1. The Malayan Medical Journal as the offcial organ of the British Medical Association Malaya branch
2. The cure of opium habit
3. Infectious jaundice
4. The Institute for Medical Research Kuala Lumpur
5.
A description is given of the numerical integration method for the calculation of the mean kidney dose for a Co-57 external radiation source. Based on this theory, a computer program was written. Initial calculation of the kidney volume shows that the method has a good accuracy. For the mean kidney dose, this method gives a satisfactory result, since the calculated value lies within the acceptable range of the central axis depth dose.
Satu huraian diberikan tentang kaedah pengkamiran berangka untuk mengira dos buah pinggang purata untuk satu sumber sinaran luar Co-57. Berdasarkan teori ini, satu program komputer ditulis. Pengiraan awal isipadu buah pinggang menunjukkan yang kaedah ini mempunyai ketepatan yang baik. Untuk dos buah pinggang purata, kaedah ini memberikan keputusan yang baik, kerana nilai kiraan terletak diantara julat dos kedalaman paksi pusat yang diterima.
Learning disability occurs in 10-15% of children. It is manifested by an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, calculate or interact. It may be specific as in dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia or nonspecific learning disability. In the latter group, there may be under-achievement despite average or above-average-intelligence, slow learners and mental retardation. Factors that may cause learning disability include genetic abnormalities, antenatal and perinatal insults, abnormal growth and malnutrition in early childhood, parental mode of upbringing, poor opportunity for learning, physical illness and emotional and social problems. Meticulous history taking and physical examination is important to arrive at a proper diagnosis so that the most appropriate management is given, often involving professionals working as a team.
Portfolio writing is a method of encouraging reflective learning among professionals. Although portfolio-based learning is popular among educators, not many studies have been done to determine students' perceptions of portfolio as a learning tool. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 143 medical students to find out their perceptions of the portfolio as a learning tool. A majority of the students felt that the portfolio is a good learning tool. However, they also perceived that it is stressful and time-consuming to develop a proper portfolio. The study indicates that students need appropriate guidance from the academic staff for the system to succeed.
The year 2005 marked the rebirth of JUMMEC when the Editorial Board took over from its previous Editor with modest but realistic expectations. One year on, we have successfully achieved our initial expectation, that is, to encourage greater participation from our junior academics to write and publish in our very own journal, JUMMEC. As we head towards the end of 2006 and prepare to usher in 2007, we see JUMMEC consolidating and gaining in strength. Let us reflect on its past achievements and our expectations for the future.(Copied from article).
Background: Without any doubt, the combo of user ID and password are the most used authentication method in the computing and internet environment. However, due to the enormous number of accounts that require password authentication, users tend to develop bad habits in their password practices which in turn will put their account security at risk. With the increasing use of computing in health-care settings and the use of EMR in hospitals, such practices are a cause for concern.
Methods: This is a cross-sectional study using self-administered questionnaires, investigating the practice of the respondents in keeping their passwords secure. Respondents in this survey are the undergraduate students of Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia.
Results: Among the findings are that 87.4% of the respondents used the same password for more than one account. If a user used the same password for several accounts, it might trigger a domino effect if any of the account passwords were compromised. A total of 98.9% of the respondents memorised their password only in their mind, without writing down the password anywhere. This may lead to using easily guessable passwords which may introduce additional security risk to their accounts. The majority of the respondents (96.6%) never or rarely change their passwords. The study also showed that 82.7% of the respondents used passwords which are 6-8 characters in length. Longer passwords are usually safer but harder to remember. The questionnaire also explored the users’ password combination style, whether they used numbers only or combination of numbers and alphabets or some other pattern. A total of 39.1% used letters only but 27.6% used combination of numbers only which is less secure. About 77% of the respondents used personal information such as their birthday date or a person’s name as part of their password.
Conclusions: This habit may make their password guessable to people who are close to them. In conclusion, most medical students are not practising safe password conduct and they should be educated on this. If not, patients’ data confidentiality may be compromised in the future due to such practices.
When writing scientific papers to share their research findings with their peers, it is not enough for researchers to just communicate the results of their study; it is equally important to explain the process by which they arrived at their results, so that the study can be replicated to validate the observations. The materials and methods section is used to describe the experimental design and provide sufficient details so that a competent colleague can repeat the experiment. A good materials and methods section will enable readers to evaluate the research performed and replicate the study, if necessary.
The purpose of the results section is to present the main data collected and the observations made during the research. It provides interpretation of the analysed data and does not contain details on the methods, materials or discussion. The first step in writing the results section is to review the analysed data and determine which results to present. This can be done by deciding which results are relevant to the question(s) presented in the introduction, and may be supplemented by illustrative tables and figures. The results section guides the reader through the questions investigated in the study and sets the stage for the discussion in the next section.
Atomic force microscopes (AFM) as one of the scanning probe microscopy (spm) modes have become useful tools, not only for observing surface morphology and nanostructure topography but also for fabrication of various nanostructures itself. In this work, silicon oxide (SiOx) patterns were formed on Si(100) surface by means of AFM anodization, where a non-contact mode used to oxidize Si wafer at the nanoscale size. The oxide patterns could serve as masks for the chemical etching of Si surface in alkaline solution in order to create the Si nanodots. A special attention is paid to finding relations between the size of dots and operational parameters as tip bias voltage and tip writing speed Dot arrays with 10 nm high and less than 50 nm in diameter have been successfully fabricated. The ability to control oxidation and scanning speed can be utilized in fabrication of complex nanostructures and make scanning probe lithography (SPL) as a very promising lithographic technique in nanoelectronic devices, nanophotonics and other high-tech areas.
Tables are used in scientific papers to present information in a concise and efficient manner. Tables are able to provide information at any desired level of detail and precision. Presenting data in a table rather than as part of the text is also an effective way to reduce the length of the text. This article provides some basic guidelines to assist authors in preparing clear and effective tables for their papers.
Illustrations (also known as figures) are visual representations of the results obtained from a scientific study. Graphs are a common type of illustration that are often used in scientific papers to present information clearly and effectively, as well as to demonstrate relationships between variables in the data. Graphs also serve to reveal trends or patterns in the data. This article provides some basic guidelines to assist authors in preparing effective graphs for their papers.
In part two of "Preparing effective illustrations", the other three categories, viz. photographs, radiological images and diagrams, are discussed. Illustrations provide visual information to supplement the results in a scientific paper, and create a visual impact that can improve the readability of a paper. This article provides some basic guidelines to assist authors in preparing effective photographs, radiological images and diagrams.
Computational chemistry is a discipline that concerns the computing of physical and chemical properties of atoms and molecules using the fundamentals of quantum mechanics. The expense of computational chemistry calculations is significant and limited by available computational capabilities. The use of high-performance computing clusters alleviate such calculations. However, as high-performance computing (HPC) clusters have always required a balance between four major factors: raw computing power, memory size, I/O capacity, and communication capacity. In this paper, we present the results of standard HPC benchmarks in order to help assess the performance characteristics of the various hardware and software components of a home-built commodity-class Linux cluster. We optimized a range of TCP/MPICH parameters and achieved a maximum MPICH bandwidth of 666 Mbps. The bandwidth and latency of GA put/get operations were better than the corresponding MPICH send/receive ones. We also examined the NFS, PVFS2, and Lustre parallel filesystems and Lustre provided the best read/write bandwidths with more than 90% of those of the local filesystem.
Background : The management of chronic disease during flood seems to be one of the main challenges to the health care service. Chronic disease becomes worst during flood. Poor condition at the relief centres, loss of assets, fear, and lack of functional health facilities contribute to the morbidity and mortality during and after flood. Poor chronic disease management, especially on severe and uncontrolled hypertension, may threaten lives of victims during flood. In addition, comprehensive treatment cannot be delivered due to destroyed infrastructure, shortage of doctors on duty and delay in getting drug supply. Therefore, all aspects of chronic disease management shall be reviewed and included in the disaster preparedness in order to control and prevent acute incidence and complications of the chronic diseases. Previous Action Plan did not address this issue effectively which had caused many patients not getting their treatment adequately. The aim of this writing is to share experiences in managing chronic disease patients particularly hypertensive patients.
Methodology : A retrospective study based on data collection by health personnel while conducting health screening, clinical examination and giving treatment to flood victims at the relief centres. Hypertensive patients were identified when the victims came for treatment and while the medical team conducting medical rounds. New hypertensive cases as well as uncontrolled cases with no complication were treated and monitored at the relief centres.
Result : It was found that 34,530 cases of non communicable disease (11.1% of the total number of the flood victims) including hypertension and diabetes mellitus were reported in Johor. Kota Tinggi reported a total number of 5,317 cases of chronic disease. There was no data collection on specific chronic diseases collected at the state level during the floods thus the findings representing Kota Tinggi cases only. In retrospective search of 150 flood victims with hypertension in Kota Tinggi, only 95 cases had complete data. Among them 71.6% (68 cases) were hypertensive cases already on treatment and 28.4% (27 cases) were new cases. Also it has been found that 67.4% (64 cases) were uncontrolled hypertension and 32.6% (31 cases) were controlled hypertension. Four cases had been found diagnosed as uncontrolled hypertension with complications and have been referred to hospital.
Conclusion : Comprehensive health strategy for flood victims shall not be focused only on saving lives and giving emergency treatment to patients but also to update and strengthen an overall chronic disease management. Many factors contributed to increase in blood pressure during flooding. Good hypertensive treatment at the relief centres is needed to minimise morbidity and mortality. Information on care and treatment received by flood victims having chronic disease is vital in assessing their health needs during disaster and in formulating disaster preparedness in the future.
Objective : This scientific writing is meant for describing the problems faced by pharmacy staffs during heavy flood situations in Johore and the actions to be taken for solving these problems.
Methodology : This finding is in accordance to the observations, experiences and interview of staffs (through questionnaires), who are involved directly and indirectly in preparations of emergency during flood. Efficiency of pharmaceutical services provided during flood is evaluated.
Result : Several problems were identified when providing pharmaceutical services, such as purchasing and supplying of items, pre-packing, preparing drug charts, visit to relief centers, post-flood health campaign, and doctors from NGOs prescibing medicines out of MOH drug formulary. During the period of flood, usage of drug and non-drug items increases drastically resulting in the current stock in store were not sufficient to compensate for the high demand. Moreover, inaccessibility of certain roads in districts such as Segamat and Kota Tinggi, aggravated and worsen the problems of obtaining goods from suppliers. Workload of pharmacy staffs increased especially in activities such as pre-packing and preparing drug charts due to shortage of manpower.
Conclusion : Even though workload increased drastically during flood, pharmaceutical services provided by the state pharmacy are still able to maintain good quality services to cater for the need of healthcare professionals and patients. Throughout the flood period, all the difficulties and hurdles faced by us had been solved; due to the cooperation from other agencies. Besides, by writing this article, a disaster preparedness guideline is produced for the purpose of improving management of future disasters.
Research publication is an essential part of scientific research process. Writing is a means of communication of scientific work, a means to disseminate the research findings to the public and also to their peers. A scientific paper is a written and published report describing original research results. Getting a paper published in a well-respected peer-reviewed journal is an important goal for any researcher. It is an indication of research success. There are many reasons why people write and this ranged from pure altruism to pleasure to intellectual pursuits to contribute to the scientific knowledge, to improve patient care and to benefit the community and mankind. Reasons to write vary from one individual to another individual. Writing can be difficult and it is seen as a chore, such as, fulfilling a minimum requirement of an organization to get a job, a job confirmation or a promotion, and career development.
Professional behavior is an area of medical education that has long been of concern to medical educator. Professional behavior is one of the domains of the professionalism and it’s a behavior reflection of professionalism. But in spite of its perceived importance, until recently it has not been actively taught or reliably assessed. The purposes of this writing are:
1) To provide appropriate definition of professional behavior.
2) To identify characteristics of professional behavior.
3) To identify valid and reliable assessment tools to assess professional behavior.
Objectives: This paper reports the outcome of Session With Carer, one of the activities in the Year 4 Personal and Professional Development (PPD) module in the new integrated curriculum of the Undergraduate Medical Programme at the Faculty of Medicine,
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM). Methods: This activity involves groups of 14 – 15 students sitting in with family members of individuals with mental illness. The session starts with the carer giving his or her perspective of patient’s care and the challenges involved. This is followed by a question and answer session. Finally, the carer provides a written feedback by way of scoring certain items as well as brief comments. After the session, each student is required to prepare an individual report in the form of reflective writing. Results: Out of a total of 224 students, the reflections of 126 students were reviewed to assess what they had learnt from the Session With Carer. Among the more significant findings were: 100% learnt about the various challenges faced by carers. 31.7% learnt the importance of
faith/spirituality of the carer in caring for a mentally ill family member. 29.4% learnt the importance of family and others’ support. An equal number, that is, 26.2% learnt that it helps for the carer to have good mental health and a positive attitude, as well as good
knowledge of the illness. Those who became aware of the benefits of the carer having patience and determination made up 23.8% of the total reflections reviewed. Conclusion: The findings show that the Session With Carer is very educational, and helps create more
awareness of the importance of the carer’s role in patient management and support. In other words, carers can act as teachers in creating more public awareness about mental illness and
ultimately, help in gradually removing the stigma associated with mental illness. Therefore, carers should be utilized for this purpose.