Data-driven adaptive model-based predictive control with application in wastewater systems

This study is concerned with the development of a new data-driven adaptive model-based predictive controller (MBPC) with input constraints. The proposed methods employ subspace identification technique and a singular value decomposition (SVD)-based optimisation strategy to formulate the control algorithm and incorporate the input constraints. Both direct adaptive model-based predictive controller (DAMBPC) and indirect adaptive model-based predictive controller (IAMBPC) are considered. In DAMBPC, the direct identification of controller parameters is desired to reduce the design effort and computational load while the IAMBPC involves a two-stage process of model identification and controller design. The former method only requires a single QR decomposition for obtaining the controller parameters and uses a receding horizon approach to process input/output data for the identification. A suboptimal SVD-based optimisation technique is proposed to incorporate the input constraints. The proposed techniques are implemented and tested on a fourth order non-linear model of a wastewater system. Simulation results are presented to compare the direct and indirect adaptive methods and to demonstrate the performance of the proposed algorithms

Assessment of individual water quality index parameter in Terengganu River, Malaysia

Water quality is a state of biological, physical, and chemical characteristics of water in collaboration with anticipated use and a set of standards. Samplings were taken in wet and dry seasons from twenty-nine stations within the river basin. Six parameters were used base on National Water Quality Standard (NWQS). Individual Water Quality Index (WQI) is used to compare the parameters with WQI table to show results on many impacts of natural and anthropogenic factors. Six parameters have been calculated to have the WQI which is wet season has a range of 62.10 to 75.46 with a mean of 72.81, while dry season ranging from 56.3 74.14 with an average of 70.47 which based on water quality classification is slightly polluted. It is suggested that monitoring and treatment should be appropriately carried out on measured parameters that fall in Class III and IV along with the river.Keywords: water quality index; individual parameter; NWQS; Terengganu Rive

Assessments of lake profiling on temperature, Total Suspended Solid (TSS) and turbidity in the Kenyir Lake, Terengganu, Malaysia

Spatial interpolation method of water quality evaluation are frequently used to estimate valuation Kenyir Lake profiling used regression analysis and Geographic Information System (GIS) to assess a few of the water quality classification at Kenyir Lake. The purpose is to investigate the relative performance of different interpolation methods in surface waters. The study archived data from the Kenyir Lake using spatial interpolation of inverse distance weighting (IDW), which incorporates output from a process-based regression model.Interpolation were performed on temperature, total suspended solid (TSS) and turbidity (TUR) based on in-situ and ex-situ analyses according to the correlation matrix and linear regression at 14 different depths for the Chomor River and Mahadir Island. The result showed outlet significantly decreased over depth caused the water quality deterioration of Kenyir Lake development.Keywords: lake profiling; inverse distance weighting; total suspended solid (TSS); Interpolation; geographic information system (GIS

Assessment of natural groundwater recharge in Tudun Wada Local Government Kano State, Nigeria

Water is important natural resources on earth which cater for all human endeavors. Estimation of groundwater recharge is an essential for efficient groundwater resources management. This research entails the assessment of natural groundwater recharge in Tudun Wada Kano, Nigeria. This study carried out on 2015 attempted to derive an empirical relationship to determine the groundwater recharge from rainfall in Tudun Wada based on seasonal groundwater balance using data from 2002 to 2013. This empirical relationship similar to Chaturvedi formula was derived by fitting the estimated values of rainfall recharge and the corresponding values of rainfall in the monsoon season through the non-linear regression techniques. The variance was found to be 29.50 %, and the recharge of groundwater commences at P = 15.28 inches and the relative errors was found to range from 0.95 to 28.43%.Keywords: groundwater; rainfall; recharge; wet season; water balance; empirical relatio

Development of Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) diagnosis system using image processing

No AbstractKeywords: anterior cruciate ligament (ACL);diagnosis system, image processing, magnetic resonance image (MRI

Characteristic of pineapple leaf fibre using different methods at minimum level with the assist of mechanical breaker

Pineapple cultivation has resulted in wastage of pineapple leaf fibre (PALF) where it can be used as renewable natural resources. PALF is able to be used in various textile and non-textile products. However, to gain fibre as raw material requires suitable processing methods. Several methods were used in this experiment to identify suitable process using minimal resources. There were four methods used to produce open PALF which are unchanged extracted PALF, unchanged extracted PALF and going through PALF breaker, extracted PALF going water retting for 4 days and extracted PALF treated with 1% NaOH and going through PALF breaker. All PALFs were opened using Shirley Trash Analyser, and analysed by looking at its trash and microscopy. The results found that the assist of water retting and NaOH treatment and going through PALF breaker give better results for textile and non-textile application

Assessment of water quality status using univariate analysis at Klang and Juru River, Malaysia

Klang River and Juru River which today suffers from water quality probllems resulting from anthropogenic and geomorphology factors. The purpose of this study was to assess the water quality status from 2009 until 2013. 10 monitoring stations covering along Klang River and Juru River were selected. Six water quality parameters analyzed based on in-situ and ex-situ analysis were carried out according to the univariate analysis to obtain WQI level. The result indicated the impact of various anthropogenic and geomorphology activities contributed higher values of BOD, COD, SS and NH3-NL but the TSS concentration contamination at Juru River still on stable condition. Downstream and middle stream more polluted than upstream area triggered by pollutants from waste products of development activities, which inclusion of a high amount of pollutants of Klang River and Juru River.Keywords: water quality; univariate analysis; national water quality standards (NWQS); anthropogeni

Augmenting Mobile Data Networks using WiFi Offloading: A Measurement Study

The growing popularity and proliferation of mobile devices has resulted in an exponential growth of mobile data traffic or also known as mobile data explosion. Cellular network providers are struggling to address the challenges of bandwidth scarcity and also to meet end user’s expectation of high network capacity. Due to the abundance of existing WiFi infrastructure and significantly inexpensive deployment compared to cellular network upgrade, WiFi offloading seems the most viable solution at the moment. The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) reported in Internet User Survey 2016 that more than half (59.6%) of Internet users in Malaysia used free Wi-Fi to go online. This work presents a real trace of quantitative study on the role of WiFi networks in augmenting mobile data offloading in Malaysia scenario. The research investigated how much traffic load WiFi offloading takes away from cellular network and its utilization pattern according to a different group of users. An extensive measurement study was conducted by collecting statistics of WiFi connectivity from 100 Android platform users for 18 days. Findings from the preliminary results showed that WiFi offloaded a significant amount of data traffic in user’s daily mobile data consumption. Therefore, it is an interesting alternative for cellular network operators in to accommodate and augmenting the current traffic growth as well as providing insights into their network planning or creative price plans

Perceived captology strategies in mobile applications: do they differ?

Studies on various captology applications have indicated the importance of its integration to ensure mobile application=s success. However, statistics have shown that 53% of mobile applications users had problems with mobile applications and discontinue their use. This raises a question whether incorporating captology strategies has varying effectiveness. Moreover, the studies on captology strategies of mobile application have not been sufficiently researched on as majority of existing studies have been focusing on single application only. Therefore, this study aimed to examine whether there are significant differences of captology principles (reduction, tunneling, tailoring, suggestion, self-monitoring, surveillance and conditioning) between two popular mobile applications which are WhatsApp and Telegram. Using a cross sectional online survey, 364 users of both applications had participated. Descriptive finding indicates that WhatsApp had higher mean values for all captology principles compared to Telegram. T-test result shows significant differences of reduction, tunneling, tailoring, suggestion, self-monitoring, surveillance and conditioning between WhatsApp and Telegram. The higher means obtained by WhatsApp indicated that users of WhatsApp perceive captology principles as being incorporated more effectively in WhatApp compared to Telegram. This implies that any incorporation of captology principles requires in-depth understanding about the dynamic of each principles and how it could improve mobile application=s users acceptance, attitudes and behavior