METHODS AND FINDINGS: We recruited 280 adults from 27 post-outbreak villages in the state of Terengganu, east coast of Malaysia. Measures of health promotion and educational intervention activities and types of communication during outbreak, level of dengue knowledge, level and strength of self-efficacy and dengue preventive behaviour were obtained via face-to-face interviews and questionnaires. A structural equation model was tested and fitted the data well (χ(2) = 71.659, df = 40, p = 0.002, RMSEA = 0.053, CFI = 0.973, TLI = 0.963). Mass media, local contact and direct information-giving sessions significantly predicted level of knowledge of dengue. Level and strength of self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between knowledge of dengue and dengue preventive behaviours. Strength of self-efficacy acted as partial mediator in the relationship between knowledge of dengue and dengue preventive behaviours.
CONCLUSIONS: To control and prevent dengue outbreaks by behavioural measures, health promotion and educational interventions during outbreaks should now focus on those approaches that are most likely to increase the level and strength of self-efficacy.
MATERIAL AND METHODS: A preliminary intervention study was conducted on 12 female subjects, who were randomised into a control (n=6) and an intervention (n=6) group. Intervention involved a set regimen of pelvic floor muscle exercises (Kegel) and the control group did not have any treatment. All subjects were asked to answer a validated, self-rated Pelvic Organ Prolapse/Urinary Incontinence Sexual Function Questionnaire (PISQ). EMG measurements of the pelvic floor muscles (PFM) and the abdominal muscles were taken from all women at recruitment and 8 weeks after study commencement.
RESULTS: After 8 weeks, most of the subjects in the control group did not display any noted positive difference in either PISQ score (4/6) or in their muscle strength (4/6). However, a noted progressive difference were observed in subjects who were placed in the Kegel group; PISQ score (5/6) and muscles strength (4/6).
CONCLUSIONS: The noted difference in the Kegel group subjects was that if progress is observed in the sexual function, improvement is also observed in the strength of at least 2 types of muscles (either abdominal or PFM muscles). Thus, EMG measurement is a potential technique to quantify the changes in female sexual function. Further work will be conducted to validate this assumption.
METHODS: An intermediary trainee was subjected to an 8-week structured self-practice program. The program was divided into 2 parts of nonbeating and beating practices with a minimum number of timed anastomoses. Each part was followed by an assessment using an objective skills assessment tool score. The beating-heart simulator was built using motorized toy blocks connected wirelessly to a smartphone application. This was coded to enable rate selection. A junior consultant was compared to the subject at the end of the program. Both were tasked to perform 1 coronary anastomosis for both off-pump coronary artery bypass (OPCAB) and minimally invasive CAB (MICS) setup. The primary outcomes were anastomotic time and score compared with the junior consultant. Secondary outcomes were progression of anastomotic time and score throughout the program.
RESULTS: Overall performance of the studied subject approached the performance of the junior consultant in terms of time (OPCAB, 489 vs 605 s; MICS, 712 vs 652 s) and scores (OPCAB, 21 vs 20.7; MICS, 19 vs 20.6). There were inverse correlations between anastomosis time and number of practices for both nonbeating and beating anastomoses. Overall improvement was observed in terms of assessment scoring by 26.6%.
CONCLUSIONS: A structured self-practice program using an affordable and accessible simulator was able to help trainees overcome the MICS anastomosis learning curve quicker when introduced earlier. This may encourage earlier adoption of MICS among surgeons.
METHODS: A total of 128 (64 males, 64 females) non-smoking healthy young subjects were randomly sampled for the study from the Kelantanese students' population of the University Sains Malaysia, Kota Bharu Campus, Kelantan, Malaysia. The study population (20-25 yr age group) had similar socio-economic background. Each subject filled up the ATS (1978) questionnaire to record their personal demographic data, health status and consent to participate in the study. Subjects with any history of pulmonary diseases were excluded from the study.
RESULTS: The pulmonary function measurements exhibited significantly higher values among males than the females. FEV 1% did not show any significant inter-group variation probably because the parameter expresses FEV 1 as a percentage of FVC. FVC and FEV 1 exhibited significant correlations with body height and body mass among males whereas in the females exhibited significant correlation with body mass, body weight and also with age. FEV 1% exhibited significant correlation with body height and body mass among males and with body height in females. FEF 25-75% did not show any significant correlation except with body height among females. However, PEFR exhibited significant positive correlation with all the physical parameters except with age among the females. On the basis of the existence of significant correlation between different physical parameters and pulmonary function variables, simple and multiple regression norms have been computed.
INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSIONS: From the present investigation it can be concluded that Kelantanese Malaysian youths have normal range of pulmonary function in both the sexes and the computed regression norms may be used to predict the pulmonary function values in the studied population.
DESIGN: Prospective study.
SETTING: University hospital.
PATIENT(S): Six hundred ten women undergoing SHG.
INTERVENTION(S): We performed SHG with six different types of catheters: Foleycath (Wembley Rubber Products, Sepang, Malaysia), Hysca Hysterosalpingography Catheter (GTA International Medical Devices S.A., La Caleta D.N., Dominican Republic), H/S Catheter Set (Ackrad Laboratories, Cranford, NJ), PBN Balloon Hystero-Salpingography Catheter (PBN Medicals, Stenloese, Denmark), ZUI-2.0 Catheter (Zinnanti Uterine Injection; BEI Medical System International, Gembloux, Belgium), and Goldstein Catheter (Cook, Spencer, IN).
MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S): We assessed the reliability, the physician's ease of use, the time requested for the insertion of the catheter, the volume of contrast medium used, the tolerability for the patients, and the cost of the catheters.
RESULT(S): In 568 (93%) correctly performed procedures, no statistically significant differences were found among the catheters. The Foleycath was the most difficult for the physician to use and required significantly more time to position correctly. The Goldstein catheter was the best tolerated by the patients. The Foleycath was the cheapest whereas the PBN Balloon was the most expensive.
CONCLUSION(S): The choice of the catheter must be targeted to achieving a good balance between tolerability for the patients, efficacy, cost, and the personal preference of the operator.
METHODS: We take advantage of improved contrast seen on magnetic resonance (MR) images of patients with acute and early subacute SICH and introduce an automated algorithm for haematoma and oedema segmentation from these images. To our knowledge, there is no previously proposed segmentation technique for SICH that utilises MR images directly. The method is based on shape and intensity analysis for haematoma segmentation and voxel-wise dynamic thresholding of hyper-intensities for oedema segmentation.
RESULTS: Using Dice scores to measure segmentation overlaps between labellings yielded by the proposed algorithm and five different expert raters on 18 patients, we observe that our technique achieves overlap scores that are very similar to those obtained by pairwise expert rater comparison. A further comparison between the proposed method and a state-of-the-art Deep Learning segmentation on a separate set of 32 manually annotated subjects confirms the proposed method can achieve comparable results with very mild computational burden and in a completely training-free and unsupervised way.
CONCLUSION: Our technique can be a computationally light and effective way to automatically delineate haematoma and oedema extent directly from MR images. Thus, with increasing use of MR images clinically after intracerebral haemorrhage this technique has the potential to inform clinical practice in the future.