Author Biography: Dr. Mohammad Abdul Mannan was born at a simple family of a small village, Aktarpur, Rangiarpota, Jibonnagar, Chuadanga, Bangladesh. He has obtained B.Sc. (Civil Engineering) degree with first class, MSc in Civil Engineering and PhD in Concrete technology. He has started carrier as lecturer at BIT Rajshahi (now RUET), Bangladesh followed by AJP consulting firm, then Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) and is now a Professor of Department of Civil Engineering, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak, Malaysia. He is the inventor of few construction products. Based on 30 years of experience in teaching, professional practice and research, his vision is to be excellence in research on Innovative Construction Material and Structure. Book Description: Due to a high demand in construction and furniture industries worldwide, natural resources such as stones and wood as non-renewable resources are being depleted. Thus, researchers are focusing on renewable resources as alternative materials. As such, the utilisation of abundant solid wastes and byproducts, which are discharged from agriculture, industry and municipalities present an alternative to the conventional materials for the construction and furniture industries. These solid wastes and byproducts, when properly processed have shown to be effective and can readily meet design specifications. Agricultural solid wastes from oil palm distributors such as Oil Palm Shell (OPS) and Empty Fruit Bunch (EFB), which are abundant in agro-based countries, present an interesting alternative to the conventional aggregate in lightweight concrete and artificial plank production, respectively. At present, palm oil producing countries are Barkina Faso, Benin, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Colombia, Costa Rica, C�te d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Republic of Congo, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Thailand, Togo, Uganda, Venezuela and others. In Malaysia, oil palm plantations cover over 5 million hectares, and annual production of OPS as solid waste from 450 oil palm mills is more than 6 million tons. This large amount of OPS as a renewable green aggregate can contribute to overcoming the over dependence on depletable resources for concrete production. The civil engineering projects are of a larger scale; they need sustainable materials in order to gain a greater momentum of growth. The major technical characteristics of OPS solid waste must be primarily understood before each particular use. Therefore, there is a need to highlight the importance of OPS to be used in the construction industry.

The oil palm is the world's most valuable oil crop. Its production has increased over the decades, reaching 56 million tons in 2013, and it gives the highest yields per hectare of all oil crops. Remarkably, oil palm has remained profitable through periods of low prices. Demand for palm oil is also expanding, with the edible demand now complemented by added demand from biodiesel producers. The Oil Palm is the definitive reference work on this important crop. This fifth edition features new topics - including the conversion of palm oil to biodiesel, and discussions about the impacts of palm oil production on the environment and effects of climate change alongside comprehensively revised chapters, with updated references throughout. The Oil Palm, Fifth Edition will be useful to researchers, plantation and mill managers who wish to understand the science underlying recommended practices. It is an indispensable reference for agriculture students and all those working in the oil palm industry worldwide.

This book compiles the fundamental advances resulting from of oil-palm genome and transcriptome sequencing, and describes the challenges faced and strategies applied in sequencing, assembling and annotating oil palm genome sequences. The availability of genome and transcriptome data has made the mining of a high number of new molecular markers useful for genetic diversity as well as marker-trait association studies and the book presents high-throughput genotyping platforms, which allow the detection of QTL regions associated with interesting oil palm traits such as oil unsaturation and yield components using classical genetic and association mapping approaches. Lastly, it also presents the discovery of major genes governing economically important traits of the oil palm. Covering the history of oil palm expansion, classical and molecular cytogenetics, improvements based on wild and advanced genetic materials, and the science of oil palm breeding, the book is a valuable resource for scientists involved in plant genetic research.

This book contains papers presented in the 6th International Conference on Civil, Offshore & Environmental Engineering (ICCOEE2020) under the banner of World Engineering, Science & Technology Congress (ESTCON2020) will be held from 13th to 15th July 2021 at Borneo Convention Centre, Kuching, Sarawak, Malaysia. This proceeding contains papers presented by academics and industrial practitioners showcasing the latest advancements and findings in civil engineering areas with an emphasis on sustainability and the Industrial Revolution 4.0. The papers are categorized under the following tracks and topics of research: 1. Resilient Structures and Smart Materials 2. Advanced Construction and Building Information Modelling 3. Smart and Sustainable Infrastructure 4. Advanced Coastal and Offshore Engineering 5. Green Environment and Smart Water Resource Management Systems

This book discusses modern technologies for utilizing various types of agricultural waste as a direct means of properly managing its abundance. It explores the potential of using waste materials obtained from the palm oil industry, used cooking oil, maize and tea plantations, as well as citrus-based plants for the production of useful, high-value materials such as pyroligenous acid and bio-oil (Chapter 1), ferulic acid (Chapter 4) and bio-control agents (Chapter 5-7, 9). It also includes case studies to further enhance readers’ understanding. This comprehensive volume is useful to anyone involved in agricultural waste management, green chemistry and agricultural biotechnology. It is also recommended as a reference work for all agriculture and biotechnology libraries.

This book presents the technological developments that are currently being researched or implemented in the management of palm oil industrial waste. After introducing the plantation and milling processes, the book focuses on the wastes generated solely from plantation and milling activities, as reducing waste from these two sectors will enhance the overall sustainability of the entire palm oil industry eco-system. It then evaluates the sustainability of current practices and elaborates on technological developments in the two sectors, before critically assessing options to treat wastes generated from the plantation and milling process. To properly contextualise the work, it also includes a section on socio-economical sustainability, as well as an industrial case study. A valuable resource for academics interested in the evolution of sustainable waste management strategies within this industrial context, the book also appeals to practitioners in the field who wish to improve the sustainability of their particular plantation or mill.

This book evaluates and discusses the main sustainability challenges encountered in the production of biofuel and bio-products from oil palm biomass. It starts off with the emphasis on oil palm production, oil palm products recovery and oil palm wastes utilization. The simultaneous production of these bio-products for sustainable development is discussed. This is followed by the key factors defining the sustainability of biofuel and bio-product production from oil palm biomass. The environmental issues including ecological, life cycle assessment and environmental impact assessment of oil palm plantation, milling and refining for the production of biofuels and bio-products are presented. Socio-economic and thermodynamic analysis of the production processes are also evaluated using various sustainability assessment tools such as exergy. Lastly, methods of improving biofuel production systems for sustainable development are highlighted.

This book explores key examples concerning the implementation of information technology and mathematical modeling to solve issues concerning environmental sustainability. The examples include using fuzzy weighted multivariate regression to predict the water quality index at Perak River in Malaysia; using wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for a remote river water pollution monitoring system; deriving biomass activated carbon from oil palm shell; and assessing the performance of a PV/T air solar collector. The book offers a valuable resource for all graduate students and researchers who are working in this rapidly growing area.

A fascinating investigation into how people around the globe are cashing in on a warming world McKenzie Funk has spent the last six years reporting around the world on how we are preparing for a warmer planet. Funk shows us that the best way to understand the catastrophe of global warming is to see it through the eyes of those who see it most clearly—as a market opportunity. Global warming’s physical impacts can be separated into three broad categories: melt, drought, and deluge. Funk travels to two dozen countries to profile entrepreneurial people who see in each of these forces a potential windfall. The melt is a boon for newly arable, mineral-rich regions of the Arctic, such as Greenland—and for the surprising kings of the manmade snow trade, the Israelis. The process of desalination, vital to Israel’s survival, can produce a snowlike by-product that alpine countries use to prolong their ski season. Drought creates opportunities for private firefighters working for insurance companies in California as well as for fund managers backing south Sudanese warlords who control local farmland. As droughts raise food prices globally, there is no more precious asset. The deluge—the rising seas, surging rivers, and superstorms that will threaten island nations and coastal cities—has been our most distant concern, but after Hurricane Sandy and failure after failure to cut global carbon emissions, it is not so distant. For Dutch architects designing floating cities and American scientists patenting hurricane defenses, the race is on. For low-lying countries like Bangladesh, the coming deluge presents an existential threat. Funk visits the front lines of the melt, the drought, and the deluge to make a human accounting of the booming business of global warming. By letting climate change continue unchecked, we are choosing to adapt to a warming world. Containing the resulting surge will be big business; some will benefit, but much of the planet will suffer. McKenzie Funk has investigated both sides, and what he has found will shock us all. To understand how the world is preparing to warm, Windfall follows the money.

On February 22, 1895, a naval force laid siege to Brass, the chief city of the Ijo people of Nembe in Nigeria's Niger Delta. After severe fighting, the city was razed. More than two thousand people perished in the attack. A hundred years later, the world was shocked by the murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa-writer, political activist, and leader of the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People. Again the people of Nembe were locked in a grim life-and-death struggle to safeguard their livelihood from two forces: a series of corrupt and repressive Nigerian governments and the giant multinational Royal Dutch Shell. Ike Okonta and Oronto Douglas present a devastating case against the world's largest oil company, demonstrating how (in contrast to Shell's public profile) irresponsible practices have degraded agricultural land and left a people destitute. The plunder of the Niger Delta has turned full circle as crude oil has taken the place of palm oil, but the dramatis personae remain the same: a powerful multinational company bent on extracting the last drop of blood from the richly endowed Niger Delta, and a courageous people determined to resist.