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The United Nations (UN) has made a significant contribution to maintaining the security of people around the world. Through the role of peacekeeping operations, many countries that have just ended the conflict, such as Somalia, Nigeria, and Iraq, have been visited in order to help the locals rebuild their infrastructure. Nevertheless, in achieving these goals, some of the peacekeeping missions have faced difficulties due to a lack of exposure in understanding the cultural patterns and problems faced by the host people, and as a result, they are less accepted by the locals. This challenge is also caused by the weakness of the implementation of good governance for a country in managing peacekeeping missions, such as providing information on the culture, religion, and customs of the host people and the political structure and ethnic composition of a population. In this case, it was found that most Malaysian peacekeepers are less faced with difficulties, and they are usually welcomed by locals in every peacekeeping operation, including in Lebanon. Hence, the main objective of this study is to analyses the role of good governance as the mediating effect of the acceptance of the host people. Therefore, this study used two civil-military interaction (CMI) elements: environmental usage and belief systems mediated by good governance, to investigate the Lebanese acceptance of Malaysian peacekeepers. Therefore, a set of questionnaires was conducted in Maarakeh and Tebnine, involving 532 Lebanese. The findings showed that good governance positively influences environmental usage and belief systems, thus the Lebanese’s acceptance of Malaysian peacekeepers.

The combinations of polymer resin and glass microballoon are the main materials used to produce syntactic foams. Syntactic foam is a lightweight material that has good mechanical properties and is commonly used as a component for structural materials in civil construction, aerospace and marine applications. Hence, it should have suitable mechanical properties, particularly good compression behaviour. In the present study, the results obtained from compression tests are compressive strength, elastic modulus and specific compression that decrease when increasing of glass microballoon contents (2.0 wt.%, 4.0 wt.%, 6.0 wt.%, 8.0 wt.% and 10.0 wt.%) and also neat resin. The highest strength value for compression testing is owned by 2.0 wt.% which is 88.9 MPa, while the lowest strength is 43 MPa that belongs to 10.0 wt.% of glass microballoon. This shows that the density and weight percentage of glass microballoon in these syntactic foams affect compression properties. Therefore, a further study should be conducted, which includes the effect of compressive failure mechanism.

This study focuses on tensile properties and impact strength of coir fibre reinforced polypropylene composites under influences of fibre loading and various temperatures conditions. All samples were fabricated by using hot-press technique. Tensile and izod impact samples were prepared in accordance to the standard specifications as closely as possible. Three different ratios of fibre with matrix which were 10%, 20% and 30% were studied. The results revealed that 20% volume fraction of coir fibre demonstrated optimum tensile and impact properties. Significance reduction of impact strength under low temperature condition had been shown for all composites due to the brittleness of both fibre and matrix.

Electrodeposition method has been effectively applied to the synthesis of the Cobalt-Iron (Co-Fe) nanoparticles on Copper (Cu) substrate. The electrodeposition was conducted in acidic environment at controlled temperature of 50°C±0.5°C. The influence of deposition times (30, 60 and 90 min) towards the characteristics and properties such as phase and crystallographic structure, surface morphologies, particle size and magnetic properties of Co-Fe nanoparticles were studied. The Co-Fe phase showed the Body Centered Cubic (BCC) crystal structure. Dendritic structure was visible in the Co-Fe nanoparticles prepared at 30 minutes deposition. Meanwhile, irregular particles surrounded by flakes were found in the sample prepared at 90 min deposition. The particle sizes were reduced from 61.6 nm to 54.8 nm when the deposition time was increased. The best soft ferromagnetic properties with higher saturation magnetization, Ms and lower coercivity, Hc were achieved by Co-Fe nanoparticles deposited at 90 min.

This study investigate the role of hydroxide ions (OH-) in the synthesis of Ni nanoparticles through polyol method at the temperature of 180°C. Ni nanoparticles were prepared using ethylene glycol (EG) as the solvent and hydrazine (N2H4) as the reducing agent. Sodium hydroxide (NaOH) was used to introduce the OH-in solutions. Amount of OH-has been controlled through manipulation of OH-/Ni2+ratios. The role of OH-has been discussed in terms of size, morphology and reaction rate. Particles size and morphology were determined by Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). X-Ray Diffractometer (XRD) was used to verify the chemical composition of as-synthesized particles. The results demonstrated that at temperature of 180°C, Ni nanoparticles can be synthesized even without the existance of OH-. Although there no significant particles size changes,synthesis without OH-showed the most rapid reaction as compared to samples with OH-. Probable mechanisms for formation of Ni nanoparticles with and without OH-are also discussed. This finding contribute to a new rapid and facile synthesis of Ni nanoparticles.

Manipulation of adding sequences have been found to influence the reaction rate, thus made it easier to produced controllable Ni nanoparticles. Hot-injection approach shown capability to significantly reduce the production time of Ni nanoparticles compared to the conventional one-pot synthesis. With minor modification on conventional polyol method, narrow, monodispersed and highly yield spherical nickel (Ni) nanoparticles were successfully produced at synthesis temperature of 60°C. Three mixing methods were investigated to study its efficiency towards producing rapid and narrower size distribution of Ni nanoparticles. Reduction processes were proposed each of the method. As-synthesized Ni nanoparticles were characterized with Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) to analyze the size, morphology and interaction of reactants. Fine particles size distribution revealed that when hydrazine was first heated, reaction rate improved tremendously.

This paper presents an experimental study on the influence of fiberglass woven in Long Kenaf Polyester Composite (LKPC). Wear and friction characteristics were examined using sea water and sand as a slurry. Wear test were carried out using Slurry Erosion Test Rig (TR-40). These tests were performed at room temperature with speed of 200 rpm for every 2 km interval. The results from the tests show that mass loss were depends on the matrix composition of the composite. Surface Roughness, Ra, was consistently reduced after each test in all cases.