Amar Singh HSS, Azman AB, Sararaks S. The Medical Research Handbook. Planning a Research Project, First Edition. Kuala Lumpur: Institute of Health Systems Research; 2008
In this article, we studied the generalised Hurwitz-Lerch zeta function. We defined a new operator and introduced a new class of function. Here, some interesting properties and sufficient conditions for subordination were also studied.
INTRODUCTION: The importance of Paediatric Palliative Care (PPC) is increasingly recognised worldwide, with the World Health Organzsation (WHO) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) endorsing the development and wide availability of PPC. When these children are in the terminal phase of their illness, PPC should be tailored to the different needs and desires of the child and the family, with the goal of providing the best possible quality of life (QOL) for the days that remain.
METHOD: Malaysia has yet to develop a national PPC policy. In anticipation of this, as part of a needs based qualitative study, parents' views were solicited, as to the unmet needs of their children during the terminal phases of their illness. A purposive sampling was conducted amongst fifteen parents of nine deceased children (ages 2-14 years, eight cancer, one Prader Willi Syndrome) who had received care in the Paediatric Department, Malacca General Hospital, a Malaysian government hospital. Two focus group discussions and three in-depth interviews were conducted, based on a semi-structured interview guideline. The interviews were audiotaped with permission and the tape recordings were transcribed verbatim. The data were managed and analysed by NVivo 9 software using a thematic analysis approach.
RESULTS: The frequently emerging themes were the strengths and weaknesses pertaining to the healthcare system, processes within palliative care. These were symptom control, closed communication and lack of support and anticipatory guidance as death approached.
CONCLUSION: Dying Malaysian children and their families deserve to receive care that is more consistent with optimal palliative care.
The interactivity and ubiquity of digital technologies are exerting a significant impact on the knowledge creation in information technology (KC-IT) projects. According to the literature, the critical relevance of KC-IT is highly associated with digital innovation (DI) for organisational success. However, DI is not yet a fully-fledged research subject but is an evolving corpus of theory and practise that draws from a variety of social science fields. Given the preceding setting, this study explores the interaction of KC-IT with DI. This work provides a systemic literature review (SLR) to examine the literature in KC-IT and its connection to DI. A SLR of 527 papers from 2001 to 2021 was performed across six online databases. The review encompasses quantitative and qualitative studies on KC-IT factors, processes and methods. Three major gaps were found in the SLR. Firstly, only 57 (0.23%) papers were found to examine the association between KC and IT projects. These works were analysed for theories, type of papers, KC-IT factors, processes and methods. Secondly, the convergence reviews indicate that scarce research has examined TMS and trust in KC-IT as factors. Thirdly, only 0.02% (5) core papers appeared in the search relevant to KC in IT projects to accelerate DI. The majority of the papers examined were not linked to DI. A significant gap also exists in these areas. These findings warrant the attention of the research community.
McIntyre was the first to suggest ranked set sampling (RSS) method for estimating the population mean. In this paper, we modify RSS to come up with new sampling method, namely, two stage ranked set sampling (TSRSS) for samples of size m=3k (k=1,2,..). The TSRSS is suggested for estimating the population median in order to increase the efficiency of the estimators. The TSRSS was compared to the simple random sampling (SRS), ranked set sampling (RSS), extreme ranked set sampling (ERSS), median ranked set sampling (MRSS) and balance groups ranked set sampling (BGRSS) methods. It is found that, TSRSS gives an unbiased estimator of the population median of symmetric distributions and it is more efficient than SRS. Also, it is more efficient than RSS, ERSS, MRSS and BGRSS based on the same number of measured units. For asymmetric distributions considered in this study, TSRSS has a small bias and smaller variance than SRS, RSS, ERSS, MRSS and BGRSS methods.
A random forest method has been selected to perform both gene selection and classification of the microarray data. In this embedded method, the selection of smallest possible sets of genes with lowest error rates is the key factor in achieving highest classification accuracy. Hence, improved gene selection method using random forest has been proposed to obtain the smallest subset of genes as well as biggest subset of genes prior to classification. The option for biggest subset selection is done to assist researchers who intend to use the informative genes for further research. Enhanced random forest gene selection has performed better in terms of selecting the smallest subset as well as biggest subset of informative genes with lowest out of bag error rates through gene selection. Furthermore, the classification performed on the selected subset of genes using random forest has lead to lower prediction error rates compared to existing method and other similar available methods.
It is commonly held that in vivo biological experimental models are concrete and non-fictional. This belief is primarily supported by the fact that in vivo studies involve biological models which are alive, and what is alive cannot be fictional. However, I argue that this is not always the case. The design of an experimental model could still render an in vivo model fictional because fictional elements and processes can be built into these in vivo experimental models. These fictional elements are essential parts of a credentialed fiction because the designs of in vivo experimental models are constrained by imaginability, conceivability, and credit-worthiness. Therefore, despite its fictionality, it is credible for an in vivo experimental model to stand in for the phenomenon of interest.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a structured methodology that uses customer and technical
requirements for designers and manufacturers to provide better products. Many researchers combine or
integrate the technique of QFD with other methodologies such as Theory Inventive of Problem Solving
(TRIZ) or Design for Manufacture and Assembly (DFMA) to optimise product design innovation and
improvement. The combined methodologies are even used to solve process problems. Initial literature
review of the application of stand-alone QFD poised several problems. Combining QFD with other
techniques, such as TRIZ and DFMA, has helped to address these issues and forms the basis of future
research. The integrated methods can solve main contradictory problems more precisely from product
demand analysis to product design, production and application. Review work of the literature, specifically
that on research and development of QFD, TRIZ and DFMA, showed that the said methodologies have
been widely and successfully implemented in several practical applications such as resolving conflicts
between customer and technical/engineering requirements and reducing production cost. This review work
provides an in-depth analysis of identifying and finding issues of strengths, weaknesses and outcomes
of the QFD when combined with TRIZ and also of QFD integrated with DFMA.