The low resolution Automatic Picture Transmission (APT) data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) polar-orbiting satellites Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) is being received and recorded in real-time mode at ground receiving station in School of Science and Technology, Universiti Malaysia Sabah. The system is suitable for the developing and undeveloped countries in south and Southeast Asia and is said to be acceptable for engineering, agricultural, climatological and environmental applications. The system comprises a personal computer attached with a small APT receiver. The data transmission between the ground receiving station and NOAA satellites is using the electromagnetic wave. The relation for receiving and processing the electromagnetic wave in the transmission will be discussed.
Small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) was used to investigate the nanostructure of the microfibrils of cell wall in Acacia Mangium wood. Parameters, such as the fibre length (L), surface area of the single fibre (S), the correspondence distance from the center of the fibre to the center of its neighbor and the shape of the fibre were determined as a function to the distance from pith towards the bark. The results indicate that the fibre length ranged from 53.44 nm to 13.72 nm from pith to bark. Surface area of the single fibre varied from 0.65 nm 2 to 4.36 nm 2 , the highest being found at the end of bark region. The mean value of the correspondence distance is 13.95 nm. Surface structure analysis from scattering graph showed a rod shape of fibre in the pith region of Acacia Mangium wood. The use of SAXS technique and scanning electron microscope (SEM) micrographs gives the most reliable dimensions values.
Some cortical bone specimens from the femurs of adult cows and sea coral of Porites species were studied by using Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy, FTIR. Carbonate were shown to be present by indication of C-O stretch found between 1510-1410 cm -1 in both cortical bone and Porites. Based on the comparison of the relative intensity of CO3 2- bands with respect to the PO4 3- bands, peak intensity of Porites was found to be higher than peak intensity of cortical bone at carbonate band. This explains that Porites skeleton is made up of CaCO3 while bone consists of a mineral, hydroxyapatite Ca5(PO4)3OH with the present of carbonate ions, typically from 3 to 7 wt%.
In this study, the unaffected, affected and heavily affected teeth were studied by using X-Ray diffraction method. The D-values, which are related to the crystallite size of the apatite crystals, were calculated according to the Sherrer equation. The crystallite size of unaffected enamel was found to be 1530.95Å, while the affected enamel was 1490.22Å and the heavily affected enamel was 1484.16Å respectively. This study showed that the unaffected enamel has greater crystallite size as compared to the affected and heavily affected enamel.
The term microfibril angle, MFA in wood science refers to the angle between the direction of the helical windings of cellulose microfibrils in the secondary cell wall, S2 layer of fibres and tracheids and the long axis of the cell. In this study, the mean MFA of the cell walls were determined for thin samples of thickness 200.0 µm from pith and outwards, for eight ages of Acacia mangium wood. The determination of MFA was based on a diffraction pattern arising from cellulose crystal planes of the type 002 generated by x-ray diffraction and recorded using an electronic detector. The results show an inversely relationship between MFA and age of tree in Acacia mangium wood. MFA decreased from 26.13° at age 3 year-old to 0.20° at tree of age 15 year-old for the pith region. The most significant drop occurred from 16.14° at age 7 yearold to 11.30° at age 9 year-old. An inversely relationship between MFA and storage modulus E’ was evidence in Acacia mangium at age 10-year-old. The results showed that about 76.22% variation of loss modulus E” was attributed to the MFA, while about 66.4% of the variation of glass transition Tg was explained by MFA under the same experimental conditions.
This study was designed to investigate the crystallite sizes of Porites species. A set of 9 Porites skeletons i.e. Porites australiensis, Porites cylindrica, Porites lutea, Porites lichen, Porites digitata, Porites nigrescens, Porites rus, Porites annae and Porites sp. were studied by using XRay Diffraction method. The values of FWHM and theta (θ) are used in Scherrer equation to determine the crystallite sizes of all Porites samples. It was found that the crystallite sizes were in the range of 1007.78 Ǻ – 1706.04 Ǻ.
The main purpose of this study was to analyzed and examined the cocoa butter samples from Sabah. This work presence the crystal phases present in cocoa butter sample thus proved the existence of polymorphs obtained from differential scanning calorimeter (DSC) analysis and confirmed by X-ray diffraction (XRD). The cocoa butter samples were extracted using a conventional method by Soxhlet Extraction method. Crystals were formed under controlled static and tempered conditions. Cocoa butter polymorphism demonstrates that it is the actual crystallization temperature, not the cooling rate that determines the polymorph that crystallizes.
Unaffected, affected and heavily affected teeth enamel were studied by using FT-Raman spectroscopy. The 14 permanent teeth’s enamel surface were measured randomly, resulting in total n=43 FT-Raman spectra. The results obtained from FT-Raman spectra of heavily affected, affected and unaffected tooth’s enamel surfaces did not show any significant difference. In this study, Kruskal-Wallis and Wilcoxon rank sum tests were used to compare the intensity between the categories of enamel as well as the surfaces of teeth samples.