Expression of beta-human chorionic gonadotropin (bHCG) mRNA in early cleavage cell stages is important in predicting embryo viability at blastocyst stage of development. Embryo viability is crucial for in vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment to be successful in terms of increment of implantation and pregnancy rate. In order to establish fertilization outside the human body, optimum condition mimicking the natural body environment like hormones and growth factors as well as impeccable timing must be established. ImamMuslim narrated from Hudhayfa ibn Asad that the Prophet Muhammad (SAW) said: “After the sperm-and-ovum drop (nut.fa) has been [in the uterus] forty-two days, Allah sends it an angel that gives it form and fashions its hearing, sight, skin, flesh, and skeleton”. Therefore the aim of this study is to find the significant association of bHCG expression with early cell stage cleavages and its relationship as predictive marker for potential embryo implantation. Our study focuses on leftover frozen embryos from eight patients consists of six pregnant patients and two non-pregnant patients. We assessed the human bHCG mRNA expression at different cell cleavage stages in these frozen embryos using reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). Our results have shown three out of eight patients with five to ten cells of blastomeres were expressed with bHCG. This study indicated that bHCG was expressed on froze-thawed late cleavage stage of embryos in IVF patients.
This study was conducted to determine the effects of increased edible palm oil consumption on community health status in the aboriginal communities in Tual Post (treatment group) and Sinderut Post (control group), Kuala Lipis, Pahang. Nutritional status, blood pressure, lipid profiles, fasting blood glucose (FBG), vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) levels and lipid peroxidation product (malonaldehyde) levels were taken as indicators of health status. This is a pre-and post-controlled community trial in which similar variables were measured in each group. Every family of 2–6 household members was given 2–5 kg cooking palm oil per month for a period of 18 months. All subjects were measured for height (cm), weight (kg) and waist-hip ratio (WHR). For calorie intake measurement, house-to-house interviews were conducted using 24-hour dietary recall method. Blood pressure, percent body fat, lipid profiles, namely total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglyceride and fasting blood glucose (FBG) were also measured. Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol) levels and lipid peroxidation products (MDA) were also determined. There was a significant increase (p
An unhealthy dietary practice as a result of environmental and societal changes is increasingly exposed to adults. These unhealthy practices lead to an increased cardiometabolic risk, and obese adults are at a higher risk as compared to normal-weight adults. The best strategy to promote healthy lifestyle practices among Malaysian obese adult is still fragmented. Materials and Methods: A single-centre randomised controlled trial was carried out to determine the effect of the lifestyle modification intervention (LMI) with the motivational construct, in comparison to the current standard LMI on the dietary macronutrient intake among obese adults. The dietary macronutrient intake and changes in body weight were assessed at baseline and after six months. Seventy-nine participants completed the study. Results: Our finding showed that six months of LMI with motivational construct resulted in a higher reduction of total fat and cholesterol from the dietary intake as compared to the control. In addition, the participants in the intervention group had a significant body weight loss after six months (-1.97 kg, 95% CI: -0.324, 1.360, t(39) = 3.397, p= 0.002). Conclusion: This study demonstrates that the intervention had a meaningful impact on improving the dietary macronutrient intake, which is beneficial to support body weight loss in obese adults. Future trials with additional nutritional biomarkers are needed to extend these findings.
This study examined the effects of drying temperatures (25 and 45 °C) on the physical properties
of different formulations of gelatin/CMC/chitosan composite films. The physical properties
of each formulated film were assessed via Fourier Transform Infra-Red (FTIR) spectroscopy,
X-Ray Diffractometry (XRD), Water Vapour Permeability (WVP) and biodegradability. The
incorporation of CMC and chitosan significantly influenced film properties. Increased chitosan
concentrations reduced the film’s amorphous character by increasing its crystalline structure.
The blended films also exhibited amino peaks that shifted from 1542 to ~1548 cm-1 while NH
and/or OH peaks shifted from 3384 to 3288 cm-1. Formulation E had the second lowest WVP
for both drying condition and the highest weight loss for biodegradability after burial in soil for
5 days. In conclusion, different temperature did not affect the properties of film produced and
formulation E qualified as ‘high quality packaging material’ with promising potential for the
food packaging industry.
Objective: To determine the knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of sleep among medical students of IIUM towards and to determine the impact of socio-demographic data on the knowledge, attitude and practice. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out among 106 students from first, second and third year medical students of IIUM. Verbal consent was taken from the students who were willing to take part in this study. Student knowledge about sleep was studied using a questionnaire. Results: A total of 106 medical
students completed the survey, there were 54 female and 52 male. The mean age of the students was 20 ± 0.56 and ranged from 18 to 22 years. In terms of their sleep knowledge, the mean ± SD knowledge, attitude and practice scores were 81.8 ± 16.8, 65.9 ±15.3 and 176 ± 26.3 respectively. In univariate analysis, there was a significant difference between parents’ marital status regarding knowledge of the students (p = 0.03). There was a significant difference between gender regarding attitude of the students (p=0.05). In
multivariate analysis, gender and smoking status were significantly affected the overall KAP. Conclusion: This study showed that sleep medicine knowledge was generally low among medical students. Therefore, educational strategies to improve knowledge regarding sleep-related problems and the development of proper sleep practices among medical students are needed.
Environmental factors such as temperature, lighting and noise have very significant impact to workers’ health, safety, comfort, performance and productivity. In an ergonomically design industrial work environment, these factors need to be control at their optimum levels. The main objective of this study is to find the effect of temperature, illuminance and sound pressure level on workers’ productivity in automotive industry. To perform this study a workstation in an automotive component manufacturing was selected as the location of the study. Results of data analysis showed there were relationships between temperature, illuminance and noise on workers’ productivity. Later, the authors’ developed multiple linear equation models to represent the relationships between temperature, illuminance and noise on the workers’ productivity. These multiple linear equation models could be used to predict the production rate for the workstation by referring to the value of temperature, illuminance and noise level.
Anthropometric Test Devices (ATDs) of different nominal percentile values have long been used as human surrogates in automotive crash testing. The Hybrid III family, which is one of the widely used ATDs in frontal crash test, was designed based on the anthropometry dimensions of US adults. Thus, this paper aims to assess the anthropometric differences between Malaysian adults and Hybrid III dummies in terms of 5th percentile (small female), 50th percentile (midsize male) and 95th percentile (large male). A series of anthropometric parameters of Malaysian adults was obtained from a database of 1321 subjects with 708 males and 613 females. The results revealed that the current midsize male population differs from the ATD’s statures and body weights by about 35 and 40 percentile points, respectively. This demonstrates that the current ATDs are not truly representative of the current Malaysian adults, which may potentially lead to different injury responses in road traffic crashes. Thus, car manufacturers may as well consider this discrepancy issue in developing their future models especially with regards to safety.
Infectious bursal disease (IBD), also known as the Gumboro disease, has been a great
concern for poultry industry worldwide. The first outbreak of IBD due to very virulent (vv) IBD virus
(IBDV) infection in Malaysia was reported in 1991. The major economic impact of the disease is high
mortality and poor performance. The virus causes immunosuppression where if the infected chicken
recovered from the acute disease, they become more susceptible to infections of other pathogens and
fail to respond to vaccines. Therefore, prevention is important and vaccination has become the
principal control measure of IBDV infection in chickens. The conventional attenuated live and killed
vaccines are the most commonly used vaccines. With the advancement of knowledge and technology,
new generation of genetically-engineered vaccines like viral vector and immune complex vaccines
have been commercialised. Moreover, hatchery vaccination is becoming a common practise, in
addition to farm vaccination. Currently, the disease is considerably under controlled with the
introduction of vaccination. However, occasional field outbreaks are still commonly reported. The
demand for vaccines that could suit the field situation continues to exist. The endemicity of disease,
presence of challenge in the farm and maternally derived antibody in chicks are affecting the choice
vaccine as well as the vaccine development and vaccination strategies. In this review, advances made
in various vaccines that have been commercialised or under development, and challenges that they
face, are outlined. Furthermore, how the emergence of vvIBDV affect the progress of vaccine
development and influence its vaccination strategy are discussed.
Primary thyroid lymphoma is a rare disorder accounting for about 2% of all malignant lymphomas and less than 5% of thyroid malignancies. It is an aggressive disease with poor outcome. The majority of thyroid lymphomas are non-Hodgkin lymphomas of Bcell origin. Majority of cases occur in women in the sixth decade. We report two cases of primary thyroid lymphoma and highlight the clinical issues and challenges posed by this rare disease. Both cases presented with respiratory obstructive symptoms that required surgical intervention. The optimal management for a primary thyroid lymphoma be it chemotherapy, radiotherapy, surgery or monoclonal antibodies is still debatable. The role for surgery has evolved through the years but its importance in emergency situations should not be overlooked. Both our patients had to undergo surgery but only one patient received additional chemotherapy and radiotherapy. These two case reports illustrated the difficulties in managing this rare disorder.
Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) is a practical tool for the measurement of usual food intake in large surveys because it gives a quick approximation to 'true' dietary intake. This study was carried out to compare the semiquantitative FFQ with three day 24-hour diet recalls (24-hr DR) in assessing intake of energy, total fat, fatty acids and vitamin A, C and E among Malaysian women. This semi-quantitative FFQ which was developed specifically for the Malay and Indian ethnicities has 200 food items and categorized according to three mealtimes namely breakfast, lunch or dinner and morning or afternoon snacks. A total of 51 Malay and 28 Indian women aged between 30 to 60 years were selected as study subjects. The result of the study shows that majority of study subjects were within the normal EI/BMR ratio when their energy intake was assessed by semi-quantitative FFQ (70%) and 24-hr DR (74%). However, 10% of study subjects became over-reporters when their intakes were assessed using the semi-quantitative FFQ. Analysis of t-test shows there is no significant difference (p > 0.05) on the mean intake of energy, total fats, saturated, monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids and vitamin A, C and E between semi-quantitative FFQ and 24-hr DR. Percent mean differences were also less than 10% for all nutrients included in this study. This indicates that the semi-quantitative FFQ can produce comparable results with 24-hr DR. Energy adjusted correlation coefficient values for all studied nutrients were total fat (r = 0.64, p = 0.02), saturated fatty acids (r = 0.59, p = 0.01), monounsaturated fatty acids (r = 0.52, p = 0.03), polyunsaturated fatty acids (r = 0.57, p = 0.02), vitamin A (r = 0.69, p = 0.01), retinol (r = 0.55, p = 0.01), beta carotene (r = 0.74, p = 0.01), vitamin C (r = 0.64, p = 0.02) and vitamin E (r = 0.69, p = 0.01). Cross-classification for both methods into quartiles of intake resulted in correct classification into the same or adjacent quartile from 82% to 96% of the study subjects. Only 3% of the subjects were grossly misclassified. As a conclusion, this semi-quantitative FFQ gives estimation as good as 24-hr DR for intakes of energy, total fat, fatty acids and vitamin A, C and E among Malaysian women specifically for the Malay and Indian ethnicities. This semi-quantitative FFQ is a useful tool in dietary intake assessment for research use especially for epidemiological study on diet and disease relationship such as cardiovascular, cancer and diabetes.
The unstable living situation in Iraq in the last 10 years after 2003 war affected the daily life of most Iraqis, and especially the children. The objective of this study was to explore the effects of an unstable living environment on children’s health. A community-based qualitative study was done to collect data from 20 mothers of children (age 7 to 8years old) through in-depth interview (IDI). Data was recorded using tape recorders and was later transcribed and analyzed using qualitative thematic analysis techniques. The majority of mothers interviewed said the past nine years of unstable security in the capital had affected their daily life; some mothers also expressed concern about their child’s nutritional status, their eating habits during the school day, and the unhealthy food being sold at school canteens. As a conclusion, the unstable living situations in Baghdad city after the last war had affected the cognitive and nutritional development of children. More precautions should be taken by parents to ensure their children safety in the future.
Osteoporosis dikenali sebagai penyakit senyap kerana tidak mempunyai tanda-tanda awal. Ini disebabkan oleh kepadatan tulang yang berkurangan secara perlahanlahan seiring dengan peningkatan usia. Insiden penyakit ini semakin meningkat setiap tahun di seluruh dunia. Mengukur ketumpatan mineral tulang (BMD) menggunakan densitometry tulang konvensional (DXA) adalah praktikal dalam diagnosis osteoporosis tetapi kosnya adalah tinggi dan tidak dapat dilaksanakan dalam masyarakat. Untuk mengukur ketumpatan tulang, “quantitative ultrasound” (QUS) adalah teknik yang agak moden untuk diagnosis osteoporosis. Ianya agak mudah, konsisten, lebih murah dan kaedah yang selamat berbanding dengan teknik densitometry yang lain. Kedua-dua parameter QUS yang diukur pada masa kini adalah ultrasound jalur pengecilan (BUA) dan kelajuan bunyi (SOS). QUS juga dapat menjangka risiko patah. Ianya kini digunakan untuk memantau tindakbalas kepada rawatan anti-osteoporosis. Kajian in-vitro menunjukkan bahawa indeks QUS berhubungkait dengan BMD, bentuk tulang mikro dan parameter mekanikal. Oleh yang demikian, QUS berupaya untuk menjadi teknik baru untuk penilaian tulang.
The presence of heavy metals in aquatic systems has become a serious problem. Heavy metals can haveadverse effects on the environment as well as on human health. As a result, much attention has beengiven to new technologies for removal of heavy metal ions from contaminated waters. In this study,Microwave Incinerated Rice Husk Ash (MIRHA), a locally available agricultural waste, was used for theremoval of Cd (as a representative heavy metal) from synthetic wastewater by batch adsorption process.The effects of pH, initial metal concentration, and contact time on Cd removal efficiency were studied.pH 4 was found to be the optimum. The removal efficiency was found to be correlated with the initialmetal concentration and contact time between adsorbent and adsorbate. Cd adsorption kinetics followedthe pseudo-second-order model and implied chemisorption. The adsorption equilibrium of Cd can bewell described by the Freundlich isotherm model.
Substantial studies reported musculoskeletal disorders among the working population in the developed country, however, a limited number of studies were conducted in Malaysia. The objective of this cross sectional study was to determine the physical activity risk factors for low back pain among automotive workers in Selangor. Modified Risk Factors Questionnaire (RFQ) was used to assess physical activity with the occurrence of low back pain. The significant physical activities associated with the 12 months point prevalence are lifting weight (
The positive response to tamoxifen in ERa-positive breast cancer patients is usually of a short duration as many
of the patients eventually develop resistance. Our preliminary results show that aloe emodin extracted from
the leaves of the Aloe barbadensis Miller demonstrated a cytotoxicity that is selective to ERa-positive breast
cancer cells (MCF-7), but not to ERa-negative breast cancer cells (MDA-MB-231) and to the control cells (MCF-
10A). The objective of this study was to test the hypothesis that aloe emodin may enhance the response of
MCF-7 cells to treatment with tamoxifen. MCF-7 cells were treated with aloe emodin alone, tamoxifen alone
or a combination of emodin and tamoxifen, at their respective IC50 concentrations and at different time points
of 24 hours, 48 hours and 72 hours. The respective IC50s were the concentrations of aloe emodin and tamoxifen
required to achieve 50% inhibition of the cells in the study. Cell viability and apoptosis were determined using
trypan blue exclusion and DNA fragmentation assays, respectively. The involvement of RAS/MEKs/ERKs genes
of MAPK signalling pathways with aloe emodin was determined using QuantiGene 2.0 Plex assay. Data was
evaluated using the one-way ANOVA test. Our findings showed that aloe emodin enhanced the cytotoxicity of
tamoxifen on MCF-7 cells through apoptosis by downregulation of MEK1/2 genes. Our research may provide a
rational basis for further in vivo studies to verify the efficacy of a combination of aloe emodin and tamoxifen
on the viability of ERa-positive-breast cancer cells.
Helicobacter pylori has been implicated as an aetiologic agent for type B chronic gastritis, peptic ulcer and gastric cancer. It is considered the most common bacterial infection in the world with approximately 50% of the population being infected. The majority of infected individuals are asymptomatic, with some developing gastritis only. However, chronic infection with H. pylori without antibiotic treatment predisposes infected individuals to the development of gastric cancer. The aim of this study is to determine active H. pylori infection among patients with symptoms of dyspepsia using three combinations of diagnostic methods. In this report, we studied 1,376 consecutive patients who underwent upper gastrointestinal endoscopy at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Center (UKMMC) for dyspepsia from the period January 1999 to December 2002. The classification of patient’s diagnosis was assessed by endoscopic and histological examination. The H. pylori status was determined by rapid urease test, histological examination or H. pylori culture. Presence of H. pylori infection was confirmed in 30.8% of patients with dyspepsia. H. pylori infection was more prevalent in older patients and in males compared to females. Patients with severe gastroduodenal diseases were more commonly infected with H. pylori. There was a significant difference in H. pylori prevalence among the different ethnic groups. Indians had the highest infection rate (45.4%), followed by Chinese (36.8%) and the lowest were seen in Malays (18.3%). This finding on determination of active H. pylori infection among patients with dyspepsia is consistent with serological studies that showed racial differences in H. pylori prevalence. However, the pattern of H. pylori infection does not reflect the prevalence of severe gastroduodenal diseases among different ethnic groups.
Penanda kadar pusing ganti tulang (PPT) adalah berguna dalam penilaian status kesihatan tulang. Namun, pengaruh umur, kumpulan etnik dan antropometri badan terhadap aras PPT dalam kalangan lelaki masih belum jelas. Kajian ini bertujuan untuk menentukan pengaruh faktor-faktor tersebut terhadap aras PPT, iaitu aras osteokalsin (OC) dan telopeptida terminal-C kolagen jenis 1 (CTX-1) dalam kalangan lelaki Cina dan Melayu berumur 20 tahun dan ke atas (N = 407) di Lembah Klang. Subjek dikumpulkan melalui kaedah persampelan bertujuan. Ketinggian, berat badan dan indeks jisim badan subjek telah diukur. Darah mereka diambil pada waktu pagi untuk analisis aras OC dan CTX-1 serum dengan asai imunoserap terangkai enzim. Hasil kajian menunjukkan aras OC dan CTX-1 adalah lebih tinggi secara signifi kan dalam kalangan lelaki Melayu berbanding dengan lelaki Cina (p < 0.05). Aras OC dan CTX-1 adalah paling tinggi dalam kalangan lelaki berumur 20-29 tahun, dan kemudiannya menurun secara signifi kan berbanding dengan dekad sebelumnya dalam kalangan lelaki berumur 30-39 tahun (p < 0.005). Perbezaan aras kedua-dua PPT ini adalah tidak signifi kan di antara lelaki berusia 30-39 tahun dengan lelaki yang lebih tua (> 40 tahun dan ke atas) (p > 0.005). Aras OC berkorelasi secara signifi kan dan negatif dengan berat dan indeks jisim tubuh subjek dan korelasi ini adalah signifi kan untuk lelaki 20-39 tahun sahaja (p < 0.05). Aras CTX-1 tidak berkorelasi dengan antropometri badan subjek (p > 0.05). Secara kesimpulannya, aras PPT dalam kalangan lelaki di Malaysia boleh dipengaruhi oleh faktor umur, kumpulan etnik dan antropometri badan. Faktor-faktor ini seharusnya diambil kira dalam penilaian status kesihatan tulang lelaki berdasarkan aras PPT.
In this study polymer electrolytes composed of poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) as a host polymer and ethylene carbonate (EC) as a plasticizer complexed with different lithium salts, i.e. lithium tetrafluoroborate (LiBF4) and lithium triflate (LiCF3SO3) were prepared by the solution casting technique. The conductivities of the films were characterized by impedance spectroscopy. At room temperature, the highest conductivities were 4.07 × 10–7S cm–1 and 3.40 × 10–5 S cm–1 achieved, respectively from the films containing 30 wt% LiBF4 in the PMMA-EC-LiBF4 system and 35 wt% LiCF3SO3 in the PMMA-EC-LiCF3SO3 system. The conductivity-temperature dependence of the films seemed to obey the Arrhenius equation in which the ion transport in these materials was thermally assisted. Scanning electron microscopy analysis showed that the surface of PMMA-EC-LiCF3SO3 film was smooth and homogeneous, hence lithium ions could traverse through the PMMA-EC-LiCF3SO3 film more easily compared to the PMMA-EC-LiBF4 film. X-Ray diffraction studies revealed that complexation had occurred and the complexes formed were amorphous.
Implementation of Trivial File Transfer Protocol (TFTP) in embedded system is significant because of the
speed and simplicity. However, no security service in TFTP marks its major limitations. In this work, a
pre-shared Diffie Hellman Key Exchange (DHKE) technique was proposed for mutual authentication to
achieve the same secret key in TFTP communication protocol. We also integrated the system with feasible
compression and encryption process to significantly improve the TFTP communication performance.
The DHKE proof of concept is discussed briefly to show the feasibility of the pre-shared technique
on the protocol. Also, the experiment was performed on constrained embedded devices to analyse the
performance of compression/encryption scheme in TFTP. From the results obtained, the combined
encryption and compression process is able to reduce the time by about 30% compared to the original
file transmission time. Thus, the proposed work presents both advantages to reduce file size and provide
security for the data. This is a preliminary work to provide a secure T
This paper presents a study on node impersonation attack in Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN)
environment. Node cloning is a major attack among sensor where the leak of node identity is easy to clone
if it is not secured. For this purpose, an analysis that explores techniques to prevent node cloning attack
was done using a unique node identity. An algorithm to generate the unique identity was developed on
high performance ARM hardware and programmed the data authentication together with sensor nodes.
Communication among the sensor nodes and base station depends on a successful authentication using the
unique identity (UID). The sensor nodes are resistant against node cloning attack when the UID identity
is unequal. Results present successful generation of the UID, while execution time between two nodes
is faster and low power consumption is used on the technique. The analysis has proven that the unique
UID is secured by the developed node identity algorithms and against cloning attack. This outcome is
significant for new development of secured WSN sensor hardware, which can be implemented in new
network technology.