Objective: This study examined the influence of visual art therapy techniques in reducing anxiety level
among 4 to 6 years old paediatric dental patients.
Methods: Eleven subjects were selected among 4 to 6 years old paediatric dental patients. The initial
reaction towards dental procedure/treatment was evaluated using Frankl Behavior Rating Scale. The
anxiety level was assessed by using Malay-Modified Child Dental Anxiety Scale (MCDASf
) to measure
a child situational anxiety of pre- and post-treatment. Visual art making activities included free drawing,
clay moulding and collage technique. The participant reaction to dental treatment was assessed by using
Frankl Behavioural Rating Scale for two subsequent independent visits in two weeks interval. Median
and Ordinal Test ranked the variables score of behavioural reaction towards dental treatment and anxiety
level.
Results: Play-doh (PD) subjects could accept dental procedures more if compared to free drawing (FD)
and storytelling by collage (ST) subjects, which has lower post treatment-median scores in Visit 1 and
Visit 2, FD and ST subjects need more time to show positive attitude towards dental treatment.
Conclusion: These findings suggest dental anxiety level of children aged 4 to 6 years old reduced after
the art therapy and play-doh(clay-moulding technique) is the art making activity of choice among 4 to 6
years old paediatric dental patients.
The aim of study was to evaluate the level of satisfaction of patients treated in the undergraduate Year 4 and Year 5 of University of Malaya. The subjects were patients treated in the Year 4 periodontology clinic (Polyclinic B) (n=38) and Year 5 periodontology clinic (Polyclinic C) (n=30). Data was gathered using a questionnaire which consisted of 4 components namely appointment facilities, infrastructure and basic facilities, behaviour of students dental clinician, and quality and efficiency of treatment provided. The results showed that for appointment facilities the level of satisfaction was almost 80%; for infrastructure and basic facilities the satisfaction was more than 85%; for behavior of students dental clinician the level of satisfaction was more than 90% and for quality and efficiency of treatment provided the level of satisfaction was more than 60%. When all the components were compared between patients treated in Polyclinic B to patients treated in Polyclinic C, there was no statistically significant difference (p>0.05). In conclusion, the level of satisfaction of patients treated in the undergraduate Year 4 and Year 5 periodontology clinic of University of Malaya is the same
MeSH terms: Ambulatory Care Facilities; Appointments and Schedules; Cross-Sectional Studies; Hospitals, University; Humans; Malaysia; Personal Satisfaction; Surveys and Questionnaires; Students, Dental
Objective: This study aimed to assess the awareness of periodontal disease and level of knowledge of the relationship between smoking and periodontal disease amongst subjects who were smokers verses non-smokers.
Methods: A questionnaire looking at knowledge of respondents regarding gum disease and knowledge and awareness about oral impacts of smoking on periodontal disease was developed and pretested in Dental Faculty University of Malaya. Basic Periodontal Examination (BPE) index was used to assess periodontal status.
Results: The questionnaire was answered by 130 subjects. Prevalence of smoking was 14.6%. A total of 58.6% non-smokers and 57.9% smokers knew about periodontal disease. However, only 26.1% non-smokers and 10.5% smokers knew that the cause for periodontal disease was plaque. More non-smokers than smokers knew that smoking affected periodontal health (80.2% and 68.4% respectively) (p>0.05) and tooth mobility was an effect of smoking on periodontal health (27.0% and 0%) (p<0.05). Regarding source of information on effect of smoking on periodontal health, 63.2% smokers and 63.1% non-smokers reported obtaining information through the mass media. However, only 31.6% smokers and 28.8% non-smokers were informed by their dentist.
Conclusion: The awareness of periodontal disease and knowledge of the relationship between smoking and periodontal disease was low in this selected population of smokers and non-smokers.
Keywords: Awareness, knowledge, periodontitis, smoking
Study site: Primary Care Unit, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Aim: Self-assessment based on benchmarked professional standards is an excellent tool to assist in improving the dental curriculum. Areas of strength and weaknesses can be identified. It can also act as a baseline standard when significant changes are introduced to the dental curriculum. The aims of this prospective cross-sectional study was to investigate self-assessed confidence of final year dental undergraduates in paediatric dentistry enrolled at University of Malaya in 2013. Methods: 65 undergraduates completed anonymised questionnaires which were formulated based on expected professional competencies in three domains namely clinical skills, patient management, and professional development and clinical governance. Visual analogue score (VAS) represented by a 10cm line with score ‘0’ no confidence at all and ‘10’ complete confidence was used to measure the level of confidence. Results: The overall analysis of self-assessed confidence was very positive with median VAS ≥ 5cm in; clinical skills, 7.66±1.31cm (range=2.41–9.97cm: n=62; 95.4%), patient management 7.73±1.27cm (range=5.09–9.95cm: n=64; 100.0%), and professional development and clinical governance, 8.13±1.21cm (range=5.22–10.00cm: n=64; 100.0%). High confidence was reported for routine dental care (fillings and preventive care) while lower confidence reported for basic life support (median VAS=5.65cm) and pulp therapy for immature permanent teeth (median VAS=5.95cm). Conclusions: The final year dental undergraduate students of the University of Malaya appear to have good overall self-assessed confidence in core areas in paediatric dentistry.
Guillain-Barré syndrome is a rare neurological manifestation associated with dengue infection. More common antecedent infections include Campylobacter jejuni and Cytomegalovirus infection. Here, we report two cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome complicating dengue infection.
A new series of some novel pyrazinamide condensed 1,2,3,4-tetrahydropyrimidines was prepared by reacting of N-(3-oxobutanoyl)pyrazine-2-carboxamide with urea/thiourea and appropriate aldehyde in the presence of catalytic amount of laboratory made p-toluenesulfonic acid as an efficient catalyst. Confirmation of the chemical structure of the synthesized compounds (4a-l) was substantiated by TLC, different spectral data IR, 1H NMR, mass spectra and elemental analysis. The synthesized compounds were evaluated for acetyl and butyl cholinesterase (AChE and BuChE) inhibitor activity. The titled compounds exhibited weak, moderate or high AChE and BuChE inhibitor activity. Especially, compound (4l) showed the best AChE and BuChE inhibitory activity of all the 1,2,3,4-tetrahydropyrimidine derivatives, with an IC50 value of 0.11 μM and 3.4 μM.
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in quadcopter technology
implementation in the real world; for instance in real estate photography, aerial surveying, periodic
forest monitoring, and search/rescue missions. Generally, each quadcopter implementation required
different sensors which are needed to attach and integrate into quadcopter system. However, the most
critical part in almost cases is preparing the quadcopter flight performance and capability to be suited
in any outdoor applications. Because of that reason, this paper has proposed an implementation of
Open-Source Project (OSPs) platform as autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) quadcopter
development that can be fitted for any outdoor applications or even in research experimental purposes.
We started out with an explanation about the general approach that has been used in the development
of a quadcopter testbed, and then followed with detail explanations in the OSP platform approach.
The OSP platform is the most popular approach. The main reason is because of their flexibility in both
hardware and software. The basic quadcopter configuration for autonomous flight also presented and
applied. This paper also provided several outdoor experiments results in uncontrolled environment
that have been executed using our developed testbed to evaluate their performance, such as attitude
and altitude stabilization, interference and vibration effect, and trajectory mapping generation.
Finally, throughout this project, we realized that the OPSs quadcopter platform has offered almost
complete frameworks in the development of quadcopter for any outdoor applications or even as a
research testbed system.
A study on 2D geo-electrical resistivity imaging at Melaka Tengah, Malacca was conducted to determine the potential groundwater zone. This investigation is needed to identify the quality of the groundwater, since the site is located in the coastal areas where groundwater influence tends to diminish due to intrusion of seawater. Two resistivity lines were proposed with length of 400m each by using Terrameter SAS 4000 and ES1064. Geo-electrical of electrical resistivity and induced polarization method with the Wenner-Schlumberger configuration were carried out. The Res2Dinv software would then render the 2D resistivity image through inversion method which provided detailed information of both the laterally and vertically geological structures based on their part. The electrical resistivity measured the resistance of the subsurface to the flow of electric current in units of ohmmeters and value of chargeability during the transient decay of the applied voltage in ms for induced polarization. Well data provided was very useful in direct determination of subsurface soil lithology.The result obtained showed an 84.7-meter subsurface depth for both areas which then reflected that the subsurface consisted of two different layers namely overburden (laterite, clay, and/or peat soil) with ranged 1 ohm.m – 10 ohm.m and 50 ohm.m – 500 ohm.m for schist formation. However, this area was considered to be brackish water area because of the low chargeability value of 0ms – 1ms especially in top soil layer and 5ms – 20ms for schist formation. Thus, this area was deemed not suitable for groundwater exploration due to the intrusion of salt water.
The present study investigated the correlation between occupational stress and job
satisfaction of police officers in Punjab, Pakistan. The sample consisted of 300 senior police
officers. The sample was further divided on the basis of gender differences. The sample was
selected from Punjab, Pakistan. Survey research method was used for data collection. Police
Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) was used for measuring the occupational stress and job satisfaction
was measured by Job Satisfaction Survey (JSS) scale. Results found that there is a negative
correlation between occupational stress and job satisfaction. It was also found that female
police officers have high occupational stress as compared to male police officers.
– Stroke is one of the deadly disease in Malaysia; one of top five major causes of death
and one of the top ten causes for hospitalization in Malaysia. Every year 40,000 people
diagnosed with this deadly disease. Stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain is blocked.
Blood supply essential nutrient and oxygen to the brain. Insufficient blood supply will cause
brain cell damages and lead to lose control of human body. Weakness or lost ability to upper
limb or arm is one of the main symptoms for the stroke patients. Normally only one part of the
body will affected. Upper limb post stroke rehabilitation objective is to help stroke survivor to
move their hand and arm as effective as their non-affected hand. Arm/ hand skate is one of the
popular equipment used to help the stoke survivor to regain their upper and/or forearm limb
strength and endurance of the patients. The main movement direction was horizontal from left
to right and reversed. In order to get the benefit of this exercise, stroke survivor has to repeat
this exercise for several time, this will lead to boredom and motivation lost. Another
disadvantage is there is no indicator for showing degree of the rehabilitation. Objective of this
study is to design a computer application using combination of C++, Open GL and optical
mouse which can be used to evaluate the stroke survivor hand and arm speed movement.
Information obtain from this application can used by the therapist and stroke survivor to
monitor their rehabilitation activity progress and effectiveness.
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a chronic, disabling autoimmune disease which affects about 5 in 1000 people in Malaysia. Patients with RA are at increased risk of developing comorbid conditions. This research aims at determining these relationships between demographic, duration of illness and comorbidity in RA via a multiple binary logistic (MBL) regression analysis based on the 102 patients’ information (23 males; 79 females) obtained from the rheumatoid clinic of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kota Kinabalu. The relationship of the RA patients with comorbid conditions was studied with focus on the demographic and duration of illness. The variables obtained for analysis were the comorbid conditions namely, hypertension and hyperlipidemia, age, duration of illness, gender, ethnicity, household income and education level. From six independent variables, two were quantitative would be analyzed, while four were categorical, and would be transformed into dummy variables. Four phases in a model-building approach were executed where two models were formed where Model I predicted the probability of occurrence of hypertension with age of patients and first order interaction between duration of illness before diagnosis and household income of less than RM1000 had positive effects on the model, while Model II predicted the occurrence of hyperlipidemia among the RA patients with age of patients and first order interaction variable between gender(female) and age were the contributing factors.
Study site: Rheumatoid clinic, Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia
Solar updraft tower power plant (SUTPP) is an alternative technology for electricity
generating from solar energy. It’s suitable for use in remote area, where there is high potential of
solar radiation, because the constructions are cheap and the technologies involved are conventional.
This paper presents the design of a circular and square collector SUTPP to be used in rural areas of
developing countries. The design involves heating air using solar energy and the tower effect to raise
the hot air up the tower. From this study, a small scale solar updraft tower with 2m length in each
side of solar collector, air inlet height of 0.1 m above the ground, an updraft tower of 1.5-meter-high
with 2.0 m length of each side collector was studied to determine its performance. Anemometer and
multimeter were used to measure the velocity and temperature along the collector and inside the
tower. Solar radiation, ambient air temperature as well as air velocity inside the tower were also
recorded. These data were taken every one hours in four days to investigate the performance of the
SUTPP
This article is in the form of a short tutorial discussion, presenting the logistic (logit)
regression mathematical method. Logistic regression as one of the most popular modeling approach
used in the research and decision makings, has its own specialty than other common linear regression
method whereby the response variable is discrete and form of S-shaped. The paper starts with the short
review of logistic regression method, formulation of the method and finally, authors’ conclusion is the
last section of this paper
–Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal is very famous in traditions collector of Prophet Muhammad, but
there are statements related to characteristics of Allah that stated by him. Therefore, it is very important
to understand Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal’s thought in characteristics of Allah. It is history study that
explains a short biography of Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal and his statements about characteristics of
Allah. Based on the literature study that Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal believes the characteristics of Allah
are based on the Koran and collection of traditions of Prophet Muhammad. The characteristics of Allah
believed by Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal are suitable to Ahli Sunnah wal Jamaah.
The Multi Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) delivers strong decision making in areas where
selection of best alternative is highly complex. This paper reviews and explain the main condensations
of MCDM models and practices in detail. The purpose is explained and identify various application
and the approaches and to suggests different MCDM models for different decision makling issues and
how to select the best alternatives. This paper also examines the DEMATEL model and problems in
DEMATEL for decision making and how DEMATEL have been improved to overcome the problems.
The MCDM methods have helped to choose the best alternatives where that they are many criteria are
present, the best can be selected and analyzed the different scope for the criteria, weights for the criteria
and the choose the ideal ones using any multi criteria decision making methods.
Previous studies on instant noodles have been aimed mostly at secondary students, and have
been concerned with the demographics, and the development of product attributes. Very few studies
have examined the role of convenience (CO), product attributes (PA), advertising (AD) and subjective
norms (SN) in predicting the intention of students towards the consumption of instant noodles. The
present rising costs of living and education may affect the intention and behaviour of university students
towards the consumption of affordable food. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to explore the
relationship between these variables and the variables of the Theory of Reasoned Action (TRA) in
association with the intention of university students to consume instant noodles. A research model
approach was used to reflect the effects of CO, PA, AD, and SN on the TRA constructs. In total, 390
cases were gathered from three universities. Structural equation modelling was employed to assess the
proposed research model in terms of the path significance, the general requirements for a model fit,
and the testing of the hypotheses. It was found that AD has a direct positive effect on the behavioural
intention of university students towards the consumption of instant noodles. Nevertheless, CO, PA, and
SN appear to exert no significant influence on the behavioural intention of university students. The
limitation of the study was that the findings were obtained from a small dataset covering only three
universities. Therefore, future researches should cover a broader range of research samples. This paper
provides additional understanding for marketing managers and researchers into the effects of CO, PA,
AD and SN on the intention of Malaysian university students towards the consumption of instant
noodles, which can be used for formulating marketing strategies for instant noodles and for considering
future research directions in other countries.
Scheduling is one other method in productivity improvement. Scheduling occurs at the
operation level of production planning and control system. Scheduling is important because it can
optimize resource allocation and minimize waste. Simulation analysis can be used to evaluate the
scheduling technique in order to determine the best alternatives. A case study company, Olilys Sdn.
Bhd. Did are facing with the unsystematic scheduling methods for the job orders received from
customers. The problem became worst during peak period (high demand) where the company unable
to fulfil the customer orders. The objective of this project is to study the existing scheduling technique
and find related problem, and propose an improvement in production scheduling system. In this project,
there are five scheduling techniques proposed, which are First Come First Serve (FCFS), Shortest
Processing Time (SPT), Longest Processing Time (LPT), Priority Rules by product sequences: By Part1
and By Part 2, and Earliest Due Date (EDD). The simulation modelling and experimentation being
done by using WITNESS simulation software. Through the experimentation analysis, the best
scheduling technique was selected and suggested to the company
Customer care centres of Telecom Industry play vital role in telecom business field last
few years. The capital of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu is the place for telecom service providers to promote
the best service and grab the market. In this geographical location, efficiency and service excellence
are the two major goals for customer care centre as other part of Malaysia. Efficiency depends on
speed and delivery that leads to get excellent service. The objectives of the research is to identify and
explore the influential factors of the service experience in customer care centre for telecom industry in
Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Based on the first part of the research, it was identified the critical
factors of service experience of customer care centre to eliminate the rigidity of service near future in
the industry. Questionnaire survey was used for this research because the research method was
quantitative and experimental. Data were collected from the people who are attached with the
customer care centre activities of telecom industry in that region in terms of usage of the product or
seeking services through customer care centre. Results of this study show that how different factors
influence and shape a better service experience and whether the factors have positive and significant
influences on customer’s service experience in a customer care centre of this industry in Sabah. In
total 18 questions were asked to answer to the 200 sample interviewee to get the real scenario of
customer care centre in terms of service excellence. This study helps to find out the factors which
affect the service experience in Customer Care Centre. The result indicates that three out of four
factors have significant influence on Customer service experience in Telecom Industry in Sabah.
This study presents traditional brick making in Central Aceh in Indonesia,
specifically in Silih Nara sub district. According to official statistics Silih Nara since 2008
remains the poorest area of central Aceh. Traditional brick making is the biggest industry in
the area besides agriculture. Previously no research has been conducted about bricks quality
and brick yards development in sub district. Data from the research can be use in study of
SMEs recovery after earthquake that hit Aceh in 2013. Due to reoccurring natural disasters in
the area it is important to improve quality of bricks, which are used to rebuild dwelling houses
and public facilities. This study describes methods of brick making in Silih Nara and quality of
the bricks in order to recommend changes in production which can strength final product.
Through SWOT analysis of brick industry, some recommendations were suggested for brick
makers in Silih Nara and local government to improve bricks quality, industry sustainability.
The hydrodynamic characteristics of new design for artificial reef with low flow
drag to provide suitable shelter for fishes and marine organisms in the Malaysian seas, were
studied in this paper. The concept used in the design is based on the streamlined bicycle helmet
design concept. The flow characteristics and the wave forces (FW) of the helmet and hollow
cube artificial reefs (ARs) of the same volume have been studied at a water depth and wave
celerties of Malaysia seas using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) RANSE (ReynoldsAveraged
Navier-Stokes Eqs.) code Ansys Fluent. The Shear Stress Transport (SST) turbulence
model was used in the RANSE code. The streamlined body of the helmet artificial reef provides
flow zones with moderate flow speed at this area, which can help fishes and marine organisms
to find good shelter. The special shape of the different openings in the body of the helmet
artificial reef improves the condition of the flow velocity distribution inside the unit than that
of the hollow cube unit, which can increase the amount of the nutrient to the living fishes and
organisms inside the reef.