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Abstract. Uncontrolled issues of disposal waste tire rubber create huge environmental impact and health hazards. An alternative viable solution to minimize these problems is by utilizing the waste rubber tires in construction materials, which in turn can reduce the use of natural resources and eventually lessen the cost of construction. This paper mainly focuses on the use of waste rubber tires particles in concrete with different set of composition ranging from 3 to 12% of cement replacement. Concrete cubes size of 150mm x 150mm x 150mm were prepared for compressive strength test, and concrete cylinders size of 150m x 300mm were prepared for splitting tensile test. The result shows that the compressive and split tensile strength of concrete with rubber as cement replacements is 6-21% lower than the normal concrete.

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Wind energy is a reliable, clean source and has emerged as one of the dependable, and the best performing developing renewable energy around the world. It has insignificant environmental impacts, compared to other energy sources. In Sarawak, Malaysia, wind resource varies depending on the location. An inadequate number of wind stations are the major obstacles that slow down the growing of green energy in the region. Site selection is a crucial issue for potential investors and policy makers. This paper examines the spatial distribution and the amount of potential wind power and energy densities for wind energy production and suitable locations in Sarawak. A geographical Information System (GIS) assisted methodology, which includes wind speed, power and energy densities using the existing wind station and based on the newly developed prediction model called topographical neural network (TNN) were used. Kriging interpolation was employed for a simple interpolation of data between locations. The results show that the northeast, northwest and coastal regions have better prospects of wind energy. The studied GIS methodology can be applied for identification of the most suitable locations for wind energy harvesting. The developed maps can further be used in micro-siting and economic evaluation analysis.

Digital image processing is one of the most widely used computer vision techniques, especially in biomedical engineering. Modern ophthalmology is directly dependent on this robust technology, digital image processing to find out the biomarkers analyzing the fundus eye images that are responsible for different kinds of life-threatening diseases like hypertensive retinopathy, Transient Ischemic Attack or sharp stroke. The geometric features like vessel tortuosity, branching angles, vessel diameter, and fractal dimension are considered as the biomarkers for the abovementioned cardiovascular diseases. Retinal vessel diameter widening has found as the early symptom of transient ischemic attack or sharp stroke. In this paper, a completely new and computer-aided automated method to measure the retinal vessel diameter by employing the Euclidean Distance Transform technique was developed. The proposed algorithm measures the Euclidean Distance of the bright pixels exist on the Region of Interest (ROI). Further, the Vascular Disease Image Set (VDIS) and Central Light Reflex Image Set (CLRIS) of Retinal Vessel Image Set for Estimation of Width database were used to evaluate the performance of the proposed algorithm that measures the vessel diameter. The proposed algorithm obtained 98.1% accuracy for the CLRIS and 97.7% accuracy for VDIS. With further evaluation, validation and enhancement of the method, it can be integrated into the clinical computer-aided diagnostic tool.

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Night air temperature in Malaysia is generally about 23°C and is a potential source of heat sink to dissipate heat gain from a building. A thermal storage tank was used to store a certain quantity of water and was passively cooled during the night using the pitched roof as a heat exchanger to chill the water to as low as 22°C. The free cooling of water was then used as a cooling medium to cool the modular radiant cooling panel during the day time when the outdoor temperature exceeds 30°C. The experiment shows that the system was able to maintain an indoor temperature of less than 28°C when the outdoor temperature peaked to nearly 34°C while providing acceptable thermal comfort with certain controlled air movement. The use of the hydronic radiant cooling panel with free night cooled water as its coolant is proven to have significant energy saving potential of up to 85% while at the same time provide an acceptable room thermal comfort which meets the international standard criteria such as the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and AirConditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) Standard 55.