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Volume 5, Issue No 1, March 2018 <<Previous Volume II Next Volume>>
Issues in Volume 5 Cover Page and Table of Contents Full Articles
Skin Cancer Image Detection using Watershed Marker-Controlled and Canny Edge Detection Techniques
Norhafiza Hamzah; Mohd Sapaweh Asli; Rechard Lee. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 1 - 4 Abstract There are two main types of skin cancer which are melanoma and non-melanoma. This paper proposed a prototype system for detecting melanoma type of skin cancer. The detection system developed in this paper is based on digital images of skin cancer using a combination of watershed marker-controlled technique and canny edge detection technique during image segmentation process. The ABCD (Asymmetry, Border, Colour, and Diameter) method is used to extract the characteristics of the melanoma type of skin cancer on the skin cancer image. The four characteristics of melanoma skin cancer are Asymmetrical shape, Border irregular, Colour variant and Diameter greater than 6mm, which are used by dermatologists to classify melanomas. Several experiments had been conducted to test the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed system. The experiments are detection test for melanoma skin cancer melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer image, comparison test for image segmentation techniques, and a detection test using the noised image of melanoma skin cancer. The results show the proposed prototype system is able to detect nine out of ten images of melanoma skin cancer and distinguish eight out of ten for non-melanoma skin cancer images. Combination of the proposed techniques is better compared to the other techniques because of the segmentation techniques used can distinguish between the main object, Region of Interest, as well as the less important object in the image of skin cancer. View article
Exploring Contributing Features of Pre-Graft Orthodontic Treatment of Cleft Lip and Palate Patients Using Random Forests
Zaturrawiah Ali Omar; Su Na Chin; Albira Sentian; Norhafiza Hamzah; Fouziah Yassin. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 5 - 11 Abstract When a study faced with a limited data, it can be quite a challenge to conduct analyses that can be statistically significant. Given such circumstances, typically, researchers options would either, gathered more data (by pooling or adding artificial data), or used a better analysis algorithm. This study interest was in the latter approach looking at the implementation of a highly suggested machine learning algorithm, that is, the random forests. The primary objective was to explore features that contribute to the success of pre-orthodontic treatments for cleft lip and palate patients. Specific centres have adopted the pre-orthodontic treatments as one of the treatment protocols for the cleft lip and palate patients, before their secondary alveolar bone graft surgery. It was in the intention of the orthodontic department to achieve better patients’ management with the knowledge of the contributing features, as handling these patients can be quite challenging. With only 18 datasets, the random forest out of bag error estimation (or misclassification error) was 27.78%. The error was further reduced to 11.11% when backward elimination was conducted starting with the lowest ranked variable. These leave the top four variables which were, the affected cleft palate (acp) either at the soft palate or hard palate or both, the ethnicity (ethnicity), referral age (ageR) and lastly, age at treatment (ageP). To eliminate the chances of variable selection biases, a conditional forest (cforest) function was conducted and the results suggested that only the affected cleft palate variable was important. Details of these explored top features are discussed further in this paper. View article
Solar Radiation Resources Under Climate Change Scenarios - A Case Study in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Flaviour Markos; Justin Sentian; Ag Sufiyan Abd Hamid; Jedol Dayou; Steven Kong Soon Kai. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 12 - 24 Abstract Solar power is the third major renewable energy after hydropower and biopower. It constitutes an increasingly important element of the global future that is less carbon energy investment. However, the generation capacity, availability, and intermittency of this renewable energy source is strongly climate dependent. Therefore it makes this renewable energy supply system more vulnerable to climate variability and changes. When considering solar energy as a sustainable energy solution, it is important to not only quantify the present solar resource but to also anticipate how the solar resource as the indicator in electricity production potential will change under future climate change scenarios. In this study, we evaluate the climate change impact on solar photovoltaic (PV) power potential in Kota Kinabalu, a rapidly developing city in Malaysia, using the Weather Research Forecast Model (WRF) climate projections under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 together with a PV Power Production Model (1MW). The projected median solar radiations were 193.6 Wm-2 and 211.9 Wm-2 in 2100 under RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 respectively. The changes in solar radiation were statiscally significant at 95% percentile for both climate scenarios. In comparison with the present day scenarios (181.8 Wm-2), the projected future mean solar radiations were also increased to 202.8 Wm-2 (RCP4.5) and 210.9 Wm-2 (RCP8.5), an increase of about 12% and 16% respectively. Results also indicated that the calculated annual average solar radiation for Kota Kinabalu at present-day and future scenarios were 1589.7 kWh/h2 (2014), 1773.4 kWh/h2 (2100-RCP4.5), and 1844.2 kWh/h2 (2100-RCP8.5), which are equivalent to 54.4 MW (2014), 60.7 MW (2100-RCP4.5), and 63.1 MW (2100-RCP8.5). Increases in energy production under future climate change scenarios show a promising trend and indicates a positive potential for solar energy to be harnessed in the Kota Kinabalu city area. View article
The Contribution of Forest Ecosystem Services Toward the Local Community Living Vicinity to The Forest Protected Area: The Case of Kawang Forest Reserve, Sabah Malaysia
Guptah VG Nair; Andy Russel Mojiol; Kamlisa Uni Kamlun; Walter Lintangah. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 25 - 30 Abstract Kawang Forest Reserve covered an area of 1,551 ha, located in the eastern part of Sabah, Malaysia. The Kawang forest was gazetted as a forest reserve since 1957 and was reclassified in 2014 from Class III (Domestic Forest) to Class I (Protected Forest). The reclassification of the forest area is an effort to preserve the main function of the area to sustain the immense amount of biodiversity of the protected area. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the community perceptions’ on the contributions of Kawang Forest Reserve to support their livelihood. The ecosystem services that are provided by the forest are categorized into three main services namely provisioning, regulating, and cultural services. The study was conducted using structural administered questionnaires in a Likert scale (scale of 1.00 – very low to 5.00 - very high) settings. Local community living vicinity to Kawang Forest Reserve were selected as the research respondents using convenient sampling. A total of 102 respondents were selected from villages located around the forest reserve namely, Tanaki, Mook, Tampasak, Kaiduan, Bisuang and Bolotikon to assess their perceptions on the forest ecosystem services contributing to their livelihood development. The regulating services based on soil fertility and erosion control shows the highest value with an average of 4.58 min score, followed by the provisioning services based on the ‘source for clean water supply & filtration’ sub-services with a min score of 4.48 and cultural services based on ‘provides tourism area (interesting area, climbing, hiking and waterfall’ with an average min score of 4.42. Hence, the conservation of Kawang Forest Reserve is vital to support the welfare of the local community residing within the protected area as well contributing to a more sustainable forest management by the decision makers. View article
A Preliminary Survey on the Effect of Anthropogenic Noise to Bird Community in Gaya Island
Emily A. Gilbert; Jephte Sompud; Oswald A. Igau; Maklarin Lakim; Rimi Repin; Alim Biun. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 31 - 39 Abstract To date, there is still scarce study that has been done looking on the impact of the anthropogenic noise in influencing the bird community in Gaya Island as it acts as an important indicator for the health of the island’s ecosystem. Hence, this preliminary study aims to determine the effect of the anthropogenic noise on the bird community in Gaya Island. The data collection was conducted for three months in three of the selected sites within the island. The methods that were being used were the point count sampling and noise mapping respectively. The anthropogenic noise level that was being measured at the selected sites ranges from 29dB to 80dB. Meanwhile, descriptive analysis, diversity indexes and correlation analysis were used to analyze the obtained data. A total of 422 individuals from 24 species and 16 families were recorded during the survey in Gaya Island. The result of the Shannon_Wiener index showed that the diversity of the birds in low anthropogenic noise zone is slightly higher (H’=2.559) as compared to the bird in high anthropogenic noise zone (H’= 2.558) even though there is no significant different in terms of diversity of birds between these two zones. However, the Spearman’s correlation analysis showed a very significant and negative correlation of the anthropogenic noise with the abundance and species richness of bird (r= -0.076, p=0.000). Therefore, this study shows that the bird community is negatively affected with the increasing of anthropogenic noise in Gaya Island. View article
Glucosinolates Content in Non-elicited Plant Culture, Elicited Plant Culture and Wild Plant of Watercress (Nasturtium officinale)
Eramartica Rubin; Zaleha A. Aziz; Noumie Surugau. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 40 - 45 Abstract Watercress (Nasturtium officinale), a green vegetable belongs to the Brassicaceae, contains considerable amount of vitamins, minerals and secondary metabolites such as glucosinolates (GS). Watercress contains phenyl ethyl glucosinolate (gluconasturtiin), a precursor of phenyl ethyl isothiocyanate, which is widely reported to restrain the growth of cancer cells. The content of secondary metabolites and other compounds in plants is affected by different growth conditions such as pH, temperature, light intensity and nutrient supply. Thus, the aim of the current study is to evaluate the concentration of gluconasturtiin (and other GS) from in vitro grown watercress under non-elicited and elicited plant culture with wild plant of N. officinale. The samples were collected from watercress growing wild in a spring in Kundasang area, Ranau Sabah and subjected to sterilization to establish N. officinale in vitro culture under laboratory condition. The sterilization was done by using Chlorox® solution (5% v/v) containing Tween 20 to obtain 90% survival rate of the plants. Explants were grown in glass jar containing hormone-free with 30 g/L of sucrose and pH was adjusted to 5.7 - 5.8. The medium was solidified with 4 g/L-1 of agar and sterilized at 121°C for 20 minutes. All cultures were kept inside growth chamber at 25°C under 16 hours photoperiod for 30 days before sub-cultured into fresh medium treated with elicitors. Different concentration of elicitors tested in this study were chitosan (10, 20, 40, 60, 100 mg/mL), casein hydrolysate (0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 g/L) and coconut water (5, 10, 15, 20, 25 % v/v). The results showed that gluconasturtiin and benzyl glucosinolate (glucotropaeolin) increased over five-fold and six-fold, respectively, in non-elicited plant culture compared to the wild N. officinale. Compared to the non-elicited, the concentrations of these GS were significantly lower by 52 – 76 % for gluconasturtiin and 33 – 55 % for glucotropaeolin in all the in vitro N. officinale treated with the elicitors. Nonetheless, the GS concentrations in all the in vitro N. officinale were higher compared to the matured wild plant. Tissue culture method could be a valuable alternative for higher production of GS in N. officinale with short period of plant development (30 days in this study). View article
Survival and Pathogenicity of Monokaryotic and Dikaryotic Ganoderma boninense following three different Preservation Methods
Hun Jiat Tung; Cu Ean Ong; Yit Kheng Goh; You Keng Goh; Kah Joo Goh. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 46 - 52 Abstract Ganoderma boninense, is the major causal agent of basal stem rot (BSR) in oil palm, causing approximately RM 1.5 billion economic losses annually. Pure dikaryotic and monokaryotic G. boninense cultures are frequently used for epidemiology and aetiology studies of BSR. To obtain consistent and comparable inter-experiment results, maintaining and preservation of true-to-type pure cultures of monokaryotic and dikaryotic G. boninense are important. Three different pure fungal culture preservation techniques, namely serial sub-culturing, on slant overlaid with mineral oil, and submersion in water, were adopted to store four G. boninense isolates (two monokaryons and two dikaryons) for 12 months. Viability of G. boninense cultures preserved on agar slant overlaid with mineral oil and submersion in water, ranged from 50 to 89%. Our results also showed that one-year-old dikaryotic G. boninense isolates preserved in mineral oil and water had higher pathogenicity level compared to cultures from repeated sub-culturing. Both slant with mineral oil or in water preservation methods, which are less laborious, inexpensive, and simple, can be adopted for preserving pathogenic G. boninense. View article
Improving Pre-University Students’ Understanding of Basic Plant Tissue Culture Topic through Laboratory Teaching: A Case Study of UMS
Makdi Masnoddin; Johannah Jamalul Kiram; Azlinah Matawali; Nur Ramziahrazanah Jumat. 2018. Transactions on Science and Technology, 5(1), 53 - 57 Abstract Laboratory work is an important component in biology-based courses. In Malaysia, biology courses were offered to students from the upper secondary level to pre-university level. However, practical work and experimentation still not being fully emphasized in teaching and learning session. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate the effectiveness of laboratory teaching for basic plant tissue culture topic at Foundation Science, University Malaysia Sabah. Two hundred fifty-six pre-university science students had participated in this study. Test comprises of two sections (theory and practical) was given to the students before and after lab session. The data was analysed using R statistical software. Paired t-test and Pearson’s correlation coefficient were utilized to make statistical interpretation of the Pre-lab and Post-lab test. The results showed that the average mean value for the Post-lab test was higher, with an increased to four questions answered correctly as compared to Pre-lab test. The results of the paired t-test also significant and there was a high correlation between Pre-lab test and Post-lab test. These findings prove that laboratory teaching did significantly improve the students’ level of understanding after participating in the laboratory session. View article |