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Introduction: Smartphones with rapid advancement in telecommunication technology causing high usage leads to addiction, especially among youth. Concerning health, smartphone addiction influences posture causing neck-shoulder pain. However, the mechanism of how smartphone addiction causes pain related to posture control is still doubtful. Anticipatory feed-forward motor control mechanism has proposed that smartphone usage is a static low-level activity influenced by muscle fatigue and discomfort. Therefore, this study aimed to explore neck-shoulder muscle fatigue, particularly at the upper trapezius about smartphone addiction behaviors and adopted posture while using smartphones among youth. This study aims to investigate the relationship between smartphone addiction, risk of posture and the relationship between trapezius muscle fatigue, and neck-shoulder pain among youth. Methods: A cross-sectional study design will be conducted through convenient sampling among students at secondary schools in Malaysia. The Smartphone Addiction Scale, Rapid Assessment Upper Limb, Nordic Musculoskeletal Questionnaire and Electromyogram will be used as outcomes tools. Discussion: This study investigates the risk of smartphones in terms of duration usage among adults. Fatigue over the upper trapezius muscle has not yet been investigated among youth which will provide fundamental findings on how faulty posture during smartphone usage might cause neck pain.

Background: The Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injury is the most traumatic knee joint injury. Surgical reconstruction is the common standard treatment care to ensure an early functional gain. Active quadriceps exercises were introduced at early rehabilitation to prevent muscle lag. However, patients' pain, muscle compensation from other parts of the body, and rapid development of quadriceps weakness were factors that slow down the positive progression of post ACL rehabilitation. Therefore, a new exercise instrument is needed to facilitate muscle contraction during post ACL reconstruction exercise actively. The Myo-Tech is an instrument that helps the patient contract correct muscle during the early phase of rehabilitation. The purpose of this study is to investigate the reliability of the Myo-Tech instrument measuring quadriceps contraction on post ACL reconstruction. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study design and was carried out on patients with post ACL reconstruction. The patients were required to perform static Quadriceps exercises (SQE) for 10 seconds with Myo-Tech strapped at the upper thigh around the quadriceps area. Graph of muscle contraction was measured for the highest and lowest value in the 10 seconds. Results: A total of 29 male subjects were involved in this study. The reliability of Myo Tech assist patients in quadriceps contraction is good (r = 0.67). Conclusion: This study showed that Myo Tech is a promising instrument and can be integrated into clinical practice. The Myo-Tech can be used as an assessment tool to determine proprioceptive deficits following muscle weakness.

Background: The growth development of the aviation industry in Malaysia is very encouraging to become a regional aviation center. The commitments from each engage in this industry is vital to ensure its sustainability. Fear avoidance belief is subsequent complication following an occupationally related injury. It will reduce individual performance at the workplace and hinder the positive growth of an industry. Currently, there is limited data available address such issues in Malaysia. Methods: This study is conducted to determine the association of fear avoidance belief following occupationally related injury among aviation workers. This is a cross-sectional study involving individual working in Malaysia aviation industry and sustain an occupationally related injury. The study tools used was the Fear Avoidance Belief Questionnaire (FABQ), which consists of physical related and work-related subscale. Results: Total number of respondents involve is 195 with a mean age of 34 years old, and the majority is male (n = 103). Most of them (31.3%) were baggage & cargo handler work category. Their work natures are varied, 37.9% were engaged with a visual display unit. There is a moderately strong association of fear avoidance belief (φc =0.26 & 0.28) between physically related subscale with respondents work categories and work nature respectively (P < 0.05). Conclusion: The fear avoidance belief among respondents exists and cannot be denied. Preventive method of enhancing self-empowerment through education and training is the effective mean in generating self-care at a workplace.

Background: Nonspecific back pain can be defined as pain and discomfort, localized over below the costal margin and above the inferior gluteal folds. Such disorder are known to be a major cause of reduced work capabilities and causing substantial financial consequences and poor productivity. Occupational related nonspecific back pain is the common disorder affecting those workers performing high physical demanding task. The shipping port workers were exposed to hazardous working nature and known to be affected. Numerous study indicate that knowledge and attitude towards safety were contributing factors to occupational related back pain. Currently no study was conducted to determine the relationship between knowledge, attitude and occupational related back pain among them. The objective of this study is to evaluate the prevalence of nonspecific back pain and determine the difference between knowledge and attitude toward such incident. Methods: The respondents were workers known to have nonspecific back pain. The data collection is carry out through a set of questionnaire consists of knowledge, attitudes and Nordic questionnaire on area of back pain. Results: Majority of respondents (n=70) involve in driving and maneuver terminal crane cargo. The mean of knowledge score is 7.49 (±1.20), attitude score is 5.72 (±1.33) and were ranked in good and moderate respectively. There is no statistical difference between knowledge, attitudes with workers job nature, academic qualification and years of working experience. Conclusion: A preventive intervention should be introduced to enhance workers attitudes and curb the nonspecific back pain incidents. Employee positive involvement, strongly supported by employer and active engagement of healthcare provider able to curb occupational related back pain at work place.

This manuscript proposes an Adaptive Linear Neural Network (ADALINE) based control for the unified power quality conditioner to protect the critical loads from voltage related power quality problems and mitigate the current related power quality problems produced by nonlinear loads. Due to parallel computing feature and simple algorithm, ADALINE is utilized widely in parameter estimation. In this manuscript, unified ADALINEs based current harmonic extractor for the shunt active power filter is utilized, and an ADALINE based control technique is utilized to produce reference voltages for load voltage compensation. Due to ADALINE control, the necessity of a phase locked loop and conventional filters are omitted, therefore, enabling the system to extract the fundamental components more accurately. Besides, the ability of self-regulating transition from islanded mode to grid-connected mode has ensured that uninterrupted power supply is provided to the critical loads. The system performance is validated through simulation results utilizing MATLAB-Simulink software considering several dynamic conditions, namely unbalanced grid voltage, self-regulating transition, and grid unavailability.

Solar grid systems are widely used especially in remote locations where electricity accessibility from the grid is limited. The major issue frequently encountered in microgrid-connected photovoltaic (PV) systems are voltage overshoots, transient response and steady state errors causing instability of microgrid during unsymmetrical temporary faults in the distribution network and damages the sensitive loads. PV-grid solely depends on solar hours per day and is not reliable at location with variable weather conditions. Therefore, the generated power per day is reduced as per daily demand and would create power quality issues in a distribution line. Additionally, the PV-grid system exposed to weather experiences unsymmetrical faults due to severe weather conditions that affects the reliability of the grid and electricity supplies. This study presents a technique to enhance the stability of microgrid by using dynamic voltage restorer in a three-phase grid connected system to mitigate power quality issues arising from PV-grid side in a harsh weather condition. The most significant extreme weather conditions such as thunderstorms and high winds are potential causes affecting the instability of transmission network by generating faults such as double line-to-ground, single line-to-ground, lightning strike or impulse transients, and power outage in a distribution line. The proposed technique enhances the transient stability of microgrid and provides symmetrical operating conditions for the load. The control mechanism extracts the fault signal and stabilize the error signal. In the proposed configuration, hysteresis-band PWM generator drives the inverter with the PV based battery storage system connected at DC-Link. The simulation results are verified by using IEEE519 standards limits in four case studies to mitigate power quality issues arising due to severe weather conditions by injecting compensating voltage to protect load and act as microgrid in case of power outage.

Higher education is over dependent on public funds, cash endowments and business contributions which are non-perpetual and may only concern the current and immediate future generations.A resource-based corporate waqf to develop and sustain the higher education sectorwill be explored in this paper.Theresourcebased (from output of harnessing water, energy, land banks and forests) corporate waqf financing are by itself inherently perpetual and sustainable. However, the conventionaltheory of perpetual resource flows across state’s borders may constrain the inter-state flow of waqf funds. An Islamic economic theoretical framework of resource-based corporate waqf financing is explored in this study. The optimization of costeffective allocation of burdens of responsibility between many sources (power generators) and receptors (higher education institutions, students) of corporate waqf is modelled. A literature review of Islamic approachesreveal for example, the Islamic principles of Al- Hisbah (administration of public interest) that can minimize the burdens to be shared by the inter-state sourcesand receptors in the interstate model.

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This paper proposes a network splitting strategy following critical line outages based on N-1 contingency analysis. Network splitting is the best option for certain critical outages when the tendency of severe cascading failures is very high. Network splitting is executed by splitting the power system network into feasible set of islands. Thus, it is essential to identify the optimal splitting solution (in terms of minimal power flow disruption) that satisfies certain constraints. This paper determines the optimal splitting solution for each of the critical line outage using discrete evolutionary programming (DEP) optimization technique assisted by heuristic initialization approach. Heuristic initialization provides the best initial cutsets which will guide the optimization technique to find the optimal splitting solution. Generation–load balance and transmission line overloading analysis are carried out in each island to ensure the steady state stability is achieved. Load shedding scheme is initiated if the power balance criterion is violated in any island to sustain the generation–load balance. The proposed technique is validated on the IEEE 118 bus system. Results show that the proposed approach produces an optimal splitting solution with lower power flow disruption during network splitting execution.