Displaying publications 201 - 220 of 6697 in total

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  1. Khan MA, Tahir MJ, Ameer MA, Nawaz RA, Asghar MS, Ahmed A
    Public Health Pract (Oxf), 2022 Dec;4:100298.
    PMID: 36570398 DOI: 10.1016/j.puhip.2022.100298
    This paper focuses on the trends of self-medication practices in treating symptoms that may lead to fatal complications in dengue. As dengue is a viral infection with increasing incidence, decision regarding its treatment is mostly affected by public health believes and practices to self-treat the condition by different home remedies, over-the-counter (OTC) drugs or using outdated prescription drugs that proved beneficial in the past experience. Poverty, lack of education, and poor access to health facilities pave the way for making such decisions. Future complications can be averted by raising awareness, counseling the patients and dispensing of pharmaceuticals with strict monitoring.
  2. Azam M, Khan AQ
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2017 Jul;24(19):16407-16417.
    PMID: 28550635 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-017-9299-4
    This study examines the impact of economic growth, corruption, health, and poverty on environmental degradation for three countries from ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand using annual data over the period of 1994-2014. The relationship between environmental degradation (pollution) by carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and economic growth is examined along with some other variables, namely health expenditure, poverty, agriculture value added growth, industrial value added growth, and corruption. The ordinary least squares (OLS) method is applied as an analytical technique for parameter estimation. The empirical results reveal that almost all variables are statistically significant at the 5% level of significance, whereby test rejects the null hypotheses of non-cointegration, indicating that all variables play an important role in affecting the environment across countries. Empirical results also indicate that economic growth has significant positive impact, while health expenditures show significantly negative impact on the environment. Corruption has significant positive effect on environment in the case of Malaysia; while in the case of Indonesia and Thailand, it has insignificant results. However, for the individual analysis across countries, the regression estimate suggests that economic growth has a significant positive relationship with environment for Indonesia, while it is found insignificantly negative and positive in the case of Malaysia and Thailand, respectively, during the period under the study. Empirical findings of the study suggest that policy-makers require to make technological-friendly environment sequentially to surmount unregulated pollution, steady population transfers from rural areas to urban areas are also important, and poverty alleviation and better health provision can also help to improve the environment.
  3. Akhtar R, Masud MM
    PMID: 35094275 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-18210-x
    Climate change continues to pose a threat to the agricultural sectors worldwide, jeopardizing food and nutritional security, which is a critical component of the sustainable development agenda. Consequently, this study attempts to examine the impact of climatic variables (CO2 emissions, energy resources, rainfall, temperature, fossil fuel consumption, and humidity) on agricultural production of rice, cereals, vegetables, coffee, and agriculture value added (as a percentage of GDP) in the Malaysian context. To this end, this study applied a generalized method of moments (GMM) estimator on the data obtained from the metrological station Malaysia, Department of Statistics Malaysia and World Development Indicators (WDI) spanning the period 1985-2016. The results revealed that temperature and energy consumption negatively and significantly affect rice and vegetable production, while the negative effect of rainfall, temperature, fossil fuel consumption, and humidity on cereal production is insignificant. The results also confirmed that CO2 emissions have a negative and significant impact on coffee production. Likewise, temperature, energy consumption, and fossil fuel consumption exhibit a negative and significant influence on agriculture value added. These observations evidenced the adverse effect of climate change on various agricultural products in Malaysia. Therefore, in order to ensure robust and sustainable agricultural output in Malaysia, policymakers as well as environmentalists should work together to formulate appropriate adaptation strategies.
  4. Azam M, Raza A
    PMID: 35067883 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-18088-9
    Environmental degradation has been a major concern for nations globally in recent years as carbon emissions have increased. Environmental degradation, if not controlled, is one of the dangers faced by humankind, and achieving sustainable development goals is not possible without improving environmental quality. Thus, reliable carbon emission measurement plays an important role in developing an effective climate strategy to address the current environmental issues. Following the trade-adjusted carbon emission measure, an effective climate strategy can be formulated especially following the 17 United Nation Sustainable Development Goals that are intended to lead to improvements toward a sustainable future. To fill the gap in the literature, we empirically explore the interrelationship between foreign capital flows and environmental quality measured by trade-adjusted consumption-based carbon dioxide (CCO2) emissions for a panel of 125 countries in 1990-2018 by revisiting the pollution haven hypothesis (PHH). The results obtained using system GMM analysis show that FDI has a significantly positive link with CCO2 in Asia and Africa, but the links between these two variables are insignificant in the Latin American, Caribbean, and European regions. In the cases of the full-sample and developing countries, a significantly positive relationship is found between FDI and CCO2. In the case of income-based samples, results reveal that FDI is the cause of environmental degradation in low-income, lower-middle-income, and upper-middle-income countries. These findings suggest that developing countries should adopt environmentally friendly policies to attract foreign investors by setting strict regulations on environmental pollution control to achieve sustainable development goals (SDGs).
  5. Zhao W, Irfan M
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2023 Oct;30(46):102772-102789.
    PMID: 37672158 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-29554-x
    In the face of the challenge of balancing urban economic development and environmental protection, the concept of a healthy city has emerged as a promising model for sustainable urban development. This study empirically investigates the impact of healthy city construction on green growth by utilizing a difference-in-difference model estimation on a panel dataset of 279 Chinese prefecture-level cities from 2007 to 2019. The findings reveal that healthy city construction significantly contributes to green growth, particularly in pilot cities, and this effect is observed across cities of different sizes and economic bases. Additionally, we identify two channels through which healthy city construction promotes green growth: enhancing innovation capacity and enriching human resources. These findings have implications not only for Chinese cities navigating the path towards green growth but also for other developing nations striving for economic transformation and environmentally sustainable development.
  6. Shi H, Nadeem MA
    Int J Occup Saf Ergon, 2023 Dec;29(4):1383-1394.
    PMID: 36178706 DOI: 10.1080/10803548.2022.2131274
    Objectives. This article aims to prompt first-line workers to go beyond regular job roles and engage in more discretionary safety behavior-safety participation in the Chinese construction industry. The construction industry is a high-risk industry, and first-line workers are more likely to be exposed to workplace hazards. Once accidents happen, the negative consequences would come out. Therefore, employee voluntary safety behavior is focused on in this research. Methods. The present research framework examines the roles of safety leadership and safety management practices from the group and organizational perspectives in predicting the voluntary safety behavior (safety participation) of first-line workers in the Chinese construction industry through casual-chain mediators (safety climate and job satisfaction). In this study, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) is adopted for data analysis and hypotheses testing. Results. After data analysis, the results show that safety leadership and safety management practices are significantly and positively associated with safety participation of first-line workers through safety climate and job satisfaction. Moreover, safety management practices have a more statistical effect on safety climate compared to safety leadership. Conclusions. These results provide some practical implications for facilitating the workers to conduct safety participation inthe construction industry.
  7. Waqas M, Najmi A
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2023 Apr;30(18):53411-53423.
    PMID: 36856997 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-26067-5
    Bike-sharing service has become a popular sustainable means of transportation due to its direct impact on traffic congestion, energy consumption, the environment, and people's quality of life. Existing literature suggests that sustainable consumption can be promoted by engaging consumers with green products. This study examined drivers and the outcome of consumer engagement with bike-sharing services based on the technology acceptance model (TAM). A survey was conducted to collect the data from the users of the bike-sharing service in Kuala Lumpur. Structural equation modelling was used to analyse the data and find the relationship between variables. The empirical analyses showed that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness of the bike-sharing service positively impact all facets of consumer engagement with bike-sharing service, which subsequently influences the continuance usage intention of bike-sharing service. The findings of this study offer useful insights that could enhance the consumption of bike-sharing service. This study also offers some guidelines to transportation practitioners, policymakers, and urban planners regarding promoting healthy and sustainable travel behaviour among urban commuters through bike-sharing service.
  8. Khai TS, Asaduzzaman M
    Vaccine X, 2023 Dec;15:100360.
    PMID: 37560758 DOI: 10.1016/j.jvacx.2023.100360
    Access to vaccinations is crucial for everyone in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of migration or refugee status. This study explored COVID-19 prevention knowledge, attitudes, and vaccination challenges among refugees and irregular migrants from Myanmar in Malaysia. This study employed a descriptive mixed-method approach. Convenience sampling was used to conduct an online survey of 174 participants and two focus groups (N = 14). The majority (51.7 %) were refugees, and 48% were irregular migrant workers. In this study, 90.9% of the participants used social networks and social media chats to obtain information about COVID-19, 84.1% understood and found the vaccination campaign helpful, and 44.2% were aware of it. Although 70% of the participants considered vaccination crucial, 95% said that they would not take it because of fear of arrest and deportation, even though they considered vaccination necessary. Approximately 21.2% of the workers reported that their employers did not provide masks or hand sanitisers. Most of the participants (39.7 %) lived in dormitories provided by their employers. This puts them at a higher risk of infection because of the difficulty in practising social distancing. As part of COVID-19 prevention, the government should grant an amnesty period and work with migrant civil society organisations to administer vaccinations and effective measures for all immigrant populations in Malaysia.
  9. Rasool MH, Ahmad M
    Molecules, 2023 Jul 31;28(15).
    PMID: 37570754 DOI: 10.3390/molecules28155784
    Shale rock swelling poses a significant challenge during drilling a well, leading to issues related to wellbore instability. Water-based mud with specific shale inhibitors is preferred over oil-based drilling mud due to its lower environmental impact. Recently, ionic liquids (ILs) have emerged as potential shale inhibitors due to their adjustable properties and strong electrostatic attraction. However, research has shown that the most commonly used class of ILs (imidazolium) in drilling mud are toxic, non-biodegradable, and expensive. Deep Eutectic Solvents (DESs), the fourth generation of ionic liquids, have been proposed as a cheaper and non-toxic alternative to ILs. However, ammonium salt-based DESs are not truly environmentally friendly. This research explores the utilization of Natural Deep Eutectic Solvent (NADES) based on Epsom salt (a naturally occurring salt) and glycerine as a drilling fluid additive. The drilling mud is prepared according to API 13B-1 standards. Various concentrations of NADES-based mud are tested for yield point, plastic viscosity, and filtration properties for both aged and non-aged samples. The linear swell meter is used to determine the percentage swelling of the NADES-based mud, and the results are compared with the swelling caused by KCl- and EMIM-Cl-based mud. FTIR analysis is conducted to understand the interaction between NADES and clay, while surface tension, d-spacing (XRD), and zeta potential are measured to comprehend the mechanism of swelling inhibition by NADES. The findings reveal that NADES improves the yield point and plastic viscosity of the mud, resulting in a 26% reduction in mudcake thickness and a 30.1% decrease in filtrate volume at a concentration of 1%. NADES achieves a significant 49.14% inhibition of swelling at the optimal concentration of 1%, attributed to its ability to modify surface activity, zeta potential of clay surfaces, and d-spacing of clay layers. Consequently, NADES emerges as a non-toxic, cost-effective, and efficient shale inhibitor that can replace ILs and DESs.
  10. Waris M, Din BH
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2024 Feb;31(7):11285-11306.
    PMID: 38217822 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-024-31843-y
    The government of any country can play a great role in promoting economic and environmental policy reforms in both normal and crisis periods, but during the crisis period, the role of the government should take the economy into a recovery position. The stock market is the backbone of the financial system that needs the government's attention, especially in the period of financial stress and environmental protection is the responsibility of every economy to live in a healthy environment. Combining this motive, this study analyzed the role of the government towards the stock market and carbon emission by using different approaches, including the wavelet approach, OLS regression, and the Granger causality test. The wavelet approach is useful for analyzing the role of the government at different time intervals by using the time horizon from 1993 to 2021. World governance's six indicators in terms of voice and accountability, control of corruption, rules of law, regulatory quality, political stability, and government effectiveness are used as the proxy for the role of the government. Our findings show that all WGI indicators have a positive relationship with the stock market of Malaysia except voice and accountability while concerning voice and accountability, the role of the government of Malaysia is negative on the stock market. Similarly, our findings also show that the effective government governance mechanism through WGI indicators has a significant positive impact on CO2 emission due to industrialization. Furthermore, findings of the Granger causality test reveal that all the WGI indicators cause to stock market of Malaysia, and political stability has bi-directional causality indicating stock market index is also a factor that caused the political stability within Malaysia. In the Granger causality results of the CO2 and WGI indicators, there is unidirectional causality found between rules of law and regulatory quality with CO2 emission. This study advocated strong implementations for the investors for investment decisions in effective governance countries and implications for the government to remove their weakness by making effective governance related to the economy and as well as the environments within the country.
  11. Jalil MF, Ali A
    BMC Public Health, 2023 Dec 06;23(1):2435.
    PMID: 38057782 DOI: 10.1186/s12889-023-17347-3
    BACKGROUND: Stress, depression, and anxiety are prevalent issues among SME employees during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even while having meaningful work that expressively contributes to individual growth has been related to improving mental health, employees' work may also need to adopt coping strategies to increase outcomes. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between meaningful work (positive meaning, meaning-making, and greater good motivations) and mental health, as well as coping strategies (problem-focused and emotion-focused) as a mediator of this relationship.

    METHODS: Meaningful work, coping strategies, and mental health were evaluated in empirical research based on a sample of 462 SME employees working in Malaysia. Structured questionnaires were used to collect the data and analyze it through Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) using AMOS 21.0.

    RESULTS: The findings of the study show the importance of meaningful work in influencing the mental health of SME employees, particularly during a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic. This suggests that the more they value and see their work as meaningful, the more capable they are of dealing with limitations and mental health problems associated with crises. The study also discovered a partial mediating role for coping strategies between employees' mental health and meaningful work.

    CONCLUSION: This study encourages employees to constantly feel connected and discover continued possibilities to work and learn even during crisis situations. In order to improve human resource efficiency in emerging markets, managers and owners of SMEs must implement the model developed by the researchers.

  12. Waris M, Din BH
    Environ Sci Pollut Res Int, 2024 Jan;31(2):1995-2008.
    PMID: 38049691 DOI: 10.1007/s11356-023-31307-9
    Financial performance is a critical aspect of a company's overall health and sustainability. It directly influences investor decisions, stock market performance, credit ratings, and the company's ability to access capital. Corporate financial performance is influenced by multitude of facts, both internal and external such as disclosure of the information, and social and environmental factors. On the ground of the facts, we aimed to investigate non-financial firms that belong to Asian economies affected by climate policy uncertainty and corporate social responsibility disclosures in terms of their financial performance. To conduct quantitative study analysis, we used the two effective statistical tools such as two-stage regression method and generalized method of movement (GMM). Our results show that corporate high value of social responsibility disclosure and climate policy uncertainty has significant negative impact on return on asset (ROA) of the listed organizations of China, Pakistan, and India. Moreover, CSR disclosure attributes higher values such as social (SC) and governance score (GOV), and climate policy uncertainty (CPU) has significant negative relationship with return on equity (ROE) and earning per share (EPS) respectively, while a higher value of ESG total score and the environmental (ENV) score has a significant positive impact on ROE and EPS. Additionally, the research concludes that climate policy uncertainty is a key factor that motivates CSR disclosure practices, which ultimately improves corporate financial performance. Moreover, we concluded from our finding that the climate policy uncertainty creates ambiguity surrounding government regulations, international agreements, or market mechanisms that affect financial performance. Moreover, environmental disclosure information that has the large part in total ESG scores attract the investors around the globe which leads to rise in the financial performance, while the other attributes of the CSR disclosure decrease performance. This study advocated the great implications for researchers, investors, the government, and regulatory authorities. Policy makers can make the policy about the CSR disclosure for creating the good image of the organization to attract investors around the globe.
  13. Malik N, Bilal M
    PeerJ Comput Sci, 2024;10:e2203.
    PMID: 39145232 DOI: 10.7717/peerj-cs.2203
    In recent years, e-commerce platforms have become popular and transformed the way people buy and sell goods. People are rapidly adopting Internet shopping due to the convenience of purchasing from the comfort of their homes. Online review sites allow customers to share their thoughts on products and services. Customers and businesses increasingly rely on online reviews to assess and improve the quality of products. Existing literature uses natural language processing (NLP) to analyze customer reviews for different applications. Due to the growing importance of NLP for online customer reviews, this study attempts to provide a taxonomy of NLP applications based on existing literature. This study also examined emerging methods, data sources, and research challenges by reviewing 154 publications from 2013 to 2023 that explore state-of-the-art approaches for diverse applications. Based on existing research, the taxonomy of applications divides literature into five categories: sentiment analysis and opinion mining, review analysis and management, customer experience and satisfaction, user profiling, and marketing and reputation management. It is interesting to note that the majority of existing research relies on Amazon user reviews. Additionally, recent research has encouraged the use of advanced techniques like bidirectional encoder representations from transformers (BERT), long short-term memory (LSTM), and ensemble classifiers. The rising number of articles published each year indicates increasing interest of researchers and continued growth. This survey also addresses open issues, providing future directions in analyzing online customer reviews.
  14. Hossain MA, Dawson A
    PMID: 36308272 DOI: 10.4103/WHO-SEAJPH.WHO-SEAJPH_144_21
    INTRODUCTION: Approximately 9.2 million refugees live in Asia, with most originating from Afghanistan and Myanmar, and half of them are women, girls, and children. Humanitarian crises disrupt the existing health-care system, limiting access to sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services. This review explores the SRH status of Afghan and Rohingya refugee women of reproductive age in Asia and their needs and experiences in accessing these services and commodities.

    MATERIALS AND METHODS: We used the PRISMA checklist and searched for qualitative and quantitative peer-reviewed studies from five online bibliographic databases, SCOPUS, EMBASE (Ovid), MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL, and PROQUEST, from January 2000 to April 2021. Content analysis was undertaken following the minimum initial service package objectives.

    RESULTS: Fifteen studies were included in this review from four countries: Bangladesh (5), Pakistan (5), Iran (4), and Malaysia (1). Approximately 50.91% of Rohingya and 54% of Afghan refugee women used contraceptives. About 56.6% of Afghan refugee mothers experienced pregnancy-related complications, one-third received antenatal care, and low birth weight was 2.6 times higher among infants born to Afghan refugee mothers than to Pakistani-born mothers. One out of five Rohingya women received delivery-related care. Approximately 72% of Rohingya and 79.8% of Afghan refugee women had experienced gender-based violence, and 56.5% of Rohingya women engaged in unwanted sexual intercourse with their husbands.

    CONCLUSION: Social norms, stigma, cultural values, distrust of providers, inadequate staff, and prohibition by family members limit their access to SRH services and influence their needs, knowledge, and perceptions regarding SRH.

  15. Muhammad Abdul Jamil MK, Abdul Rashid AH, Ibrahim S
    J Pediatr Orthop B, 2013 May;22(3):207-12.
    PMID: 22182834 DOI: 10.1097/BPB.0b013e32834ecc01
    This preliminary report is on two patients with congenital pseudoarthrosis of the tibia who had a persistent nonunion following intramedullary rodding and bone grafting. We do not advocate repeated surgery to achieve union. When limb length discrepancy becomes greater than 5 cm, we proceeded with an Ilizarov procedure with the primary aim of equalizing limb length rather than achieving union. Healing of the pseudoarthrosis occurred in both patients after lengthening over the intramedullary rod without compression of the nonunion site. We believe that union occurs because of hyperaemia during the lengthening. This approach minimizes the repeated surgeries that are usually needed and thus ensures a more normal childhood without frequent hospitalizations.
  16. Lim PS, Singh S, Lee A, Muhammad Yassin MA
    Arch Gynecol Obstet, 2011 Nov;284(5):1073-9.
    PMID: 21136267 DOI: 10.1007/s00404-010-1785-6
    Retained placenta is potentially life threatening due to possible complications associated with manual removal. Our aim was to determine whether umbilical vein injection of oxytocin in saline reduces the need for manual removal of placenta.
  17. Mehat MZ, Shuid AN, Mohamed N, Muhammad N, Soelaiman IN
    J. Bone Miner. Metab., 2010 Sep;28(5):503-9.
    PMID: 20145960 DOI: 10.1007/s00774-010-0159-2
    Bone is a specialized connective tissue that functions as the load-bearing structure of the body. Free radicals may affect bone remodeling by regulating osteoclast activity in either the physiological or pathological condition. Vitamin E, a lipid-soluble antioxidant, has been demonstrated to offer protection against osteoporosis and to improve the bone material and structure of animal models. The aim of this study was to observe and compare the effects of alpha-tocopherol (alpha-tocopherol), delta-tocotrienol (delta-tocotrienol), and gamma-tocotrienol (gamma-tocotrienol) on the static and dynamic bone histomorphometric parameters in normal male rats. Thirty-two normal Sprague-Dawley male rats aged 3 months and weighing 200-250 g were randomly divided into four groups. The control group was supplemented with oral gavages of olive oil (vehicle), whereas the alpha-tocopherol, delta-tocotrienol, and gamma-tocotrienol groups were given oral gavages of 60 mg/kg alpha-tocopherol, delta-tocotrienol, and gamma-tocotrienol, respectively. The rats were injected twice with calcein to fluorochrome-label the bones. After 4 months of treatment, the rats were killed, and the left femurs were dissected out and prepared for bone histomorphometry. Both the static and dynamic parameters of the vitamin E-treated groups were better than those of the normal control group. Among the vitamin E-treated groups, the tocotrienol groups showed better histomorphometry results compared to the α-tocopherol group, with the γ-tocotrienol group demonstrating the best effects on both sets of parameters. We concluded that vitamin E can promote bone formation in normal rats, with gamma-tocotrienol being the most potent form of vitamin E.
  18. Syafaat MN, Muhammad T, Abol-Munafi AB, Ikhwanuddin M
    Data Brief, 2019 Oct;26:104438.
    PMID: 31528675 DOI: 10.1016/j.dib.2019.104438
    Population density, growth, survival, water quality and larval stage index of purple mud crab, Scylla tranquebarica at different feeding regimes and the data on ingestion rate of chosen microalgae, survival and larval development of blue swimming crab, Portunus pelagicus are presented. A twenty days of S. tranquebarica larval culture from zoeal 1 until megalopa stage under two different feeding regimes of A) Rotifer, Artemia nauplii and shrimp meat and B) Rotifer, Artemia nauplii and artificial feed is shared. A method on investigation of individual larvae of P. pelagicus capability to catch four different types of microalgae within 24 h is also shared. Direct eye observation, data collected through the larval rearing culture of S. tranquebarica and further statistical analysis were done daily until the crabs reached the megalopa stage. The result obtained from the optimum density of selected microalgae fed by individual larvae of P. pelagicus will be combined with the highest survival rate and larval stage index to develop feeding schedule for crab larvae P. pelagicus. This dataset has not previously been published and is of great potential for further comparison with other - and future investigation of various feeding regimes affected the crab culture. The collected information could be used as a standard feeding regime for nursery and hatchery seed production of others portunids crabs. The data described in this article are available as a supplementary file to this article.
  19. Sem SH, Omar MF, Muhammad Nawawi RF
    Cureus, 2019 May 02;11(5):e4588.
    PMID: 31309013 DOI: 10.7759/cureus.4588
    Irreducible closed dorsal dislocation of distal interphalangeal (DIP) joint of the finger is a rare injury. The causes of irreducibility of the DIP joint are volar plate interposition, entrapment of flexor digitorum profundus tendon behind the head of middle phalanx, and buttonholing of the middle phalanx head through the volar plate or flexor tendon. Open reduction with a volar approach is recommended with the advantages of better wound healing, ease of releasing entrapped structures, and possibilities of a volar plate, collateral ligaments, and/or flexor tendon repair. We report a case of irreducible dorsal dislocation of left ring finger DIP joint secondary to volar plate interposition treated successfully with open reduction.
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