Removal of nitrogen pollutant from domestic wastewater

Water as a medium for waste transport would be easily contaminated by human activities. Many methods have been proposed to treat contaminated water to protect human health and biodiversity (Z. Daud et al., 2017). Due to upgrade the existing wastewater treatment plant facilities, the typically advanced technologies have been proposed to remove many types of pollutant, effectively (Tchobanoglous, Burton, & Stensel, 2004). The development of wastewater treatment plant needs to be considered leading economic indicators to have low operational and maintenance costs (Lewandowski, 2015; Shammas, Wang, & Wu, 2009). Aerobic digestion (AD) has been known since 1950 as biological wastewater treatment process to treat wastewater by removing the pollutants for instance colloids, organic compounds and suspended solids to avoid the excessive pollutants released into the receiving water (Shammas and Wang, 2007)

Kesan aplikasi pembelajaran berteraskan multimedia terhadap pelajar teknikal dari aspek gaya pembelajaran visual di politeknik Malaysia

Visual dalam pendidikan adalah pendekatan yang mampu melatih keupayaan pelajar untuk memahami sesuatu konsep pembelajaran yang baru dengan mudah mahupun meningkatkan tahap pemahaman. Kajian ini adalah bertujuan untuk mengenalpasti perkaitan diantara penggunaan aplikasi pembelajaran dengan gaya pembelajaran visual pelajar dalam matapelajaran Computer Networking Fundamentals. Responden kajian ini adalah terdiri daripada pelajar semester 5 daripada 2 buah Politeknik iaitu Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan, Johor, dan Politeknik Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan yang mengambil matapelajaran Computer Networking Fundamentals (EC301) . Seramai 19 responden yang diambil sebagai kumpulan rawatan daripada Politeknik Ibrahim Sultan (PIS) dan seramai 21 responden lagi berfungsi sebagai kumpulan kawalan daripada Politeknik Port Dickson (PPD). Terdapat 3 instrumen yang digunakan untuk menjalankan kajian ini. Instrumen pertama adalah aplikasi pembelajaran bagi matapelajaran Computer Networking Fundamentals (EC301) yang digunakan oleh kumpulan rawatan, borang kaji selidik untuk mengenalpasti gaya pembelajaran setiap responden, dan intrumen yang ketiga adalah set ujian penilaian (ujian pra dan ujian pasca) bagi menilai tahap pencapaian kesemua responden. Data dianalisis menggunakan Analisis ANCOVA dan hasil kajian mendapati bahawa, pelajar yang menggunakan aplikasi pembelajaran dan disesuaikan dengan gaya pembelajaran visual (A_V) mencapai skor min markah yang paling tinggi iaitu 10.194 berbanding dengan kategori pelajar yang bukan bergaya pembelajaran visual dan tidak menggunakan aplikasi pembelajaran yang masing-masing hanya mencapai skor min 9.417 (A_BV), 4.950 (BA_BV) dan 3.646 (BA_V). Berasaskan kepada hasil dapatan ini, satu kerangka perlaksanaan telah di syorkan dengan menggabungkan intervensi aplikasi pembelajaran dengan elemen gaya pembelajaran visual bagi meningkatkan daya kefahaman pelajar semasa proses pengajaran dan pembelajaran

Design and Analysis of Multiplexer based Approximate Adder for Low Power Applications

Low power consumption is crucial for error-acceptable multimedia devices, with picture compression approaches leveraging various digital processing architectures and algorithms. Humans can assemble useful information from partially inaccurate outputs in many multimedia applications. As a result, producing exact outputs is not required. The demand for an exact outcome is fading because new innovative systems are forgiving of faults. In the domain where error-tolerance is accepted, approximate computing is a new paradigm that relaxes the requirement for an accurate modeling while offering power, time, and delay benefits. Adders are an essential arithmetic module for regulating power and memory usage in digital systems. The recent implementation and use of approximate adders have been supported by trade-off characteristics such as delay, lower power consumption. This study examines the delay and power consumption of conventional and approximate adders. Also, a simple, fast, and power-efficient multiplexer-based approximate adder is proposed, and its performance outperforms the adders compared with existing adders. The proposed adder can be utilized in error-tolerant and various digital signal processing applications where exact results are not required. The proposed and existing adders are designed using EDA software for the performance calculations. With a delay of 81 pS, the proposed adder circuit reduces power consumption compared to the exact one. The experiment shows that the designed approximate adder can be used to implement circuits for image processing systems because it has a smaller delay and uses less energy

Analysis and application of improved feedthrough logic

Continuous technology scaling and increased frequency of operation of VLSI circuits leads to increase in power density which raises thermal management problem. Therefore design of low power VLSI circuit technique is a challenging task without sacrificing its performance. This thesis presents the design of a low power dynamic circuit using a new CMOS domino logic family called feedthrough (FTL) logic. Dynamic logic circuits are more significant because of its faster speed and lesser transistor requirement as compared to static CMOS logic circuits. The need for faster circuits compels designers to use FTL as compared static and domino CMOS logic and the requirement of output inverter for cascading of various logic blocks in domino logic are eliminated in the proposed design. The proposed circuit for low power (LP-FTL) improves dynamic power consumption as compared to the existing FTL and to further improve its speed we propose another circuit (HS-FTL). This logic family improves speed at the cost of dynamic power consumption and area. Proposed modified FTL circuit families provide better PDP as compared to the existing FTL. Simulation results of both the proposed circuit using 0.18 µm, 1.8 V CMOS process technology indicate that the LP-FTL structure reduces the dynamic power approximately by 42% and the HS-FTL structure achieves a speed up- 1.4 for 10-stage of inverters and 8-bit ripple carry adder in comparison to existing FTL logic. Furthermore, we present various circuit design techniques to improve noise tolerance of the proposed FTL logic families. Noise in deep submicron technology limits the reliability and performance of ICs. The ANTE (average noise threshold energy) metric is used for the analysis of noise tolerance of proposed FTL. A 2-input NAND and NOR gate is designed by the proposed technique. Simulation results for a 2-input NAND gate at 0.18-µm, 1.8 V CMOS process technology show that the proposed noise tolerant circuit achieves 1.79X ANTE improvement along with the reduction in leakage power. Continuous scaling of technology towards the nanometer range significantly increases leakage current level and the effect of noise. This research can be further extended for performance optimization in terms of power, speed, area and noise immunity

Hand-arm vibration disorder among grass-cutter workers in Malaysia

Prolonged exposure to hand-transmitted vibration from grass-cutting machines has been associated with increasing occurrences of symptoms and signs of occupational diseases related to hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS). Methods. A cross-sectional study was carried out using an adopted HAVS questionnaire on hand-arm vibration exposure and symptoms distributed to 168 male workers from the grass and turf maintenance industry who use hand-held grass-cutting machines as part of their work. The prevalence ratio and symptom correlation to HAVS between high and low–moderate exposure risk groups were evaluated. Results. There were positive HAVS symptoms relationships between the low–moderate exposure group and the high exposure group among hand-held grass-cutting workers. The prevalence ratio was considered high because there were indicators that fingers turned white and felt numb, 3.63, 95% CI [1.41, 9.39] and 4.24, 95% CI [2.18, 8.27], respectively. Less than 14.3% of workers stated that they were aware of the occupational hand-arm vibration, and it seemed to be related to the finger blanching and numbness. Conclusion. The results suggest that HAVS is under-diagnosed in Malaysia, especially in the agricultural sectors. More information related to safety and health awareness programmes for HAVS exposure is required among hand-held grass-cutting workers