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Inside this issue:

Environment Research Division ­ Process Integration Lecture Series 2010 College of Benefactors 2010 10th Anniversary Public Lecture Series 2010 Proteomic Seminar Series 2010 Graduate School Travel Prize Winner ­ Janet Wong ECMS 2010 Best Paper Award ­ Kheng Cheng Wai SMLC Research Activity Oct­Dec 2010 School of Pharmacy ­ Research Laboratories Climate Change and DIMS Technology Workshop Faculty of Engineering­Research Activity Upcoming Conferences­Jan­April 2011

UNMC Research Quarter contains information regarding research, events, workshops, seminars and Graduate School activity

Oct­Dec 2010

Editors: Dr. Christopher Hill Anita Pathma

UNMC

RESEARCH QUARTER

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Automated targeting technique for batch water network

Presenter: Mr Sophanna Nun (De La Salle University­Manila, Philippines) Synopsis: Sophanna is a Assistant Lecturer at Institute of Technology of Cambodia, Cambo­dia. He has just completed his MSc study with Prof Raymond Tan at De La Salle University­Manila, Philippines. He is now undertaking a short term research attachment at UNMC in the SPI group. In this talk, Sophanna will show us how to trade­off water recovery with number of storage tanks when carrying out water minimisation study for a batch process.

Automated targeting technique for synthesis of a sustainable integrated bio­refinery

Presenter: Mr Zumer Shabbir

Synopsis: Zumer is an MSc student in the SPI group. He completed his BSc. in Chemical En­gineering from University of Engineering & Technology, Lahore, Pakistan. He is currently working on the synthesis of integrated biorefinery. In this talk, he will show us how auto­mated targeting model may be used to synthesis of a sustainable integrated biorefinery with maximum economic performance and minimum environmental impact.

Synthesis of regional energy supply chain based on palm oil biomass Presenter: Ir Dr Dominic Foo & Dr Mustafa Kamal (University Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia) Synopsis: Mustafa Kamal is an Associate Professor at Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM). He specialises on various aspects of palm oil processing. In this talk, a new model for the synthesis of a regional energy supply chain based on palm oil biomass residue is pre­sented.

Environment Research Division Lecture Series 2010

Synthesis of heat integrated water network with negligible contaminant effect. Presenter: Mr Gopal Chandra Sahu (Indian Insti­tute of Technology (IIT), Bombay)

Synopsis: Gopal is a PhD candidate at Indian Insti­tute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, working with Pro­fessor Santanu Bandyopadhyay. He is now under­taking a short term research attachment at UNMC in the SPI group. He specialises in heat­integrated water network synthesis. In this talk, Gopal will demonstrate how heat integration can be carried out for a water minimisation case study when con­taminant effect of the water­using operations can be neglected.

From left: Gopal Chandra Sahu, Zumer Shabbir, Dr. Denny Ng, Ir. Dr. Dominic Foo, Sophanna Nun, Dr. Feroz Kabir and Dr. Mustafa Kamal (UTM)

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7 members of the University Council and external invited guests attended a full day of presentations and events to showcase UNMC. The College members visited the Semenyih Campus as part of a two­day trip to Kuala Lumpur.

College of Benefactors 1st October 2010

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10th Anniversary Public Lecture Series September ­ October 2010

Lecture 4: The Impact of Reef Damage on Malaysian Tourism 29th September 2010 Dr Thomas Thornborrow Associate Professor, Nottingham University Business School University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus

Lecture 5: Counter­Terrorism and Democracy 8th October 2010 Prof Wyn Rees Professor of Security Studies, School of Politics and International Relations University of Nottingham, UK

Lecture 6: Stem Cells and Building Human Tissues ­ How today’s science will transform medicine forever 21st October 2010 Prof Kevin Shakesheff Head of School of Pharmacy, University of Nottingham UK

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Proteomic Conference Workshop 5th October 2010

The Proteomic Workshop on 4­7th October 2010 Proteomic is the study of pro­teins expressed by the genome of an organism. In the last five years, there has been a surge in the number of organisms includ­ing human, whose whole ge­nome sequence has been known. The next imminent step for many researchers is thus to find out the functions of these genome sequence assembly in the organisms – a field known as functional genomics. Proteomic is one of the tools for functional genomics. Many researchers in Malaysia have contemplated or already started using proteomic tool for analysing the organisms they are working with. In view of the importance of this technique, the idea for organising a proteo­mic workshop at national level was mooted. The proteomic workshop was co­organised by UNMC, MPOB and AAR. The key trainer for the workshop was Dr Susan Liddell, who is a senior research officer hailed from the University of Nottingham UK. With bounteous proteomic ex­perience as a co­founder and co­organiser of East Midland pro­teomics workshop for more than eight years, Dr Susan Liddell has contributed tremendously to the success of the workshop held at UNMC. There were 18 workshop participants from various organi­sations which range from public and private universities to gov­ernment research organisations as well as commercial research laboratories. The participants have found the workshop useful and are looking forward to the

second workshop in the follow­ing years. In conjunction with the work­shop, a public seminar series on proteomic ­ beyond genomics and transcriptomics was held. This seminar series was co­organised with the School of Postgraduate, UNMC. The semi­nar series managed to draw a total of 120 audiences. We were also very honour to have the Pro­Vice Chancellor for Research from the University of Notting­ham UK, Prof Robert Webb, to come and meet our workshop participants and shared with them the research activities tak­ing place in the campuses. The workshop has received gen­erous sponsorships from Bruker (M) Sdn Bhd, Research Instru­ments Sdn Bhd, Chemoscience Sdn Bhd and Medigene Sdn Bhd. Apart from that, 1st Base Sdn Bhd has also kindly given the workshop participants with an ice­cream treat in one of the breaks for refreshments. The participants were therefore hav­ing much fun as well as learning an important technique for them to take home to practice in their labs. We hope that the next proteomic workshop to be hosted by MPOB will take the proteomic technique to a higher level and these workshops will continue to provide a platform for the researchers interested in proteomic field to share their expertise in future.

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Janet Wong, a second year PhD student in the School of Pharmacy supervised by Dr Khoo Teng Jin, has been awarded a Travel Prize by the Graduate School, Uni­versity of Nottingham. Her research involves identifying HMG­CoA reductase in­hibitors in plant secondary metabolites from Malaysian rainforests, which have the potential to inhibit reductase enzyme activity. This inhibition leads to a suppres­sion of cholesterol production. Currently the bioassay screenings are performed on crude extracts from plants. This would allow further investigation on the specific compound(s) deemed to be exhibiting the hypercholesterolaemic effect. Janet will be conducting her research at the Centre for Bimolecular Science (UK Campus), where she will be using the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) for analyses of potential compounds. There will also be structure elucidation using NMR­linked to Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Liquid Chromatogra­phy­Mass Spectrometry technology

From Left : Dr. Khoo Teng Jin (Supervisor) and Janet Wong.

Graduate School Travel Prize Winner Janet Wong

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European Conference on Modelling and Simulation (ECMS) 2010 Best Paper Award

Kheng Cheng Wai was a winner of the 2010 European Conference on Model­ing and Simulation (ECMS) Best Paper Award. The paper is co­authored with his PhD supervisor, Chong Siang Yew and Lim Meng Hiot, an associate pro­fessor from Nanyang Technological University (NTU). This paper is a col­laboration research work between NTU and UNIM, partially sponsored by ST Engineering. The award is presented by Dr. Eugène Kerckhoffs, the founder and honorary conference chair of ECMS on 4th, June 2010.

Kheng Cheng Wai receiving his award from Dr. Eugene Kerckhoffs

Description of paper:

Computers are very good at solving complex problems – such as the design of an aircrafts wing. However, in conventional software engineering a human has to design the methods that are used to solve such problems – and the solution can only ever be as good as the designer. A lot of computer science is devoted to finding better ways of solving these sort of problems. In evolutionary computing, we attempt to build systems that are inspired by biological evolution to “evolve” a better solution to a problem. There are generally two schools of thought amongst evolutionary computing researchers – Lamarckians and Bald­winians. The Lamarckians are inspired by the work of the early 19th century naturalist Jeane­Baptiste Lamarck. He suggested that animals evolve by acquiring useful character­istics during their lifetime and then transmitting them to their offspring. Giraffes evolve long necks, because stretching up into the trees lengthens their necks and so the next gen­eration of giraffes will start off with slightly longer necks. The Baldwinians are inspired by the ideas of the late 19th century philosopher, psychologist and evolutionary theoretician James Mark Baldwin. His grand idea is what is now known as the Baldwin effect. That is that cultural and social behavioral patterns (such as taboos) are at least as important in social evolution as patterns that are embedded in genetics. Both Lamarckian and Bald­winian ideas may be used to design very different evolutionary computing systems. What I have done is to carefully compare the two approaches when they are applied to a wide range of different problems. The interesting thing that I found was that the Lamarckian approach is better for simple, well­defined problems but the Baldwinian approach is better for more complex “noisy” problems. This observation is likely to be quite important in the development of evolutionary computing. Maybe this sort of work will one day lead to a world where software is brewed rather than designed!

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School of Modern Languages and Cultures Research Activity

Zaharom Nain, Mapping Digital Media, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong, 11­14 October. At this international research meeting for the Mapping Digital Media project in Hong Kong from 11 to 14 October, Rom was invited as the country researcher for Malaysia by the Open Society Foundation, funders of the project. The Hong Kong meeting was the first meeting of Asian re­searchers, who represent just one component of this 60­country project which also covers Europe, Africa, Latin America, the Arab states and the USA. Rom is now responsible for a country­wide study of the development and use of digital media in the context of contemporary political and economic debate.

Zaharom Nain, Borneo Post column – ‘Edge of Town’ Rom is a regular Sunday columnist for the Borneo Post, commenting on the pressing cultural, social and political issues of the day – http://www.theborneopost.com/?s=zaharom+nain or http://www.theborneopost.com/?cat=595 .

Zaharom Nain, ‘Forum on 1Malaysia’, South East Asia Research Centre for Communication and the Humanities (SEARCH), Taylor’s University , 6 October 2010 Rom was invited as Discussant and Chair of this panel, which included Malaysian constitutional expert, Professor Shad Saleem Faruqi of Universiti Teknologi MARA, Monash University political scientist and Head of the School of Arts and Social Sciences, Professor James Chin, Sisters of Is­lam Director Dr. Hamidah Marican and Star associate editor Bunn Nagara. Some 400 students were in attendance and a lively debate took place.

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School of Modern Languages and Cultures Research Activity

Leong Yut Moy, Japan Comparative Literature Association 46th Congress, Kyoto Sangyo University, Japan, 6 November. Leong was invited to the Japan Comparative Literature Association (JCLA) Kansai Congress held at the Kyoto Sangyo University in early November 2010. She was a respondent in the seminar discussing Chinese and Japanese writing (Fumiko Hayashi and Lao She) chaired by Li Don Jun (Hanazano University, China). She also contributed to the forum on literary translation.

Sean Matthews, D. H. Lawrence: L’Uomo et le Sue Isole, Universita per Stranieri, Perugia, Italy. 2­3 December 2010. Sean gave the plenary lecture, ‘Voyaging: D. H. Lawrence At Sea’, at a conference arranged jointly by the Universita per Stranieri, Pergugia (Italy’s oldest and primary institution for in­ternational scholars and students), and the University of Cagliari, Sardinia. Both these uni­versities have strong links with D. H. Lawrence as a result of the author having lived in and written extensively about their locations.

Joanne Lim, Youth, ICT and political engagements in Asia, 19th Asian Media Information and Communication Centre Conference, Suntec City, Singapore, October. A group of six researchers, from Malaysia (Joanne Lim), Singapore, Philippines, Sri Lanka, India and Bangladesh presented their initial findings from a research project, funded by Can­ada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The project explores the relation­ship between ICT and youth activism. Are youth today apolitical or too political, politically indifferent or merely different? How significant is ICT in reshaping the political engagement of youth in the Asian context?

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School of Modern Languages and Cultures Research Activity

Sean Matthews, ‘Culture is Difficult, Culture is Ordinary; Cultural Studies Today’, S. P. Jain Centre of Management, and the American University of the Emirates, Dubai, 6 December. Sean was invited to give two talks in Dubai. The first, to an MBA group was specifically con­cerned with cultural difference and ‘intellectual journeys’, framing a discussion about the sig­nificance of key issues and methodologies in Cultural Studies for management students. At AUE the lecture, to the School and Faculty of Communications, presented an account of the chal­lenges and opportunities in Media and Communications Studies today.

Zaharom Nain (SMLC), Prime Time for Ethics ­ Reporting in Times of Crisis, Santika Beach Resort, Bali, Indonesia, 8­10 December. Rom was invited to an international forum in Bali, In­donesia, titled Prime Time for Ethics: Reporting in Times of Crisis, where he presented a critical country paper on Accountability in the Age of New Media. The forum, held from 8­10 December, was organized and funded by the Global Forum for Media Develop­ment (GFMD), the International Federation of Jour­nalists (IFJ), the Press Council of Indonesia and the government of Norway. More information on this fo­rum and the papers presented may be obtained from http://gfmd.info.

Joanne Lim and Sean Matthews, Communications, Media and English Excellence, Erican International ELT Conference, Kuala Lumpur, Joanne and Sean collaborated in a presentation/interactive lecture at the Erican conference, present­ing to some 600 Malaysian Primary School teachers. Joanne’s work on youth culture and the modes of so­cial networking in young learners was at the heart of the presentation. Gana Subramanian also presented at this event.

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Work on the Drug Delivery and Chemistry Research laboratories of the School of Pharmacy was completed in November, 2010 and the labs have since been in use. These labs will represent the UNMC Research Centre for activities constituting 'Drug Delivery/Discovery' theme. The labs currently hold 15 postgraduate students conducting research in various aspects of drug delivery and discovery.

Drug Delivery and Chemistry Research Laboratories School of Pharmacy November 2010

Drug Delivery Laboratory

Chemistry Research Laboratory

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Profile of Speakers Professor Jon French with a PhD from the Univer­sity of Cambridge holds numerous positions in University College London, namely the Vice­Dean of Research for the Faculty of Social and Histori­cal Sciences, Deputy Head of Department of Ge­ography and the Director for Coastal & Estuarine Research Unit. His research interests among oth­ers include earth surface processes & landform morphodynamics, environmental system model­ing & instrumentation, coastal & estuarine flood defence management and environmental sci­ences. Prof S. Mohan with a PhD from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India is currently the Direc­tor of the National Institute of Technical Teachers Training and Research, Chennai. His research ar­eas of interest include engineering education, en­vironmental engineering, water resource man­agement, groundwater assessment & manage­ment and evolutionary algorithms. Prof Mohan has authored many publications, journals and papers while attaining multiple honors and awards from India and abroad.

Associate Professor Dr Pavel Tkalich is currently attached to the Department of Civil Engineer­ing, National University of Singapore and a Principal Research Fellow at the Tropical Marine Sci­ence Institute, NUS. Dr Pavel graduates with a PhD in Fluid Mechanics from Kiev National Uni­versity. His area of interest is in applied mathematics, fluid mechanics, environmental modeling and studies. Professor Andrew Chan is currently the Director of Studies for the Department of Civil Engineer­ing, The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. He graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Engineering and Doctor of Philosophy from the University of Hong Kong. Professor Chan has au­thored numerous publications, papers and journals of science and engineering for the environ­ment. Dr Ramani Bai V. obtained her PhD in Environmental and Water Resource Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras India. She is currently an associate professor in the De­partment of Civil Engineering, The University of Nottingham Malaysia Campus. She has 17 years of significant service in Environmental and Water resources systems analysis, hydrology, water quality and water treatment, Computer modeling, Artificial Intelligence methods and Geographi­cal Information systems.

Climate Change and DIMS Technology Workshop 1st­3rd December 2010

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Faculty of Engineering Research Activity

SVM based battery ­ Supercapacitor energy management system for Electric Vehicles Project leader: Professor Dino Isa Researcher: Manoj Embrandiri (PhD student) Sponsor: Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia (Science Fund 01­02­12­SF0095; RM 95100) Duration: June 2010 – June 2011 Project Overview Presently the only viable solution to the problem faced by electric vehicles is to com­bine a high energy storage device such as an electrochemical battery or fuel cell with a high power device such as an Electric Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC) or ultracapacitor or more often called a supercapacitor. Usually, a bi­directional buck­boost converter executing an energy management control algorithm is used to interface the battery bank and supercapacitor array to the load bus. It is the aim of this project to design an intelligent buck­boost converter with a Support Vector Machine (SVM) based energy management algorithm which will optimize the power flow from the battery pack to the load

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This project aims at proving beyond any reasonable doubt that the integration of supercapaci­tor banks into electric vehicles is justified by the following performance criteria.

A significant improvement (50% or more) in battery life.

Increase in range per charge

Improved acceleration (Uphill, pickup)

Shorter Charge time.

EV Conversion

A famous city car in Malaysia, the Perodua Kancil, was chosen for conversion into a fully elec­tric vehicle due to its light weight. The 660 cc (1997 model), three cylinder carbureted engine rated at 31 Hp (22.1KW) was replaced with a 48­72V separately excited DC motor rated at 8KW continuous and 20KW peak.

Specifications for kancil EV

Total weight of vehicle w/o engine – 600 Kg

Total Battery Weight – 250Kg

Curb Weight – 850Kg

Payload – 2 passengers for now i.e. 120Kg.

System Voltage – 48V

Battery ­ T105 Trojan 6V ,225 Ah deep cycle lead acid battery (x8)

Supercapacitor : 48V 165F module

Motor: D&D ES­15­6 48­72 VDC 10hp single­shaft separately excited DC motor (high starting torque) 48­72V, 8KW continuous 20KW peak.

Controller: 400A controller

*Top speed – 80km/h

*Range per charge – 50km

*Efficiency : 70Wh/km

Faculty of Engineering Research Activity

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Fabrication Supercapacitor in Nottingham­Sahz Nano­supercapacitor Pilot Plant

Figure 1: Nano­supercapacitor pilot plant

Bench for preparation material Raw material: activated carbon, carbon black, solvent, binder

Glove box, welding machine, oven and coating machine

Faculty of Engineering Research Activity

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Nottingham­Sahz Solar Cabin

This Sahz Nano­Supercapacitor Pilot Plant was established in 2007. It is a collaboration be­tween the Faculty of Engineering and Sahz Holdings Sdn Bhd and has won two contracts worth a total of RM6.5million from the Malaysian Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MOSTI). This facility has state of the art electronic and environmental testing equipment. There are equipments for manufacturing coin and cylindrical Electronic Double Layer Capacitors of up to 2 farads and 2 volts.

Presently the only viable solution to this problem is to combine a high energy storage device such as an electrochemical battery or fuel cell with a high power device such as an Electric Double Layer Capacitor (EDLC) or a supercapacitor. It is our aim to design an intelligent energy management control algorithm to interface the battery bank and supercapacitor array to the load bus.

Figure2: Solar Cabin

PV modules

Faculty of Engineering Research Activity

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Control Box in the solar cabin (power electronics)

Project: Artificial Intelligence based battery ­ supercapacitor renewable energy management system for optimized supply­to­load requirement for rural electrification Project leader: Professor Dino Isa Researcher: Manoj Embrandiri (PhD student) Sponsor: Sahz Holdings Sdn. Bhd.

Another project that is conducted here is on hybrid renewable energy system which combines batteries and supercapacitors. It will be managed by a software equipped with special artifi­cial intelligence algorithm such as genetic algorithm and support vector machine giving it the capability to predict demand and therefore decide on the best course of action when it comes to charging and discharging energy storage devices.

Battery banks Supercapacitor module

Faculty of Engineering Research Activity

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Upcoming Conferences Jan ­ April 2011

International Symposium of Processing and Drying of Foods, Vegetables and Fruits Organised by Faculty of Engineering Date: 11­12 April 2011 Time: 09:00 ­17:30 Venue : Kuala Lumpur Contact: Chung­Lim.Law@nottingham.edu.my

APESA 2011 Asia Pacific Economic Science Association Date: 10­13 February 2011 Venue: KLTC Website: www.nottingham.ac.uk/business/apesa2011/ Contact: apesa2011@nottingham.ac.uk