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Fulltext Translation and validity of the Malay version of the five-factor nonverbal personality questionnaire (FFNPQ)

Ab Rashid, N.F., Arifin, W.N., Kueh, Y.C., Yusoff, N.

International Medical Journal Malaysia, 2018;17(2):91-98.
MyJurnal

Introduction: The Five-Factor Nonverbal Personality Questionnaire (FF-NPQ) is a non-verbal personality inventory consisting of illustrations of different social situations, designed to measure five broad factors underlying the Big-Five model of personality. This study aimed to prove the validity of the FF-NPQ in Malaysia. Methods: The FF-NPQ instruction and the answer option were translated to the Malay language, which is the main language spoken in Malaysia. A total of 153 university students aged 18–30 years from Universiti Sains Malaysia were involved in this study. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), composite reliability and intraclass correlation (ICC) were applied to show evidence of validity by internal structure. Results: CFA indicated that only 26 out of 60 items remained in the final model while maintaining the five personality factors. Each factor had a good composite reliability value of 0.68–0.77. The ICC values from the test-retest analysis ranged from 0.65 to 0.75. Conclusion: Overall, the shortened Malay Version of the FF -NPQ (five-factor, 26 items) exhibited acceptable evidence of validity in Malaysia.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext Validation study of the Parent Attitudes About Childhood Vaccines (PACV) questionnaire: the Malay version

Abd Halim H, Abdul-Razak S, Md Yasin M, Isa MR

Hum Vaccin Immunother, 2020 05 03;16(5):1040-1049.
PMID: 31567057 DOI: 10.1080/21645515.2019.1674112

Vaccine hesitant parents are linked with re-emergence of vaccine preventable diseases, but evidence is scarce locally. The Parent Attitudes about Childhood Vaccines (PACV) questionnaire was validated and used in the USA to identify vaccine hesitant parents. This study aimed to adapt and translate the 15-item PACV questionnaire from English into the Malay language, and to examine its validity and reliability. The sample population was parents of children aged 0-24 months, recruited at an urban government health clinic between November 2016-June 2017. During content validation, two items from the "Behavior" subdomain were identified as items with formative scale and excluded from exploratory factor analysis (EFA) but retained as part of demography. A total of 151 parents completed the questionnaire with response rate of 93.3%. Test-retest reliability was tested in 25 respondents four weeks later and the intra-class correlation was between 0.53 and 1.00. EFA of the 13 items showed possibility of two to four factor domains, but three domains were most conceptually equivalent. Two of the domains were similar to the original and one factor was identified de novo. One item was deleted due to poor factor loading of < 0.3. Therefore, the validated final PACV-Malay consisted of 12 items framed within three-factor domains. The PACV-Malay was reliable with total Cronbach alpha of 0.77. In conclusion, the PACV-Malay is a valid and reliable tool which can be used to identify vaccine hesitant parents in Malaysia. Confirmatory factor analysis and predictive validity are recommended for future studies.

Matched MeSH terms: Language*
Fulltext The adaptation and validation of the satisfaction with stroke care questionnaire (Homesat) (SASC10-My™) for use in public primary healthcare facilities caring for long- term stroke survivors residing at home in the community

Abdul Aziz AF, Tan CE, Ali MF, Aljunid SM

Health Qual Life Outcomes, 2020 Jun 20;18(1):193.
PMID: 32563246 DOI: 10.1186/s12955-020-01450-9

BACKGROUND: Satisfaction with post stroke services would assist stakeholders in addressing gaps in service delivery. Tools used to evaluate satisfaction with stroke care services need to be validated to match healthcare services provided in each country. Studies on satisfaction with post discharge stroke care delivery in low- and middle-income countries (LMIC) are scarce, despite knowledge that post stroke care delivery is fragmented and poorly coordinated. This study aims to modify and validate the HomeSat subscale of the Dutch Satisfaction with Stroke Care-19 (SASC-19) questionnaire for use in Malaysia and in countries with similar public healthcare services in the region.
METHODS: The HomeSat subscale of the Dutch SASC-19 questionnaire (11 items) underwent back-to-back translation to produce a Malay language version. Content validation was done by Family Medicine Specialists involved in community post-stroke care. Community social support services in the original questionnaire were substituted with equivalent local services to ensure contextual relevance. Internal consistency reliability was determined using Cronbach alpha. Exploratory factor analysis was done to validate the factor structure of the Malay version of the questionnaire (SASC10-My™). The SASC10-My™ was then tested on 175 post-stroke patients who were recruited at ten public primary care healthcentres across Peninsular Malaysia, in a trial-within a trial study.
RESULTS: One item from the original Dutch SASC19 (HomeSat) was dropped. Internal consistency for remaining 10 items was high (Cronbach alpha 0.830). Exploratory factor analysis showed the SASC10-My™ had 2 factors: discharge transition and social support services after discharge. The mean total score for SASC10-My™ was 10.74 (SD 7.33). Overall, only 18.2% were satisfied with outpatient stroke care services (SASC10-My™ score ≥ 20). Detailed analysis revealed only 10.9% of respondents were satisfied with discharge transition services, while only 40.9% were satisfied with support services after discharge.
CONCLUSIONS: The SASC10-My™ questionnaire is a reliable and valid tool to measure caregiver or patient satisfaction with outpatient stroke care services in the Malaysian healthcare setting. Studies linking discharge protocol patterns and satisfaction with outpatient stroke care services should be conducted to improve care delivery and longer-term outcomes.
TRIAL REGISTRATION: No.: ACTRN12616001322426 (Registration Date: 21st September 2016.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext Development and mining of a volatile organic compound database

Abdullah AA, Altaf-Ul-Amin M, Ono N, Sato T, Sugiura T, Morita AH, et al.

Biomed Res Int, 2015;2015:139254.
PMID: 26495281 DOI: 10.1155/2015/139254

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) are small molecules that exhibit high vapor pressure under ambient conditions and have low boiling points. Although VOCs contribute only a small proportion of the total metabolites produced by living organisms, they play an important role in chemical ecology specifically in the biological interactions between organisms and ecosystems. VOCs are also important in the health care field as they are presently used as a biomarker to detect various human diseases. Information on VOCs is scattered in the literature until now; however, there is still no available database describing VOCs and their biological activities. To attain this purpose, we have developed KNApSAcK Metabolite Ecology Database, which contains the information on the relationships between VOCs and their emitting organisms. The KNApSAcK Metabolite Ecology is also linked with the KNApSAcK Core and KNApSAcK Metabolite Activity Database to provide further information on the metabolites and their biological activities. The VOC database can be accessed online.

Matched MeSH terms: Natural Language Processing
Fulltext Validity and Reliability of the Newly Developed Malay-Language Health Belief of Bloating (HB-Bloat) Scale

Abdullah N, Kueh YC, Kuan G, Wong MS, Yahaya FH, Lee YY

Int J Environ Res Public Health, 2020 04 17;17(8).
PMID: 32316495 DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17082773

Abdominal bloating (AB), a common complaint that affects quality of life and disturbs psychological well-being, is largely a behavioral-driven disorder. We aimed to develop and validate a new health belief of bloating (HB-Bloat) scale in the Malay language. The initial item pool was developed based on the theory of planned behavior, empirical literatures, expert review and in-depth interviews. Using the population with bloating (diagnosed based on the Rome IV criteria and pictogram), exploratory and confirmatory factor analytical approaches (EFA and CFA, respectively) were utilized to explore and confirm the domains in the new scale. There were 150 and 323 respondents in the EFA and CFA, respectively. There were 45 items in the initial scale, but it was reduced to 32 items after content validity and pre-testing. In EFA, 17 items with three (3) structure factors (attitude 4 items, subjective norm 7 items, and perceived behavior control 6 items) were identified. Total variance explained by the EFA model was 40.92%. The Cronbach alpha of the three (3) factors ranged from 0.61 to 0.79. With CFA, the three factors model was further tested. Five problematic items were identified and removed. The final measurement model fit the data well (root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.054 (0.038, 0.070), Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.941, Tucker-Lewis Fit Index (TLI) = 0.924, and standardized root mean squared residual (SRMR) = 0.044). The construct reliability of the final measurement model ranged from 0.76 to 0.84. As a conclusion, the new HB-Bloat scale is a valid and reliable tool for assessment of health beliefs in bloating.

Matched MeSH terms: Language*
A study of the results of speech language and hearing assessment of three groups of repaired cleft palate children and adults

Abdullah S

Ann Acad Med Singap, 1988 Jul;17(3):388-91.
PMID: 3218930

The results of speech, language and hearing assessment of repaired cleft palate children and adults over a 4-year period at the Speech/Language therapy unit, Department of ENT, Faculty of Medicine, UKM are reported. The subjects were 33 incomplete cleft lip palate (ICLP), 48 unilateral complete cleft lip and palate (UCLP) and 26 bilateral complete cleft lip and palate (BCLP). Results obtained for the following assessments are reported and discussed: (i) Hearing assessment, (ii) intelligibility rate, (iii) severity of hyper-nasality and (iv) types of articulation errors and school/behaviour problems and nasal grimace. Due to subject variability in ethnicity, language and dialects and the lack of normal data, it is difficult to compare or repeat previously reported results. Assessment of intelligibility, hypernasality and articulation were conducted using the Malay language. Results obtained were compared among the three groups of subjects. The significant findings were that hypernasality, intelligibility and articulation errors were more severe in the ICLP group than in the UCLP or BCLP groups of patients. This is contrary to expectations and cannot be explained in terms of the type and/or the degree of clefting. Hence, special attention should be paid to the less overt type of cleft patients in so far as their speech assessment and rehabilitation are concerned.

Matched MeSH terms: Language Development Disorders/etiology*
Fulltext Harmony Search Algorithm for Word Sense Disambiguation

Abed SA, Tiun S, Omar N

PLoS One, 2015;10(9):e0136614.
PMID: 26422368 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0136614

Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) is the task of determining which sense of an ambiguous word (word with multiple meanings) is chosen in a particular use of that word, by considering its context. A sentence is considered ambiguous if it contains ambiguous word(s). Practically, any sentence that has been classified as ambiguous usually has multiple interpretations, but just one of them presents the correct interpretation. We propose an unsupervised method that exploits knowledge based approaches for word sense disambiguation using Harmony Search Algorithm (HSA) based on a Stanford dependencies generator (HSDG). The role of the dependency generator is to parse sentences to obtain their dependency relations. Whereas, the goal of using the HSA is to maximize the overall semantic similarity of the set of parsed words. HSA invokes a combination of semantic similarity and relatedness measurements, i.e., Jiang and Conrath (jcn) and an adapted Lesk algorithm, to perform the HSA fitness function. Our proposed method was experimented on benchmark datasets, which yielded results comparable to the state-of-the-art WSD methods. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the dependency generator, we perform the same methodology without the parser, but with a window of words. The empirical results demonstrate that the proposed method is able to produce effective solutions for most instances of the datasets used.

Matched MeSH terms: Language*; Natural Language Processing*
Transforming XML-based electronic patient records for use in medical case based reasoning systems

Abidi SS, Manickam S

Stud Health Technol Inform, 2000;77:709-13.
PMID: 11187645

Electronic patient records (EPR) can be regarded as an implicit source of clinical behaviour and problem-solving knowledge, systematically compiled by clinicians. We present an approach, together with its computational implementation, to pro-actively transform XML-based EPR into specialised Clinical Cases (CC) in the realm of Medical Case Base Systems. The 'correct' transformation of EPR to CC involves structural, terminological and conceptual standardisation, which is achieved by a confluence of techniques and resources, such as XML, UMLS (meta-thesaurus) and medical knowledge ontologies. We present below the functional architecture of a Medical Case-Base Reasoning Info-Structure (MCRIS) that features two distinct, yet related, functionalities: (1) a generic medical case-based reasoning system for decision-support activities; and (2) an EPR-CC transformation system to transform typical EPR's to CC.

Matched MeSH terms: Unified Medical Language System*
Discharging patients: A perspective from speech-language pathologists working in public hospitals in Malaysia

Ahmad K

Int J Speech Lang Pathol, 2010 Aug;12(4):317-9; discussion 329-32.
PMID: 20590514 DOI: 10.3109/17549507.2010.483017

Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) practising in Malaysia face similar dilemmas as their counterparts in more developed countries when it comes to deciding on discharge/termination of services for their patients. Furthermore, discharge dilemmas appear to be a frequent and inevitable part of their everyday practice. In an interview conducted for the purpose of this paper, it was clear that many SLPs found it difficult to articulate or justify the process they took to reach a decision on whether or not to terminate their services or discharge their patients. Much of the difficulty is anchored on the need to be realistic and function within the confines of limited resources. Malaysian SLPs were aware of the ideals that had to be abandoned along the way but had not allowed guilt to dissuade or discourage them from providing what they perceived as the next best available service. The not-so ideal decisions made by these SLPs may be frowned upon by international standards but must be examined within the local historical perspective of the development of the SLP profession in Malaysia. The dilemma will continue until the country produces SLPs in sufficient numbers but the profession is reminded that less-than-ideal practices may perpetuate over time into unhealthy traditions that will require major efforts to be undone.

Matched MeSH terms: Speech-Language Pathology*
Fulltext Validation and the associated factors of the Malay version of systemic lupus erythematosus-specific health-related quality of life questionnaires (SLEQoL and LupusQoL)

Ahmad Pouzi NA, Shaharir SS, Mohd Tamil A, Mustafar R, Ahmad Maulana S, Mageswaren E, et al.

PLoS One, 2023;18(5):e0285461.
PMID: 37186611 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0285461

OBJECTIVES: To assess the reliability and validity of two disease-specific questionnaires that assess the quality of life (QoL) among patients with Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE); SLEQoL and LupusQoL in Malay language. This study also identified the factors affecting each domain of the questionnaires.
METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted from June 2021 until April 2022, and SLE patients were recruited to complete the SLEQoL, LupusQoL and Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) in Malay language. Disease activity were recorded using the modified SLE Disease Activity Index (M- SLEDAI) and British Isles Lupus Assessment Group 2004 (BILAG-2004) index. Presence of organ damage was determined using the SLICC Damage index. Cronbach's alpha was calculated to determine internal consistency while exploratory factor analysis was done to determine the construct validity. Concurrent validity was evaluated using correlation with SF-36. Multiple linear regression analysis was deployed to determine the factors affecting each domain of SLEQoL and LupusQoL.
RESULTS: A total of 125 subjects were recruited. The Cronbach's α value for the Malay-SLEQoL (M-SLEQoL) and Malay-LupusQOL (M-LupusQoL) was 0.890 and 0.944 respectively. Exploratory factor analysis found formation of similar number of components with the original version of questionnaires and all items have good factor loading of >0.4. Both instruments also had good concurrent validity with SF-36. M-SLEQoL had good correlations with BILAG-2004 and M-SLEDAI scores. Musculoskeletal (MSK) involvement was independently associated with lower M-SLEQoL in physical function, activity and symptom domains. Meanwhile, MSK and NPSLE were associated with fatigue in M-LupusQoL.
CONCLUSION: Both M-SLEQoL and M-LupusQoL are reliable and valid as disease -specific QoL instruments for Malaysian patients. The M-Lupus QoL has better discriminative validity compared to the M-SLEQoL. SLE patients with MSK involvement are at risk of poor QoL in multiple domains including physical function, activity, symptoms and fatigue.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext Design and development of 3d face mask clips for hijab

Ahmad Sofian, Shminan, Rehman, Ullah Khan, Wan Norizan, Wan Hashim, Iswandy, Jamaludin

Journal of Cognitive Sciences & Human Development, 2020;6(2):52-62.
MyJurnal

The world has suffered from a critical shortage of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) (Riva et al., 2007) during the pandemic of Covid-19 for medical staffs, the front liners. Like the whole world, Malaysia also imposed the stay-at-home and Movement Control Order (MCO) to break the chain of infections and flatten the curve of cases. The supply of PPE became a challenge during the lock down. There have been joined efforts from various parties stepping up, with different ways to help the production process of these key equipment but mostly focus on PPTs for male. Another challenge was face mask for Muslim lady health workers who wear hijab. This paper is about how to overcome these challenges and designed a novel face mask clip for hijab, using 3D printing. The face mask clip is for wearing a mask over hijab and is designed by generating a 3D digital file using computer-aided design (Hourcade, Bullock-Rest, & Hansen, 2012) software. Then the 3D design was converted to Standard Tessellation Language (STL) format, for the use of 3D printing systems. Then the design was split into layers for precise printing. The clips were tested by the staff in faculty of Cognitive Sciences and Human Development, Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. Feedbacks were collected by an online survey using the modified System Usability Scale. The participants reported that the clips are very comfortable and easy to use.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext Cross-cultural adaptation of the Spence children's anxiety scale in Malaysia

Ahmadi A, Mustaffa MS, Haghdoost A, Khan A, Latif AA

Trends Psychiatry Psychother, 2015 4 11;37(1):37-41.
PMID: 25860565 DOI: 10.1590/2237-6089-2014-0038

INTRODUCTION: Anxiety among children has increased in recent years. Culturally adapted questionnaires developed to measure the level of anxiety are the best screening instruments for the general population. This study describes the scientific translation and adaptation of the Spence Children's Anxiety Scale (SCAS) into the Malay language.
METHOD: The process of scientific translation of this selfreport instrument followed the guidelines of the Task Force for Translation and Cultural Adaptation of the International Society for Pharmacoeconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR).
RESULTS: The Malay version and its adaptation for a new cultural context are described.
CONCLUSION: The Malay version achieved the aims of the original version and its conceptual and operational equivalence. It may be used as the first Malay instrument to measure anxiety among children in research and in clinical and community settings.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext A Review on Systems-Based Sensory Gloves for Sign Language Recognition State of the Art between 2007 and 2017

Ahmed MA, Zaidan BB, Zaidan AA, Salih MM, Lakulu MMB

Sensors (Basel), 2018 Jul 09;18(7).
PMID: 29987266 DOI: 10.3390/s18072208

Loss of the ability to speak or hear exerts psychological and social impacts on the affected persons due to the lack of proper communication. Multiple and systematic scholarly interventions that vary according to context have been implemented to overcome disability-related difficulties. Sign language recognition (SLR) systems based on sensory gloves are significant innovations that aim to procure data on the shape or movement of the human hand. Innovative technology for this matter is mainly restricted and dispersed. The available trends and gaps should be explored in this research approach to provide valuable insights into technological environments. Thus, a review is conducted to create a coherent taxonomy to describe the latest research divided into four main categories: development, framework, other hand gesture recognition, and reviews and surveys. Then, we conduct analyses of the glove systems for SLR device characteristics, develop a roadmap for technology evolution, discuss its limitations, and provide valuable insights into technological environments. This will help researchers to understand the current options and gaps in this area, thus contributing to this line of research.

Matched MeSH terms: Sign Language*
Fulltext Advanced paternal age effect on trisomy X syndrome

Ahzad Hadi Ahmad, Rabiatul Basria S.M.N. Mydin, Nur Ain Nisrina Roan, Abdul Rahman Azhari, Narazah Mohd Yusoff

Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2018;14(201):213-215.
MyJurnal

Advanced parental age is a risk factor for chromosomal abnormalities in their offspring. Trisomy X or Triple X syn- drome has previously been reported with advanced maternal age. Here we report two (2) cases of Trisomy X with paternal age as risk factor. Generally, Trisomy X individuals show variable physical and psychological manifesta- tions. However, both cases reported here have advanced paternal age as a risk factor; 55 years old (46 years old at conception) for Case 1 with patient having right eye squint, beaked nose, Posterior Misalignment Type Ventricular Septal Defect (PMVSD) and small Patent Ductus Arteriosus (PDA) with failure to thrive and 49 years old (45 years old at conception) for Case 2 with speech delay and protruding tongue. In view of that, advanced paternal age could possibly contribute the accumulation of de novo mutations in germ line mosaicism.

Matched MeSH terms: Language Development Disorders
Fulltext Validation of the Malay Brief Pain Inventory questionnaire to measure cancer pain

Aisyaturridha A, Naing L, Nizar AJ

J Pain Symptom Manage, 2006 Jan;31(1):13-21.
PMID: 16442478 DOI: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2005.06.011

The original version of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) was translated into a Malay version by the standard procedure and was then evaluated for its psychometric properties. Of 119 eligible patients, a total of 113 (95%) agreed to participate in this study. Ages ranged from 18 to 76 years and interviews were conducted between August, 2004 and November, 2004. The pain intensity items demonstrated high loading with one factor, whereas the pain interference items were loaded on another factor. Two factors explained 62% of the variance. Compared to the Karnofsky Performance Scale, the pain intensity scales had a moderate negative (Pearson's) correlation (-0.520, P < 0.001) and the pain interference scales had a high negative correlation (-0.732, P < 0.001), showing good concurrent validity. The coefficient alpha of both subscales demonstrated good internal consistency of the items. The intraclass correlation coefficient for the test-retest stability was 0.61 for the pain intensity scale and 0.88 for the pain interference scale. The Malay version of the BPI is a reliable and valid instrument for cancer pain assessment and is comparable with the original version of the BPI in terms of structure and psychometric properties.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext Robust digit recognition with dynamic time warping and recursive least squares

Al-Haddad, S.A.R., Samad, S.A., Hussain, A., Ishak, K.A., Noor, A.O.A.

ASM Science Journal, 2008;2(1):75-81.
MyJurnal

Robustness is a key issue in speech recognition. A speech recognition algorithm for Malay digits from zero to nine and an algorithm for noise cancellation by using recursive least squares (RLS) is proposed in this article. This system consisted of speech processing inclusive of digit margin and recognition using zero crossing and energy calculations. Mel-frequency cepstral coefficient vectors were used to provide an estimate of the vocal tract filter. Meanwhile dynamic time warping was used to detect the nearest recorded voice with appropriate global constraint. The global constraint was used to set a valid search region because the variation of the speech rate of the speaker was considered to be limited in a reasonable range which meant that it could prune the unreasonable search space. The algorithm was tested on speech samples that were recorded as part of a Malay corpus. The results showed that the algorithm managed to recognize almost 80.5% of the Malay digits for all recorded words. The addition of a RLS noise canceller in the preprocessing stage increased the accuracy to 94.1%.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Neural activation patterns and connectivity in visual attention during number and non-number processing: An ERP study using Ishihara pseudoisochromatic plates

Al-Marri F, Reza F, Begum T, Hitam WHW, Jin GK, Xiang J

J Integr Neurosci, 2018 Aug 15;17(3):257-269.
PMID: 30338955 DOI: 10.31083/JIN-170058

Visual cognitive function is important in the construction of executive function in daily life. Perception of visual number form (e.g. Arabic digits) and numerosity (numeric magnitude) is of interest to cognitive neuroscientists. Neural correlates and the functional measurement of number representations are complex events when their semantic categories are assimilated together with concepts of shape and color. Color perception can be processed further to modulate visual cognition. The Ishihara pseudoisochromatic plates are one of the best and most common screening tools for basic red-green color vision testing. However, there has been little study of visual cognitive function assessment using such pseudoisochromatic plates. 25 healthy normal trichromat volunteers were recruited and studied using a 128-sensor net to record event-related electroencephalogram. Subjects were asked to respond by pressing numbered buttons when they saw the number and non-number plates of the Ishihara color vision test. Amplitudes and latencies of N100 and P300 event related potential components were analyzed from 19 electrode sites in the international 10-20 system. A brain topographic map, cortical activation patterns, and Granger causation (effective connectivity) were analyzed from 128 electrode sites. No significant differences between N100 event related potential components for either stimulus indicates early selective attention processing was similar for number and non-number plate stimuli, but non-number plate stimuli evoked significantly higher amplitudes, longer latencies of the P300 event related potential component with a slower reaction time compared to number plate stimuli imply the allocation of attentional load was more in non-number plate processing. A different pattern of the asymmetric scalp voltage map was noticed for P300 components with a higher intensity in the left hemisphere for number plate tasks and higher intensity in the right hemisphere for non-number plate tasks. Asymmetric cortical activation and connectivity patterns revealed that number recognition occurred in the occipital and left frontal areas where as the consequence was limited to the occipital area during the non-number plate processing. Finally, results demonstrated that the visual recognition of numbers dissociates from the recognition of non-numbers at the level of defined neural networks. Number recognition was not only a process of visual perception and attention, but was also related to a higher level of cognitive function, that of language.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext The eight-item Morisky Medication Adherence Scale MMAS: translation and validation of the Malaysian version

Al-Qazaz HKh, Hassali MA, Shafie AA, Sulaiman SA, Sundram S, Morisky DE

Diabetes Res Clin Pract, 2010 Nov;90(2):216-21.
PMID: 20832888 DOI: 10.1016/j.diabres.2010.08.012

AIMS:
To translate and examine the psychometric properties of the Malaysian version of the Morisky Medication Adherence Scale (MMAS) among patients with type 2 diabetes.

METHODS:
A standard "forward-backward" procedure was used to translate MMAS into Malay language. It was later validated on a convenience sample of 223 type 2 diabetes outpatients between May and September 2009. Reliability was tested for internal consistency. Validity was confirmed using convergent and known group validity.

RESULTS:
Employing the recommended scoring method, the mean±SD of MMAS scores was 6.13±1.72. Moderate internal consistency was found (Cronbach's α=0.675), the test-retest reliability value was 0.816 (p<0.001). A positive correlation between the eight- and four-item MMAS was found (r=0.792; p<0.01). A significant relationship between MMAS categories and HbA1c categories (χ(2)=20.261; p≥0.001) was found. The MMAS sensitivity and specificity, with positive and negative predictive values were 77.61%, 45.37%, 46.84% and 76.56%, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS:
The findings of this validation study indicate that the Malaysian version of the MMAS is a reliable and valid measure of medication adherence which can now be used.

Matched MeSH terms: Language
Fulltext Malay sentiment analysis based on combined classification approaches and Senti-lexicon algorithm

Al-Saffar A, Awang S, Tao H, Omar N, Al-Saiagh W, Al-Bared M

PLoS One, 2018;13(4):e0194852.
PMID: 29684036 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0194852

Sentiment analysis techniques are increasingly exploited to categorize the opinion text to one or more predefined sentiment classes for the creation and automated maintenance of review-aggregation websites. In this paper, a Malay sentiment analysis classification model is proposed to improve classification performances based on the semantic orientation and machine learning approaches. First, a total of 2,478 Malay sentiment-lexicon phrases and words are assigned with a synonym and stored with the help of more than one Malay native speaker, and the polarity is manually allotted with a score. In addition, the supervised machine learning approaches and lexicon knowledge method are combined for Malay sentiment classification with evaluating thirteen features. Finally, three individual classifiers and a combined classifier are used to evaluate the classification accuracy. In experimental results, a wide-range of comparative experiments is conducted on a Malay Reviews Corpus (MRC), and it demonstrates that the feature extraction improves the performance of Malay sentiment analysis based on the combined classification. However, the results depend on three factors, the features, the number of features and the classification approach.

Matched MeSH terms: Language*
Fulltext Word sense disambiguation using hybrid swarm intelligence approach

Al-Saiagh W, Tiun S, Al-Saffar A, Awang S, Al-Khaleefa AS

PLoS One, 2018;13(12):e0208695.
PMID: 30571777 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208695

Word sense disambiguation (WSD) is the process of identifying an appropriate sense for an ambiguous word. With the complexity of human languages in which a single word could yield different meanings, WSD has been utilized by several domains of interests such as search engines and machine translations. The literature shows a vast number of techniques used for the process of WSD. Recently, researchers have focused on the use of meta-heuristic approaches to identify the best solutions that reflect the best sense. However, the application of meta-heuristic approaches remains limited and thus requires the efficient exploration and exploitation of the problem space. Hence, the current study aims to propose a hybrid meta-heuristic method that consists of particle swarm optimization (PSO) and simulated annealing to find the global best meaning of a given text. Different semantic measures have been utilized in this model as objective functions for the proposed hybrid PSO. These measures consist of JCN and extended Lesk methods, which are combined effectively in this work. The proposed method is tested using a three-benchmark dataset (SemCor 3.0, SensEval-2, and SensEval-3). Results show that the proposed method has superior performance in comparison with state-of-the-art approaches.

Matched MeSH terms: Language*

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