Thirty-seven cases of latah are examined within the author's Malay extended family (N = 115). Based on ethnographic data collected and a literature review, cases are readily divisible into two broad categories: habitual (N = 33) and performance (N = 4). The first form represents an infrequent, culturally conditioned habit that is occasionally used as a learned coping strategy in the form of a cathartic stress response to sudden startle with limited secondary benefits (i.e., exhibiting brief verbal obscenity with impunity). In this sense, it is identical to Western swearing. Performers are engaged in conscious, ritualized social gain through the purported exploitation of a neurophysiological potential. The latter process is essentially irrelevant, akin to sneezing or yawning. It is concluded that latah is a social construction of Western-trained universalist scientists. The concept of malingering and fraud in anthropology is critically discussed.
In Malaysia, breakfast is the most frequently skipped meal. Skipping breakfast has been
associated with an increased risk of childhood obesity. However, this relationship has not been
investigated widely among preschoolers in Malaysia. Hence, this cross-sectional study aimed to
determine the association between breakfast intake and Body Mass Index (BMI) among
preschoolers in Taska Permata Keluarga (TPK), Kuala Nerus. A total of 131 Malays preschoolers
aged four to six years old were recruited from nine TPK using convenience sampling method.
Information on sociodemographic, breakfast intake pattern and anthropometric measurements
(weight and height) were obtained. Respondents consisted of 74 (56.5%) boys and 57 (43.5%)
girls. Anthropometric results showed that 8.4% preschoolers were overweight and obese. Among
the preschoolers, 22.1% of them were breakfast skippers. In terms of gender breakdown, 20.3%
boys and 24.6% girls skipped breakfast. There was a significant association between breakfast
intake and BMI status among preschoolers (p = 0.003). This indicated that preschoolers that
skipped breakfast were associated with overweight or obese compared to those who consumed
breakfast daily. Breakfast consumption is a marker of a healthy lifestyle which can reduce the risk
of childhood obesity. This habit should be inculcated during this critical period of life in which
parents play a vital role in promoting breakfast consumption among preschoolers.
Objective: A case of caffeine-induced sleep disorder is reported to illustrate the clinical benefits of assessing culturally determined health beliefs in such presentations. Method: A middle-aged Malaysian Chinese male presented with caffeine-induced sleep disturbance arising from dietary modifications. Result: Assessing the contribution of cultural beliefs regarding hot and cold drinks led to successful management of the patient’s sleep disturbance. Conclusion: It is important for clinicians to explore health beliefs and associated dietary and lifestyle behaviours in caffeine-related sleep disorders.
The recovery of six adult Gnathostoma spinigerum Owen, 1936 from a civet cat, Prionodon linsang Hardwick, constitutes the second reported record of this parasite and the first authenticated case of adult worms found in a wild animal from Malaysia. The food habits of the infected P. linsang as an important link in the transmission of G. spinigerum in the intermediate and definitive hosts together with the probable distribution of this parasite are discussed.
Collection of nationwide food consumption data at the individual level is the preferred option for planning fortification programs. However, such data are seldom collected in low-income countries. In contrast, Food Balance Sheets (FBS), published annually for approximately 180 countries, may provide a source of national data for program planning.
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.
Introduction: Early environmental factors play a major role in shaping the health of an individual. Dietary prefer- ence and habits shaped by parental feeding practice during childhood are likely to persist into adulthood which further determines body weights status. This study aimed to determine the retrospective child feeding practices asso- ciated with obesity risk in young adults. Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional study with 176 university students in Kuala Lumpur. Data of maternal age, gestational age and feeding practices were collected retrospectively using Child Feeding Questionnaire (CFQ). Subject’s current socio-demographic data was collected and anthropo- metric measurements were taken using standard protocol. Results: Around 22% of the subjects were overweight/ obese. No significant association was found between child feeding practices with maternal age. A significant asso- ciation (p
Hunger is complex, encompassing experiences ranging from a family's forced acceptance of a monotonous diet to individual physiological pain. I evaluate the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) as a means of capturing the universal elements of hunger without doing violence to its culturally-specific expressions within two Malay communities. The HFIAS is assessed conceptually by comparing its assumptions and concept-to-measurement gap with competing indicators and practically with respect to village conditions and practices. This case study recommends the HFIAS for this site and for communities that similarly lack maternal buffering, while highlighting the unique features of the local hunger experience.
This paper examines the determinants of pro-environmental behaviour among university students. It uses the theory of planned behaviour in determining the factors that lead to such behaviour. The determinants consist of environmental awareness, psychological factors (motivation, moral norms, perceived behavioural control and attitude), environmental knowledge and personality traits (agreeableness, extroversion, conscientiousness, neuroticism and openness to experience). Data was collected using convenience sampling through self-administered surveys and online forms distributed to 400 students in a public university in Malaysia. Data was subjected to construct validity and reliability analysis. The findings highlighted that motivation, agreeableness and perceived behavioural control were positively related to the practice of pro-environmental behaviour, whereas environmental awareness, moral norms, attitude and environmental knowledge were negatively related. Some personality traits, namely neuroticism, openness to experience, conscientiousness and extraversion, did not show any significant relationship with the practice of pro-environmental behaviour. This study provides a scope to improvise and incorporate environmental practices into the habits of students by aligning their goals with the universities’ dimensions, including curriculum, campus operation, research and outreach activities. The results could make an important contribution in establishing a sustained green culture through a new university paradigm.
This study aimed to identify the association of dietary patterns with sociodemographic and health-related characteristics among coronary artery disease patients. In this cross-sectional study, the participants were 250 patients coronary artery disease aged ≥ 40 years old. Data collection was done using questionnaires related to sociodemographics, health-related factors, and food-frequency intake information. Three dietary patterns (traditional, western, and healthy) were obtained using principal component analysis. The result showed that dietary patterns were associated with sociodemographic and health-related factors. According to the result, all the factors were taken very seriously when planning a promotional program for healthy lifestyle in prevention of CAD.
Torch ginger (Etlingera elatior) is a herbaceous clumping plant. It is a multifunctional crop that has been used for culinary, medicinal, antibacterial agent, ornamental and floral arrangement purpose. However, from the literature, no work has been carried out to study its growth and development morphological characteristics. It is important to understand the developmental morphology of the torch ginger plant for research purpose, commercial usage and apply proper production practices by growers for higher yields and profits. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the time course of morphological changes during the growth and development of torch ginger. Results showed that it took 155 days from leafy shoot emerging from rhizome until senescence of inflorescence. The growth and development of torch ginger plant were divided into vegetative and reproductive phases. The vegetative phase mainly involved the growth activities of leafy shoot. The transition of vegetative to reproductive phase happened when the inflorescence shoot emerged from the rhizome. In the reproductive phase, the growth and development of the inflorescence were categorized into four phenological stages which were peduncle elongation, inflorescence emergence, flowering and senescence. The growth pattern of the leafy shoot and inflorescence demonstrated a monocarpic plant growth habit with the remobilization of photoassimilates from senescing plant parts to developing true flowers that caused whole-plant senescence. Further research is needed to study the mechanisms that regulate flowering and senescence in torch ginger plant.
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.
The development of Friction Stir Welding (FSW) has provided an alternative approach for producing high-quality welds, in a fast and reliable manner. This study focuses on the mechanical properties of the dissimilar friction stir welding of AA6061-T6 and AA7075-T6 aluminum alloys. The FSW process parameters such as tool rotational speed, tool traverse speed, tilt angle, and tool offset influence the mechanical properties of the friction stir welded joints significantly. A mathematical regression model is developed to determine the empirical relationship between the FSW process parameters and mechanical properties, and the results are validated. In order to obtain the optimal values of process parameters that simultaneously optimize the ultimate tensile strength, elongation, and minimum hardness in the heat affected zone (HAZ), a metaheuristic, multi objective algorithm based on biogeography based optimization is proposed. The Pareto optimal frontiers for triple and dual objective functions are obtained and the best optimal solution is selected through using two different decision making techniques, technique for order of preference by similarity to ideal solution (TOPSIS) and Shannon's entropy.
INTRODUCTION: Meal patterns have received little attention in nutrition studies. The aim of this study is to present the findings on general meal patterns of Malaysian adults.
METHODS: The Malaysian Adults Nutrition Survey (MANS), carried out in 2002 and 2003, involved 6,928 adults selected by stratified random sampling from all households by zone in Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.
RESULTS: In general, the results showed that most respondents (74.16%) ate three meals per day; 89.20% of the respondents consumed breakfast, while 88.57% consumed lunch and 91.97% consumed dinner with no significant difference in terms of sex. In Peninsular Malaysia, the Northern Zone had the highest number of people consuming breakfast compared to other zones. Meanwhile, the population in Sarawak had the largest proportion of people consuming lunch and dinner, but the smallest proportion of people consuming breakfast. A significantly higher number of the rural population consumed breakfast and lunch than urbanites; however there was no significant difference in dinner consumption. Generally, breakfast consumption increased with age whereby significant difference existed between the 18 to 19 years age group and the age group of 30 years and older. Lunch intake among the age groups showed no significant difference. In contrast, dinner consumption was significantly lower among the 18 to 19 years age group compared to all other age groups. Comparison among the ethnic groups showed that the Indian population had the lowest percentage of having breakfast and lunch while the Orang Asli had the lowest percentage of consuming dinner. However, the Orang Asli recorded the highest percentage for taking breakfast and lunch while the Chinese had the highest percentage of taking dinner.
CONCLUSION: Considering that Malaysian adults consumed their conventional breakfast, lunch and dinner, these findings indicatethat Malaysians are maintaining their traditional meal patterns.
Study name: Malaysian Adult Nutrition Survey (MANS-2003)
Colorectal cancer is the third and fourth leading cause of cancer incidence and mortality among men and women, respectively in Iran. However, the role of dietary factors that could contribute to this high cancer incidence remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine major dietary patterns and its relationship with colorectal cancer.
Food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) must be tailored to the target populations because dietary habits vary within the populations due to differences in cultural and lifestyles practices. Limited information is available to assess the validity of FFQ used among Malaysian adolescents.
This paper elucidates the role of processed foods and beverages in the 'nutrition transition' underway in Asia. Processed foods tend to be high in nutrients associated with obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases: refined sugar, salt, saturated and trans-fats. This paper identifies the most significant 'product vectors' for these nutrients and describes changes in their consumption in a selection of Asian countries. Sugar, salt and fat consumption from processed foods has plateaued in high-income countries, but has rapidly increased in the lower-middle and upper-middle-income countries. Relative to sugar and salt, fat consumption in the upper-middle- and lower-middle-income countries is converging most rapidly with that of high-income countries. Carbonated soft drinks, baked goods, and oils and fats are the most significant vectors for sugar, salt and fat respectively. At the regional level there appears to be convergence in consumption patterns of processed foods, but country-level divergences including high levels of consumption of oils and fats in Malaysia, and soft drinks in the Philippines and Thailand. This analysis suggests that more action is needed by policy-makers to prevent or mitigate processed food consumption. Comprehensive policy and regulatory approaches are most likely to be effective in achieving these goals.