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The potential of public parks being able to promote mental and physical health of the public is widely discussed in recent years. However, the report for public park issues becomes a norm too. One of the issues being debated is the maintenance drawback in Malaysian public parks, implicating underutilisation of the parks. To address the issue, this paper aims to examine the maintenance priority towards public park’s features and facilities in Malaysia by considering the park visitors’ expectation and demand. A questionnaire survey was distributed to the park users and visitors with 1658 valid questionnaire responses. A mean analysis was performed to rank the maintenance of park features and facilities in both visitors’ perspective and actual experience. Subsequently, Wilcoxon signed-rank test was deployed to examine the difference between visitors’ perspective and actual experience towards maintenance of the park features and facilities. The findings determine ten park features and facilities that should be prioritised in respect to their maintenance. Furthermore, it is proven that significant difference occurs between visitors’ perspective and actual experience towards all park features and facilities. As a result, the study confirms the need of improving the park maintenance process and recommends the introduction of maintenance prioritisation towards the park features and facilities.

The potential of public parks being able to promote mental and physical health of the public is widely discussed in recent years. However, the report for public park issues becomes a norm too. One of the issues being debated is the maintenance drawback in Malaysian public parks, implicating underutilisation of the parks. To address the issue, this paper aims to examine the maintenance priority towards public park’s features and facilities in Malaysia by considering the park visitors’ expectation and demand. A questionnaire survey was distributed to the park users and visitors with 1658 valid questionnaire responses. A mean analysis was performed to rank the maintenance of park features and facilities in both visitors’ perspective and actual experience. Subsequently, Wilcoxon signed-rank test was deployed to examine the difference between visitors’ perspective and actual experience towards maintenance of the park features and facilities. The findings determine ten park features and facilities that should be prioritised in respect to their maintenance. Furthermore, it is proven that significant difference occurs between visitors’ perspective and actual experience towards all park features and facilities. As a result, the study confirms the need of improving the park maintenance process and recommends the introduction of maintenance prioritisation towards the park features and facilities.

The phenomena of localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) has been broadly studied and is a property of nanomaterials that can be used to enhance or enable a wide variety of technologies including cancer treatment, light-driven catalysis, and ultrasensitive detection. While most widely-observed and studied in noble metal nanomaterials, there is significant interest in earth-abundant plasmonic materials. However, whether or not their performance can match or even surpass their noble metal counterparts remains to be established. An important first step in determining the extent of their versatility is to understand basic aspects of their plasmonic features. We first synthesize and demonstrate the LSPR energy tunability of air-stable degenerately doped copper selenide (Cu2Se) NPs (Chapter 2.0). We quantitatively access the LSPR and correlate its spectral features with changes in the nanoparticle structure that can be controlled chemically. Our next step is to understand the surface chemistry of Cu2Se NPs, which clarifies the site of potential catalytic behavior (Chapter 3.0). We then establish their molar extinction coefficient, which is an important readout for the LSPR intensity and showcases our ability to control such intensity with NP size (Chapter 4.0). Importantly, we determine that size-dependent increases in molar extinction coefficients behave much like their noble metal analogues, as the trend mimics the Mie theory predictions. In Chapter 5.0, we demonstrate the first plasmon-driven chemical conversion on the surface of this new plasmonic material class. Finally, we establish a reaction-insensitive, material-specific design rule to prepare multicomponent nanostructures starting from Cu2Se (Chapter 6.0). Taken together, these results give a promising outlook towards rational designs and implementations of technology-relevant and earth-abundant materials.

The phenomena of localized surface plasmon resonances (LSPRs) has been broadly studied and is a property of nanomaterials that can be used to enhance or enable a wide variety of technologies including cancer treatment, light-driven catalysis, and ultrasensitive detection. While most widely-observed and studied in noble metal nanomaterials, there is significant interest in earth-abundant plasmonic materials. However, whether or not their performance can match or even surpass their noble metal counterparts remains to be established. An important first step in determining the extent of their versatility is to understand basic aspects of their plasmonic features. We first synthesize and demonstrate the LSPR energy tunability of air-stable degenerately doped copper selenide (Cu2Se) NPs (Chapter 2.0). We quantitatively access the LSPR and correlate its spectral features with changes in the nanoparticle structure that can be controlled chemically. Our next step is to understand the surface chemistry of Cu2Se NPs, which clarifies the site of potential catalytic behavior (Chapter 3.0). We then establish their molar extinction coefficient, which is an important readout for the LSPR intensity and showcases our ability to control such intensity with NP size (Chapter 4.0). Importantly, we determine that size-dependent increases in molar extinction coefficients behave much like their noble metal analogues, as the trend mimics the Mie theory predictions. In Chapter 5.0, we demonstrate the first plasmon-driven chemical conversion on the surface of this new plasmonic material class. Finally, we establish a reaction-insensitive, material-specific design rule to prepare multicomponent nanostructures starting from Cu2Se (Chapter 6.0). Taken together, these results give a promising outlook towards rational designs and implementations of technology-relevant and earth-abundant materials.