Synthetic Grey Water Treatment Through FeCl3-Activated Carbon Obtained from Cotton Stalks and River Sand

The research objective was to reclaim greywater through simple, easily available, and cost-effective methods. For this purpose, an activated charcoal was prepared from biomass (cotton stalk) through the pyrolysis process and sand collected from river Indus. Both materials were subjected to separate columns and applied as filters. Whereas, the efficiency of both materials as filter media was analyzed on the synthetic grey water (SGW). The formulation of synthetic greywater was a complicated process because the selection of ingredients and their amount should not exceed from the real grey water. So, for the presence of fecal contamination, a small amount (10 ml L-1) of settled sewage was added to the distilled water, while to mimic the organic load, several chemical products of technical grade were also added. The physicochemical and microbiological characteristics of this SGW were tested before and after treatment. The results show that both mediums (AC and river sand) were very effective in the greywater treatment. The removal efficiency for BOD and COD was up to 91.2%, and 70% respectively. Similarly, the removal measure for turbidity was 91.3%. While the pH showed that the synthetic grey water was alkaline in nature with a value of 10 because the washing detergents used during the preparation of SGW, but after passing through both filter columns, pH was observed in between 7 and 8 units. Furthermore, the removal value examined after passing SGW from both columns for total coliforms was 46.87 CFU/100 ml from1500 CFU/100 ml

Utilization of Sawdust in Concrete Masonry Blocks: A Review

SDC (Sawdust Concrete) was developed in 19th century. It has been well recognized due to its lightweight and cost-effectiveness. Presently, developed countries have created opportunities to use wood waste in the concrete construction to reduce the environmental burden. Although SDC has received little consideration as a lightweight masonry block in building works but it has been intensively investigated in many countries for decades. The aim of this review is to summarize the last five years (2012-2016) research work related to utilization of sawdust in concrete masonry. However, it is important to explore existing ideas and approaches developed by previous researchers as a reference and guidance for the future research. There are lots of opportunities to develop lightweight concrete especially throughutilizing sawdust as a fine aggregate replacement material in concrete. However, this review paper is focusing on utilization of sawdust, as to reduce environmental impacts poses by the waste products of furniture industry and a by-product of wood industry. As a conclusion, this review paper summary the existing important ideas and useful information for the fellow researchers, as to enhance the utilization of sawdust to produce lightweight masonry units. It is recommended that considerable research is required on the sawdust cement blocks, which can deliver more confidence on their utilization as a green building construction material

Influence of Ground Coal Bottom Ash on the Properties of Concrete

The coal based thermal power plant in Malaysia produces annually around 1.7 million tons of coal bottom ash (CBA) as a discarded material which poses great environmental problems. Hence, the objective of this study is to utilize ground CBA as a supplementary cementing material in concrete. The oven dried original CBA was grinded for 20hours to achieve required fineness. The mixture of concrete was prepared with CBA proportion of 10, 20 and 30% by weight of cement. For the evaluation of density, water absorption, compressive and tensile strength of concrete, 48 specimens were cast. The workability of fresh mix concrete was also evaluated, and it was found to be decreased as the quantity of CBA increased in the mixture. However, the compressive and splitting tensile strength of concrete was also reduced with the addition of ground CBA but with 10% replacement has attended the targeted compressive strength at the age of 28days. Besides that, it was also observed that the influence of CBA on concrete is obvious in density as well as in water absorption. The density of concrete gradually decreased due to addition of ground CBA, concrete containing 10% ground CBA was likely to be similar to that of control mix and the opposite performance was noticed in water absorption. Hence, experimental findings of this study indicated potentiality of ground CBA as supplementary cementing material in concrete construction which will reduces the environmental concern

Modeling and Simulation of Sensor-to-Sink Data Transport Reliability in WSNs

The fundamental functionality of WSN (Wireless Sensor Networks) is to transport data from sensor nodes to the sink. To increase the fault tolerance, inherent sensor node redundancy in WSN can be exploited but the reliability guarantees are not ensured. The data transport process in WSN is devised as a set of operations on raw data generated in response to user requirements. The different operations filter the raw data to rationalize the reliable transport. Accordingly, we provide reliability models for various data transport semantics. In this paper we argue for the effectiveness of the proposed reliability models by comparing analytically and via simulations in TOSSIM

Residents’s Subjective Assessment of Walkability Attributes in Objectively Assessed Neighbourhoods

The attributes of the built environment may influence walking in neighbourhood. The objective of this study is to find the association between objectively assessed and perceived built environment attributes. To achieve the objective of the study three neighbourhood of Putrajaya, Malaysia Precinct 8, 9 and 18 were selected. This study used NEWS (Neighbourhood Environment Walkability Scale) abbreviated version for the comparison of the residents’ perceptions regarding attributes of three neighbourhoods of Putrajaya in Malaysia that differ on objective measures derived from a GIS (Geographical Information System) data basis and Putrajaya master plan. High-walkable neighbourhood residents reported built environment attributes ratings persistently higher as compared to the residents of the moderate and lowwalkable neighbourhood. Results from the high walkable neighborhood shows that on a 5-point Likert scale most residents perceived high ratings of within the range of “3” except for residential density as there is a different scoring procedure for it. There are lowest ratings perceived within the range of “1” for the attribute crime and according to the scoring procedure for crime lowest score reflects the highest level of walking.There is no significant difference found in the ratings for traffic hazards. Subjective measures of built environment attributes had moderate to high alpha (α) value. Hence the neighbourhood environment walkability scale can be used for subjective assessment in the tropical context

An Efficient Channel Model for OFDM and Time Domain Single Carrier Transmission Using Impulse Responses

The OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) is well-known, most utilized wideband communication technique of the current era. SCT (Single Carrier Transmission) provides equivalent performance in time domain while decision equalizer is implemented in frequency domain. SCT annihilates the ICT (Inter Carrier Interference) and the PAPR (Peak to Average Power Ratio) which is inherent to OFDM and degrades its performance in time varying channels. An efficient channel model is presented in this contribution, to implement OFDM and SCT in time domain using impulse responses. Both OFDM and SCT models are derived dialectically to model the channel impulse responses. Our model enhances the performance of time domain SCT compared with OFDM and subsides the PAPR and ICI problems of OFDM. SCT is implemented at symbol level contained in blocks. Simulation results implementing Digital Radio Monadiale (DRM) assert the performance gain of SCT over OFDM

A Novel Method to Implement the Matrix Pencil Super Resolution Algorithm for Indoor Positioning

This article highlights the estimation of the results for the algorithms implemented in order to estimate the delays and distances for the indoor positioning system. The data sets for the transmitted and received signals are captured at a typical outdoor and indoor area. The estimation super resolution algorithms are applied. Different state of art and super resolution techniques based algorithms are applied to avail the optimal estimates of the delays and distances between the transmitted and received signals and a novel method for matrix pencil algorithm is devised. The algorithms perform variably at different scenarios of transmitted and received positions. Two scenarios are experienced, for the single antenna scenario the super resolution techniques like ESPRIT (Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance Technique) and theMatrix Pencil algorithms give optimal performance compared to the conventional techniques. In two antenna scenario RootMUSIC and Matrix Pencil algorithm performed better than other algorithms for the distance estimation, however, the accuracy of all the algorithms is worst than the single antenna scenario. In all cases our devised Matrix Pencil algorithm achieved the best estimation results

Efficacy of Retrograde Intrarenal Surgery Versus Percutaneous Nephrolithotomy In Treating Lower Pole Stones of 1-2 cms

Introduction Urologists are always inclined to find techniques with minimal complication and hospital stays with maximum stone-free rates to mitigate not only health concerns but financial burdens too. PCNL is known as the gold standard for large stones, however, RIRS is known for its less invasive and minor complications. Methodology This is a cross-sectional, prospective study conducted at the public hospital of Jamshoro. Patients with renal stones located at the lower pole, measuring 1-2 cm were included. Patients were evaluated before enrollment and detailed history was taken. Intraoperative and post-operative details were documented. SPSS 21 was used to analyze the data, and to assess significance chi-square test was used, a p-value < 0.05 was considered significant. Results The mean age was 42.7 ± 12.8 and 43.2 ± 13.2 in the RIRS and PCNL groups respectively. The RIRS group showed 07 (17.5%) partial clearance cases while PCNL group showed 02 (5%). Hemoglobin drop was measured as minimal (< 2.5ml) and excessive (>2.5ml) after surgery, and only 01 (2.5%) cases of RIRS had excessive blood loss, PCNL group had higher hemoglobin drop cases with 3 (7.5%) cases. Blood transfusion was required in 1 (2.5%) and 2 (5%) cases in the RIRS and PCNL groups respectively. Conclusion RIRS can be beneficial in small stones while PCNL can be an ideal procedure for lower pole renal stones of 1-2 cm size

Adsorptive defluoridation from aqueous solution using a novel blend of eggshell powder and chitosan nanofibers

Groundwater mostly contains many impurities thus can not be consumed as drinking water directly. The acceptable limit of fluoride in drinking water is 0.5–1.5 mg l ^−1 recommended by World Health Organization (WHO). In this research, a novel nanofiber hybrid; based on Chitosan (CTS) and Eggshell (EGG) was prepared via electrospinning technique and investigated for deflouridation from aqueous solution. SEM images reveal bead-free, smooth morphology and the FTIR confirmed the presence of chitosan and egg within the novel nanofiber blend. The defluoridation efficiency was assessed by varying the different parameters like pH, mass of nanofibers, contact time and initial concentration for adsorption. Studies revealed that CTS/EGG nanofibers hybrid shows incredible adsorption efficiency of 86%. Furthermore, isotherm studies show that the Langmuir isotherm model was well fitted for both CTS and CTS/EGG nanofibers

Effects of Grinding Process on the Properties of the Coal Bottom Ash and Cement Paste

The grinding process is necessary to convert original coal bottom ash (CBA) into a powder form. The aim of this study is to evaluate the grinding process effects on physical properties of CBA, it influences on consistency and setting time of cement paste and to predict it potentiality based on chemical characteristics to reduce the alkali-silica reaction (ASR) in concrete. The CBA is the by-product of coal based thermal power plant. Due to high production of electricity in Malaysia, the excess amount of CBA has been produced annually and it causes the environmental problems. Therefore, it is necessary to come up with advanced solutions for that pollution. This study considered the different grinding periods i.e. 2, 10, 20, and 40hrs as to produce different particle fineness. It was perceived through the laboratory findings that the more the grinding period, finer the particle sizes. Besides that, cement paste with 10, 20 and 30% of ground CBA as a substitute of ordinary portland cement (OPC) by weight was prepared, it was observed that the consistency of OPC paste increases with the addition of ground CBA. Moreover, initial and final setting time of cement paste containing ground CBA was observed higher than the OPC paste. Hence, based on experimental analysis and energy efficiency scenario, grinding period of 20hrs with specific surface area 3835.75 cm2/g is suggested for the future studies