per RM. This double extraction also seemed appropriate since considerable total yield and amounts of active compounds could be obtained to some level. Multi-step extractions of beyond three steps are not advisable as the severe quality of the extracts. When increasing the number of extraction steps, the amounts of marker compounds such as eurycomanone and polysaccharides decreased, and simultaneously increased the unwanted constituents. Improving the extraction efficiency of Eurycoma longifolia particularly in industrial point of view has to be economical at appropriate processing condition. View article |