Hypertension is a pathological condition in which the blood pressure is higher than under normal physiological conditions, i.e., 140/90 mmHg or higher. Blood pressure is measured as the force exerted by the blood pumped by the heart against the walls of arteries (aorta) and distributed throughout the body. Use of complementary and alternative medicine as a cure for hypertension is a common phenomenon because of the high risk of cardiovascular complications and kidney diseases caused by conventional Western medicine. It is reported that high blood pressure causes ~49% of myocardial infarction and 62% of strokes. Effective treatment of hypertension is restricted by adverse effects and cost of the medication. Moxibustion is the application of heat by burning a small bundle of tightly bound moxa, to targeted acupoint, and sometimes it is used along with acupuncture. Encouraging results have been reported on randomized trials indicating the efficacy of moxibustion. But more controlled clinical trials are required to further establish the potential efficacy of moxibustion approach in hypertension.
Cardiac arrhythmias are a major cause of morbidity and mortality across the world. Learning the science behind the use of antiarrhythmic drugs is essential for all medical graduates. However, many antiarrhythmic drugs are available, and most of them have complex pharmacodynamic and pharmacokinetic profiles. We tried to improvise our teaching by conducting interactive, worksheet-based, small-group discussion on antiarrhythmic drugs with preclinical students of School of Medicine, Taylor's University, Malaysia. This survey was conducted to analyze the outcomes of worksheet-based, small-group discussion.
Burn wound management is a complex process because the damage may extend as far as the dermis which has an acknowledged slow rate of regeneration. This study investigates the feasibility of using hydrogel microparticles composed of bacterial cellulose and polyacrylamide as a dressing material for coverage of partial-thickness burn wounds. The microparticulate carrier structure and surface morphology were investigated by Fourier transform infrared, X-ray diffraction, elemental analysis, and scanning electron microscopy. The cytotoxicity profile of the microparticles showed cytocompatibility with L929 cells. Dermal irritation test demonstrated that the hydrogel was non-irritant to the skin and had a significant effect on wound contraction compared to the untreated group. Moreover, histological examination of in vivo burn healing samples revealed that the hydrogel treatment enhanced epithelialization and accelerated fibroblast proliferation with wound repair and intact skin achieved by the end of the study. Both the in vitro and in vivo results proved the biocompatibility and efficacy of hydrogel microparticles as a wound dressing material.
This research attempts to enhance of the ability of Fuzzy Logic Controller in controlling wastewater
treatment system, highlighting the pH parameter in factory wastewater treatment plants. The research
not only covers methods to monitor and track the pH level in wastewater tank but more importantly,
the control of total wastewater volume by neutralising the pH. Fuzzy logic control has gained more
attention in the control of continuous processes. It utilised both, in the context of deciding and tracking
set-points, and to control the total unwanted water capacity. This paper also discusses suitable level of
pH required which will not damage the water ecosystem. The self-learning fuzzy logic control with
adaptive capabilities alert operator in charge of the pH level automatically. This research includes the
design and development a graphical user interface (GUI) to show the process of pH neutralisation in
wastewater treatment. A fast response system is achieved through GUI which could be monitored and
control remotely using laptop or smartphone, from anywhere. This proposed design will inform engineers
and technicians about the status of the current reading of parameters in the wastewater treatment system
without the hassle of going to the site or control room of the wastewater treatment plant.
Biologically inspired robotic hands have important applications in industry and biomedical robotics. The
grasping capacity of robotic hands is crucial for a robotic system. This paper presents an experimental
study on the finger force and movements of a human hand during the grasping operation in real-time.
It focuses on two topics; measuring grasping force using Flexi-force sensors and analysing human hand
action during grasping operation. The findings show that lifting required higher forces compared with
grasp force in the static phase.
Normalisation is a process of removing systematic variation that affects measured gene expression levels
in microarray experiment. The purpose is to get a more accurate DNA microarray result by deleting
the systematic errors that may have occurred when making the DNA microarray slid. In this paper,
four normalisation methods of Global, Lowess, Quantile and Print-tip are discussed, tested and their
final results compared in the form of Matrixes and graphs. Ideal and real microarray slides have been
used for this project. It was found that the Print-tip normalisation method showed the closest results to
the real result for an ideal microarray slide and it has a straight median line final graph. The Print-tip
normalisation method uses more than one normalization factor that is divided among intervals which
are dependent on the values of the addition of red and green logarithm.
One of the biggest power consuming devices in wireless communications system is the Power Amplifier
(PA) which amplifies signals non-linearly when operating in real-world systems. The negative effects of
PA non-linearity are energy inefficiency, amplitude and phase distortion. The increases in transmission
speed in present day communication technology introduces Memory Effects, where signal spreading
happens at the PA output, thus causing overhead in signal processing at the receiver side. PA Linearization
is therefore required to counter the non-linearity and Memory Effects. Digital Pre-distortion (DPD) is
one of the outstanding PA Linearization methods in terms of its strengths in implementation simplicity,
bandwidth, efficiency, flexibility and cost. DPD pre-distorts the input signal, using an inversed model
function of the PA. Modelling of the PA is therefore vital in DPD, where the Memory Polynomial
Method (MP) is used to model the PA with memory effects. In this paper, the MP method is improved
in Memory Polynomial using Binomial Reduction method (MPB-imag-2k). The method is simulated
using a modelled ZVE-8G Power Amplifier and sampled 4G (LTE) signals. It was found MPB-imag-2k
is capable of achieving comparable anti-scattering/anti-distortion in MP for non-linearity order of 3,
memory depth of 3 and pre-amplifier gain of 2.
DNA microarray images contain spots that represent the gene expression of normal and cancer samples.
As there are numerous spots on DNA microarray images, image processing can help in enhancing an
image and assisting analysis. The mathematical morphology is proposed to enhance the microarray image
and analyse noise removal on the image. This follows an experiment in which the erosion, dilation,
opening, closing, white top-hat (WTH) and black top-hat (BTH) operations were applied on a DNA
microarray image and its results analysed. Noise was completely removed by the erosion operation and
the images were enhanced.
The unified protocols are unified in application interface, models, and seamless. They generate one
standard protocol, one world called IEC 61850. IEC 61850 integrate the security, interoperability,
modelling, mapping to a substation, and reliability. Presently, the more expensive fiber based Ethernet
LAN is the most prevalent technology for medium and low voltage distribution substations. To
circumvent this problem Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) has been investigated for its suitability
for applications that are compliant to IEC 61850: automation and metering; control and monitoring; and
over-current protection. In this paper the IEEE 802.11n WLAN is studied when used in various IEC
61850 supported applications for substation automation. It also discusses the benefits of using GOOSE
message to protect and control applications and the use of IEC 61850.
This work proposes an output feedback controller for stabilization of the quadrotor underactuated
system in the presence of time varying disturbances and model uncertainties. The proposed control is
an improvement to the sliding mode control (SMC). An extended high-gain observer (EHGO) when
combined with sliding mode control (SMC) able to give feasible performance beyond the performance
of the standard sliding mode. It is able to bring the state trajectories of the closed-loop system close to
the target system with a smaller ultimate bound of error and smaller control magnitude. The proposed
method is illustrated by simulation.
The use of electroosmotic is fast becoming a proven technique for manipulating particles in microfluidic
systems. Several approaches were experimented to improve the force and thus the moving particles in
the fluid. This paper will study the effect of microelectrode on the moving particles in latex using a
particle image velocimetry and to test the velocity of particles movement at various frequencies from
10kHz to 500kHz. The result shows the behaviour of latex particles at different frequencies varying
from low frequencies up to high frequencies under AC electrokinetic forces such as dielectrophoresis
(DEP) and AC electroosmosis (ACEO).
Cascaded multilevel inverters are popular in fields such as oil and gas, power supply installations, and
power quality devices. While there are many advantages of the cascaded multilevel inverter, its main
disadvantage is the need for large numbers of multiple dc sources. In order to reduce total harmonics
distortion (THD) of the output voltage waveform, the amount of output voltage level must be increased,
hence the higher number of dc sources. This essentially complicated the inverter design, as most converter
transform only one voltage source to another. In this paper a cascaded multilevel inverter topology with a
single dc source is discussed. The topology is based on capacitors instead of cells as the multiple voltage
sources. The cascaded multilevel inverter topology validity and functionality is verified by the Matlab
Simulink simulation of a 100W and 1kW aircraft single phase 41-level inverter.
The purpose of this paper is to classify between healthy and sick chicken based on their dropping. Most
chicken farm management system in Malaysia is highly dependent on human surveillance method. This
method, however, does not focus on early disease detection hence, unable to and alert chicken farmers
to take necessary action.. Therefore, the need to improve the biosecurity of chicken poultry production
is essential to prevent infectious disease such as avian influenza. The classification of sick and healthy
chicken based solely on chicken’s excrement using the support vector machine is proposed. First, the
texture is examined using grey-level co-occurrence matrix (GLCM) approach. A GLCM based texture
feature set is derived and used as input for the SVM classifier. Comparison are made using more and
then less extracted features, less extracted features and also applying Gabor filter to these features to
see the effect it has on classification accuracy. Results show that having more features extracted using
GLCM techniques allows for greater classification accuracy.
Having cooperation between multiple autonomous devices against one task is difficult due to each
device having their own decision management based on self-deterministic protocol. Within the selfdeterministic
protocol, a formation management task should be considered along another task in order
to provide cooperation and consideration between the operating autonomous devices. In this research,
a compound learning control system for formation management of multiple control agents is proposed
by managing coordination between multiple autonomous agents along with other tasks simultaneously
in an operation. A series of simulation based on an autonomous robot was conducted to evaluate the
effectiveness of learning through compound knowledge for providing consideration among achieving
goals or coordination configuration against partner robot. The proposed system was able to provide
consideration in coordination among operating partners in a task of achieving goal.
Negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) is the most concern issue CMOS devices with the scaling
down of the CMOS technologies. NBTI effect contributes to P-MOSFET device degradation which later
reduce the performance and reliability of CMOS circuits. This paper presents a reliability simulation study
based on R-D model on CMOS inverter circuit. HSPICE MOSRA model together with the Predictive
Technology Model (PTM) was used as to incorporate the NBTI model in the circuit reliability simulation
study for different technology nodes. PTM of High Performance (HP) models of 16nm, 22nm, 32nm
and 45nm were used in this simulation study. The atomic hydrogen based model was integrated in the
simulation. The results show that in a CMOS inverter circuit, the threshold voltage shift of p-MOSFET
under NBTI stressing increased as the year progressed.. The threshold voltage shift was observed to
increase up to 45.1% after 10 years of operation. The time exponent, n ~ 0.232 of the threshold voltage
shift observed indicates that the defect mechanism contributed to the degradation is atomic hydrogen.
The propagation delay increased to 19.5% over a 10-year period. s up to 19.5% from the zero year
of operation until 10 years of the operation. In addition, the time propagation delay increased as year
increased when the technology nodes smaller. The finding is important for understanding reliability
issues related to advanced technology nodes in CMOS circuits study.
MeSH terms: Hydrogen; Language; Reproduction; Technology; Temperature; Reproducibility of Results
Malaysia has introduced a new Time of Use (ToU) tariff scheme known as Enhanced ToU (EToU) for
commercial and industrial customers. EToU is a more detailed pricing scheme where one day time frame
is divided into six period blocks as compared to only two period blocks in the existing ToU. Mid-peak
tariff is introduced to the existing peak and off-peak tariff. Off-peak rate for EToU is significantly lower
than the existing off-peak rate but the peak rate is much higher. EToU is designed to motivate users to
reduce their consumption during peak hours or shift the load to mid-peak or off-peak hours, which if
done correctly can reduce the electricity bill while maintaining electricity consumption. This new EToU
scheme will benefit consumers if they are able to shift consumption from peak-hours into mid-peak
or off-peak hours. This paper assesses the amount of load shifting that is required based on customers’
load profile and EToU rates. The load profile data of an office building in Putrajaya, Malaysia is used
as a case study.
Oral delivery of insulin is one of the most promising and anticipated areas in the treatment of diabetes, primarily because it may significantly improve the quality of life of diabetics who receive insulin regularly. Several problems have been reported regarding the subcutaneous delivery of insulin, ranging from cardiovascular complications to weight gain. One of the approaches to overcoming these issues is to administer insulin through the oral route. However, there are several challenges in developing an oral route for insulin delivery; insulin has extremely poor bioavailability and a low diffusion rate through the mucus layer. A wide range of oral insulin delivery techniques have recently been researched, ranging from nanoparticles to liposomes, self-emulsifying systems, and hydrogels. These techniques have shown promising potential in the oral delivery of insulin. This review considers the current literature on the advances and challenges in the development of oral insulin.
Liver diseases still represents a major health burden worldwide. Moreover, medicinal plants have gained popularity in the treatment of several diseases, including liver disease. Clidemia hirta possesses many medicinal properties for healing several diseases and for health maintenance. However, the hepatoprotective effects and antioxidative potential of C. hirta have not been fully investigated. In the present study, we evaluated the hepatoprotective and antioxidative potential of C. hirta against carbon tetrachloride (CCl4)-induced liver injuries and oxidative damage in a murine model. Various biochemical changes associated with liver damage and oxidative stress were measured. The mice were pretreated for 14 consecutive days with aqueous extract of C. hirta at selected doses (150 mg/kg body weight [b.w.], 300 mg/kg b.w. and 600 mg/kg b.w.) followed by two doses of CCl4 (1.0 mL/kg b.w.) orally on days 14 and 15. All animals were sacrificed 24 hours after the last dose of CCl4 or saline. Blood and liver tissues were taken quickly for biochemical and histopathological studies to assess the derangement in the functioning of liver. The development of oxidative stress was observed through the escalation of hepatic lipid peroxidation, depletion of glutathione, and reduced antioxidant enzymes (glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, catalase, glutathione S-transferase and quinone reductase). Hepatic damage was evaluated by measuring serum transaminase (ALT and AST). In addition, CCl4-induced hepatic damage was further evaluated using histopathological assessments. However, most of these changes were dependently ameliorated by the pretreatment of mice with a C. hirta dose. These results indicate that the hepatoprotective effect of C. hirta might be due to its antioxidant and free-radical scavenging properties.
Amauroderma rugosum is a wild medicinal mushroom also known as budak cendawan sawan. Members of the indigenous Malaysian Temuan community wear the fresh stipes as a necklace to prevent epileptic seizure and unremitting crying by babies. In our previous studies, A. rugosum exhibited significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. The aim of this study was to determine the toxicity (in the event that a stipe is accidentally bitten) and cytotoxicity of this mushroom on Sprague-Dawley rats and selected cell lines. A. rugosum was orally administered to test chemicals according to Organisation for Economic and Co-operation and Development guidelines (TG 425, adopted October 3, 2008). Blood samples were hematologically and biochemically analyzed and multiple tissue sections from each organ were examined using light microscopy. Cytotoxicity of various A. rugosum extracts was also determined against MCF-7 and A-549 cell lines. Our results showed that oral administration of a single dose of mycelial powder (2000 mg/kg) had no adverse effect on the growth rate or hematological and clinical biochemical parameters. Histological studies showed that the treatments did not induce any pathological changes in the organs of the tested animals. All the treated rats survived beyond the 14-day observation period. Methanol and cold and hot water extracts of the freeze-dried mycelial culture of A. rugosum exhibited no or little cytotoxic effect against the MCF-7 and A-549 cell lines.
Dyslipidemia is the key precursor of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. The aim of this study was to investigate the lipid-modifying potential of organic solvent-partitioned extracts from fruiting bodies of Amauroderma rugosum in vitro using oleate-induced human hepatocellular liver carcinoma (HepG2) cells. Our results demonstrated that oleate-induced HepG2 cells treated with ethyl acetate (EA) extract greatly decreased intracellular and secreted total triglyceride (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) compared with other extracts. Further investigation of cellular expression of selected apolipoproteins also revealed that oleate-induced HepG2 cells treated with the EA extract best attenuated the apolipoprotein (Apo) profile by downregulating ApoB-100 and ApoE while upregulating ApoA1. Because both ApoB-100 and ApoE are key components of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and very LDL (VLDL), which are recognized as "bad cholesterol," this result indicates that treatment with the EA extract inhibited LDL and VLDL production in oleate-induced HepG2 cells. On the other hand, increasing ApoA1 evidence shows antiatherogenic benefits to increasing ApoA1, the key component of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), particularly in relation to its role in promoting reverse cholesterol transport and preventing LDL oxidation; this indicates that the EA extract upregulated the production of HDL ("good cholesterol"). Hence, the EA extract is a good source of lipid-ameliorating agents in the management of dyslipidemia.