Fertilization of food waste management in UTHM’s cafeteria using arduino

Everyday food is consumed by humans for survival and basic needs for daily consumption. When humans eat food, there will be waste such as unfinished food or bones. With increasing food waste on earth, it can cause many kinds of diseases if the waste is not managed properly. Tons of food waste are created yearly on earth. To overcome the food waste problem, composting was introduced so we can recycle the food waste into compost fertilizer that can help improve soil nutrition. This research paper presents an overview of Fertilization of Food Waste Management in UTHM’s Cafeteria. This project aims to produce compost fertilizer within a shorter time. The machine will preserve the food waste and let it decompose by letting good bacteria eat the waste. The machine will create an optimum temperature so that the microorganism can live and decompose food waste into fertilizer. Temperature and moisture are monitored during the decomposition of food waste. With the help of this machine, food wastage produces daily can be reduced. Different kinds of pollution and sickness can also be reduced so that humans can live in a healthy world

Dynamic tunability enhancement of reflectarray antenna using non-homogeneous dielectric materials

The conventional antenna systems require the mechanical movement of beam scanning antenna to meet the demands of emerging field of communications. To overcome the flaw of the mechanical movement an electronically tunable reflectarray antenna based on non-homogeneous properties of substrate materials has been introduced. This research study provides a thorough investigation on the tunability performance of reflectarrays designed in X-band frequency range. The objective of this work is to demonstrate the functionality of an active reflectarray antenna with optimized loss performance and enhanced dynamic phase range. Different types of reflectarray resonant elements such as rectangular, dipole and ring are discussed here with different design configurations based on their ability of frequency tunability and dynamic phase range. Commercially available computer models of CST Microwave Studio and Ansoft HFSS have been used to investigate the phase agility characteristics of reflectarray resonant elements printed above various non�homogeneous materials (0.17≤ ∆ε ≤0.45). The analytical approach has been used to develop equations for progressive phase distribution and frequency tunability of individual reflectarray element which is validated by CST simulations. The results obtained from theoretical investigations have been further validated by experimental implementations. An optimized configuration of non-homogeneous Liquid Crystal (LC) material with 0.5 mm thickness below the resonant element has been designed and tested by waveguide scattering parameter measurements. An external bias voltage of 0V to 20V has been applied across the LC substrate of individual resonant elements in order to obtain the electronic tunability. The three resonant elements namely rectangular, dipole and ring offer a measured dynamic phase range of 95°, 153° and 197° respectively at 10 GHz using the proposed design configuration. Moreover, the ring element attains a 107% higher dynamic tunability with a 56% reduction in the reflective area as compared to rectangular element

A Rare Case of Foreign Body Ingestion, Mimicking as Mesenteric Cyst. "Case Report"

Background: Foreign body ingestion by children is a commonly encountered problem and accounts for a significant emergency visits among pediatric population. Although these ingested foreign bodies pass spontaneously and uneventfully, a subset of such bodies may become trapped in the digestive tract, eventually leading to significant injury. Most of these bodies are radio-opaque and detectable radiologically, but some radio-lucent may become a diagnostic dilemma and subtle management issue. Case Report: We report a case of a one-year girl who presented after accidental ingestion of foreign body with signs and symptoms of acute intestinal obstruction. Initially we were unable to diagnose the cause, but later the radiological investigation suspected a mesenteric cyst. After failure to respond to conservative measures she underwent exploratory laparotomy, and a jelly ball was removed from the gut. The patient had uneventful post-operative recovery and was kept on follow-up for three months without any complication. Conclusion: These patients do not respond to conservative measures and need surgery on an emergency basis. It is likely that if left untreated may have caused Intestinal perforation and irreversible shock. Radiolucent foreign bodies are difficult to diagnose and need high level of suspicion. Need of the hour is to educate the parents to be extra vigilant as “prevention is better than cure”

Global burden of deaths from Epstein-Barr virus attributable malignancies 1990-2010

BACKGROUND: Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is an oncogenic virus implicated in the pathogenesis of a number of human malignancies of both lymphoid and epithelial origin. Thus, a comprehensive and up-to-date analysis focused on the global burden of EBV-attributable malignancies is of significant interest. METHODS: Based on published studies, we estimated the proportion of Burkitt’s lymphoma (BL), Hodgkin’s lymphoma (HL), nasopharyngeal carcinoma NPC), gastric carcinoma (GC) and post-transplant lymphoproliferative disease (PTLD) attributable to EBV, taking into consideration age, sex and geographical variations. This proportion was then imputed into the Global Burden of Disease 2010 dataset to determine the global burden of each EBV-attributable malignancy in males and females in 20 different age groups and 21 world regions from 1990 to 2010. RESULTS: The analysis showed that the combined global burden of deaths in 2010 from all EBV-attributable malignancies was 142,979, representing 1.8% of all cancer deaths. This burden has increased by 14.6% over a period of 20 years. All 5 EBV-attributable malignancies were more common in males in all geographical regions (ratio of 2.6:1). Gastric cancer and NPC accounted for 92% of all EBV-attributable cancer deaths. Almost 50% of EBV-attributed malignancies occurred in East Asia. This region also had the highest age-standardized death rates for both NPC and GC. CONCLUSIONS: Approximately 143,000 deaths in 2010 were attributed to EBV-associated malignancies. This figure is likely to be an underestimate since some of the less prevalent EBV-associated malignancies have not been included. Moreover, the global increase in population and life-expectancy will further increase the overall burden of EBV-associated cancer deaths. Development of a suitable vaccine could have a substantial impact on reducing this burden. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1750-9378-9-38) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Covid-19 and its impacts on consumer decision-making process

The term "virus" derives from the Latin word for "venom" and refers to a microscopic infectious agent. On the other hand, "corona" is named by its shape to look like a crown ring – the scientists who coined the word coronavirus in 1968 reasoned that the virus they were studying under a microscope resembled a solar corona (Steinmetz, 2020). COVID-19 was introduced when it was first detected in late 2019 and used letters from CO-Rona-VI-rus D-isease (Bhargava, 2020). Corona infections were initially seen as cold in 1965 (Kahn & McIntosh, 2005), which is almost six decades ago. Corona was formerly thought to be a basic, non-fatal virus to human beings until 2002. Before the world witnessed a Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (SARS-CoV) outbreak in November 2002, it was assumed that this virus mainly infected animals. However, this was proven incorrect. Ten years after that, a new pathogenic coronavirus known as the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) spread throughout the Middle East and caused a pandemic in several countries (Shereen et a., 2020)

Intellectual Capital (IC) Determinants: Impact on Productivity of Islamic Banks

This research aimed to investigate the relationship between the Intellectual Capital (IC) efficiency empirically. It consisted of human capital, structural capital, capital employed, and relational capital with the impact on the productivity of Islamic banks in Malaysia. The Pulic\u27s Value-Added Intellectual Coefficient (VAIC) method with the extended and modified version introduced by former scholars was used to measure IC, whereas bank productivity was measured through Assets Turnover Ratio (ATO). Three internal factors that might have determinants effect on VAIC, namely bank size, bank risks, and leverage were further tested to find their relationship. Structural stability tests and dynamic regression models for panel data were also used for the data of 16 Islamic banks in Malaysia from 2009 to 2016. The panel-corrected standard errors estimation technique was used to estimate a panel regression model with bank productivity and VAIC as the dependent variables. The regression analysis suggests that Malaysian Islamic banks are depending heavily on the capital employed component of intellectual capital, followed by human capital, structural capital, and relational capital. The results also suggest that bank\u27s risks and leverage play a major role in determining intellectual capital. The findings may serve as a useful input for Islamic bankers to indicate whether the contribution of intellectual capital and its components needs further improvement which it has produced the best results, and internal factor might affect IC

Spatial and temporal variation of organic carbon in mangrove sediment of Rembau-Linggi estuary, Malaysia

Mangrove sediments act as site of organic carbon accumulation in estuary. This paper aims to determine the distribution of OC content in mangrove sediment in mangrove root zone. Three replicate samples of mangrove sediment were collected from seven stations. Six in-situ water quality parameters were measured during low tide along the river. The OC content in mangrove sediment varied significantly among sampling stations with values ranging from 13.6 to 26.0 mg/g. OC content in five stations namely station 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 noted to have increased significantly from 6.56% to 26.42% after six months interval. There were no significant correlations between OC content in mangrove sediment with the six in-situ water quality parameters measured. The variability in OC content in each station indicates that anthropogenic activities and land uses in the area have influence on the distribution of OC content in this estuary

Social media adoption in higher education: A case study of Universiti Utara Malaysia

The use of social media within higher learning institute has resulted positive impacts on students engagement in teaching and learning activities.Current studies have acknowledged the importance of social media as one of the facilitating tools that promotes active participation's among students.Although higher learning institution is introduce to new innovation, but when it comes to adopting they are always considered as late adopter.Thus, these studies examine the level of social media usage among lecturers for teaching purposes.Besides that, this study also examines the motives and barriers that hinder lecturers from using social media for teaching purposes.This study adopts a quantitative research method approach.The finding of this research found that 70% of UUM lecturers used social media for teaching purposes and most of them are categorized as early adopters

Pasting and leaching properties of irradiated starches from various botanical sources

Changes to the physicochemical properties of wheat, sago and tapioca starches subjected to gamma ray, electron beam and microwave irradiations and the conditions that lead to wheat starch having leaching behaviour similar to sago or tapioca starch were studied. The properties were characterised through swelling and leaching behaviours of the starch granules and retrogradation following pasting. The leaching of wheat starch increased tremendously and resulted in amylose to amylopectin ratios in the leachate similar to that of native sago and tapioca starches. This observation is significant as wheat starch is known to have a leachate composition of mostly amylose. This opens up the possibility of utilising wheat starch in snacks where tapioca and sago starch are commonly used. It was observed that the required conditions for such changes were exposure to microwave for 8 and 10 minutes, electron beam at 5 and 10 kGy and gamma ray at 5 kGy