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Fulltext The use of a multi-disciplinary geriatric telemedicine service (TELEG) and its acceptance at a tertiary care centre in Malaysia

Ting CY, Abdul Halim NH, Ling JN, Tiong IK, Ahmad Shauki NIHJ, Lee YF, et al.

BMC Geriatr, 2024 Feb 05;24(1):133.
PMID: 38317117 DOI: 10.1186/s12877-024-04676-0

BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has fueled the widespread adoption of telemedicine in healthcare, particularly in Sarawak, Malaysia. This study investigates the use and acceptance of Sarawak's inaugural multidisciplinary geriatric telemedicine service, TELEG.
METHODS: This cross-sectional study took place at the Sarawak Heart Centre's geriatric department from July 1, 2021, to April 30, 2022. Convenient sampling included all TELEG-enrolled patients during this period, to achieve minimum sample size of 148. TELEG's utilization was assessed in terms of medication therapy and treatment plan optimization, as well as enhanced healthcare accessibility. Participants' acceptance of TELEG was measured using the Service User Technology Acceptability Questionnaire (SUTAQ) administered through Google Forms. Descriptive statistics percentages illustrated the proportion of participants who found TELEG moderately to highly acceptable. Associations between baseline characteristics and overall acceptance were explored through bivariate analyses, including Pearson's correlation test, independent t-test, and ANOVA. The influence of six SUTAQ dimensions on overall acceptance, multivariable linear regression using enter method was employed. Statistical significance was determined by p-values less than 0.5.
RESULTS: Among 180 geriatric patients enrolled in TELEG during the study period, 149 agreed to participate. TELEG led to medication therapy optimization for 88.6% of participants, primarily involving dose adjustment (44.7%), de-prescribing (31.8%), and prescribing (15.9%). Additionally, 53.8% received treatment plan optimization, predominantly in the form of self-care education (56.3%), referrals for further treatment (33.8%), additional laboratory investigations (29.6%), and increased monitoring (26.8%). Among those educated in self-care (n = 40), dietary intake (27.5%), lower limb exercise (25.0%), and COVID-19 vaccination (12.5%) were the most common topics. All participants expressed moderate to high acceptance of TELEG (mean = 4.9, SD = 0.65, on a scale of 1 to 6). Notably, care personnel concern (B = 0.256; p
Fulltext Physical fitness and motor ability parameters as predictors for skateboarding performance: A logistic regression modelling analysis

Ab Rasid AM, Muazu Musa R, Abdul Majeed APP, Musawi Maliki ABH, Abdullah MR, Mohd Razmaan MA, et al.

PLoS One, 2024;19(2):e0296467.
PMID: 38329954 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0296467

The identification and prediction of athletic talent are pivotal in the development of successful sporting careers. Traditional subjective assessment methods have proven unreliable due to their inherent subjectivity, prompting the rise of data-driven techniques favoured for their objectivity. This evolution in statistical analysis facilitates the extraction of pertinent athlete information, enabling the recognition of their potential for excellence in their respective sporting careers. In the current study, we applied a logistic regression-based machine learning pipeline (LR) to identify potential skateboarding athletes from a combination of fitness and motor skills performance variables. Forty-five skateboarders recruited from a variety of skateboarding parks were evaluated on various skateboarding tricks while their fitness and motor skills abilities that consist of stork stance test, dynamic balance, sit ups, plank test, standing broad jump, as well as vertical jump, were evaluated. The performances of the skateboarders were clustered and the LR model was developed to classify the classes of the skateboarders. The cluster analysis identified two groups of skateboarders: high and low potential skateboarders. The LR model achieved 90% of mean accuracy specifying excellent prediction of the skateboarder classes. Further sensitivity analysis revealed that static and dynamic balance, lower body strength, and endurance were the most important factors that contributed to the model's performance. These factors are therefore essential for successful performance in skateboarding. The application of machine learning in talent prediction can greatly assist coaches and other relevant stakeholders in making informed decisions regarding athlete performance.
Fulltext Estimation of body segmental orientation for prosthetic gait using a nonlinear autoregressive neural network with exogenous inputs

Tham LK, Al Kouzbary M, Al Kouzbary H, Liu J, Abu Osman NA

Phys Eng Sci Med, 2023 Dec;46(4):1723-1739.
PMID: 37870729 DOI: 10.1007/s13246-023-01332-6

Assessment of the prosthetic gait is an important clinical approach to evaluate the quality and functionality of the prescribed lower limb prosthesis as well as to monitor rehabilitation progresses following limb amputation. Limited access to quantitative assessment tools generally affects the repeatability and consistency of prosthetic gait assessments in clinical practice. The rapidly developing wearable technology industry provides an alternative to objectively quantify prosthetic gait in the unconstrained environment. This study employs a neural network-based model in estimating three-dimensional body segmental orientation of the lower limb amputees during gait. Using a wearable system with inertial sensors attached to the lower limb segments, thirteen individuals with lower limb amputation performed two-minute walk tests on a robotic foot and a passive foot. The proposed model replicates features of a complementary filter to estimate drift free three-dimensional orientation of the intact and prosthetic limbs. The results indicate minimal estimation biases and high correlation, validating the ability of the proposed model to reproduce the properties of a complementary filter while avoiding the drawbacks, most notably in the transverse plane due to gravitational acceleration and magnetic disturbance. Results of this study also demonstrates the capability of the well-trained model to accurately estimate segmental orientation, regardless of amputation level, in different types of locomotion task.
A systematic review of methods used to assist transtibial prosthetic alignment decision-making

Malaheem MS, Abd Razak NA, Abu Osman NA

Prosthet Orthot Int, 2023 Nov 29.
PMID: 38018968 DOI: 10.1097/PXR.0000000000000309

Prosthetic alignment is a highly subjective process that is still based on clinical judgments. Thus, researchers have aimed their effort to quantify prosthetic alignment by providing an objective method that can assist and guide prosthetists in achieving transtibial (TT) prosthetic alignment. This systematic review aimed to examine the current literature on TT prosthetic alignment to scope the qualitative and quantitative methods designed to guide prosthetists throughout the TT prosthetic alignment process as well as evaluate the reported instruments and devices that are used to align TT prostheses and their clinical feasibility. A literature search, completed in June 2022, was performed using the following databases: Web of Science (Clarivate), SCOPUS (Elsevier), and Pub Med (Medline) with searching terms focusing on TT, prosthesis, prosthetist, prosthetic alignment, and questionnaires, resulting in 2790 studies being screened. Twenty-four studies have used quantitative methodologies, where sensor technologies were found to be the most frequently proposed technology combined with gait analysis tools and/or subjective assessments. A qualitative method that assists prosthetists throughout the alignment process was not found. In this systematic review, we presented diverse methods for guiding and assisting clinical decision-making regarding TT prosthetic alignment. However, most of these methods considered varied parameters, and there is a need for elaboration toward standardized methods, which would improve the prosthetic alignment clinical outcome.
Fulltext Nanosizing Approach-A Case Study on the Thermal Decomposition of Hydrazine Borane

Abu Osman NA, Nordin NI, Tan KC, Hosri NAHA, Pei Q, Ng EP, et al.

Materials (Basel), 2023 Jan 16;16(2).
PMID: 36676604 DOI: 10.3390/ma16020867

Hydrazine borane (HB) is a chemical hydrogen storage material with high gravimetric hydrogen density of 15.4 wt%, containing both protic and hydridic hydrogen. However, its limitation is the formation of unfavorable gaseous by-products, such as hydrazine (N2H4) and ammonia (NH3), which are poisons to fuel cell catalyst, upon pyrolysis. Previous studies proved that confinement of ammonia borane (AB) greatly improved the dehydrogenation kinetics and thermodynamics. They function by reducing the particle size of AB and establishing bonds between silica functional groups and AB molecules. In current study, we employed the same strategy using MCM-41 and silica aerogel to investigate the effect of nanosizing towards the hydrogen storage properties of HB. Different loading of HB to the porous supports were investigated and optimized. The optimized loading of HB in MCM-41 and silica aerogel was 1:1 and 0.25:1, respectively. Both confined samples demonstrated great suppression of melting induced sample foaming. However, by-products formation was enhanced over dehydrogenation in an open system decomposition owing to the presence of extensive Si-O···BH3(HB) coordination that further promote the B-N bond cleavage to release N2H4. The Si-OH···N(N2H4) hydrogen bonding may further promote N-N bond cleavage in the resulting N2H4, facilitating the formation of NH3. As temperature increases, the remaining N-N-B oligomeric chains in the porous silica, which are lacking the long-range structure may further undergo intramolecular B-N or N-N cleavage to release substantial amount of N2H4 or NH3. Besides open system decomposition, we also reported a closed system decomposition where complete utilization of the N-H from the released N2H4 and NH3 in the secondary reaction can be achieved, releasing mainly hydrogen upon being heated up to high temperatures. Nanosizing of HB particles via PMMA encapsulation was also attempted. Despite the ester functional group that may favor multiple coordination with HB molecules, these interactions did not impart significant change towards the decomposition of HB selectively towards dehydrogenation.
Fulltext Do Science and Social Science Differ? Multi-Group Analysis (MGA) of the Willingness to Continue Online Learning

Ngah AH, Kamalrulzaman NI, Mohamad MFH, Abdul Rashid R, Harun NO, Ariffin NA, et al.

Qual Quant, 2022 Aug 10.
PMID: 35971418 DOI: 10.1007/s11135-022-01465-y

Without proper preparation by higher institutions, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the world to rely on online learning. Even students of social science and science are looking for different knowledge and skills. Currently, both groups rely on the same method to gather knowledge for future undertakings. Given the uncertainty regarding the resolution of COVID-19, which has driven students to continue using online learning, the current study aims to identify the factors of willingness to continue online learning among social science and pure science students by extending the use of expectation-confirmation theory. Applying a purposive sampling method, 2,215 questionnaires were collected among undergraduate students from Universiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) using an online survey. Current study found that expectation and confirmation positively affect satisfaction. Attitude, satisfaction and readiness were found to have a positive relationship with willingness to continue online learning. Meanwhile, self-efficacy was found unsupported hypothesis for the direct effect. For multigroup analysis, readiness was found to have a significant difference between students of social science and pure science. The findings of this research enrich the literature about online learning, especially in the COVID-19 setting. Moreover, this work is useful for higher education institutions seeking to design a better strategy that allows students to return to campus.
Fulltext On the use of virtual reality for individuals with upper limb loss: a systematic scoping review

Hashim NA, Abd Razak NA, Shanmuganathan T, Jaladin RA, Gholizadeh H, Abu Osman NA

Eur J Phys Rehabil Med, 2022 Aug;58(4):612-620.
PMID: 35044131 DOI: 10.23736/S1973-9087.22.06794-6

INTRODUCTION: Virtual reality has recently become a popular application for rehabilitation and motor control research. This technology has emerged as a valid addition to conventional therapy and promises a successful rehabilitation. This study describes recent research related to the use of virtual reality applications in the rehabilitation of individuals with upper limb loss and to see whether this technology has enough proof of its applicability.
EVIDENCE ACQUISITION: Searches were conducted with the Web of Science, Google Scholar, IEEE Xplore, and PubMed databases from inception up to September 2020. Articles that employed virtual reality in the rehabilitation of individual with upper limb loss were included in the research if it is written in English, the keyword exists in the title and abstract; it uses visual feedback in nonimmersive, semi-immersive, or fully immersive virtual environments. Data extraction was carried out by two independent researchers. The study was drafted using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis Protocols (PRISMA).
EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS: A total of 38 articles met the inclusion criteria. Most studies were published between 2010 and 2020. Thirty-nine percent of the studies (N.=15), originates from North America; 55% of the studies (N.=21), were publicly funded; 61% of the studies (N.=24), was without disclosure of conflict of interest; 82% of the studies (N.=31), were cited in other studies. All the studies were published in journals and conference proceedings. Sixty-six percent of the studies (N.=25) has come out with positive outcome. The design studies were mostly case reports, case series, and poorly designed cohort studies that made up 55% (N.=21) of all the studies cited here.
CONCLUSIONS: The research conducted on the use of virtual reality in individual with upper limb loss rehabilitation is of very low quality. The improvements to the research protocol are much needed. It is not necessary to develop new devices, but rather to assess existing devices with well-conducted randomized controlled trials.
Identifying the barriers of smoking cessation and predictors of nicotine dependence among adult Malaysian smokers: A cross-sectional study

Marzo RR, El-Fass KA, Osman NA, Kyaw TM, Arivanandan PKA, Morgan LM, et al.

Tob Induc Dis, 2022;20:109.
PMID: 36530212 DOI: 10.18332/tid/154964

INTRODUCTION: Proper understanding of the prevalence and determinants of nicotine dependence is crucial for developing and implementing effective tobacco control interventions. The aim of the study was to identify the intrinsic and extrinsic barriers to smoking cessation, and to assess the association between nicotine dependence with demographic variables in Malaysia.
METHODS: A cross-sectional survey based on the Challenges to Stopping Smoking Scale (CSS-21) and Fagerström test for nicotine dependence (FTND) was performed on smoking Malaysian citizens aged ≥18 years, from February to June 2021.
RESULTS: A total of 1026 parents responded to the survey. As for the smoking dependence based on FTND, 39.1% suffered low-moderate dependence, while about 33.6% suffered moderate dependence. Only 1.8% suffered high dependence. Considering the barriers of quitting smoking based on CSS-21, the mean score of the intrinsic barriers domain was 5.7 ± 2.9, and for the extrinsic domain was 7.4 ± 4.0. The most common barrier reported in the intrinsic domain was the easy availability of cigarettes (69.8%), followed by experiencing withdrawal symptoms (68.5%). On the other hand, the most common barrier reported in the extrinsic domain was the belief in the capability of stopping smoking in the future (72.8%), followed by the fear of having side effects after stopping smoking (63.2%). Gender, race, education level, occupation, marital status, place of residence, and monthly income were also significantly associated with the FTND nicotine dependence category (all p<0.05). Pearson correlation analysis reported a positive association between intrinsic score (r=0.38), extrinsic score (r=0.43) and FTND score (all p<0.001).
CONCLUSIONS: Barriers to stopping smoking should be taken into consideration in initiatives to decrease smoking-related mortality. Vulnerable populations that are susceptible to high nicotine dependence should be given particular attention.
Metabarcoding data analysis revealed the plant dietary variation of long-tailed macaque Macacafascicularis (Cercopithecidae, Cercopithecinae) living in disturbed habitats in Peninsular Malaysia

Osman NA, Abdul-Latiff MAB, Mohd-Ridwan AR, Yaakop S, Karuppannan KV, Md-Zain BM

Biodivers Data J, 2022;10:e89617.
PMID: 36761533 DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.10.e89617

The long-tailed macaque (Macacafascicularis) has a wide range in both Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo. Although the primates are especially vulnerable to habitat alterations, this primate lives in disturbed habitats due to human-induced land-use. Thus, this study presents a faecal metabarcoding approach to clarify the plant diet of long-tailed macaques from five locations in Peninsular Malaysia to represent fragmented forest, forest edge, island and recreational park habitats. We extracted genomic DNA from 53 long-tailed macaque faecal samples. We found 47 orders, 126 families, 609 genera and 818 species across these five localities. A total of 113 plant families were consumed by long-tailed macaques in Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 61 in the Malaysia Genome and Vaccine Institute, 33 in Langkawi Island, 53 in Redang Island and 44 in the Cenderawasih Cave. Moraceae (33.24%) and Fabaceae (13.63%) were the most common families consumed by long-tailed macaques from the study localities. We found that habitat type impacted diet composition, indicating the flexibility of foraging activities. This research findings provide an understanding of plant dietary diversity and the adaptability of this macaque with the current alteration level that applies to long-tailed macaque conservation management interest in the future.
Fulltext A longitudinal analysis of injury characteristics among elite and amateur tennis players at different tournaments from electronic newspaper reports

Musa RM, Hassan I, Abdullah MR, Latiff Azmi MN, Abdul Majeed APP, Abu Osman NA

Front Public Health, 2022;10:835119.
PMID: 36033746 DOI: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.835119

The non-complexity of tennis, coupled with its health benefits, renders it appealing and encourages varying competitions at different levels of age, gender, and expertise. However, the rapid increase in the participation rates witnesses a surge in injury occurrences, prompting the need for in-depth analysis to facilitate immediate intervention. We employed a media content analysis technique in which tennis-associated articles published in the last 5 years were examined. A total of 207 news reports were gathered and screened for analysis. Subsequently, 71 articles were excluded from the study due to content duplications or summary updates of existing news articles, while 23 news articles were also excluded from the study due to inappropriateness. Finally, 113 news reports directly related to injury in tennis were coded and analyzed. We examined various types of injuries reported from the screened articles with respect to their status (fresh, recurrent, and recovery) across expertise levels i.e., elite, or amateur. Similarly, the incidence of injury occurrences based on the types of tournaments the players engage in was also investigated. A chi-square analysis was employed to achieve the objectives of the study. Occurrences of tennis-associated injuries are disseminated across expertise levels [ χ ( 18 ) 2 = 16.542; p = 0.555], with knee, hip, elbow, and shoulder injuries being highly prevalent in both elite and amateur players. Nevertheless, it was noted that elite players suffered a staggering 72.60% of injury-related problems, while amateur players sustained 27.40% of injuries. Moreover, the status of injury spreads based on types of tournaments [ χ ( 4 ) 2 = 3.374; p = 0.497], with higher occurrences of fresh and recurrent injuries, while low recovery rates were observed. The findings further demonstrated that injuries are sustained regardless of tournament types [ χ ( 36 ) 2 = 39.393; p = 0.321]. However, most of the injuries occurred at international tournaments (85%). Whereas, only 5.30% of the injuries occurred at national/regional tournaments while 9.70% were unidentified. It could be deduced from the findings of this investigation that elite players are more prone to injuries compared with amateur players. Furthermore, the most common tennis-related injuries affect the lower, trunk, and upper regions of the body, respectively. A large number of the reported tennis injuries are fresh and recurrent, with a few recoveries. The international tennis tournaments are highly attributed to injury occurrences as opposed to the national/regional tournaments. The application of the media-based data mining technique is non-trivial in projecting injury-related problems that could be used to facilitate the development of an injury index peculiar to the tennis sport for prompt intervention.
Fulltext Surveillance of Injury Types, Locations, and Intensities in Male and Female Tennis Players: A Content Analysis of Online Newspaper Reports

Musa RM, Hassan I, Abdullah MR, Azmi MNL, P P Abdul Majeed A, Abu Osman NA

Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2021 12 01;18(23).
PMID: 34886410 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph182312686

The popularity of modern tennis has contributed to the increasing number of participants at both recreational and competitive levels. The influx of numerous tennis participants has resulted in a wave of injury occurrences of different types and magnitudes across both male and female players. Since tennis injury harms both players' economic and career development, a better understanding of its epidemiology could potentially curtail its prevalence and occurrences. We used online-based tennis-related injury reports to study the prevalence, location types, and injury intensities in both male and female tennis players for the past five years. It is demonstrated from the chi-square analysis that injury occurrences are significantly associated with a specific gender (χ2(18) = 50.773; p = 0.001), with male players having a higher risk of injury manifestation (68.10%) as compared with female players (31.90%). Nonetheless, knee, hip, ankle, and shoulder injuries are highly prevalent in both male and female players. Moreover, the injury intensities are distributed across gender (χ2(2) = 0.398; p = 0.820), with major injuries being dominant, followed by minor injuries, whilst a few cases of career-threatening injuries were also reported. It was similarly observed that male players recorded a higher degree of both major, minor, and career-threatening injuries than female players. In addition, male players sustained more elbow, hip, knee, shoulder, and thigh injuries than female players. Whereas, female players mostly suffered from Achilles and back injuries, ankle and hamstring injuries affected both genders. The usage of online newspaper reports is pivotal in characterizing the epidemiology of tennis-related injuries based on locations and gender to better understand the pattern and localization of injuries, which could be used to address the problem of modern tennis-related injuries.
Fulltext Removal behaviour of residual pollutants from biologically treated palm oil mill effluent by Pennisetum purpureum in constructed wetland

Ujang FA, Roslan AM, Osman NA, Norman A, Idris J, Farid MAA, et al.

Sci Rep, 2021 Sep 14;11(1):18257.
PMID: 34521938 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-97789-0

The reason for such enormous efforts in palm oil mill effluent research would be what has been singled out as one of the major sources of pollution in Malaysia, and perhaps the most costly and complex waste to manage. Palm oil mill final discharge, which is the treated effluent, will usually be discharged to nearby land or river since it has been the least costly way to dispose of. Irrefutably, the quality level of the treated effluent does not always satisfy the surface water quality in conformity to physicochemical characteristics. To work on improving the treated effluent quality, a vertical surface-flow constructed wetland system was designed with Pennisetum purpureum (Napier grass) planted on the wetland floor. The system effectively reduced the level of chemical oxygen demand by 62.2 ± 14.3%, total suspended solid by 88.1 ± 13.3%, ammonia by 62.3 ± 24.8%, colour by 66.6 ± 13.19%, and tannin and lignin by 57.5 ± 22.3%. Heat map depicted bacterial diversity and relative abundance in life stages from the wetland soil, whereby bacterial community associated with the pollutant removal was found to be from the families Anaerolineaceae and Nitrosomonadaceae, and phyla Cyanobacteria and Acidobacteria.
Investigation of EMG parameter for transtibial prosthetic user with flexion and extension of the knee and normal walking gait: A preliminary study

Sobh KNM, Abd Razak NA, Abu Osman NA

Proc Inst Mech Eng H, 2021 Apr;235(4):419-427.
PMID: 33517847 DOI: 10.1177/0954411920985753

Electromyography signal has been used widely as input for prosthetic's leg movements. C-Leg, for example, is among the prosthetics devices that use electromyography as the main input. The main challenge facing the industrial party is the position of the electromyography sensor as it is fixed inside the socket. The study aims to investigate the best positional parameter of electromyography for transtibial prosthetic users for the device to be effective in multiple movement activities and compare with normal human muscle's activities. DELSYS Trigno wireless electromyography instrument was used in this study to achieve this aim. Ten non-amputee subjects and two transtibial amputees were involved in this study. The surface electromyography signals were recorded from two anterior and posterior below the knee muscles and above the knee muscles, respectively: tibial anterior and gastrocnemius lateral head as well as rectus femoris and biceps femoris during two activities (flexion and extension of knee joint and gait cycle for normal walking). The result during flexion and extension activities for gastrocnemius lateral head and biceps femoris muscles was found to be more useful for the control subjects, while the tibial anterior and also gastrocnemius lateral head are more active for amputee subjects. Also, during normal walking activity for biceps femoris and gastrocnemius lateral head, it was more useful for the control subjects, while for transtibial amputee subject-1, the rectus femoris was the highest signal of the average normal walking activity (0.0001 V) compared to biceps femoris (0.00007 V), as for transtibial amputee subject-2, the biceps femoris was the highest signals of the average normal walking activity (0.0001 V) compared to rectus femoris (0.00004 V). So, it is difficult to rely entirely on the static positioning of the electromyography sensor within the socket as there is a possibility of the sensor to contact with inactive muscle, which will be a gap in the control, leading to a decrease in the functional efficiency of the powered prostheses.
Fulltext Video Game-Based Rehabilitation Approach for Individuals Who Have Undergone Upper Limb Amputation: Case-Control Study

Hashim NA, Abd Razak NA, Gholizadeh H, Abu Osman NA

JMIR Serious Games, 2021 Feb 04;9(1):e17017.
PMID: 33538698 DOI: 10.2196/17017

BACKGROUND: Brain plasticity is an important factor in prosthesis usage. This plasticity helps with brain adaptation to learn new movement and coordination patterns needed to control a prosthetic hand. It can be achieved through repetitive muscle training that is usually very exhausting and often results in considerable reduction in patient motivation. Previous studies have shown that a playful concept in rehabilitation can increase patient engagement and perseverance.
OBJECTIVE: This study investigated whether the inclusion of video games in the upper limb amputee rehabilitation protocol could have a beneficial impact for muscle preparation, coordination, and patient motivation among individuals who have undergone transradial upper limb amputation.
METHODS: Ten participants, including five amputee participants and five able-bodied participants, were enrolled in 10 1-hour sessions within a 4-week rehabilitation program. In order to investigate the effects of the rehabilitation protocol used in this study, virtual reality box and block tests and electromyography (EMG) assessments were performed. Maximum voluntary contraction was measured before, immediately after, and 2 days after interacting with four different EMG-controlled video games. Participant motivation was assessed with the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) questionnaire and user evaluation survey.
RESULTS: Survey analysis showed that muscle strength and coordination increased at the end of training for all the participants. The results of Pearson correlation analysis indicated that there was a significant positive association between the training period and the box and block test score (r8=0.95, P
Fulltext Effectiveness of a pharmacist-led structured group-based intervention in improving medication adherence and glycaemic control among type 2 diabetes mellitus patients: A randomized controlled trial

Ting CY, Ahmad Zaidi Adruce S, Lim CJ, Abd Jabar AHA, Ting RS, Ting H, et al.

Res Social Adm Pharm, 2021 02;17(2):344-355.
PMID: 32327398 DOI: 10.1016/j.sapharm.2020.03.026

BACKGROUND: A pharmacist-led structured group-based intervention (MEDIHEALTH) was formulated to improve medication adherence among Malay type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in the Malaysian state of Sarawak.

OBJECTIVES: The objective of this study was to examine the effectiveness of MEDIHEALTH and its mechanism of impact for improving medication adherence and the glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) level.

METHODS: A two group and parallel randomised controlled trial with a twelve months follow-up period was conducted at two primary health clinics in Malaysia that were surrounded by Malay communities. Malay T2DM patients whose HbA1c was >7% and total score on the Self-Efficacy for Appropriate Medication Use Scale (SEAMS) was <26 were recruited and parallelly randomised to the MEDIHEALTH or usual care (control) groups. The extended theory of planned behaviour was employed to test the mechanism of impact. Repeated measure analysis of variance was used to assess the difference in the estimated marginal mean of the SEAMS scores and HbA1c level between the intervention and control groups at different times.

RESULTS: A total of 142 participants were recruited and randomised; three from the intervention group and eight from the control group withdrew before receiving any treatment. Hence, 68 participants in the intervention group and 63 in the control group were included for analyses. The MEDIHEALTH group had a significantly greater increase in the SEAMS score compared to the control group (p
Fulltext The classification of skateboarding tricks via transfer learning pipelines

Abdullah MA, Ibrahim MAR, Shapiee MNA, Zakaria MA, Mohd Razman MA, Muazu Musa R, et al.

PeerJ Comput Sci, 2021;7:e680.
PMID: 34497873 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.680

This study aims at classifying flat ground tricks, namely Ollie, Kickflip, Shove-it, Nollie and Frontside 180, through the identification of significant input image transformation on different transfer learning models with optimized Support Vector Machine (SVM) classifier. A total of six amateur skateboarders (20 ± 7 years of age with at least 5.0 years of experience) executed five tricks for each type of trick repeatedly on a customized ORY skateboard (IMU sensor fused) on a cemented ground. From the IMU data, a total of six raw signals extracted. A total of two input image type, namely raw data (RAW) and Continous Wavelet Transform (CWT), as well as six transfer learning models from three different families along with grid-searched optimized SVM, were investigated towards its efficacy in classifying the skateboarding tricks. It was shown from the study that RAW and CWT input images on MobileNet, MobileNetV2 and ResNet101 transfer learning models demonstrated the best test accuracy at 100% on the test dataset. Nonetheless, by evaluating the computational time amongst the best models, it was established that the CWT-MobileNet-Optimized SVM pipeline was found to be the best. It could be concluded that the proposed method is able to facilitate the judges as well as coaches in identifying skateboarding tricks execution.
Fulltext Integrating contextual sentiment analysis in collaborative recommender systems

Osman NA, Mohd Noah SA, Darwich M, Mohd M

PLoS One, 2021;16(3):e0248695.
PMID: 33750957 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0248695

Recently. recommender systems have become a very crucial application in the online market and e-commerce as users are often astounded by choices and preferences and they need help finding what the best they are looking for. Recommender systems have proven to overcome information overload issues in the retrieval of information, but still suffer from persistent problems related to cold-start and data sparsity. On the flip side, sentiment analysis technique has been known in translating text and expressing user preferences. It is often used to help online businesses to observe customers' feedbacks on their products as well as try to understand customer needs and preferences. However, the current solution for embedding traditional sentiment analysis in recommender solutions seems to have limitations when involving multiple domains. Therefore, an issue called domain sensitivity should be addressed. In this paper, a sentiment-based model with contextual information for recommender system was proposed. A novel solution for domain sensitivity was proposed by applying a contextual information sentiment-based model for recommender systems. In evaluating the contributions of contextual information in sentiment-based recommendations, experiments were divided into standard rating model, standard sentiment model and contextual information model. Results showed that the proposed contextual information sentiment-based model illustrates better performance as compared to the traditional collaborative filtering approach.
Fulltext Effect of Lower Limb Muscle Fatigue on Fall Risk for Transfemoral Amputee: A Pilot Study

Mohd Safee MK, Abu Osman NA

Occup Ther Int, 2021;2021:4357473.
PMID: 34707468 DOI: 10.1155/2021/4357473

Muscle fatigue is a decline in muscle maximum force during contraction and can influence the fall risk among people. This study is aimed at identifying the effect of fatigue on prospective fall risk in transfemoral amputees (TFA). Fourteen subjects were involved in this study with TFA (34.7 ± 8.1 yrs, n = 7) and normal subjects (31.1 ± 7.4 yrs, n = 7). Fatigue of lower limb muscles was induced with the fatigue protocol. Subjects were tested prefatigue and postfatigue using the standardized fall risk assessment. All results were calculated and compared between pre- and postfatigue to identify fatigue's effect on both groups of subjects. The results showed that the fall risk increased significantly during pre- and postfatigue for TFA (p = 0.018), while there were no significant differences in normal subjects (p = 0.149). Meanwhile, the fall risk between TFA and normal subjects for prefatigue (p = 0.082) and postfatigue (p = 0.084) also showed no significant differences. The percentage (%) of increased fall risk for TFA was 19.2% compared to normal subjects only 16.7%. However, 61.4% increased of % fall risk in TFA after fatigue by using the baseline of the normal subject as the normalized % of fall risk. The increasing fall risks for TFA after fatigue are three times higher than the potential fall risk in normal subjects. The result indicates that they need to perform more precautions while prolonging lower limb activities. These results showed the implications of fatigue that can increase the fall risk due to muscle fatigue from repetitive and prolonged activities. Therefore, rehabilitation programs can be done very safely and precisely so that therapists can pursue fitness without aggravating existing injuries.
Fulltext Diet Composition of the Wild Stump-Tailed Macaque (Macaca arctoides) in Perlis State Park, Peninsular Malaysia, Using a Chloroplast tRNL DNA Metabarcoding Approach: A Preliminary Study

Osman NA, Abdul-Latiff MAB, Mohd-Ridwan AR, Yaakop S, Nor SM, Md-Zain BM

Animals (Basel), 2020 Nov 26;10(12).
PMID: 33255964 DOI: 10.3390/ani10122215

Understanding dietary diversity is a fundamental task in the study of stump-tailed macaque, Macaca arctoides in its natural habitat. However, direct feeding observation and morphological identification using fecal samples are not effective and nearly impossible to obtain in natural habitats because this species is sensitive to human presence. As ecological methods are challenging and time-consuming, DNA metabarcoding offers a more powerful assessment of the diet. We used a chloroplast tRNL DNA metabarcoding approach to identify the diversity of plants consumed by free-ranging M. arctoides in the Malaysia-Thailand border region located in Perlis State Park, Peninsular Malaysia. DNA was extracted from three fecal samples, and chloroplast tRNL DNA was amplified and sequenced using the Illumina MiniSeq platform. Sequences were analyzed using the CLC Genomic Workbench software. A total of 145 plant species from 46 families were successfully identified as being consumed by M. arctoides. The most abundant species were yellow saraca, Saraca thaipingensis (11.70%), common fig, Ficus carica (9.33%), aramata, Clathrotropis brachypetala (5.90%), sea fig, Ficus superba (5.44%), and envireira, Malmea dielsiana (1.70%). However, Clathrotropis and Malmea are not considered Malaysian trees because of limited data available from Malaysian plant DNA. Our study is the first to identify plant taxa up to the species level consumed by stump-tailed macaques based on a DNA metabarcoding approach. This result provides an important understanding on diet of wild M. arctoides that only reside in Perlis State Park, Malaysia.
A case study on interface pressure pattern of two garment orthoses on a child with cerebral palsy

Shaari IH, Abu Osman NA, Shasmin HN

Proc Inst Mech Eng H, 2020 Aug;234(8):884-894.
PMID: 32459140 DOI: 10.1177/0954411920923541

Many studies have shown that medical compression products produce different levels of interface pressure during the usage of the products. However, limited studies have explored the pattern of interface pressure exerted by orthotic garments. This case study aimed to investigate the pattern of interface pressure exerted by two types of orthotic garments on a child with cerebral palsy. A 13-year-old child diagnosed with ataxic spastic diplegia cerebral palsy has difficulty to perform sit-to-stand motion even with a walking frame due to his truncal ataxia. A TheraTogsTM orthosis and a Dynamic Lycra® Fabric Orthosis (DLFO) were prepared for the child. The child's sit-to-stand ability without and with the usage of orthoses was recorded using five sit-to-stand tests. The garments' interface pressure was measured using F-scan (9811E) and F-scan 6.5.1 version software. The pressure was recorded when the child was in sitting position and performing sit-to-stand-to-sit motion. Overall, the child completed the five sit-to-stand test duration within 2.53 ± 0.04 s and 2.51 ± 0.09 s with the usage of TheraTogsTM orthosis and DLFO, respectively. Higher pressure was exerted by Dynamic Lycra Fabric Orthosis (axillary = 122 mmHg) in contrast to TheraTogsTM orthosis (77 mmHg) when the child was in a sitting position. Lower pressure was exerted by DLFO (7 mmHg), over xiphoid level and for TheraTogsTM orthosis is 1.2 mmHg over axillary level when the child was performing sit-to-stand motion. The largest range of pressure was exerted by TheraTogsTM orthosis with a minimum pressure of 5 mmHg and a maximum pressure of 155 mmHg during sit-to-stand motion. Overall, the DLFO exerted higher mean interface pressure on the child in comparison to TheraTogsTM orthosis when the child's body was in a sitting position wearing both upper garment and pants. Both TheraTogsTM orthosis and DLFO presented a different range of interface pressure over different body segments and activities.

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