Public awareness and understanding of the technology behind the creation of Genetically Modified Organisms
(GMOs) varies greatly from country to country, and indeed within the different sectors of any one country. Perhaps,
it is “the fear of the unknown” at work, or it is just a pure rejection of the idea that “Man is playing God”. For whatever
reason, and for whatever vested interest, there is often widespread clamor for stringent studies to be carried out
when conducting a risk assessment of GMOs.
For example, in Indonesia, regulation on the release of GMOs requires studies on any impact on non-target
organisms (NTOs) as well as on soil microorganisms (Machmud Thohari 2014). Similarly, in Vietnam, it is mandatory
to determine if there is any impact to the soil environment or ecosystem (Truong 2014), while in Cambodia, there is
worry over high levels of damage to NTOs and the environment from GMOs, because of the lack of capacity to cope
with such damage if it occurs (Pisey 2014).
All too often, opponents of modern biotechnology (a term used to define technologies resulting in GMOs), and,
indeed, the regulators themselves forget that there is already a procedure in place to provide a check and balance;
the risk assessment (RA) protocol. Most times, RA is far more stringent when conducted on GMOs compared with
when exotic species which are non-GMOs are involved (Tan 2013). It is also overlooked that modern biotechnology
can after all be considered a sophisticated new tool in plant breeding, an activity which has been practiced both by
farmers and scientists for millennia, and a technology accepted by all and sundry.
While GMOs are currently used in biological and medical research, for the production of pharmaceutical drugs,
in experimental medicine (e.g. gene therapy) and in agriculture, this paper is confined to discussions on GMOs in
agriculture.
Tendon is a dense connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. Tendon can adapt to mechanical forces passing across it, through a reciprocal relationship between its cellular components (tenocytes and tenoblasts) and the extracellular matrix (ECM). In early development, the formation of scleraxis-expressing tendon progenitor population in the sclerotome is induced by a fibroblast growth factor signal secreted by the myotome. Tendon injury has been defined as a loss of cells or ECM caused by trauma. It represents a failure of cells and matrix adaptation to mechanical loading. Injury initiates attempts of tendon to repair itself, which has been defined as replacement of damaged or lost cells and ECM by new cells or new matrices. Tendon healing generally consists of four different phases: the inflammatory, proliferation, differentiation and remodelling phases. Clinically, tendons are repaired with a variety of surgical techniques, which show various degrees of success. In order to improve the conventional tendon repair methods, current tendon tissue engineering aims to investigate a repair method which can restore tissue defects with living cells, or cell based therapy. Advances in tissue engineering techniques would potentially yield to a cell-based product that could regenerate functional tendon tissue.
The aim of this study was to assess the viability of coating collagen to Hydroxyapatite (HA) coated commercially pure Titanium (cpTi) samples. Five samples of cpTi were immersed in a simulated body fluid (Tas-SBF) after stages of gritting, sandblasting and acid etching. One sample was taken out after 3, 5 and 7 days of immersion in Tas-SBF respectively. The 7 days Tas-SBF coated sample was coated with collagen by physical adsorption method. Analysis was performed to study the surface roughness, morphology and elemental analysis of the coated surfaces.The equipment used wereAlicona, Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Energy-dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR). Process of sand blasting and acid etching were able to produce desired morphology and surface roughness. The average surface roughness, Sa of sand blasted cpTi surface and acid etched cpTi were 2.17 ± 0.75 µm and 2.12 ± 0.15 µm respectively. Immersion in Tas-SBF produced a crystalline coating and morphology that were similar to bone-like apatite. Roughness value of cpTi after being immersed in SBF for 7 days was 2.23 ± 0.31 µm and the Ca/P ratio was 7.076. Collagen coated samples had the highest Sa value which was 3.91 ± 0.31 µm and the Ca/P ratio was 1.190. This study showed that it is possible to achieve apatite and collagen coating on a modified cpTi surface using physical adsorption method.
A study was conducted to determine personal hygiene knowledge among 25 food handlers at 12 selected primary schools in Klang Valley area, Selangor, Malaysia. A qualitative approach using in-depth interviews was employed and respondents were selected by a convenience sampling. The results showed that the respondents had basic knowledge on personal hygiene practices, mainly on hand washing (30.7%) and glove use (18.7%). The food handlers (90%) practiced various good hand washing practices, with only 36% did not practice washing hands after eating or drinking. Most respondents (>70%) practiced glove use, however more than 50% did not wash hands with every glove change, change gloves when change type of products and after preparing raw material. The study showed that the food handlers have basic knowledge one good personal hygiene practices. However, some discrepancies were revealed in the proper hand washing procedure. This study recommended good hand washing procedure to be reiterated among the food handlers. There is also an immediate need for continuous training among food handlers regarding good personal hygiene practices.
We present an algorithm to reduce the number of slices from 2D contour cross sections. The main aim of the algorithm is to filter less significant slices while preserving an acceptable level of output quality and keeping the computational cost to reconstruct surface(s) at a minimal level. This research is motivated mainly by two factors; first 2D cross sections data is often huge in size and high in precisions – the computational cost to reconstruct surface(s) from them is closely related to the size and complexity of this data. Second, we can trades visual fidelity with speed of computations if we can remove visually insignificant data from the original dataset which may contains redundant information. In our algorithm we use the number of contour points on a pair of slices to calculate the distance between them. Selection to retain/reject a slice is based on the value of distance compared against a threshold value. Optimal threshold value is derived to produce set of slices that collectively represent the feature of the dataset. We tested our algorithm over six different set of data, varying in complexities and sizes. The results show slice reduction rate depends on the complexity of the dataset, where highest reduction percentage is achieved for objects with lots of constant local variations. Our derived optimal thresholds seem to be able to produce the right set of slices with the potential of creating surface(s) that traded off the accuracy and speed requirements.
A total of 85 food handlers participated in this study to determine the hygienic status of their hands in primary schools located in the state of Selangor (Malaysia). Overall findings revealed that the fecal contamination and personal hygiene of the food handlers were well maintained with the range of mean bacterial counts from 0.18 to 0.47 log10 Colony Forming Units/cm2 during the three intervals of hand swabbing (before, during and after) preparation of ready-to-eat foods. However, the general indication of the microbiological quality (Aerobic Plate Count) was out of the standard (range of mean bacterial counts from 1.39 to 1.56 log10 Colony Forming Units/cm2) based on previous literature. This study highlighted that the food handler’s adherence to Good Manufacturing Practice and Sanitation Standard Operating Procedures was insufficient and suggested that attention should be emphasized on their practices at the intervals of school recess: before, during and after the preparation of ready-to-eat foods. In addition, there is also a need in the implementation of an effective HACCP program in Malaysia school foodservice operations.