Although the departure of children from the parental home is an important life-cycle event, few studies have investigated nest-leaving in developing countries. Using retrospective data from the Second Malaysian Family Life Survey, we estimate hazard models of nest-leaving in Peninsular Malaysia. We find that the departure of children, especially sons, responds to economic incentives, including housing costs, family businesses, education, and economic growth, and that ethnic differences in nest-leaving are important. We also find that the median age of departure from home has declined sharply over the past 40 years, a period of rapid social and economic change in Malaysia.
This discussion of an episode of mass hysteria in a Malay college in West Malaysia examines stress and conflict in relation to the interpretive process within a specific social setting. Unlike previous studies, which conceptualize mass hysteria as a cathartic response to accumulated stress, the present study treats stress as a matter of definition in a specific sociocultural context rather than as an objective given from which predictions can be made. Objections are raised to the logic of explanations that attribute mass hysteria to environmental stress. What is of concern is how meanings are assigned to events that are experienced as stressful, how participants and observers explain these events, and the consequences that follow from their interpretations.
Matched MeSH terms: Cultural Characteristics*; Culture*
A morbidity survey was carried out on a sample of eight longhouses in the Entabai area of the Sixth Division, Sarawak. Of the 645 respondents interviewed, only 148 (22.9%) had experienced at least one spell of illness during the one month prior to the survey.A total of 161 spells of illness was reported, giving a rate of three spells per person per year for the community. Most of the complaints were mild in nature, with fever and aches being the commonest reported. About two thirds of the illnesses were seen by the village aide or at the klinik desa, while the remaining preferred to be treated by the manang. A sub-sample of 49 heads of household were interviewed on their views of the causation, prevention and spread offive common conditions. About 14-43% of the respondents had no knowledge of the causes of fever, cough, diarrhoea or worms. Among those who mentioned some causative factors, only a portion had correct concepts of the various aspects of diseases. Food taboos associated with the five conditions were not too numerous or extensive enough to affect dietary intakes. However, this is not so during the post-partum period where the mother is not allowed to eat many vegetables and meat which are common items in their everyday diets.
Matched MeSH terms: Cultural Characteristics*; Culture*
Singapore is an island republic of 616 km2. Four main ethnic groups make up its population of 2.4 million; these are the Chinese, Malays, Indians and others. Singapore's successful housing, industrialization and modernization programmes have caused tremendous changes in the lifestyles and expectations of the people. This very success has rendered some traditional customs impractical and irrelevant. Older Indians and Malay women still chew betel-nut. During the Hindu Thaipusam ceremony a traditional practice of dental interest is the piercing of devotees' cheeks and tongues with slivers of silver. There is no pain, bleeding or permanent tissue damage. The Chinese pick their teeth, crack melon seeds and scrape their tongues every morning. They also drink large quantities of unsweetened tea. Yet they remain caries-prone. Singaporeans have recently adopted the practice of eating at all hours of the day and night. This may have a bearing on their future caries state. Singapore has two categories of dental practitioner: the graduate and the registered but unqualified dentist who is invariably of Chinese descent. The swaged metal crown over sound and diseased tooth structure is frequently the unfortunate trademark of the latter. Often abscesses and cysts develop beneath these crowns. Successful dental health programmes have produced a DMFT of 2.8 in 12-year-old children, which betters the DMF target of 3.0 set by WHO for the year 2000. The progressive outlook of Singaporeans may eventually reduce further the number of traditional practices which are harmful to oral health.
This paper describes the characteristics of Malay psychiatric inpatients, their attitudes towards hospitalisation and their practice of consulting traditional healers (bomohs). The behaviour patterns which prompted hospitalisation were: acute disorganised behaviour directed at the community, behaviour of a less acute nature distressing the family and life-threatening crises. The social interaction life styles of urban and rural Malays are discussed in relation to the differences observed between urban and rural hospitalised patients. When the traditional healers were consulted there was a delay before hospitalisation, but there was an awareness of the need for hospitalisation shown by a small number of the traditional healers. Some patients who had consulted the traditional healers had the tendency to continue the consultations after leaving the hospital, but this practice became less frequent after each discharge from hospital.
Sixty four percent (104 patients) of Malay patients attending the Psychiatric Clinic for the first time were interviewed. A similar number from the general Out-patients Department (O.P.D.) randomly chosen, served as the control group. Seventy six (73.1%) psychiatric patients had consulted a bomoh prior to their visit to the clinic as compared to 26 (25%) O.P.D. patients. The number of bomohs consulted was significantly higher among the psychiatric patients than the O.P.D. patients. The strength of social support, the availability of a bomoh and the belief of the patients, friends and/or relatives in the bomoh have been suggested as the main factors that influenced the Malay patients in seeking bomoh treatment. The belief that mental illness is due to supernatural causes is firmly held by bomohs who reinforce this notion in those who seek their advice. The importance of understanding the patient's cultural background in treating psychiatric patients is highlighted.
Study site: Psychiatric clinic, Hospital Universiti Sains Malaysia (HUSM), Kelantan, Malaysia
Matched MeSH terms: Cultural Characteristics*; Culture*
Growth factors and extracellular matrix (ECM) proteins are involved in wound healing. Human dermal fibroblasts secrete wound-healing mediators in culture medium known as dermal fibroblast conditioned medium (DFCM). However, the composition and concentration of the secreted proteins differ with culture conditions and environmental factors. We cultured human skin fibroblasts in vitro using serum-free keratinocyte-specific media (EpiLife™ Medium [KM1] and defined keratinocyte serum-free medium [KM2]) and serum-free fibroblast-specific medium (FM) to obtain DFCM-KM1, DFCM-KM2 and DFCM-FM, respectively. We identified and compared their proteomic profiles using bicinchoninic acid assay (BCA), 1-dimensional sodium dodecyl sulphate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (1D SDS-PAGE), enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), matrix-assisted laser desorption ionisation-time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-TOF/TOF MS/MS) and liquid chromatography MS (LC-MS/MS). DFCM-KM1 and DFCM-KM2 had higher protein concentrations than DFCM-FM but not statistically significant. MALDI-TOF/TOF MS identified the presence of fibronectin, serotransferrin, serpin and serum albumin. LC-MS/MS and bioinformatics analysis identified 59, 46 and 58 secreted proteins in DFCM-KM1, DFCM-KM2 and DFCM-FM, respectively. The most significant biological processes identified in gene ontology were cellular process, metabolic process, growth and biological regulation. STRING® analysis showed that most secretory proteins in the DFCMs were associated with biological processes (e.g. wound healing and ECM organisation), molecular function (e.g. ECM binding) and cellular component (e.g. extracellular space). ELISA confirmed the presence of fibronectin and collagen in the DFCMs. In conclusion, DFCM secretory proteins are involved in cell adhesion, attachment, proliferation and migration, which were demonstrated to have potential wound-healing effects by in vitro and in vivo studies.
The coexisting mechanism of a synthetic bacterial community (SBC) was investigated to better understand how to manage microbial communities. The SBC was constructed with three kinds of phenol-utilizing bacteria, Pseudomonas sp. LAB-08, Comamonas testosteroni R2, and Cupriavidus sp. P-10, under chemostat conditions supplied with phenol as a sole carbon and energy source. Population densities of all strains were monitored by real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) targeting the gene encoding the large subunit of phenol hydroxylase. Although the supply of phenol was stopped to allow perturbation in the SBC, all of the strains coexisted and the degradation of phenol was maintained for more than 800 days. The qPCR analyses showed that strains LAB-08 and R2 became dominant simultaneously, whereas strain P-10 was a minor population. This phenomenon was observed before and after the phenol-supply stoppage. The kinetic parameters for phenol of the SBC changed before and after the phenol-supply stoppage, which suggests a change in functional roles of strains in the SBC. Transcriptional levels of phenol hydroxylase and catechol dioxygenases of three strains were monitored by reverse-transcription qPCR (RT-qPCR). The RT-qPCR analyses revealed that all strains shared phenol and survived independently before the phenol-supply stoppage. After the stoppage, strain P-10 would incur the cost for degradation of phenol and catechol, whereas strains LAB-08 and R2 seemed to be cheaters using metabolites, indicating the development of the metabolic network. These results indicated that it is important for the management and redesign of microbial communities to understand the metabolism of bacterial communities.
The potential for using agricultural and industrial by-products as substrate for the production of the edible mushroom, Auricularia polytricha, was evaluated using several formulations of selected palm oil wastes mixed with sawdust and further supplemented with selected nitrogen sources. The best substrate formulations were sawdust (SD) mixed with oil palm frond (OPF; 90:10) added with 15% spent grain (SG) and sawdust mixed with empty fruit bunch (EFB; 50:50) added with 10% spent grain (SG) with mycelia growth rate of 8 mm/day and 7 mm/day respectively. These two substrate formulations were then subjected to different moisture content levels (65%, 75% and 85%). Highest total fresh sporophore yield at 0.43% was obtained on SD+OPF (90:10)+15% SG at 85% moisture content, followed closely by SD+EFB (50:50)+10% SG with 0.40% total yield, also at 85% moisture content. Each of the substrate formulations at 85% moisture content gave the highest biological efficiency (BE) at 288.9% and 260.7%, respectively. Both yield and biological efficiency of A. polytricha on these two formulations were almost three times higher when compared to sawdust substrate alone, thus proving the potential of these formulations to improve yield of this mushroom.
Standard fibroblast culture medium usually contains fetal bovine serum (FBS). In theory, unknown risks of infection from bovine disease or immune reaction to foreign proteins may occur if standard culture method is used for future human tissue-engineering development. Human serum (HS) theoretically would be another choice in providing a safer approach and autologous clinically reliable cells.
The economics of bioflocculant production is coupled with the use of a low-cost substrate at appropriate culture conditions. The use of a waste substrate for this purpose offers an additional treatment measure to mitigate environmental pollution. We investigated the growth of Aspergillus flavus and its bioflocculant yield using chicken viscera hydrolysate as the sole media. The effects of culture conditions including time, pH, shaker speed, temperature and inoculum size on bioflocculant production were all investigated and optimised through response surface method based on the central component design (CCD) package of Design Expert. Next, the purified bioflocculant was physically and chemically characterised. Under optimised culture conditions (incubation time 72 h, pH 7, shaker speed 150 rpm, temperature 35 °C and inoculum 4%), 6.75 g/L yield of crude bioflocculant was recorded. The bioflocculant activity was mostly distributed in the cell-free supernatant with optimum efficiency of 91.8% at a dose of 4 mL/100 mL Kaolin suspension. The purified bioflocculant was a glycoprotein consisting of 23.46% protein and 74.5% sugar, including 46% neutral sugar and 2.01% uronic acid. The X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy fundamental analysis of the purified bioflocculant indicated that the mass proportion of C, O and N, were 63.46%, 27.87% and 8.86%, respectively. The bioflocculant is mainly composed of carbonyl, amino, hydroxyl, and amide functional groups. This study for the first time indicates a high potential of bioflocculant yield from chicken viscera at the appropriate culture conditions.