VOL.

5 [JAN - MAR 2018]

EDITORS:
Syazwani Mohd Asharuddin
Vicky Kumar
Dr. Mohd Hairul Khamidun
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Radin Maya
Saphira Radin Mohamed
Prof Hj Ab Aziz bin Abdul Latiff

Road Map: Towards Academic Excellence

The new year of 2018 have been kick started with inspiring
talk by Dr. Abdulrahman Adeleke Oyekanmi on the 14th
Knowledge Sharing Session entitled ‘Road Map: Journey To-
wards Academic Excellence and Research Fulfillment’. He
shared his strategies and experiences towards a successful
PhD study under the guidance and supervision of Professor
Ab Aziz. The strategies include on how he started brainstorm-
ing during the early stage of his study to identify possible
gaps. He shared the contributions that he can put through
as sustained original research studies and expectations to-
wards his research works. He also shared his ups and downs
of graduate student life, commitment, time management
and the sources of motivation that he got to boost his spirit
to reach his goals more quickly. He also advised that to sur-
vive postgraduate study, ones should hold on good religious
beliefs, establish and maintain good relationship with every-
one, welcoming diverse people, accept people opinions
and avoid procrastination.

Meet the new MPRC Student Committee for 2018!

We are delighted to announce the new

MPRC 2018 student committee, lead by the
President, Vicky Kumar. MPRC Student
Committee perform important roles in foster-
ing student engagement and representing
fellow students on important issues, provid-
ing invaluable opinions and inputs to deci-
sion-making from the students’ perspective.

We wish them good luck and looking for-

ward to the good work! Alone we can do so
little, together we can do so much!
 MPRC Students Committee Meeting

The first meeting for the newly appointed Student

Committee members with the Head of MPRC, As-
soc. Prof. Dr. Radin Maya Saphira was conducted
on 11th January 2018. The committee mem-
bers contribute their ideas and coordinate efforts to
accomplish the planned activities for 2018. Student
committee meeting is call every 3 months to ensure
that everything is up to date and to ensure all activi-
ties that are planned for future coordination is
acknowledged by every member.

MENTOR MENTEE PROGRAM

In the vision of aiming to offer high quality engi-

neering education to the students, MPRC has set
up a consultation or mentor mentee session with
senior academic members. The first mentor
mentee session was held on 11th January 2018
with the principle researcher of MPRC, Prof. Prof Ir
Dr Amir Hashim Mohd Kassim. Many thanks to Prof.
Amir for his invaluable
advices and sharing his
vast experiences that
helped in nurturing new
ideas for for possible
future development.
#1 SHORT COURSE : BASICS OF ADSORPTION KINETICS

A hands-on Training Workshop on Basic Modeling for Adsorption

Kinetics using Excel software has been conducted by Dr. Arif
Rosli on 16th January 2018. This short course has been participat-
ed by research students and academic staffs. This short course
was conducted to enhance participants understanding in ana-
lyzing data for kinetics modeling.

#2 KSS : Flow Analysis Simulation and Turbulance

Towards integrating latest application and software in research

and development, an interesting talk on Introduction in Com-
putational Fluid Dynamics (CFD): Application in Civil Engineering
was held on 18 January 2018. The presenter, Dr. Ishkrizat Taib is a
lecturer from FKMP, UTHM. He shared how the sophisticated
techniques of CFD can be incorporated by civil engineering
community that can substantially contribute in understanding
and predicting the dynamics of civil engineering systems such
as water flow characteristics, wave and wind loading as well as
heat flow distribution. The presenter also highlighted the ad-
vantages of employing CFD in the research including cost re-
duction compared to the de-
velopment of real prototypes,
where researchers are able to
foresee the performance of a
system before installing the
real system and specific con-
ditions can be considered in
isolation .
 Assoc. Prof. Mohd Adib invited as guest speaker @ IUKL

JKAP Head of Department, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Mohd Adib

Mohammad Razi was invited as a guest speaker to
share his expertise and views on the issues raised on the
topic of Water Quality: Impacts, Implication and Mitiga-
tion Measure. The 9th I-Geo Series Seminar Took place
at Infrastructure University Kuala Lumpur (IUKL) on 23
January 2018. The seminar focused on the important
role can be played by the government agencies, indus-
try players, academic educators as well as other stake-
holders in enhancing the technical aspects of manag-
ing and sustaining water resources in Malaysia.

Department of Drainage and Irrigation

Meet & Batu Pahat

The Department of Water & Environmental Engineering held a

knowledge sharing session on 30th January 2018 with the DID Ba-
tu Pahat District Engineer, En. Mohd. Asnawi Sulaiman. Several
local issues and problems have been discussed. The attendees
has got the opportunity to share their knowledge, views and de-
velop ideas for future research collaboration.
 #3 KSS : WRITING PUZZLE

A knowledge sharing session entitled Writing Puzzle was held

on 1st February 2018. The session was conducted by Dr. Az-
ra Munirah. The session had tremendously helped the par-
ticipants to gain better understanding on the needs and
content of each chapter in the structure of a thesis. The
speaker also advised the participants to think the research
ideas as intricate puzzle pieces that must be integrated to-
gether to give the reader the whole picture. Dr. Azra also
highlighted the importance of making con-
nection between
paragraphs as
discrete package
of ideas consisting
of closely linked
sentences.

MPRC investigates: Bund failure at Rengit coastal line

A thorough investigation was carried out at the site on
the 4th February 2018 of the causes of bund failue near
the coastal area of Rengit, Batu Pahat District. The DID
District Engineer who was present on-site had explained
in detail on the causes of the failure. Also present was
MPRC principal researcher Prof Ir Dr Amir Hashim Mohd
Kassim who was accompanied by several geotechnical
experts from FKAAS. Drone technology was introduced
that will help in locating and identifying the failures in or-
der to overcome the problem. The bund failure situation
is very critical and alarming where 300 acres of agricul-
tural land is inundated by seawater rendering the agri-
culture land to be less productive.
 FRGS Grant Proposal Evaluation Workshop 2018

FRGS Grant Proposal Evaluation Workshop 2018 was held on 8th

February 2018 for environmental field applicants. MPRC would like
to express gratitude and say ‘thank you’ to the panels, Professor Hj
Ab Aziz Abdul Latiff, Assoc. Prof. Dr Rafidah Hamdan dan Dr Siti
Nazahiyah Rahmat for their constructive comments to improve the
proposal. This exercise is important as to fine tune the proposal
making it stronger and concise to de-
scribe the problem situation and strate-
gies to resolve through fundamental and
applied reseach. Hopefully this year, sev-
eral more proposals from MPRC/JKAP will
be considered and accepted by panel
of jurists from the MOHL to be awarded
the much awaited grants.

PROF. AMIR & DR. NOR AZIZI WERE INVITED AS SPEAKERS

The International Symposium on Coastal Erosion and

Environment 2018 (ISCEE 2018) was held on 12-14 February
2018, organized by The Ministry of Natural Resources and Envi-
ronment Malaysia (NRE). The symposium was an initiative to
enable exchange of experiences and knowledge between
the government, authorities and private bodies on coastal ero-
sion, coastal environment management and best engineering
practices. Prof Ir Dr Amir Hashim Mohd Kassim and Dr Nor Azizi
Yusoff were invited as speakers for the symposium with the title
'Leveraging on Technology : A Way Forward for Sustainable
Coastal Monitoring and Preservation in Malaysia'. May their
contribution be of great importance in enhancing coastal and
environmental management in Malaysia.
 #1 KNOWLEDGE TRANSFER: Workshop “From Waste to Vase”

The first Knowledge Transfer session was successfully held

on 20th February 2018 conducted by Dr. Sabariah Musa.
During the session, the participants were personally guid-
ed and coached on how to convert old newspapers into
versatile flower vase. The session include the preparation
of the newspaper sticks, weaving and molding into a
vase shape. The session was targeted not only to devel-
op personal skills for the participants, but also to give
some ideas how to kick start the recycling habit. Paper
recycling not only saves more trees and minimizes
wastes, but more importantly reduces the pollution.

#4 KSS : WRITING PUZZLE VOL.2

The ‘Writing Puzzle’ session was conducted again on 1st

March 2018 due to encouraging response from the partici-
pants in the first session. For this session, the speaker, Dr.
Azra Munirah, focused on how to construct an effective
research title and also how to write a research abstract in
clear and concise manner. Dr. Azra Munirah advised a
good title must be interesting to the readers and should
be ‘short and sweet’ that adequately describe the pur-
pose and content of the research. The speaker also high-
lighted on important rules in developing a good abstract
as good abstract will keep the reader to
keep on reading but a bad one could put
them off. She shared her experience with
researchers by sharing basic tricks how to
tackle and avoid mistakes while they are
writing research papers/term papers, journal
and thesis. She offered researchers to do
exercises during the session to understand
where they do mistakes.
 Mentor mentee program : With Prof. Aziz

2ND Mentor mentee session was held on 8th March

2018. This time, Prof. Ab Aziz Abdul Latiff was invited
as the mentor. Several issues were discussed and
Prof. Aziz provided some alternatives and guides to
handle the issues. Prof Aziz also shared his experi-
ences and memories with the staff as he journeyed
through the development of UTHM starting from
PLSP (1993), ITTHO (1996), KUiTTHO (2000) followed
by UTHM in 2007. As he is retiring very soon, Prof Aziz
had also reminded the staff that there no short cut
to success and everybody has to work hard in order
to achieve all the personal and organizational ob-
jectives. To date, Prof Aziz has 35 years of service
behind him before he retires on 20 April 2018. He
had served the polytechnics for 10 years (1983-
1993) and served PLSP/ITTHO/KUiTTHO/UTHM for 25
years (1993-2018). At the end of the program, the
MPRC academic staffs took the opportunity to have
group photo session with Prof. Aziz.

MPRC Community Service Program: Workshop “Waste to Vase”

This program was organized on 10th March 2018 at Surau Ar
Rahman, Parit Rasipan to elevate awareness on waste recy-
cling among local community and deliver hands-on-skill on
how to use waste newspaper as vase weaving materials.
Through the program they were thought to wave beautifully
hand crafted homemade vase that can be used for deco-
ration purpose. SWCorp representative, Puan Nur Athira
Syafiqah Shahabudin was also present to deliver a motiva-
tional talk to the community on recycling habit. A total of 50
students participated as volunteers. The program moderator,
Dr. Sabariah Musa, assisted by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rafidah
Hamdan delivered their best hands-on-skill knowledge in the
demonstration, assisted by the session chair, Dr. Nor Amani
Filzah Binti Mohd Kamil. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Radin Maya Saphira
and Dr. Nur Shaylinda Binti Mohd Zin were also present to
give their talks on waste 3R awareness. The modular recy-
cling bin designed by Dr Sabariah Musa was donated by
MPRC to Surau Ar Rahman, Pt. Rasipan
for their use.
 #5 KSS : DO & DON’T IN YOUR PRESENTATION

This session was held on 15th March 2018 conducted by Pn.

Nor Izzah Hj. Abdul Aziz, a Ph.D student in FKAAS-UTHM. Pn.
Nor Izzah, who is a former lecturer at Politeknik Sultan Abdul
Halim Muazam Shah, Kedah, shared her experience to give
a broad vision to students how they can make their presen-
tation more presentable, more persuasive and attention
grabbing. The speaker also highlighted some tips and tricks
in the presentation making process as well as equipped the
participants with examples of good presentation slides to
ensure the participants understanding.

HOW TO SECURE RESEARCH GRANT WITH DATO’ PROF. IR. MOHD SALLEH

A workshop 'How to Secure Research Grant' with Prof Adjunct FKAAS,

Prof. Dato' Ir. Mohd. Saleh Jaafar was conducted on 18 March 2018,
Bilik Mesyuarat 1 FKAAS, UTHM. This program was organized by Faculty
of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UTHM and Centers of Re-
search : SDRC, JRC, CAGeD and MPRC. The aim of the workshop is to
produce a good quality research proposal that complies to the re-
quirements set-up by the expert panels during the evaluation process
in order to secure grant successfully.
 #1 SHORT COURSE : YOU CAN DRAFT ANYTHING—AUTOCAD

A hands-on training on “YOU CAN DRAFT ANYTHING,

Training for civil and environmental engineers” using
“AutoCAD” has been conducted by Engr. Sajjad Ali
Mangi on March 20th, 2018. This short course was
conducted to enhance participants in understanding
2D & 3D modeling, how to prepare 2D line plan and
working plan, how to measure area and perimeter for
irregular boundaries, transformation of 2D to 3D plan
and conversion of model in JPEG format file.

MPRC would like to congratulate the recipients of the Best

Thesis Awards at the national level of World Water Day or-
ganized by the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry
(NRE). The event themed “Nature for Water” was held at
Laman Budaya, Kuala Kangsar, Perak on 24 March 2018.
The awards were presented by Dato' Seri DiRa-
ja Dr. Zambry bin Abdul Kadir, the Chief Minister of Perak.

The three award recipients were bachelor’s degree stu-

dent Muhammad Sulhi Zainudin, who picked up as gold
winner, Master’s degree student Muhamad Nazmie Abdul
Kadir, who won silver, and PhD’s student Dr. Zalilah Murni
Yunus, who won bronze. They received certificates and
cash prizes.
Muhammad Sulhi Zainuddin and Muhammad Nazmie Ab-
dul Kadir were supervised by Dr. Sabariah Musa, while Dr.
Zalilah Murni were supervised by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Norzila
Othman, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Rafidah Hamdan and Dr. Nurun
Najwa Ruslan.
W.O.W stands for Wonderful, Outstanding and Way beyond what you ever expected! We believe, to
find WOW factor is not difficult, but requires strong determination and curiosity to explore new things.

We are so glad to share that two of MPRC community programs last year have been selected in the
WOW factor UTHM. Without MPRC team efforts thoughtful planning and oversight, an undertaking like
this would have been nearly impossible.

Heartfelt congratulations and best wishes for MPRC continued success.

Assoc. Prof. Dr Mohd Adib Mohammad Razi, the

Head of Department of Water and Environmental En-
gineering, Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engi-
neering, UTHM shared his knowledge and concerns in
newspaper article by Harian Metro entitled ‘Penjinak
Ombak. The article is regarding the importance of
mangrove trees in protecting the coast from wave
erosion. The full article can be accessed at https://
www.hmetro.com.my/mutakhir/2018/01/303079/
penjinak-ombak